#PeopleThatMadeMy2012

Here’s one of my favorite stories ever. On September 7, 4 days after the first anniversary of my father’s death, I had the last hearing I needed to go to to make my divorce final. While I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was doing the right thing, the having to appear in court on my own shook me. I never considered changing my mind or anything I just felt the most unsure of myself as a person and what I was doing with my life that I had been since the whole thing had started.

This really wouldn’t be a great story, except here’s the part where you guys start to figure in. On the evening of September 6 I received an e-mail from @TheMamaSutra about something very cool and exciting. Some of you already know the story of how I went directly from the hearing to @GoodVibesToys to buy my Hitachi (It couldn’t just be divorce day, it had to be something else too. So, it was Hitachi Magic Wand day.) The staff at the Brookline store was, as always, amazing and made sure I left with a bag full of goodies and a much brighter outlook. When I tweeted about this I got a message back from the Good Vibes account (that I later found out was actually authored by none other than @charlieglickman) that said nice things about my blog and mentioned that I might want to write for the Good Vibes blog.

I love that story because it is a smaller-scale version of what this year has been like for me: Things could have been really bad, but the people from sex-positive world made it so much better.

I recently said that in 2011 my circumstances changed (that was when my father died and my marriage ended) but in 2012 I changed. In 2012 I started to question whether I was in the right place, whether I could be serving the world in some other way but I was gripped with the fear of not knowing where I wanted to go and doubting I knew enough to serve anybody. Cut to now: on January 4th the Bedhead will be 6 months old. 6 months ago I stopped hiding my sex geekery, stopped fearing what I didn’t know, started asking questions, speaking honestly and, to my own surprise, figured out a bunch about who I am and what I want to give the world. I also started to meet (mostly in the internet/twitterverse sense of the word) all of you and that has been the biggest, most wonderful surprise of this whole experience. Like that day in September this year could have been really, really bad but the people from sex-positive world made it so much better

A few days ago I saw #PeopleThatMadeMy2012 on Twitter and I realized that I had so many. So, thank you to all of you for your encouragement, kind words and laughs, for talking and listening and saying “if there’s anything I can do to help you please let me know” more than any group of people I’ve ever encountered, for letting me know someone besides my mom was reading, for sharing my stuff and allowing me to share yours, for teaching me so much, inspiring the crap out of me every day, helping me figure out who I am, why it’s okay and how I can use it to help and for giving me a community in a time when I really, really needed one.

I was going to tell everyone individually why I was thanking them, but I’m long-winded enough as it is (if you want to know what you did, ask me, I’ll tell you!). So, even if you don’t know what you did, you did something and I appreciate the hell out of you for it. So, without further adieu, here (alphabetically, because I’m like that and by your Twitter handles for no apparent reason) are the #PeopleThatMadeMy2012

@FernDeVilliers