Lucky 700!

Last week we hit 700 subscribers to this blog.  Holy guacamole.

I have been away on training, and still am (but am ecstatically on my way home), so I haven’t yet told you and celebrated.  But here we are.. 700!  Damn that feels like a lot.  I’m telling you, and I say this with every milestone, but I never imagined.  Blogs are a tricky business and it’s wonderful is ANYONE reads them.

I’m planning some cool things though and I hope it’ll make it worth it.  I’m planning a more regular podcast, a piece Quinky Girl and I are working on together that will have some great research and some personal interest, and a blog series on some topics.  It’s exciting.  Again, I’d be thrilled to do things just for myself, but it’s wonderful that people actually read them or seem to like them.  It’s such an honor to be helpful here and there and/or to entertain or give you weirdos like me out there the proof that you aren’t alone.  I love that I’m not alone and thank you for that.  And for you non-weirdos.. or weirdos of different stripes, thank you too!

You guys rock.

Talk about Sex? Who'd a Thunk It?

Movie title for Young Visiters from http://ia.media-imdb.com

One of the nice things about living openly is that my old friend coming into town means I get to have fun introducing him to the people in my life without worry.  All of them have asked me “Is it okay to talk freely?”, “Are there things.. ahem.. he shouldn’t know?”.  Nope.  I had to laugh too because people have asked if he’d delicate, or if he’d judge them because they were going through something, or if they should “behave around him”.  Heh.

The idea that I’d be close friends with someone for 13 years and they’d be delicate or easily offended makes me laugh.

Ph.D, my friend, visited from Colorado.  He came to this academic conference and to see me and have a good time.  He is not, in fact, delicate nor easily offended.  And I told everyone when they asked to speak freely.  I’m not sure what would shock or offend my dear Ph.D, but I’m quite sure my friends and loves would have to struggle mightily to find it.  On the flip side, he asked and I let him know that he could talk to my loves and my friends about anything.  Hell, a few people at my work know a little bit about my life and if others found out I’d be relieved.  When I began my job 5 years ago I was a very happily married monogamous woman.

We opened up, and a couple of years later broke up (not directly related) and it’s hard to figure out how to say “by the way I’m in love with a man I’ve been dating almost 2 years, some of which was when I was married to my husband”.  Well.. actually that kinda answers that.  You say something like that I guess.  Or maybe you just leave off the dates.  Maybe you just say you’re in an open relationship with these two guys and it’s working.  I’m going to do exactly that eventually.  When we talk about what we all did on the weekend, or plans, I mention that I did this with a man I’m dating.  I know they assume I’m either not dating these men very seriously, or that the more relationship stuff is all the same man.  Whatever.  If I ever have good reason I’m fine with outing myself at work.  I sort of think (like a friend says) that poly people have a responsibility to out themselves in casual situations.  I think this is how acceptance starts, with familiarity.

Earnest looking character from “The Young Visiters” (yes spelled that way) from http://www.movie-roulette.com

So, yep.. good visit with Ph.D.  I was going to write a much longer and more in depth post about this, but well.. I’m not.  The visit was wonderful.  I loved having my friend here and loved some time with him.  Oh?  You hear a but?  Yeah.  There is a but.

If You Were an Ass

“If you were an asshole, it wouldn’t be because of bad luck that you have no friends”.  This was Ph.D’s answer to my agreeing that I am ridiculously lucky with the people in my life.  He said, “It’s not just luck that you’ve created a circle of people who love you that are awesome.  You’re awesome and you picked good people and treated them well and they love you”.  Sweet, no?

Ph.D. has been visiting from Colorado for the last 5 days or so and we’ve done a whirlwind Seattle and meeting with the murder and friends kinda deal.  We’ve been crazy booked and just having the nicest times.  We played games with Cleveland and his wife, Quinky Girl, Traveler and Peaches, and we met up with my friends Tex and Fishnet, and went camping with Chicago and Chicago Boy.  We’ve have wonderful meals and lovely conversations and it was fun to show my loves and friends off to him and him off to my loves and friends.  He’s totally smitten with my whole family and circle, and it was fun to see them all through his eyes too.

You know that feeling when you share something you like with someone and they experience it and you sort of vicariously see it new through them?  It was like that.  

Divorce Day

***I wrote this the night before the divorce and didn’t’ publish it, but I’m letting it go now.  Partially this is because I just lost the draft of the other post I’d been working on, and partially because I think someone who is going through this kinda process might relate to it.  I’m sorry it’s so sad, but it’s just where I was at.  I’m doing a lot better again.  I think I was so emotional because it was the last step in our ending.  I have been already rebuilding and moving on for some time now, and it surprised me how fresh it all felt the day before and day of my divorce.  I think it was a “last gasp”, and I’m happy to say it is fading back to where it had been after months and months apart.  I don’t like that my marriage ended or the way it ended, but I feel like I’m making the best of it and the ways in which I am better off.

Quinky Girl did come with me that day and made a terrible day a little bit beautiful by being there and by her love.  Afterwards I had lunch and a few drinks with her and Chicago and Chicago Boy.  Later that night I talked to Cleveland and got a sweet message from Cleveland’s wife.  And later, when I was kinda breaking down again, I talked to Traveler for a long time, saying all the terrible things I was thinking and being loved through each one.  The next day I got up and felt better.  I’m not alone and I am loved.  I’m overall pretty happy again.  I have come a long way since Hubby and I separated and I’m back to that.  But I wanted to let this post go in case someone needed to relate.***

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It’s 1 am the day of.  In the morning I’ll head down to the courthouse and finalize my divorce.  Hubby plans to be there and Quinky Girl is coming with me, thank fucking God.  I didn’t think to ask her or anyone to come and she offered and I very gratefully accepted.

 

A girl sits on a park bench in a fall scene, looking at the empty place next to her.

Getting married you hardly think about the paperwork.  It’s a formality and a legal thing that pales next to the commitment you are taking.  Divorce is the opposite.  It’s all about the paperwork and it’s at 1 am that I can’t stop crying thinking of what was lost.  I’m getting flashes, like a damn movie of him laughing with his head back and his white teeth and the way his eyes crinkled.  I’m remembering dancing in a parking lot with him and how funny it was that he wore my engagement ring before he gave it to me.  I’m thinking of us blessing our dead baby, a fetus sitting in a dixie cup on a silver tray in an ER.  I’m thinking of the first trip we ever took together, to Maui from Oahu, and the drunken happiness of being with him.  I’m thinking of wrestling with him until we were both exhausted, and the way he cried the first time we had sex.  I can picture touching his belly, and holding him when his ex-wife took his daughters to the mainland and he was broken.  I can still feel his tiny kisses on my eyelids and his absurd glee about Jeep trucks and his first one, with the sound system worth more than the truck.  God.  I just can turn it off right now.  It’s almost over.  It’s really been over for a long time now, but it’s almost over.  It’s almost over for real.  I’ve let it come peice meal because otherwise it’s almost too much to bear.  

In a few hours

a birthday cake lit with candles and sparklers found at: http://www.recruteuretcandidats.fr/public/.gateau-d-anniversaire_m.jpg

In a few hours I will be 40 years old.  Yeah.. I’m feeling pretty good about it, and pretty nostalgic.  I just took a long hot shower and actually laughed and cried thinking back on things.  Do you ever get like that at milestones?  

I’m 40, and you know.. I’m mostly happy.  I read a few things about turning 40 today and I have to admit I agree with a lot of them.  With a few rather large exceptions, the last 5 years or so have been some of the happiest of my life.  I was suicidal a lot in my teens and my early 20’s.  It’s been a long time and I don’t entertain those thoughts much these days, but they come.  I still think about it on those rare times, and then it comes to me.. all the times I’ve thought over the years, “If I’d been successful, and If I’d killed myself at 15, or 16, or 19 or 22 I would have missed THIS”.  

I’ll be standing at a big moment or a small one and I’d know I would have missed it.  I would have missed all of that if I’d kept believing that life would always be so dark.  Life isn’t like that.  It isn’t like that all.  Life NEVER stays the same, not even when we want it to.  It’s never all dark or all light.  It just isn’t.  Everything spins and everything changes.  If I’d have given up then I’d have missed everything.  I have gotten nearly every happiness I’ve ever wanted and most of what I’ve feared.  And tallying it all up, I’d hate to have missed it all.  

I’m not going to lie.  This last year has been in many was one of the toughest of my life.  But here’s the thing.  Amazingly.. I’m mostly pretty happy.  My injuries healed most of the way and my heart is healing too.  I’m working on the damaged bits and that might take a while, but I’m headed in the right direction.  

hands shielding a candle to be lit from another found at :http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1MoxWx49VlA/T9t1lIadVgI/AAAAAAAABmY/vnKNirXwUPk/s320/candle1.jpg

They say in your 40’s you come into your own.  You have a lot of things figured out and a lot of things you’ve learned.  I agree.  And sex really does seem to get better and better too.  A lot of the articles talked about the success we’ve built up in our careers and our families, and I don’t really have that.  I never had children of my own and I’m not very financially successful.  So I don’t relate to the obvious kinds of family and success the articles name, but I have to admit that the success is still true.  I have built a little family that is absolutely precious to me.  I’m blood-related to almost none of the members, but they are family none-the-less.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve counted on Ph.D or Squirrel.  And here I’m building a life with my little chosen family.  

I could go on and on, but I keep deleting that, realizing that the details are rather unimportant.  The point I kept trying to make was that I’m going to be 40 here soon, and I’m pretty happy about it and happy in general.  My ex hated it that I said it all the time, but I do keep marvelling and it keeps coming to me… “what a long strange road it’s been”.  🙂

 

How You Know You're Loved

Well, the clouds are parting and I’m on the mend.  My cold is fading and I’m restless as hell.  So, the thing I was talking about.. the thing that might change stuff is a private health thing and nothing to do with my relationships.  I got a few worried messages (Thank you.. I love you guys), but no, my partners and I are okay.  I’m just dealing with this larger health thing and it’s looking like maybe it won’t be as huge as I feared going in.  We’ll see.  I’ll be fine too.  Nothing life threatening or anything.

But I’m remembering to use this for the greater good too.  I’m adding data to the “Ways I know I am loved and I will be fine” file in my mind. I have had a lot of evidence that I am loved.  I’ve been pretty sick and I had to cancel a ski trip with Traveler until this next weekend.  He was totally lovely about it.  We had our date Friday and got to see Quinky too, and he was all affection and love and so wonderful.  He ran cable in my living room while I cooked and we fell asleep entwined.  He tried hard not to look disappointed the next morning when it was official that we wouldn’t be skiing at that time, and he did a pretty good job of it.  He wanted to get stuff done and said he’d love my company.  We went to his house and did our own business stuff side by side and played a little WoW.  Quinky came home and invited me to stay for dinner.  It was pretty wonderful to just chill and eat together.  Traveler and I finished a little bit of WoW and then we helped Quinky a tiny bit making dinner.  When he left to get Peaches from the airport, Quinky and I had some good time to talk.

Little things like this are so fulfilling, sharing a meal and chilling together.  I don’t have to tell you how much I love any extra time with him.  The next day he invited me over for some WoW before the party.  We both took so long getting everything in order we actually didn’t play much WoW, but the gesture meant as much either way.  He still wanted me to come over and to be with him.  That feels wonderful to me.  And I was kinda sick already so it wasn’t even to have sex.  🙂

Then Sunday was the party at Cleveland’s house, watching the SuperBowl with friends and family, and it was really fun even if it was a landslide.  Shit.  Maybe BECAUSE it was a landslide.  For a bunch of Browns fans, being in a city where our team won the Super Bowl was pretty rarefied air.  There was good eats and good company and a HUGE TV!  Huzzah!  I got to enjoy the experience with my loves and steal a kiss or hug here and there too.  So lovely to pet my sweet Cleveland and steal a kiss here and there.

And Monday I was really sick, waking up with a fever and feeling just miserable.  Cleveland kept our date and came to snuggle me and get Pho with me anyway.  We ate the soup and watched a show and snuggled a bunch.  It was nice to feel loved and cared for like that, while I was really pretty miserable and sick.  He was such a comfort.  We talked more too about the stuff that is going on with me and he was his loving, steady, unflappable self.  We realized and talking about how we both blamed ourselves for putting the other through this health thing, though of course it was absolutely neither of us’s faults.  It was good to say it aloud and reassure each other.  We made another date this week, for tomorrow, and we’ll have more fun then.

Traveler and I booked this coming Friday for our date this week and will go skiing Saturday morning.  I was pretty touched he made  room to reschedule the trip and that he was also trying to schedule a little extra time for us here or there this week.. a dinner or WoW or something.  I can’t tell you what it means to me to have my loves giving me their time like that… wanting to be with me as I want to be with them.  We wanted to watch Game of Thrones with Quinky though and he wanted time with Peaches too of course after a week apart, and I suggested that Game of Thrones could be our extra time this week, some time for me with both Quinky and Traveler.

Of course I was still sick Tuesday, and he and Quinky, being thoughtful, came over anyway to give me some company and bring me sickness supplies.  They brought delicious Pho, popsicles and coconut water, remedies and even flowers.  The flowers are so beautiful on my hearth.  It was so comforting to have those little pettings and hugs and Traveler and Quinky’s loving presence.  I woke this morning still feeling comforted.  Being sick sucks and it’s nice to be cared for.

Even Boss has been pretty awesome through the whole thing, talking to me and being an ear and a distraction with his interesting posts and articles and links. He’s been really supportive and cool.  I worried that my relationships might be effected by my health stuff, but I see that maybe I needn’t have worried too much.  It’s brought out even more of the sweetness of my loves.  His time and her warm hugs and his gentle kisses and the snuggling and pettings and soup with all of my loves.  It’s a wonderful thing to count your blessings even in the thin.

Moving In

I’ve been off the grid a bit because I’ve been moving.  This past Saturday, I settled in.  Tired, relieved, sore, happy, worried, relaxing sigh… I’m in.

My one roommate, the one that kicked me out, has been asking me how the new apartment is, and honestly part of me didn’t want to tell her.  It’s wonderful.  I’m so happy to be there.  So many things about it are just awesome.  It’s such a relief to have my own space.  It’s so comforting to have a place where I could have my friends over.  After we’d moved everything, Traveler and Quinky, Cleveland and Chicago and Chicago Boy and I toasted with pizza and beer.  Quinky made a lovely toast to the new place, and to this being the first of many good times in it with family and friends.  I held my breath not to cry.  We sat on the floor and ate pizza and it was glorious.  I am blessed beyond belief.  The family I’ve found, and these beautiful generous loving people are more than I could ever hope for.

Quinky worked something like 50+hours and still came and hauled things all day.  I know she was tired and sore, and I never expected her to pitch in like that.  Traveler had been out of town all week and had woken up at 330 am to take Peaches to the airport and then crawled in my bed for snuggles and a little more sleep that morning.  I was nervous, and he soothed me with his loving touch.  Cleveland was there, bright eyed and his usual happy self, acting like moving me was fun, even as he sweated and carried all the heaviest things, he never complained.  Chicago and Chicago Boy showed up, worked their asses off, and made everything just a little bit more fun.  It was actually about as pleasant as a move can be.

Everyone loves the new place.  It’s simple but really nicely apportioned and maintained and in a great location.  It’s a good size toot.  It’s definitely better than anything else I could get at the price range, and the drawbacks are few and easy to handle. 

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.