I agree with RP, and AL, on so many levels. I have considered myself the third. I have felt like the third, and I certainly know I "look" like the third when we go out in public. At the same time I know that both Sea and Tommy have also taken turns at being the third. Sea becomes the third when Tommy and I are alone together. When we meet for coffee, go for walks, or sit on a park bench and talk for hours. Tommy becomes the third, when Sea and I stay up all night talking. Having those hard conversations. Conversations he wasn't apart of, and only hears secondhand what was said. We have all been the third at one time or another, and we have all felt left out, at one time or another.
Instead of seeing each of as "the" third, we now see each other as "a" third. Tommy can't possibly love the two of us the same way. We don't look like each other, talk like each other, or think like each other. We are individuals. Not mirrors of each other. There are things that Sea possesses in her personality, that I don't have in mine, and visa versa. It is our differences that attracts him. This last year we have been searching for a balance. Some days the scales become tipped one way or another, and we have to go searching for it again. But we never stop looking for it.
Instead of seeing each of as "the" third, we now see each other as "a" third. Tommy can't possibly love the two of us the same way. We don't look like each other, talk like each other, or think like each other. We are individuals. Not mirrors of each other. There are things that Sea possesses in her personality, that I don't have in mine, and visa versa. It is our differences that attracts him. This last year we have been searching for a balance. Some days the scales become tipped one way or another, and we have to go searching for it again. But we never stop looking for it.