About The Lonely Oyster
“Oysters are thought to be an aphrodisiac, the most seductive being the ones that are rich and full… Oysters are a reminder of ancient times and symbolize Aphrodite, the goddess of love, fertility, pleasure, and sex…”
The original concept of “The Lonely Oyster” started as a joke/ pipe dream. My late fiancé and I lived landlocked in the middle of the United States. Most of our travels together brought us coastal, where the top priority was to indulge in as much seafood as we possibly could. The main crustacean of choice was the Oyster. When we first met, I was not a fan of Oysters like many others; I found them slimy, boogery, and disgusting. Like many things in our relationship, he slowly coaxed me into loving them; then, the exploration for all the Oysters was on. While far into a mission for East Coast Oysters, we joked about creating a blog of our food quests. When our discussion got to the point of naming the blog, he quickly proclaimed “The Lonely Oyster,” which we giggled about and agreed this one was the winner. On every adventure after that, ideas for The Lonely Oyster blog were thrown around but never realized.
I am now starting year two since he suddenly passed away due to drug addiction, and “The Lonely Oyster” has rooted far deeper meaning than I think either one of us expected. First, there is the apparent reason for “Lonely”; I went almost a decade with a partner I was so deeply and passionately connected with, to being all alone missing half of my soul. However, through reflection and trauma therapy, I realized that we were both profoundly alone for most of our relationship. His loneliness stemmed from his struggle with addiction, mine from being in love with someone tormented by addiction.
Grief and trauma are fascinating beasts, shapeshifters, you could say. Much like a soul or a personality, they take form uniquely for each person. Throughout my first year of grief, I used sex, alcohol, drugs, and recklessness to disappear from my problems. I still use sex as an outlet while slowly eliminating the other vices. My first year was filled with a lot of shame and anxiety about my coping mechanisms, centered explicitly around my sexual choices. I felt guilt for jumping into the arms of other partners after spending nearly a decade with just one. However, I am slowly learning that even though I felt alone in my actions, I was very much not alone. “Grief fucking” happens all the time, grief making you horny is common, and dealing with trauma through kinks and fetishes is why BDSM has become so popular.
Oysters are sexy aphrodisiacs representing the goddess of love, fertility, pleasure, and sex: Aphrodite. Here I sit, a widowed sex goddess who has accumulated pages of scandalous stories of which my friends quote, “you can’t make that shit up; they are too good not to share.” This, however, is only one part of “The Lonely Oyster.” Writing has always been something that I have been told I have a talent for, though I’ve never used it as a creative outlet until recently. While on my journey, I have found writing out my stories, thoughts, and reflections is as cathartic as hot yoga. I am writing for myself, but as I get further along in my healing, I realize that raunchy, uncensored honesty about what I do, process, and learn might make people like myself feel less alone.
Hopefully, it is entertaining, but I also desire it to start conversations and take away the feeling of shame that comes from so much I will touch on. Like eating an Oyster, I am welcoming you to break through a grimy, hard, dirty shell and find the soft, rich, delicious piece inside; if you’re lucky, you might find a pearl or a crab… I know many people will not like what I am saying, but that is the point: stop avoiding with a shell of shame and instead shuck open the vulnerability with the hopes of normalizing it. Disagree all you want; go ahead and think that I am slimy, boogery, and disgusting; I am done caring. I am The Goddamned Lonely Oyster, and here is my collection of aphrodisiac anecdotes.
