The Evidence

I had that recent realization that I have to stop living in fear about my loves.  I remember telling a friend not too long ago, “I’m so happy I’m terrified”.  Ever get like that?  The thing is that I see silver linings all over the place and I’m a optimistic person, but.. but I’m often waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I don’t like admitting this about myself.  It’s not a thing I’m proud of.  But I’m betting I’m not the only one that does this and it’s a happiness and love killer.  I’m not saying that keeping your feet under you is a bad thing in adventures and love.  I’m not saying that heads in the clouds are bad.  I actually like these two things together.  I am saying that keeping my one foot out the door (just in case!) is a thing that makes me unhappy and hurts my relationships.  I’ve been feeding my insecurity.

Standing on the ground in red shoes

This makes me think of something the character Rob said in High Fidelity-

Rob: “I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and… I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing. And that’s suicide. By tiny, tiny increments”.

Ambivilent

This one has really descriptive sex.. skip it if you’d rather not read that.  🙂  Thanks!

I filed my divorce papers yesterday.  After I filed I went to the nearest coffee shop, feeling like lead.  Ironically it’s the coffee shop where I met Traveler.  I sat where he stood way back then, just for a bit.  Traveler’s Wife, Quinky Girl, and I texted a bit and she said she’d meet me for a drink.  Cleveland and I had a date that night, but I took her up on it and met her at a local place.  By the time I got there I felt a lot better.  I keep vacillating.  It’s been months and months, so part of me is glad to have it wrapping up.  I’m relieved it’s finally resolving.  I’m excited about my new place and I feel like I’m finally really starting over, not just camping and sitting in shock. 

But I also feel phenomenally stupid.  I feel like a failure.  Useless.  Thrown away.  I don’t understand and I can’t understand.  I want there to be a neat reason for it and there just isn’t.  The entire time he has been lying and changing his story.

I don’t know what happened and the more I think about that the more I feel something tear.  Why was he so cruel?  How could he be with me all those years and think the things he thought and said about me?  Did he even believe them?  Was it just an excuse?  He said them to RollerGirl too later, when she became the bad Madonna and another girl the Whore.  He lied to her as much as he lied to me.  He’s lying to the dog walker too.  Lies lies lies.

Quinky Girl’s very presence was a balm.  I keep having to remember it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t make sense.  And life is like that.  We talked about honesty and relationships before Traveler and Cleveland arrived.  When Traveler came she asked him to sit with me and give me snuggles because it’d been an eventful day.  I kissed her face for her generosity.  We had a good dinner and some laughs.  Cleveland arrived in time for happy hour tacos too.

All the Kinds of Love

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  I just woke up and smiled, thinking of last night.  The December drought of kisses and dates and yummy sex continues, but I can’t help feeling loved.  I had a pretty bad minute coming home, and then.. a bunch of joy.  Do you ever think about all the kinds of love in your life?

I’d finally checked my old FaceBook messages, bored on the plane and learned the my husband had taken our dog walker to San Francisco to meet his sister.  A bunch of people were asking me if Hubby was in fact polyamorous because he’d taken his new girlfriend to California and had her meet his sister.  This was news to me since he and RollerGirl had recently broken up.  Then it clicked.  Hubby has been dating our old dog walker and RollerGirl for months.  Well, kiss my grits.  He threw me away, after months of abuse because he wasn’t poly and he was angry at me for being poly and that he was going to go be monogamous with RollerGirl.  But, here he had been dating two women for at least 4 months.  Fuck me sideways. 

Ohana- Minding the Gap

I had this excellent talk with a metamour (lover’s lover) today, about all kinds of things.  She was thinking about some things I was lucky to listen and ask questions and explore and feel with her a bit.  I’m here at my brother’s, enjoying my family and a really nice relaxing visit, and I’ve had a lot of time to think.  We talked about hard stuff, some Cadillac problems, and some common ground.  I have to admit.. I’m falling so in love with her.  And no, we are not fucking.  But her love is so fulfilling. 

I’m in this place where I’m not ready and not really wanting to change much of anything, but I’m enjoying imagining what could be.  It comforts and thrills me and makes me feel better in all of these ways to think “what are the options for my life?”.  For a while it just felt like wreckage.  Everything I wanted and everything I made were shards and it hurt so much to think about that.  And I began to see all the possibility in that.  I could make lots of choices, but boiled down, I could choose to rail against the things I didn’t like and tear my hair out screaming why, or I could decide to begin the long slow process of healing and ultimately growth that such losses bring.  I could render good from all of this.  There was and is the terrifying and exhilarating possibility of ANYTHING, but that is little comfort.  I know I don’t want to marry again, and I don’t want to be alone, so what does that leave?  Actually.. a lot.

One of the things we talked about was inclusion.  My heart was just bursting at the thought of it.  I wept with joy at my keyboard at one point.  I had all this happiness for her and this feeling of love and acceptance and my own heart opening.  I loved her for talking to me and for being real with me.  I loved her for her fierce and beautiful love for the men in her life and her desire to be as inclusive and supportive and loving to them as possible.  She wants to be sure they feel loved and that nobody loses.  I loved her for her telling me a little of her thoughts and fears and joys.  I loved her for the care she shows our mutual love.  I loved her for her loving soul.  I loved her for making me feel special and included.  And I really loved her for daydreaming with me a little.. talking about things we’d both like now and distant maybes.  She made my fondest heart’s wishes feel like viable options among all of the options. 

We talked a bit about meeting wants and needs in poly, and all day long I thought about all the needs and wants SHE fills in me.  I needed a confidant that gets it and someone who would trust me to be there for them.  I needed someone else who thinks this stuff.  I needed someone who can face and deal with this stuff in themselves and their relationships and talk about it.  I need people who wouldn’t judge me or use my weakness against me, and who had my best interests at heart.  I needed someone trustworthy to trust me.  I needed this open heart.  I’m making my family with the romantic relationships and friendships and supporters in my life, and I needed her in it.  I think I might talk to them about Ohana and Hui.  I like the benefit and responsibility of Ohana.  I like the love and acceptance of Hui. 

Change is Good

bitrebels.com

Little things you do can make a big difference to those who love you.  I think there’s a lot of talk about how to show people you love them and there’s lots of stories of grand gestures.  I’m not against them, honestly, but it’s the little stuff that I crave and the little stuff that sustains me.  I love epic dates with deep talks and insanely large amounts of kissing and touch and amaze-balls sex and all of that.  BELIEVE ME.. I don’t turn my nose up at that kinda thing.  But a million little things adding up over time is somehow more soothing to me.  Maybe it’s that I’ve had so many grand gestures that add up to nothing or because I’ve lost really important things when the every day was forgotten, or maybe it’s just my perspective.. whatever.  But big big gestures just aren’t enough.

All The Little Things That Make Me Happy

After he leaves, I don’t change the sheets.  I like sleeping in a place that smells like him. 

I like running my Sunday errands thinking about dinner and football tonight with Traveler and his wife, getting a chance to chill with them at the end of a good weekend and getting to watch some football.

I am eager and nervous for tonight.  I have a date with Boss at the club, at a play party I’ve been meaning to hit.  I’m nervous because I don’t know what to expect.  I’ve never been to this party and I’ve never been to a party with a date.  I’ve never played at the club.  I’ve wanted to.  Are we going to play?  What should I expect?  It makes me happy to think eagerly of possibilities and to not have specific expectations.  It makes me happy to think of chemistry and exploring and fun.  I’m turned on and scared and I kind of like the combination.  I know I don’t really have anything to fear.  I have some control here.  I have some say.  But I like and fear the unknown. 

I feel so encouraged by my loves.  Both of them were supportive about tonight.  When I told Cleveland and Traveler that I was meeting Boss and that we’d be meeting at the club and that it might be a play date (read kinky sex), and that I kind of hoped it was, they were both encouraging.  They kissed me or hugged me and told me to have fun and to be safe.  I waited for a shoe to drop that didn’t.  I would happily have had more conversation or been supportive if there’d been a need for reassurance or support, but there didn’t seem to be even a healthy need for that yet.  I probed a little, trying to encourage them to talk if they wanted to.  I could feel a tiny something in them that they both swore wasn’t there.  I think they naturally had a tiny pinch that they handled internally.  I think they didn’t want to make a thing out of something that they easily managed and I think they were actually okay.  They are very clear that I love them.  I think they know how important they are to me.  That made me feel good.  I like thinking that the groundwork is there for us in all of our talks and kisses and attention and love, that they had little fear.  It would have been and will be okay if they have little things here and there and we talk about it.  But it was nice that nobody melted down.

I am buoyed by Friday’s wonderful date with Cleveland.  It was a stressful week and it took me a little bit to de-stress.  It was wonderful to have time.  We helped Peaches pick up some things at the naughty shop and played Cards Against Humanity with our friends.  It was hilarious and we had the best time.  We had talks and snuggles and pets and amazing sex.  We slept and woke together.  We made plans for our next date and marveled as we always do by getting time together.  Love may be boundless but time and attention are not and I was grateful as ever for it.

I feel content after Saturday’s date with Traveler.  We wanted to do a little something different but weren’t really wanting to get gussied up and frankly we both really LIKE our little routine, so we just ate dinner somewhere different.  Interestingly we talked about our agreements.  Somehow we never explicitly did that and me being me, I liked getting it in words and layed out.  We pretty much have one agreement.  We like to be informed, and will continue to inform each other.  We’re good at it.  We talked about football and World of Warcraft and silly little things.  We had sex that left us both reeling and panting and fell asleep curled together.  He might let us interview him.  He’s thinking about it.

I am so eager to interview both Peaches and then Traveler’s Wife.  They have both agreed to talk to us for the podcast.  So cool!

I’m excited I’ll get to see Traveler’s Wife a lot this week.  We planned a girl’s night and we have Thanksgiving.  I can’t wait to dish with her.  We said we’d let Traveler come to dinner with us but I think we’ll get some girl time too afterward.  I feel so honored and loved to be included in their holiday.  I know a lot of people in my situation will be spending the day alone and have no access to their loved ones, and I’m grateful for such generosity.

And I can’t stop thinking non-stop about Roller Derby.  I joined a beginner’s league and went Saturday to get kitted up with all the things I need to play.  I feel like a kid with new school clothes.  I love my helmet and my gear.  I can’t wait to actually be any good. I just want to skate and skate and skate.  I made a huge Amazon wishlist of tights and socks and booty shorts.  

I’m just happy today and aware of my many blessings.  You ever have days like that when you just want to make gratitude lists? 

 

Old Flames and Loves

I got up on this fine Sunday morning to come to my workplace to sign divorce papers with my ex and wasn’t ready to go home afterwards.  It had gone as smoothly as it could.  He brought my little dog and I got puppy kisses and snuggled the little thing.  I wasn’t overly rocked by signing the divorce papers but I was a little teary-eyed afterward.  I don’t want him back and I’m not as sad that he’s gone, but I don’t really want to be divorced and it is the end of so much.  I sat here for a while and watched the light on the building and just kinda took it in.

After a bit I chatted with my old and wonderful friend Ph.D.  There are some people that just get in your heart and stay there, and he’s definitely one for me.  We talked briefly but it was as it always is and I was left smiling.  I still wasn’t ready to go home yet and ending up talking to the man I had my first “poly” relationship with.  I’m going to call him Popsicle.  We didn’t call ourselves poly back then.  Nobody called themselves poly back then because it was a word until 1996 and this would have been about 1992.

Popsicle and I were good friends back in the day and one night he and my roommate dropped me off at work, and after I’d exited the car he’d turned to my roomy and said “that ass!  God.. I just want to grab it while I eat her for an hour!!”.  I flushed when my roommate called me at work to tell me what he’d said.  I told her “Tell him to pick me up from work.  I’m off at 8”.  Heh.  He did.  🙂 He and I were together on and off and never-defined from when I was 18 or 19 until I was 26 or so.  I was married in there for a few years to my first husband, and I’d found how much I hated cheating when Popsicle and I had an affair.

We had a very passionate relationship and were very good friends but somehow neither of us tried to make it monogamous or define it for a long time.  I continued to see people I’d been seeing casually and he did the same.  We had this kind of mutually supportive and loving and sexual thing.  We talked to each other about our other conquests and relationships and there was little jealousy or drama or angst.  We just were what we were.  I moved to Phoenix for job prospects and he became a truck driver and we’d see each other from time to time as he drove through, catching up on what was happening in our lives and having this week here or that weekend there and talking regularly on the phone.  I loved Popsicle and he loved me.  I was emphatically anti-relationships at the time and afraid of love, but he was somehow the exception to the rule.

Eventually we both married and divorced other people and we had that one affair with each other.  We’d remained in touch all of those years.  When my soon-to-be ex husband and I married he’d taken great exception to Popsicle, having difficulty understanding that a relationship that never called itself a relationship didn’t really have an end.  My assurances that Popsicle and my days of cheating on people together had passed did little to ease Hubby.  I understand his trepidation.  I really do.  I’d wanted this thing with my husband to work though and I’d eventually let Popsicle go.  I missed  him and looked him up from time to time, as he did me too.  We’d talk here and there as friends and it seemed our sexual relationship had finally burned out.  It had been mad chemistry back in the day… grappling, wrestling, biting, clawing, falling down the stairs fucking chemistry, but we were in different places now, making things work with people that we loved and with whom we’d vowed monogamy.  And so it’s sat for a while.

Today he popped up in Facebook and we got to chatting.  It got pretty heated, remembering old days and catching up about new ones.  We’ve both wound up in non-monogamous places and he was intrigued by my poly.  He’s been just sport fucking for a while, tired of serial relationships that always end badly, and wishing for more connection or an open kind of thing like the old days.  I of course am poly and open.  He’s heard of poly and is interested to talk to like-minded people but felt that just wasn’t possible in Cleveland.  Well.. it is.

Cleveland, so cleverly named (heh) is from Cleveland and he and his wife were part of poly and swinger and kinky groups there.  I asked for and got info and passed it along. It’s been a long and messy road here, but we both ended up 20 years later sympatico again.  I’m not planning any trips to Cleveland, and for a variety of reasons I’m not sure even if I did if Popsicle and I would amount to much, but I won’t lie and say I’m not curious.  I don’t know how chemistry ages and a lot more has grown and changed than our sex lives, but I’ve always loved and will likely always love Popsicle and our sexual chemistry and connection was astounding.

He was the first man I shaved.  I remember like yesterday him sitting on the edge of my big old tub, smoking and talking to me about everything and nothing as I sat cross-legged before him, slowly and carefully shaving his balls.  I’d never done it before and he was trusting me, so relaxed.  We paused here and here in our conversation to kiss or let me take a puff of his cigarette, and we admired my handiwork.  I realized how much I loved the domesticity of taking care of my partner, grooming them.  It was a new intimacy to me and I’ve loved it ever since.  I remember too how sensitive his balls were to my licking and my breath when I finished.  I’ve shaved every partner who’s let me since then.

I’m a happy woman who gets way more than my share of amazing sex, and I get it with the love and trust and support and commitment and touch and respect and joy that my partners bring to my life. I felt a little blue and down and alone.  It was nice to spend a little time feeling  and then to talking to a good friend and then to an old friend/lover, and finally a little with Cleveland.  I have to admit it’s kinda nice to be able to have a conversation like that with my old lover and not have the guilt after. I have that freedom and give that freedom and it’s pretty cool stuff.

Frien-assance

I’m having a resurgence of friendly love. A while ago I realized that most of my life I’d created my safety and my need for family out of the friends I was lucky enough to build into my family. There is the family you are born with and the one you create. I loved my father and he was a good man, but he was a pretty shitty Dad, and he was the only parent I really had. All of my grandparents died very young too. I had my brother and my brother had me. I had the families of my friends that took me in figuratively, and then later, literally. I ended high-school homeless except that my best friend’s family took me in. My childhood holiday memories are mostly of my friend’s families. My dad was generally off with the girlfriend du jour, who by and large didn’t require my presence.

I was recently mourning my old love, the hubby I’ve lost and a friend pointed out that sometimes that old love isn’t a romantic love. Eureka!

Adjustment

I’ll admit it.  I miss  HER.  We weren’t dating, but she was one of my most satisfying relationships.   Maybe 50 times this weekend I thought.. OH!  I have to tell her!!! 

I haven’t worn a dress in years and did so mostly because she encouraged me and Cleveland was actually right about the tights.  I liked wearing a dress Friday and was really glad I did.  There were members of the head office and a Senate office there and I had to give out two formal awards and talk in work groups. She would have gotten a kick out of that.  I was so stressed leading up to all of this.

And when I went to get ready to go to the club on Saturday I decided I didn’t want to wear any of my clothes and went shopping at the rack.  I bought a dress and tights.  A FREAKING DRESS.  I wore it that night.  I hadn’t worn a dress since 2002 and I wore two in two days.

I found another good cocktail.

I wanted to hear how her talk went with her friends.

I flogged a man with some other people Saturday and learned a little bit about flogging in the process.  Then I got flogged.  I needed to be excited and I was a little nervous beforehand.  When I told my club friend, she grabbed me and made out with me for about 5 minutes.  We both got a little excited.  We realized we’d “wasted” it though because the person flogging wasn’t ready and we made out again a short while later. My club friend previously told me she was only bi from the waist up, but she made a point to tell me after making out with me that she had resolved that and was now bi all over, and kissed me again. I would have loved talking to her about it. It’s fun to tell her that stuff. She’s so funny and it makes me laugh so hard.

On Sunday Cleveland and I had a lovely date and he said some things I felt so deeply reassured by.  I would have liked sharing that joy. She loves Cleveland and likes Cleveland stories. 

It sucks how fragile really precious things are sometimes and how quickly strong goes to gone. I get it, but I’m just saying I miss her.

Falter (When Will I Learn to Shut Up?)

Yesterday Hubby and I hashed out the details of our divorce.  I’m deeply relieved at no lawyers and no real vitriol.  But after we’d concluded the talk, I got weepy.  I spent a little time letting that out and went to Traveler’s to play WoW.  We planned a nice sexy shower and some good game time and it was a little different than planned.

I got there and we chatted as we ordered and waited for a pizza.  I asked him about work and his family and all the little bits of his life, kinda catching up a bit.  It was very intimate and sweet.  We snuggled a bit, ate some pizza and hit the shower.  We kept talking and washed each other and did not have the sexy vibe we’d assumed before I got there and it was good.  We laughed a bit and were just connected and relaxed.  It was very comfortable.

We played WoW for a while, and ended with more snuggles and talking.  It was a really nice peaceful evening until…

I asked him something playing at the corners of my mind-  did he think secondary relationships had any real chance at longevity?  I know I have thought about it but I wondered if he had.  We never talk about the future.  We talk about maybe taking a trip but never like “oh hey.. someday let’s go to New Orleans”… that implies a some day.  I don’t know for sure how he sees our relationship and if he thinks of any of it in long term.

But last night, with a little sadness with my husband, I think what I really wanted to hear that this love and comfort and companionship and trust I felt didn’t have an expiration date.  I knew that he and his wife had discussed their relationships and if they could build a life with their loves but I wanted to know if he could see a relationship with me having longevity.  So, dear God… I asked him.

I instantly felt totally off kilter and awkward and strange.  He said he did see potential and asked if I did.  I admitted I did.  Then I laid there panicking.  When we got up, shortly after, to have me go home he asked if I was worrying and I’d admitted I was.  I was unable to explain why I was worrying, and he hugged me from behind in the kitchen and told me that I shouldn’t spend so much time worrying…

Ugh.. I HATE being like that.  I hate being all girly and vulnerable and weak.  I held it together and covered and left with warm snuggles and kisses and then sobbed so much in my car I had to pull over to cry.  I cried about all of it; tears for my husband, who didn’t love me anymore when he loved her, the end of all our little dreams and plans and all the sacrifices, the war deployments, and all the times my heart broke because I missed his call from Malta and Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.  I cried for every time I opened my heart to someone that wasn’t worthy of it and all the times I kept it closed to avoid being hurt.  It was the kind of open mouthed sobbing that hurts.  I cried because I can’t talk about the future and it scares me that I can’t say “do you think we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving together someday? “.  I cried because I was awkward.  I cried because I don’t hate Hubby and I can empathize even if it makes no sense at all.  I cried because it’s stupid and that doesn’t matter.. it all happened anyway.  I cried because when Hubby told me he wanted to not be with me, so he could go and be with RollerGirl and raise her daughter and have another family, I didn’t want to be with him anymore either.  I was days away from asking for a divorce myself because of how he’d acted after he replaced me.  And I cried because I love Traveler and I don’t want him to stop loving me.  I cried because I love Cleveland and am falling for him so deeply and because he’s so wonderful and passionate and intelligent and sweet, and that scares me so very much.  There is nothing tying my loves to me or me to them.

If Hubby could push and push  until he threw me away, and he had all of those things holding him to me, how can I trust Cleveland or Traveler’s love either?  There is NOTHING holding them to me and there likely never will be.

I realized this morning that I’m being needlessly worried here.  I KNOW that relationships are often finite and I accept them as being worth the future heart break anyway.  The measure of a relationship is not it’s length and a relationship isn’t a failure when it ends.  I accept the transitory nature of most relationships.  I’m worried about potential far off futures that may never exist.  I calmed when I thought of the now.  I live in a place I love and have a job that is fulfillingt.  I have friends and lovers and support.  I am literally surrounded by love.