The Cats Will Eat Me…

I really dislike my brain sometimes.  I woke up this morning with my brain churning a little.  I noticed it and realized what was happening.  Every now and then I start spinning about something.  I used to see Great Date do this, and it’s how I finally realized I did it too.

Sometimes it’s fear.  Sometimes I feel a little afraid and my mind casts about to understand my fear.  The house is not on fire.  The cats are okay.  Maybe I had a nightmare I don’t remember.  I don’t know, but my mind is an unkind place.  I cast doubts around about my worth.. my friendships.  I chew on the edge of my relationships.  I pull up reasons I should be afraid or sad or that things could be bad.  I pull up real and imagined evidence for how I suck.  I tell myself mean things.  I am the voice in the dark.

I’ve learned over time that this is just me petting a worry stone.  I can spin up elaborate bad things, and I know it.  I’m cherry picking the little rotten things to make problems that don’t exist.  I’m fine.  I’m more than fine.  I’m happy.  I’m here in my quiet apartment with my sweet kitties.  I live in a neighborhood I love.  I live in a city I love.  I have a family that I love that loves me.  I’m making the best choices I can and I’ll be ok. My relationship(s) are good.

And I learned to pull out the anti-venom for poisonous thoughts.

Nightmares and echos

I don’t know.  I don’t know.

I keep rankling and I can’t really seem to even put it into words.  I can’t. I can’t. I thought and thought about what would make me happy and that was me.  I make me happy. Always. no excuses. no shortcuts.  radical.

mannequin in a mirror from http://bibledude.net/wp-content/uploads/mirror-manequin.jpg

I think and think all the things that went wrong, that could go wrong and that did and could again.  I cling to promises and words that evaporated when you were asked about them, meaning I guess that you didn’t really want them. were you placating them? me? I ask over and over and over again if I’m a fool. am I a fool? is this stupid? foolish? wishful? willful?

You told the truth and it broke me and you learned to tell a lie.  or maybe you were finally honest?  with you? with me?  I don’t know. You said this to me and that to her and nothing to anyone else.  Because you were trying to spin the sugar, but it’s so fragile and I can’t get purchase.  It have no scaffolding, no spine.  You’ll say what I need you to, what they need you to, and never what you mean.  I’m afraid.  What if you said what you mean?  What would break then? someone.

What if everyone actually said what they mean?  All these webs of spun sugar, spun glass, brittle, crack.

It's been so long

It’s been so long and time took me far from you here.

Burning man is finally done, or at least the playa part is.  The cleaning up and recovery and putting away is underway.  And it wasn’t anything like what I’d expected.

I’d read a million blogs and spend a million hours pouring over preparations and debating the benefits and detractions of a million tiny choices, and then finally, after months of work getting it together and work on a theme camp and work on a meditation chapel, our gift to the playa, we were there.

To say we worked hard is hilariously inadequate.  This was not a vacation.

Traveler and I worked 18 hour days on average in the dust and sun and heat.  We limped wearily to our camp and often ate and went straight to bed, exhausted and dirty and tired.  We didn’t stink because the desert won’t let anything grow, but it was so harsh our wounds didn’t heal either.  That splinter got infected and that bruise just kept surfacing day after weary day.  Muscles I could not name pulled and snapped and ached.  My temper wore thin and I reacted poorly.  Traveler had his own emotional toil. Quinky Girl too.

Both of them will come to it and to you when they are ready and not a second sooner and I tried to just love them and let them come to me in their own time, respecting the process, but it’s not my strong suit and I wanted to wrap them up with every hurt and cradle them, protecting them from everything.  It was harsh.

The dust is a desiccant and it steals your moisture from your eyes and nose and mouth and skin.  My hands cracked.  My heels bled a little and I wasn’t even wearing sandals.  It was just the blisters.  Nothing survives.  Well, almost nothing.

Storms and dust and wind and bone aching tired I haven’t known except since my Army days.

And it was all so eerily beautiful.

I Don't Know

There are so many things that I don’t know.  I know I had an insanely hot loving close intimate fun weekend.  There were trips to the sex shop for more gear, delicious breakfast casseroles and cookouts, leather cuffs, so much snuggling, petting, great talks about everything, beautiful nights, insanely hot times with just Traveler and I, and then Traveler and I and our new friend Yarn Hooker, and with a new guy I haven’t named yet.  There was wine tasting and homemade pie, games with friends, old friends playing putt putt and laughing over pizza, and a lazy morning just like we like.  There was something in the air this weekend!  I will be enjoying memories of this weekend for some time to come.

And my friend sent me messages yesterday, expressing joy at his partner finding a great new prospect and a tiny bit of trepidation.  What if she likes him better?  What if she only needs the new man?  What if he makes her forget my friend?  He went online to read blogs and found some, all ending with divorce.  Not very encouraging.

I told him honestly that sometimes this life is bitter hard. Relationships USUALLY end before death.  This is true in monogamy and in polyamory and in every other kind of ‘amory too.  How many people do you know that are blissfully coupled with the only person they’ve ever loved and they’ve been together and close and happy for life?  Chances are if you are lucky you can name maybe 5 couples.  That’s 5 couples out of the hundreds or thousands of couples you have known.  It’s not like monogamous relationships are paragons of stability either.  But with the fluid nature of open relationship networks, things do have more opportunity for change, and that really points out the unstable nature of romantic relationships.

Unrest

I’m tired.  I slept about 3.5 hours the night before last and woke yesterday at 3am with a vicious nightmare.  The first nightmare in this little series about about a week ago and I woke gasping and trying to pull the plastic bag off of my head that had been there in my dream.  I was terrified and cried with relief to wake up.

Hands reach down for her from :http://remycarreiro.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/nightmare_by_lucyluh_large1.jpg

Last night right before I woke I lay bleeding and dying on the floor.  I was in agony and everything in my body hurt.  I knew I was dying and I could feel my own heart slowing as I bled to death.  I was mostly naked and cold, on the hard floor and they were gathered around me, laughing and watching me die.  I tried to crawl away from them with the last bits of whatever I had in me.  I could tell that there were people past these tormentors.  People I cared about were impossibly far away and couldn’t hear me.  I didn’t want to die with these people.  I needed to get past them.

They’d block my path or kick me now and then, thwart my progress and laugh at how pathetic I was.  I was weaker and weaker but I couldn’t lay my head down here.  I would not let them have my death and I was realizing with each passing minute of my tortured crawling that it was inevitable.  My breathing was getting ragged and I was getting colder.  Someone stepped on my hand and crushed it.  I cried out with fresh sharp pain as the bones in my hand broke.  I cried dry tears.  I woke up to Traveler rocking me and telling me I was safe.  I held him to stop death and cried.  He was so warm.  I couldn’t stop crying for just a minute.  I have had a hangover all day.  I felt wrenched and wrung out.

At lunch I watched cat videos on YouTube and I had a brief and beautiful conversation with Quinky Girl where I got to bask in her happiness today and I smiled.  I feel like the weight has been lifting all day, but I’d still really like to curl up with ice cream and a movie that is so fluffy and vapid that half of everything is pink and sparkly.

I have a date tonight and I’m excited about that underneath my numb and I hope I’m not a shitty date.  I can’t cancel because it’s really early in our association and we just don’t have enough water under the bridge for flakiness yet.  He doesn’t know me and I don’t have any credit built up.  So I’m going to listen to more good music and make a nice meal and hope for kisses maybe.  I hope he’ll understand if I need to get to bed early tonight, even if it is the weekend and it’s been a while coming.

I don’t know that it’s the nightmare that lingers as much as the hour or so afterward that I stayed in my bed thinking and not being tired, afraid to sleep again.  I fell asleep eventually but it took a long long time.  I am feeling better in general and I feel like a lot of things are working out, but I don’t have solutions or even ideas for solutions for some things.  My mind worries thoughts like a sore tooth because I just can’t see my options.  It feels like there are spots here that have a very thin crust.  But maybe that’s just the voice in the dark.  I think it might be.

The Dark at 1am

So, things are pretty good… but I was freaking out a little.  I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at reconstructed breasts and what the hell all of this involves.  And it’s freaking me out a little.  In NOT-unexpected keystone-cop-style awesomeness, the VA lost the consult to finish my genetic testing.  It’s going to take about a month to get results and I have to start over.  The office that recommends where to get the test is overwhelmed and can’t recommend where I need to go.  So I spent a bunch of today looking at websites for genetic testing centers and oncology departments and trying to figure out how to gauge such things.  Then I spent a bunch of time last night and tonight looking at reconstructed breasts and procedures.  I had been laughing and amusing myself with the idea of perkier, bigger augmented breasts as a reward for all of this BRCA gene bullshit.  But that’s not really accurate is it?  I might end up with breasts that don’t have nipples.. or surgeries that remove muscle and fat from my stomach to make new breasts, or weeks of inflating tissue expanders under my “breasts” to make room for implants under my chest wall to make new breasts, AFTER mastectomy and a surgery to preserve nipples, if I’m lucky.  Is it just me or does all of that sound like a horror show?

And the pictures.  They are freaking me out a little.  I don’t like getting fillings in my TEETH because I hate being vulnerable.  What the fuck am I going to do if I have to spend months removing and making new breasts??!?  Deep breath.  I’d live.  

Trusting Enough to Take a Risk

love dice from http://ronenews92fm.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/love-dice.jpg

So, I’ve been doing some writing and thinking and such about fear. I posted the other day about a fear eruption I’d had. I’m not sitting and stewing and living in fear, and I’ve actually still been enjoying the happiness of a week vacation with my sweet Traveler, but my fear boiled over twice now, and the strength and content of my reaction told me this was in large part about something else and I have work to do.

No, I’m not fucking crazy about the idea of Traveler dating again. I have good and bad reasons for this. I feel like he is a busy guy that can barely keep up with his current investments. He works a fucking lot. A lot lot. As it is with me seeing him twice a week now some of our dates are spent with him working. He doesn’t have time to have two full nights a week with me without doing work. He’s kinda important, you know? So, we get also a little extra time here and there.. maybe once a week sometimes, dinners after working in the yard, or an hour or two of WoW playing here and there while Quinky Girl works late or something, or talking as we clean the kitchen. It’s nice. I like this time filling of my “family battery”. We tend to get at least one date a week and some time on the second one with face-to-face interacting alone time and stuff like kissing and snuggling and fucking and talking, and that fills my “romantic battery”. I’m very happy with the amount of time and activities we currently have and I don’t want to actually lose it. I think that’s reasonable.

He can’t really afford to take the time from Quinky Girl either I don’t think. They see each other a lot, obviously living together and all, but most of their time is spent doing the business of living, like most people. Of course I assume they kiss and snuggle and have good moments even on those days when they are dealing with receipts and grocery shopping and working in the yard and planning their kitchen or whatever, but they have limited face-to-face time and I think she has a “romance battery” and “family battery” like I do too.

a love battery on hot pink from http://4.bp.blogspot.com

But.. this isn’t my choice to make. I can have this opinion all I want, but in the end Traveler will decide how he will spend his time and what matters to him and what he’ll invest in. If he wants to spend time he spends with me with someone else, I can’t fight that. I don’t think that is his plan, and I hope it doesn’t work out that way, but people do choose what matters with the choices they make about how they spend their time. Maybe he’ll choose to get a gardener and spend his time in the yard dating instead. Maybe he’ll get more efficient at paying bills and grocery shopping and cleaning and managing investments and organizing and all those little things people do and he’ll spend THAT time dating and not in separate-togetherness with Quinky Girl. Maybe he’ll spend the time he spends with Quinky Girl dating instead. I freaking hope not. Maybe he’ll stop taking all of his ski-trips and boy’s weekends and holiday-party-trips and family-trips and people coming-to-Seattle-time and spend all of that time dating. Shit, maybe he’ll learn to just sleep a whole lot less and date a night owl. Maybe he’ll find a girl to fuck only when he visits a job site he goes to every other month or so. I don’t know.

I can talk about my concerns rationally and reasonably or talk about what I feel, but in the end, I give him the freedom that he gives me. He can date or fuck or whatever anybody he wants. I might ask him not to fuck certain people if there are compelling reasons to do so, and he can choose to honor my request or not, and I can ask him for what I need for our relationship, but I might not always get it and there may be consequences associated with any action. That’s the way the world works. I don’t need to make rules with him, even if I could or wanted to. There are consequences for every action and I have to talk to him about all of this and then trust him to make the right decisions for himself. I make the decisions for me, and I choose him, but I don’t have to any more than he has to choose me. I hope he’ll consider me and Quinky Girl, and his friendships and his daily life stuff and his family and find a way to meet his needs and be happy too. If he chooses things that cost him our relationship and knowingly chooses them, well… them’s the breaks. Right?

Late Night Doubts

I can’t stand being up like this thinking.  I’m happy, so blissfully happy and then I’m sitting here rethinking everything at 1am.  I’m rethinking my choices and I feel like an idiot.  I feel stupid and I hate my creeping doubts.  Why do doubts gang up at 1am?  I miss him and I hate that I’m rethinking everything and he’s so far away.  Things that shouldn’t bother me are chewing at the edges.  I felt better today and clearer and I got new evidence that I am a big dumb dog.  Maybe it’s nothing.  Maybe it’s something I accepted long ago, but tonight I’m asking if I should have.  Maybe that doubt is right.  Maybe I need to wake up.  Maybe it only feels like all the things I want are possible in my own addled mind.  Maybe I’m setting myself up.  Maybe I’m making it all up.  “Maybe I’m only seeing what I want to see” whispers the cynic.  The cynic is often not right, but the cynic is rarely hurt.  It’s tempting to go there and to let my mind run these halls, but it’s not where I dwell and not where I want to live.  So what if risk often leads to ruin?  Sometimes it doesn’t, right?

I’m hurt and I’m limping a little tonight and that’s why I’m doing this.  I’m taking the little hole and worrying it larger. But I caught myself.  I see this for what it is.  I need to work it out in myself.  I need to talk to him.  I need to stop worrying about what this means.  I need to just realize I’m wanting to protect myself.  I want to hole up and withdraw and put up my rather formidable defenses and I’m looking for a reason.  I am good at finding what I’m looking for.  My mind is a powerful enemy or friend.

And then he sends me a message.  He saw me online and knew I was waiting for info.  I don’t wanna derail any time of fun with his friends so I don’t say anything.  It’s a vacation and he needs it.  It really can wait.  We talk about nothing for a bit and I’m wanting to prolong the conversation and to cut it off.  He tells me about his night and his plans, and he says exactly what I need him to say and can’t ask for.  I try so hard not to be a chick but I am at rare times.

He tells me he’s going watch curling until he falls asleep and says I should get some sleep too.  He tells me he loves me and uses my name.  He wishes me sweet dreams and sends me a kiss.  It’s a small thing, but my mind is a very good ally or foe and it picks that up and says it’s evidence that I need to stop worrying about this.  And it is.  I need some sleep.  I’m not going to figure anything out tonight and 1 am is a bad time for clear and helpful thinking.  Sweet dreams lover.  Sweet dreams worry.  Sweet dreams evidence pro and con.  There is plenty of time for worrying tomorrow.  There is plenty of time to move on too.  Sweet dreams risk and reward and cynic.  All of you stop spinning now.  Sweet dreams.

Just a short whine

There’s a thing going on and I’ve been asked not to talk about it.  I totally understand why and respect it, but it’s difficult and I wish I still had this place to put it out there.  

I’m not sure what effects it will all have.  It may dramatically change some relationships.  I feel already like it’s changing me.  I’m not sure how to navigate any of this really and I don’t understand what it means.  No, I’m not pregnant.  Nobody is pregnant or dying or anything so dramatic.  

But it’s shaking things up, bringing up fears and old tapes and old feelings.  There was everything before and now there is everything after.  I thought somehow that I was immune, though of course I’m not.  I’m really sick right now too, on top of everything.  My whole body hurts and I have a fever and congestion and my head is fuzzy.  My neck and shoulders feel like piano wire and I’m weak.  I can’t think straight and it’s dulling the world.  This is totally insult to injury.  I spent much of today spiralled on my living room floor because it was the only way I could get comfortable.  I want to whine and whimper and complain.  I am tired of feeling cold and hot and cold again.  I’m tired of feeling so awful and so run down.  My head feels puffy.  My mouth is sore.  And dammit.. it feels unfair.  It’s not really unfair.  In fact it’s perfectly fair, but I’d like just a minute to kick and scream.  Dammit.  There is so much about this that I just don’t like.  Yes, the world is just like this, and sometimes times are tough, and let’s be honest.. I live a really charmed life overall.  My problems are 1st world problems and I am blessed with beautiful love and support.  I think almost every single day about my many many blessings and I’m generally in awe of my charmed life.  

But right now, just give me a second.  Fuck!  Fuckity.  This sucks.  

Bon Voyage

** I talk about more traveling, some thinky bits, and a sexy time date with Cleveland.  Just letting you know.  ;)**

I’m going to my brother’s today in Phoenix.  It’s the last of my trips for a bit, thank god.  I’ve been having a lot of fun traveling and seeing cool things, but it’s going to be nice to have December over and go back to normal.  I miss time with my honeys and metamours and friends and my regular life.

I have been brimming over with happiness just lately though.. so happy and so grateful.  Traveler’s Wife and I had a text convo that left me smiling even the next day… just about our happiness, about love and connection and friendship and all these amazing blessings.  And last night I had my little sandwich date with Cleveland.  He was out of town until the day before and I’m going out of town now, the day after.  Thus the sandwich.  Wonderful.  It was so nice to see his sweet face and talk to him about everything and nothing.  There was so much snuggling and petting and kisses and the sex was ridiculously hot.  I asked him after if it’s like that for him too.  I don’t know if our bodies are just learning each others or we’re just syncing more, but it’s been really good lately.  And the talk!  We talked and talked about all kinds of things.. and he leveled with me on something.  He finally had a twinge, just a little thing, but we were able to talk about it and I’m hoping that I’m offering reassurance.  It was nice to see such real feeling from him.  I don’t want him to get twinges, but I have to admit it was nice to be able to talk about it.

It’s been funny.. vacillating between so much joy at all kinds of happy things and feeling so much love and feeling so loved, and also frustration and uncertainty in my few small moments.  I’m trying to remember that I’m tired and it’s just a stressful time of year, and that I shouldn’t read into anything, but I find myself more uncertain in these little moments, you know?  I’m not a girl who asks “what does it mean” all the time, of every decision and statement and behavior of my loved ones. I don’t have my friends read things to decipher the hidden meaning in them.  I assume people mean the things they’ve said.  I tend to be direct and I always assume others are too.  It makes me crazy to try to read into everything and I just don’t do it much.

But in these little moments here and there I find myself tallying.  Does him blowing me off mean I’m out here alone.. in love by myself?  Does taking 2 days to answer a text when I know they see every text mean anything?  Does this sweet gesture mean anything?  Did he mean it when he said what he said?  Ugh.  I HATE being like that, so when I catch myself I actually shake my head and tell myself a few things.

Its usually something like. “Self, listen.  This is an adult relationship.  If this person is trying to tell you things they have proven to you that they will say them.  You do not need to turn into the damn Riddler asking why why why.  This is you missing them and feeling a little vulnerable and sad to be without them.  Knock it off.  Look at all of this good evidence and remember that these doubts are existing now because you are just a little off of your balance.  Look at all of the proof, gained over time, that you love and are loved. Don’t let your fear tell you things that aren’t true.  It’s okay that you’re vulnerable and that this makes you a little afraid.  You are allowed to feel this, and don’t need to beat yourself up about it.  Feel the things you feel and when you’re asking yourself why you feel them, again you will see it’s just that you miss your lover.  They miss you too.  Look at the things that show you they miss you.  Think about all the good things you have felt and said lately.  Remember that you are actually happy and sure most of the time.  There is a reason for that.  It makes sense.  Relax.”

It’s funny how quickly a good little pause and reminder work.  As soon as I understand what is happening I feel it shrink and it’s a perspective change.  I see all the beautiful things.  I feel so loved.  I feel secure and happy and cherished.  I feel lucky beyond belief.  I can’t believe I am allowed so much love, to flow through me and to me.  I feel grateful.  I think of all the support and affection and laughter and giving of self I get, and I am bowled over by my blessings.  I have friends who shower me with love.  I have loves who are kind.  What a blessing of abundance.

I think of sitting in my car nearly weeping with joy, texting back and forth with Traveler’s wife about so much happiness and I can’t help but smile.  My people are so very good to me and I love my little budding family.  I can’t tell you what that means to me.  I literally don’t have the words.