Too

In all my wildness, I am powerful. If you’re uncomfortable with that, it’s not because I’m too much. It’s because you’re not enough.

As a little girl, I loved dresses. The couture ones my maternal grandparents bought me in New York. The simple ones my paternal Nana sewed for me. I insisted on wearing them to swing on the monkey bars, to ride my bike in the desert. It was unconventional – most little girls wore corduroys – but my parents considered it cute, a socially acceptable display of my precociousness.

When thirteen and wearing a barely-there tank top over my spaghetti-strap sports bra to show off my Kleenex-brand C cups, the response was different. This time, my parents mocked me. I was trying to be something I was not, and the girl I was trying to be – a girl with big tits proud of her sexuality, the kind who kissed boys from public schools – was not socially acceptable. Little-girl precociousness (which was cute) had morphed into young woman precociousness (which was sexual). How I wanted to present myself to the world was bad.

By nineteen, I was that kind of girl, social acceptability be damned. I got a tattoo and an eyebrow ring and wore mini-skirts to church and under my academic gown at the university. I relished the confusion on people’s faces as they struggled to square who they saw (a slut) and who they knew (a Dean’s List Sunday school teacher).

By the time I got married, at twenty-two, I was wearing the persona society expected of me. I buried my desire, shrouded in shame. This kind of girl couldn’t say the words ‘blow job’ to her husband without hiding under the bedcovers.

At thirty-five, my husband moved out. Just for a summer, to find himself. I had young kids at home who went to bed at 7:30, and I was bored. So I read 50 Shades of Grey. Devoured, really. I discovered that BDSM was not just a deviance made up to sell 165 millions books. It was real. There were people in the world like me, who wanted things that society said shouldn’t be wanted. For the first time in decades, I masturbated. Shameful though it still was, I dug up my desire.

My husband moved back home and I spent the next seven years vacillating between being the woman I was expected to be and the woman I am. Together, we explored BDSM (in this respect, he was good, giving, and game). At his suggestion, we started swinging and eventually, dating separately as well. It was a period of time marked by contradiction. My husband enthusiastically explored BDSM with me. He celebrated the sexual experiences I had with other men. He also told me, often, that my skirts were too short, my hair was too wild, my heels too high, my voice too loud. I thanked him for loving me anyway. The girl I was – that kind of girl – was bad, but he loved me anyway, and for that I thought I should be grateful.

It was early 2022 when I met SF. After one intense date, we went away for a weekend. It was there at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain that I had my first profound experience with psilocybin. Lying in bed, eyes closed, I met a series of young mes. The five year-old me who wore her dresses to the playground. The thirteen year-old me who stuffed her bra. The nineteen year-old me struggling to defy the people telling her that how she wanted to present herself to the world – who she was – was bad.

I told those young mes, “Those people who tell you you’re too much, they’re wrong. And one day, you’ll find your voice, your power, and you’ll tell them so.” I realized a level of happiness I hadn’t known I was capable of. I realized I deserved to be that happy every day, and getting there would require leaving my marriage. For a long time, I credited BSF for giving me that revelation, or at least enabling me to have it. I was still giving my power to the men in my life.

After the divorce, I felt freer to express myself. There was no one in my life whose line I had to toe, no one to be embarrassed by my wildness. I met RIL one warm April evening at my favorite downtown Italian spot. “Wow you’re so tall,” was the first thing he said – like it was a good thing. When I asked him my usual first-date question, “What are you into?” he answered, “Promiscuous women.”

So I leaned into my wildness. I wore my too-short skirts, too-wild hair, and too-high heels with pride. I spoke as loudly as I wanted to. I unleashed my rampant desire. Embraced my brazen sexuality. I was a Slut! and proud of it. Not because RIL allowed it; I did that myself. But his encouragement meant the world, his celebration of my unabashed sexuality. I am eternally grateful to him for loving me. Loving me for me – not anyway, not in spite of.

RIL and I loved each other deeply – still do. Ours was a relationship defined by mutual respect for and celebration of all the things that made us ‘too much.’ But RIL wanted a nesting partner, someone to help him raise his boys, to cuddle up with at the end of each day. To me, that felt like obligation, and I wanted to be free.

We ended the relationship in early October 2024 and I declared the beginning of the Era of Molly. I went by myself to the kink rave we had planned to attend together, wearing the chained wrist cuffs I had bought for myself. I would now not only be unabashedly too much, but I would do it entirely on my own terms, for myself by myself.

I still date, of course. For the sex, but also the friendship, the exciting and unknown opportunity that a new partner represents. It was with this mindset that I met GB. Our first date was four hours of deep conversation and a thirty-minute make-out session in the car. The kisses were incredibly sensual, passionate, yearning but not rushed. He clearly wanted me (and I him), but just as clearly had no intention of fucking me that night. That was strange – unexpected, unusual – and also lovely. For our third date, we got a hotel downtown. We hit all my favorite spots for drinks and eats. The conversation and the kisses flowed so smoothly it was easy for me to ignore when he tugged upward on the deep V-neck of my dress.

The second time I couldn’t ignore, but still easily brushed off the offense. I was settling into my bar seat when he made a comment about how short my dress was. I looked down, confused. “My ass isn’t showing,” I said. On our way out, he made the same comment again, this time tugging on the bottom hem, as if to fit me into his idea of appropriateness. Still, I didn’t say anything.

The next day we were supposed to spend the day and night together. He was going to fuck me like he owned me. (His words.) And/or make love to me. (Also his words.) In a last minute change of plans, he told me to meet him at a sports bar. Two bad margaritas and awkward conversation later – I wasn’t sure really what was behind the last-minute change, but I didn’t like it – he said it was time for our next stop.

As we walked into the sex shop, the cute sales gal said, “I love your dress!” The blue and yellow sundress was one of my favorites, too. GB did not feel the same way. Standing in front of a wall of butt plugs, he tugged on the bottom hem. “You really like to wear short dresses, don’t you,” he said.

Time paused as his words sunk in.

The me who is proud to be that kind of girl wanted to say, “I am proud of my body and my sexuality. If you’re uncomfortable with it you can go fuck yourself.” But the me who had always listened to the people telling me I should be ashamed – my parents, the guy who raped me and my friends who told me not to report it, my ex-husband – was terrified to let those words come out of my mouth.

For the first time ever, the me who is proud to be that kind of girl conquered the fear. Her voice was meeker than I hope it will become, but she used it. I crossed my arms and said, “My dresses are exactly the right length.”

Fifteen minutes later, sitting in my car plugging his address into the GPS, I noticed a feeling I hadn’t before. An emotional weight made physical. I realized what my old therapist meant when she would say, “Pay attention to how it feels in your body.”

I went to Pita Jungle and ordered carryout dinner for myself and a martini while I waited. I texted GB: “I have come to realize we’re not a good match. My dresses will always be this short and I want to spend time with people who celebrate that, not people who are embarrassed by it.” Then I sobbed. The kind of sobbing that probably made people at the bar think my dog had just died. The magnitude of my emotional reaction surprised and confused me.

Two days later in therapy, I realized why. It’s because he had brought back the voices of all those people in my life, including people whose opinions I respect, telling me that my dress was too short, my hair was too wild, my heels too high, my voice too loud, my desire too rampant, my sexuality too brazen. For two years I had worked hard to surround myself with people who like and love me for me. GB was a reminder that there are still people in this world who won’t. In some subconscious way, I felt like if I could get GB to change the way he sees me, it would erase the traumas of the past, or at least make them less acute.

When my best gal pal told her teenage daughter that GB had yanked the hem of my dress to make it longer, her daughter asked if I punched him. I’m proud that’s the kind of girl she sees in me – the kind of girl who doesn’t take shit from a dude uncomfortable with her wildness. Now, it’s time to be that girl.

So I’m changing the narrative. In all my wildness, I am beautiful, and I am powerful. If you’re uncomfortable with who I am, it’s not because I’m too much. It’s because you’re not enough.