The Best Life Yet

I had a jarring moment yesterday when it came up in my FB newsfeed that Beckett's ex—the one who was a factor in his wanting to stop seeing each other—checked in with him to a restaurant in the city he is stuck in for business for a month. So I guess that's a thing that is really happening. I got over it pretty fast, but there was definitely a moment of dashed not-so-secret hopes that he might eventually change his mind.

Last night with Rider was great. Sometimes just looking at his smile sends me over the moon with happiness. He was cuddling a rabbit and watching wrestling and just looking so happy. He said he told his dad about the engagement, and his dad was really happy. He wants to spend some time with us. We're stopping in to visit him on our way to Opposite Coast, so that will happen in January. Rider suggested maybe we make our public announcement on my birthday. I suddenly suspect that he has been buying time because he wants to give me a ring in return, and that it will probably be happening while we celebrate my birthday in the cute historic village we are visiting. I guess I'll be finding out soon!

I was supposed to take my car in to get looked at this morning but I somehow forgot that this was the day, so I have to do it tomorrow instead. I paid a bunch of money a few weeks ago to get the AC and a bunch of other stuff fixed, but the AC has stopped blowing cold already. Hopefully, it will not be too expensive to fix again. I am not sure if they'll be able to fix it within the space of a single day, so I have made a rental car reservation for the road trip that I can cancel at any time. If they can't fix it fast, I'll bring my car back home and go through with the rental. If they can fix it, I'll just get to save the rental money. Still, it's lame that I forgot. Brain holes, ugh.

I had a good appointment with my therapist yesterday. I have no idea HOW it works, but it seems to be working. Since I've started going in there, I've been able to identify my emotions a lot more easily, figure out WHY I am having them, and address them before I get too spun out. I care way less about everything, but in a good way. The thing is, he hasn't even really told me very much at all. When I asked him at the end of yesterday's appointment what he thought about the things I'd been telling him, he told me that he thinks I need to trust myself more and care less about what other people think. Also that he thinks my problem with procrastination has to do with putting myself under stress and pressure to distract myself from dealing with emotional things and self care. I guess I need to work on that. Speaking of, I should get back to work, haha.
 
I kind of feel like I am back in NRE with Rider today. I was looking at pictures of him that I took last night and just feeling soooo happy. Seeing the joy on his face, seeing my ring on his hand...I was squeeing and melting.

When he came home, he had neon-colored daisies and a bottle of wine for me, and he immediately set about making me a tiramisu (my favorite dessert) for my party tomorrow. When the recipe called for him to whip cream, he didn't know how to do it, and I told him I usually use a mixer. In a hilarious flash of brilliance, he attached the beater from his now-defunct electric mixer to his drill, and it did the job!

Once I'm finished with my night's work, I think we're going to do a mud mask together later, like girlfriends, because we both want better pores. Actually, he showed his mom pictures from the proposal evening, in which he was dressed up like a girl. He said he didn't think she'd find them odd because she knew that he used to dress up like a girl to go out clubbing sometimes. But she asked him why he was dressed that way, and he explained that I'd decided to do a gender-role reversal that day. She was very of the "whatever makes you happy, dear" mindset. She's a very sweet lady.

Right now, he is laying down instrumental tracks for our eventual album while I get some work done. Hearing him improvise bass lines is pretty foxy. I am eager to jump into bed with him at the end of the night.

Seriously, he is the perfect guy for me. I love him 100%, through and through. Sometimes I think back on the handful of comments I've gotten—snarky remarks from friends of friends that have been relayed to me that comment on some perceived disparity in conventional attractiveness between the two of us, expressing surprise that we'd end up together—and those people can just go fuck themselves. I think he's amazing and beautiful and sweet and clever and talented and sexy as hell. His inner light shines with benevolence and purity of spirit in a way that I think is so very rare. He's my man and sometimes my woman and always my best friend. I feel like the luckiest girl in the whole world to accompany him on this journey through life. <3
 
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So excited: tonight is my local birthday party, this weekend we wrap up the move and get all of the rest of my stuff over here, and then starting Monday is our weeklong road trip! I am very much looking forward to our romantic bed-and-breakfast time and to hanging out with Rider's mom.

My car is OK. The mechanic just said the AC had run out of freon. He recharged it for free and said he can check it for a leak when we are back from our trip. So I get to save money by not having to rent that car.

I've had a lot of fun IM conversations in the past 24 hours. Mostly with Oona and Kelly. I have come to the realization that Kelly really is becoming one of my closest friends. One might think it is weird, then, that I still have some minor jealousy issues and trepidation there, but I know it's all wrapped up in Rider's actions over time that have been related to her (and how those actions triggered my own issues and insecurities), and nothing to do with her actual self, so it's really not all that weird.

It just goes to show how important the behavior of the hinge is—two metamours can be so compatible that they can even become very good friends, but if the hinge has behaved thoughtlessly, it can muck things up good. I'm glad that recently he seems to be past exhibiting thoughtless, short-sighted behavior, and we are all well on our way to having everything healed and smoothed over. I am looking forward to hanging out with Kelly next weekend.

I actually sent her a message telling her how glad I am that we have become good friends and apologizing for any times that any "grr" that I was feeling toward or because of Rider might have spilled over onto her or been so visible that it was uncomfortable for her. She was very gracious, saying, "It is ok. I recently learned that people have feelings, and that they are not fair, and that I do it too. (I thought I was immune and angry and cool but no)."

Which, I suppose that if she is really only recently realizing that other people have feelings, that goes a long way toward explaining the few little weirdnesses that I have had with her that WERE related to her own words and actions.

I think it is a bit unfortunate that now that we seem to have all ironed everything out, it is almost time to leave. I guess it was all good practice for the next time.
 
That moment when I realize that I finished my workday without checking Beckett's Instagram even once. :D
 
Everything is amazing.

Rider is beautiful and perfect and makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Allie is sweet and sexy and the threesome we had after my party on Friday was made of magic. Half the fun I have is just watching them. Aurora came with Rider and me to a football party on Saturday and when I gave her a ride home, she kissed me in the car. Beckett texted me a happy birthday message, and mostly I have been way more mellow and not high strung when thinking about him.

I got all the things done and am now officially fully moved in with Rider. In the morning we leave for our road trip and I cannot wait.

Kelly had her first official date with Man tonight and messaged me really late (for her) saying how hot it was and how Rider and I will probably get to meet him next weekend.

I am wicked beat and am going to soon join Rider in sweet, sweet sleep. My life is so awesome.
 
I’m currently in the passenger seat of the rental car that we ended up deciding to get anyway even though my AC was fixed. The cigarette lighter in my car doesn’t work and I also don’t have any back speakers, so ultimately we decided that being able to charge devices and rock out were important aspects of a road trip.

Rider offered to drive most of this leg of the trip because I ended up getting only about three hours of sleep last night. I took a little nap and figured updating here would be a great use of my time. I wanted to add in more detail on the stuff I mentioned in my last little post.

So my party was pretty good but pretty weird. A lot of people canceled or flaked. There has been a lot of illness going around here—colds and stomach bugs, etc. Plus, Ada ended up getting in a terrible fight with her boyfriend and staying home (though she did give me a Groupon for an hour massage!). I’d purposely tried to invite a selection of people to where everyone knew at least a couple of other people, but the remaining people who ended up showing were a pretty hodgepodge group. Everyone still seemed to have a good time though. We had a lot of fun playing Cards Against Humanity.

Aurora brought cupcakes, which was very sweet. She’s an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type, so she didn’t stick around to party long, but I got to spend time with her the next day, so that was cool.

Allie ended up coming home with us, and we had one of the hottest threesomes I’ve ever had. Each dyad among the three of us has amazing chemistry together, and it just really works when we are all together. Especially the better we get to know each other, the more smoothly things go. I wish she and I weren’t always so busy that we barely get to see each other.

Pablo was among the people who stayed home sick. He had to miss both my party and the wrestling pay-per-view that Rider had invited him to on Sunday. Rider was pretty bummed that they didn’t get to hang out before we left for a week. He told me they have been texting a lot about how they miss each other though. Too cute. Pablo gave Rider this little bead bracelet a while back, and Rider never takes it off. (Well. He takes it off when I tie him up, but that’s the only time.)

Saturday, we moved stuff all day and then went to a football party in the evening. Aurora is a huge fan of the same football team that Rider likes, so we have been inviting her to football things. This was the first time she accepted. Everyone had a lot of fun. When the game ended, she was tired, so I drove her home while Rider stayed behind with the rest of the friends. She totally kissed me a bunch of times in the car outside of her house. I still don’t know exactly where I want that to go—on the one hand, it’s very obvious sometimes how young she is, including when I am dropping her off where she lives, which is still with her mom. On the other hand, she is so fun and sweet and very present and sharp. It’s impressive how socially aware she is. I am just playing it by ear, I guess.

I went back to the party and had a really good time hanging with Rider’s friends. The woman who was hosting is a really cool chick who recently became a therapist, and we were having a conversation about how I recently started therapy and am really liking it. She paid me some very high compliments, saying it has been a long time since she met a chick who was so real and positive and obviously had her shit together. It made me feel really good because I really like her and respect her opinion. Rider and I ended up staying really late and so just crashing on her couch.

Yesterday, I had more moving to do. Rider was in really rough shape, hangover-wise, so I did most everything myself. I didn’t mind, though. It was kind of therapeutic to silently engage in physical labor alone. He did help me with the heavy stuff. And there was an awesome rainbow outside. It’s been kind of a theme that there has been a rainbow on several momentous occasions: the first time I hung out with Rider one on one, the proposal trip, and now the day I finished moving in with him. It’s fitting because we are both pretty queer and colorful people. :)

After moving stuff, I dropped my cat off with Arturo and then still had work to get done for my job before I could leave for my trip. I am going to try my hardest not to work much, if at all, while we’re gone. This is the first time I’ve taken a full week off in over two years. I think I deserve a break, haha.

I’ll probably have some time to update later in the week from Rider’s mom’s place. Until then…

Update: Holy shit, guys. You should see this B&B Rider picked out. It’s in the heart of the historic district and has a claw foot tub, free wine (red, white, pink, AND port!), pillow chocolates…color me impressed.
 
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Long story very short and to be expounded upon later:

Yes, Rider got me a ring—a silver infinity ring with diamond chips. It's very delicate and pretty. (I put a pic up in my album.) We had a lot of fun. Now we are visiting his mom. I'll see if I can sneak a detailed update in later. We're heading to Football Town tomorrow morning.
 
Ooh, pretty!
 
that's a gorgeous infinity ring :)
 
Aw, pretty! :)
 
Thanks everyone. I am very happy. We both are.

Wow, has it been a while since I updated. I almost don't even have the energy to do it now because I have been so busy, and I am so tired. I am currently on a business trip in the Midwest in a town I've never been to before. Everything has been more difficult than it should be here. I got four hours of sleep last night and worked/traveled for about twelve hours. In fewer than eight I have to get up and do it again. But I really didn't want to go TOO too long without saying anything at all.

So the road trip was great. Everything about the historic town we visited was fantastic. The B&B was great and the museums and booze-making tours were fantastic. Rider and I had AMAZING hotel sex. We walked around in old graveyards and he proposed (back) to me (on a knee and everything, lol!) in a very romantic historic location. We just had the best time, and I will remember it forever.

Hanging out with his mom in the next town on the list was cool too. She is SUCH a sweet lady. I got to look at a ton of his baby pictures and I just squeed myself silly. He was so dorkily cute as a child, I almost couldn't handle it. After she went to bed the second night, we headed out on the town and hung out in one of the coolest bars I've ever seen. I am DEFINITELY going back there again someday.

Football Town was also great—though it was certainly too boozy. The first night we went to a cover band show. There was one brief moment of tension when I was feeling a bit jealous about Rider and Kelly things, and Rider could tell something was wrong and (I think foolishly) asked me in a closed van with three other people what was wrong, rather than waiting until we were at our destination. His lack of sensitivity there legit pissed me off and made things ten times worse. But we cleared it up really fast once we got to where we were going, and the rest of the night was great.

The second day, Saturday, was my actual birthday, and we drank and watched football, and went out for sushi, and I was a total kissing slut, kissing not just Rider and Sam, but also our mostly platonic friend Jerry. He certainly enjoyed it—I don't think he gets kissed much—and I did, too. He's not someone I would normally find attractive but he has such a sweet personality and these melty brown eyes...it worked that night. Rider and I announced our engagement "Facebook Official" and we got a TON of attention, including "it's about time" and "of course you did." Apparently, everyone we know sees that we are perfect together.

Kelly gave me a blanket with cats on it and some fancy makeup for my birthday. She had Man along for both Friday and Saturday nights, and he seemed pretty cool. I texted with Beckett a surprising amount too. He actually asked me if I was going to continue to have an open relationship now that we're engaged, which got the wheels turning in my head that he might still be interested...? Stop, wheels. LOL

Sunday, I was so hung over that I was basically dead. I had really torn it up Saturday because a) birthday, b) vacation, and c) my resolution to go boozeless from that point on until at least arriving on Opposite Coast. I am certain it was the worst hangover of my life. I had to leave the table at our diner breakfast because the food was taking too long and it was making me sick, and I puked in the woods behind the restaurant. So gross! And a good impetus to keep to my non-drinking ways until January. I was useless for two days. Despite my hangover, Rider, Sam, Kelly, Evan, and I went on a nature hike to see some wildlife that day. I somehow managed to live through it and saw some cool animals. The drive back home was pretty brutal on me, and I had to puke again in a fast food restaurant halfway home and make Rider do the rest of the driving even though he'd done more than his share that trip. I felt pretty ashamed.

Monday I just worked and then went back to my old apartment to help Anna with cleaning and weeding and such, so I could do the key return yesterday. Yesterday was my only chance, since I left on a business trip this morning.

My libido has totally been back in full swing lately. Rider and I have been having incredible sex. I have been back to getting a thrill out of just looking at him, with desire suddenly welling up even when we are, like, walking down the aisle at Home Depot buying lightbulbs, haha. I love the chemistry we have together, and I feel really lucky.

I also got my first royalty statement from the books I wrote last year! It was only in the triple digits, but still! It makes me feel more officially like a published author. :)

So it's been a pretty good couple of weeks for me, minus that one wicked hangover (which I did to my damned self): I moved in with Rider, I had a birthday, I received an engagement ring, I went public with my engagement, I got paid for something creative, I got a thoughtful birthday gift from a metamour, and I kissed a whole bunch of people.

Now I'm stuck in this Midwestern city on business until Saturday afternoon. My layover in Saturday is actually in the town where Beckett has been on business for almost a month now, but it's only an hour of layover, so not even enough time to grab brunch. I told him I'd wave to him from the air as the plane landed. :p

Hopefully on Saturday I am not too tired to go to the football party redux at the same cool friend's house that it was at a few weeks ago. Rider invited Aurora along again. I warned everyone that I may need downtime after only having been home two days in the prior two weeks. With another trip on the horizon next week...
 
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Congratulations on everything!
 
This post isn't poly-related, but this is the only journal I keep right now, and I wanted to preserve the thoughts. It might be kind of long.

So I've been having a lot of weird epiphanies lately. The past few months, they have been coming at me like BAM-BAM-BAM. I try to always be committed to self-improvement, but I know I don't always succeed. I learn things, and then I backslide. I try really hard for a while, and then I get lazy.

I will admit tendencies to vanity, perfectionism, intellectual elitism, and a sliver of dishonesty sometimes to appear to keep up to perfection when I find I've fallen short. Of course that last part leads to a cycle of guilt, paralysis, more falling short, and more having to hide it. I've been trying to break that for the past three years, and I am slowly making progress.

I have wanted the world to view me to be as beautiful and as flawless as I could muster up the appearances for, but inside I have known that I am indeed flawed. I can be judgmental and petty; it is hard sometmes for me to see things in any way other than "relation to self" and wish to come out on top of that relative assessment. I miss social cues to the point where my best friend has long suspected me to be somewhere on the mild end of the autism spectrum. I have been working on these things too, and making progress.

Since 2012, I have realized that I walk a line with an unhealthy relationship with alcohol where when I indulge too much it leads me to poor judgment and bad character. My biggest problem there, I think, is that when I get a few drinks in—the amount that is "party fun" for most people—I cease to be able to tell that I am drunk anymore, so I will keep drinking. I have also been working on that, in fits and starts, but I don't ever think I saw through to the inside of it until waking up from a dream a couple hours ago.

My realization is that when I become that intoxicated, it can, and often does, make me oblivious or apathetic to the effects my actions and words are having on other people. I'm not often a jerk or anything like that—at least, no one has complained, and I trust my friends—but that lack of control, especially when I have worked so hard to cultivate the bit of social finesse that I do have, bothers me. It bothers me to think that there is a substance that can make me more self-centered and selfish. It kind of means that every time I choose to drink, I am choosing to be more selfish; not self-empowered, like some choices with "self" at the center can be, but purposefully more oblivious. And I am not sure how I can keep making that choice and have it be ethical. Can I? I am not sure. I just thought about it for the first time today, and anything that large requires a great deal of mental processing, I think.

I guess there are several factors that went into that clicking into place: going on my drinking sabbatical for two and a half weeks after meeting Beckett (who doesn't drinK) and realizing it had been a while since I'd done that; getting soooo wicked drunk in Football Town (even though I offended no one there except my own body); and then the dream I just had. So, we'll see where that all goes. I was already committed to not drinking until getting to Opposite Coast. Maybe I won't pick it back up again there either. Rider has been incredulous. When I've expressed concerns on the topic before, he's said things like he can help me to decide when I've had enough and cut me off, etc. But a) his drinking is sometimes worrisome too, so... and b) it seems like something I *should* be able to do for myself. I warned him a long time ago that I may someday have to give it up because of my family history, but I am not sure how he will react if I decide that now is the time.

The other epiphany is harder to explain, more philosophical, and more convoluted. And it's maybe not fully solidified yet—I feel its entirety coming, but like I have only glimpsed the edges, so I may look back on this and see that I am not totally on point yet. But it still seemed important to try to capture.

(continued...)
 
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(...continued from previous)

So the judgment thing.

I think somehow it has been too easy for me to judge/rate people and put them in these little boxes that I then let dictate their relationship to me, instead of taking the time to find out who they really are. Part of the reason this may have happened is that social stuff can be really exhausting for me, and it may have been some kind of defense mechanism to hold people at arm's length and only let the "best" ones in—and judging narrows the pool in advance.

But part of it, too, was the desire to establish some sort of interior pecking order. I've always scored in the high upper reaches of IQ tests, so it made me feel good to know that I was smarter than a lot of people. I've always gotten a lot of attention for my looks, so it made me feel good to know that I was prettier than a lot of people. These things are valued in society, and possessing more intelligence and more beauty let me value myself...but through the eyes of society, not through my own inner choices and self-knowledge. I would take IQ tests to internally gloat over the results. I would derive great satisfaction from turning heads as I walked into a party.

Oona was always in on it with me. We've had a lot of gossipy phone calls talking about who is ugly and who is stupid, etc. I kind of noticed it a while back, thought it sounded mean, and stopped participating as much, but I was still doing it inside of my head. The worst part was how it made me struggle with Rider's choices of partners. I thought of him as sort of a "Shallow Hal" who could only see beauty in his own way, and I felt like when suddenly there is no pecking order, some of my own value was lost. It made me angry sometimes.

As I grew older, I added another point of judgment: suddenly I could see a chasm between me and people younger than me in terms of life experience. Around the age of 28, I began to kind of blanket discount the perspectives of people much younger than myself and try very hard to value the wisdom of people older than myself (though I could never truly appreciate it because I didn't yet have the perspective myself).

But all of these things are things that people cannot even help, or at least not to a large extent. People are born looking the way that they do, and, yes, some degree of diet and exercise and fashion and makeup can make them more conventionally (or unconventionally in the sense of alt fashion) attractive, but they have a certain type of clay to work with. People's IQs remain mostly steady in their lives, especially after childhood, though they may choose to educate themselves and collect life experiences to gain wisdom. People's ages just keep marching on, and they can't fast-forward if they are young or rewind if they are old.

And each of these people, due to the intrinsic value of their humanity, is worth getting to know them at least to the degree that if I choose to reject them, I choose to do it based on the choices that they make (very conservative politics would do it, for example, as would animal cruelty) rather than the lot that was cast when they were born.

It's like...I was born dirt poor. Homeless-shelter-food-stamps-ghetto-dwelling poor. Some people were born rich. I know that some of those rich people look down upon me for being poor, and I find that despicable. Even though I am making myself slightly less poor through education and hard work, I will never be as rich as the people who were born into it and also do the same things I did. So why should I do the same for people who were born less intelligent, less conventionally attractive, or later in the universal timeline? I would never do it based on someone's gender, skin color, or sexual orientation. I think it makes people jerks if they do. It's like there is a spectrum of more to less socially acceptable ways to be a jerk, and I've managed to always skew on the acceptable side.

Several things went into this one, too. There was hanging out with Aurora and Kelly, who are both smart, witty women much younger than myself. There was feeling such passion while in bed with Allie, even though she doesn't fit the body type that is socially revered. There were myriad interactions I've had recently with people that I'd already judged to be less smart than I am who came up with some brilliant insight I'd never have thought of. There was kissing Jerry the other night and liking it—falling into his eyes. And there was this video, which I somehow managed to stumble into less than an hour after waking up from the drinking dream. I seriously thought I was only going to watch a few moments of it after reading the intro on a clickbait site and wondering what she looked like, but it sneakily doesn't show you right at first, and then I was hooked and watched the whole thing.

It suddenly made all of the other stuff shift—puzzle pieces that fell into place and I felt...ashamed. But under that, afraid.

Because if people should be judged only on the choices they have made, I have been making some poor ones, and I have a lot of work to do to learn how to make better ones. And if I cannot value myself on society's "pecking order chart" built on luxuries I was born with but instead on my own integrity and my willingness to genuinely connect with other humans, then I need to make some larger efforts and atonements somehow to increase my self worth. And if I can't place people in boxes to keep them away, I don't know how I will even handle the flood of humanity without caving in.

I at least suddenly understand that I need to be kinder to myself if I am going to learn how to be kinder to others. I need to drink less (or maybe not at all), sleep more, exercise more and eat well (but for making me stronger, not making me more visually acceptable in comparison with anyone else), and I need to really cut down on that procrastination habit (hello, this blog post, but it seemed important) to make all the preceding possible. Maybe that is how I will atone. Each time I want to get lost in the abyss of "likes" and internet adulation, I will remind myself that there is Big Work to be done before I am even at a solid point. Hello, 34. You are going to be interesting, I think.
 
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Oh. Suddenly I really understand "boundaries" too. That's how to handle the flood of humanity without caving in. And here I was mostly only using it as a relationship strategy to find ways to not panic when things got too uncomfortable in poly situations.

Hot damn, I have a lot of work to do. At least I think I see where to begin now.

Did therapy do all of this?
 
I read Rider these posts over Skype, and when I finished, I gave him a heartfelt apology for sometimes being a jerk, during which I cried. It felt good. I know that all positive change is baby steps, and I feel less daunted. I have been lying in bed thinking of so many ways that I am more responsible for myself and less...invested...in anything to do with anyone else. Which is not the same as not caring about them—it's ineffable. I feel lighter.
 
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