Tiana's Blog - Life's Everchanging Path

December and Ringing in the New Year (1)

So first of all happy new year to all. Wasn’t quite what I’d expected, in fact the 1st itself was rather miserable, but I’ll get to that later. It’s been a very busy month for me, so busy I’ve been meaning to post for a while now but just haven’t found the time.

Where to start. Well, after having talked with my mom and broken down about several things to her she ended up using her HBC points to get me an HBC gift card for $100 so I could buy gifts for my immediate family. I decided to use up my points as well and got a $10 gift card from it, also found a gift card with $3ish on it in my wallet. So after buying all my gifts I only had to spend about 30c out of my pocket which was definitely manageable. So I got gifts for family at least. My mother managed to drag me to the kitchen and do some baking with her to be able to give out baked goods to friends as gifts, so we made giant chocolate chip cookies and caramel popcorn. So at least my gift dilemma got taken care of, and I appreciate my Mom for doing that for me.

Work kept me insanely busy but I still found time to spend with John. Now before I go on, those of you who have met me at the women’s group may remember I mentioned a woman before whom I am very close to and consider my sister. She is not the person I’m referring to in this post. To keep it straight I’ll call her Beth. So to continue, a few days before Christmas John and I were talking. He’d been telling me for some time now about a girl that was important to him, I’ll call her Dara. He’s known Dara since long before he met me and has talked about her several times before, and I knew they’d had a bit of textual play every now and again. Well Dara had come home from college for the holidays and hadn’t been in touch with John for a while. John and I were talking and he mentioned he hasn’t realized how much he’d missed her till she suddenly was around again. He told me the two of them had had some fun via texts and mentioned that if the opportunity came up in the future to meet her in person he’d like to take it and that they probably would have fun *wink, wink, nudge nudge, ya know what I mean?*

Anyways, while he’s telling me all this I could hear the nervousness in his voice and he told me he was pacing. I was sitting on my bed listening at the time and smiling. I found it quite cute. I found I felt a teeny bit of jealously that I couldn’t consciously rationalize and it quickly passed, and I was okay again. Not the first time I’ve felt that, when he’s done hypnosis with others before I felt it, but it never lasted, and in the end I could never rationalize why I felt that way, because consciously it doesn’t make sense why I should, and it always passed. So I asked him why he was so nervous in telling me about this and he said he didn’t know, that it was one of those things he was feeling but couldn’t rationalize. We talked about it and the whole while I was sitting on my bed smiling. I found it very amusing and reassuring at the same time. He mentioned that even though he identifies as poly he’d never been in a poly relationship before, well neither have I, so it’s a first for us both, so perhaps it was because of past relationships expected to be monogamous that even though he knows I am poly, it was making him nervous. I reassured him that I was totally okay with the idea and that I knew he cared about her alot by the way he talked about her in the past. None of it bothered me and I told him I was smiling.
While he doesn’t see a traditional relationship with Dara working in the long run but he cares about her alot and described wanting to still have some form of relationship with her which I provided the label of her being a secondary. In the end he didn’t hold onto the nervousness and it was a productive conversation and we were both happy about the outcome. Later he even joked that if he mentioned it to other guys “Yea I’m seeing this other girl and my girlfriend is okay with it” that the other guys would respond “I hate you”, “Can I have your life?” and we both just laughed it was very funny. It also made me smile though cuz that was the first time he’d ever called me his girlfriend. So that was an interesting poly experience for us both in our first poly relationship.

Alternatively I’ve an airline credit to use up by May from cancelling my flight to the US for the wedding I cancelled and I’ve been tossing the idea around of flying back to Alberta to visit friends I haven’t seen for 3 years. There is someone there that I care for a great deal, for reference this would Edge, I mentioned him in my first blog entry. I don’t see Edge and I being anything more than secondaires to one another but I still care for him alot and wouldn’t change that ever. I’ve been in touch with Edge over the years via im’s and talk to him a couple times a week. If I went to visit there is a possibility he and I could end up having some bedroom fun as well. I have mentioned this to John as well and he was amused as well, but he also knows that Edge is someone I care for highly as well, so it has been an interesting month in terms of Poly situations and discussions that have arisen.
 
December and Ringing in the New Year (2)

These conversations and situations have been like a breath of fresh air to me. It has felt freeing and reassuring. I say reassuring in so much as it has felt right, and I’ve felt no regret or negative emotions at all, in that poly is who I am, not that I’ve doubted it over the last several months, but it has made me feel more comfortable with who I am in being polyamorous., and i am very happy for that.

Getting back to how I rang in the new year. Well it started off great, I was on skype with john, though he rang in the new year 3 hours prior to me, he stayed up to ring it in with me on my end. We chatted and were having fun with some little cards I got for Christmas “Unbelievable Crazy Urban Myths” and “Brain Boosting iq puzzles and quizzes” so those stimulated some interesting conversations. It was fun and shortly after 1am my time we went to bed.

Well the next morning (or later that morning, however you view it, it was the 1st), I was awaked at 9:30 by my dad knocking on the door telling me to pick up the phone. It was Bob. I hadn’t spoken to Bob in voice since he ended our relationship. He had called to ask for the engagement ring back. He apparently can get money back from the jeweller he got it from which he needs to pay for school as he plans to go back at the end of summer. I felt a part of me inside die. Even though in my rational mind I know the chances of Bob and I reconciling are practically nonexistent, still a tiny part of me had held on, and it hurt. We talked for a bit, he asked how I was and I gave him the straight up answer, didn’t touch on my feelings at all, and I asked the same of him then asked a question I shouldn’t have, and his response stung, I don’t know if he meant it to but it did. The end result, he was trying to move on with his life (though that wasn’t the part that upset me). I asked how much to insure it for and was stretching as I asked and he asked that I not cry. I told him i wasn’t but was trying hard not to. Bob asked why, and I started to cry, said it was cuz I still had feelings for him and hadn’t stopped loving him. He said he knew what that was like. In the end we hung up and I will be sending the ring back to him.

I was crying and my mom was still asleep, though I knew she wouldn’t understand. I rang John on skype and he comforted me, and helped me calm down. He told me that as remote as the chance was of Bob and I reconciling, it didn’t mean it was impossible and that sending the ring back didn’t mean it couldn’t happen, just that Bob and I would start over. John did say however that he didn’t hold out much hope for a reconciliation but if it did happen he’d adjust. John managed to help calm me down and cheer me up a bit and most of the day John, Beth and another friend of ours ran around together playing our MMO which distracted me for a while before I had to go for dinner and family obligations. I was rather miserable the whole evening while I was with my family, both dealing with a headache and my emotions from that morning. As a result I was rather quiet and reserved. No one seemed to really notice though I was wearing my ice mask and neck ice pack to help with the headache, so my headache acted as a mask for my emotions. I went to bed that night glad the day was over.

Today I went to the women’s group and had a great time there. I always feel safe and welcomed there, and feel I am amongst friends. So though yesterday was shitty today has been good and I have high hopes and a positive outlook for the rest of this new year.
 
It really bothers me when people don't understand that it is unhealthy to try to jump right into a friendship after their emotional/intimate relationship has ended. The best way to get over someone is to let them go completely, go through your healing process, and then come back to the middle. Many people don't allow others to do that though. View it as a necessary evil but it's almost like a cleansing. You can't start taking your elixirs and herbs yet continue to binge on grease, sugar, and alcohol and expect to be renewed at the end of that process. I hope your holidays ended up being not so blue. Your journey has just taken a slight detour but you will be back on your path in no time. *hugs*
 
January and February (1)

Okay so it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything well I’m not really the best blogger in the world never was a person who keeps journals but I’m trying. January was also a very busy month for me and February, well it’s kind of flown by as well.

January between the few 0-2 shifts a week at work, my back pain, working on belated xmas gifts now that I had the time, finally unpacking my things from the summer that I’d packed up because I was going to be moving to the US on account of getting married (which of course did not happen) now that I had a new bookshelf to put things on, job hunting and spending time with John it’s been super busy.

January was my creative month, I made a pair for slippers I sent to Beth, a scarf I sent to another friend, and a dragon sculpture out of fimo because I’d been wanting to for a while. I’m presently working on making myself a swim bag. Despite having been super busy however I was feeling rather lonely. I missed John alot, even though we talked from night to night it’s not the same as actually being with him in person. This dragged me down and in combination with several other things I was rather depressed.

The job hunt is not going well, for several factors, a) my need for regularity and consistency in my schedule b) I’m looking for something other than entry level for the first time and the required qualifications scare me c) something that will pay me enough to survive off on my own and d) a job that can be flexible with my back issues. I don’t work well under pressure or with tight deadlines, I can’t use a mac, my math skills are not strong, I don’t know how to use accounting software and haven’t used excel in years so not sure where I stand for proficiency. When I see those things, they scare me away from wanting to apply. So all those things complicate finding a suitable job. One of the things that didn’t make that list while it is something I want but I doubt its likely is finding something I can be happy doing. I have an appointment with a place here that helps people find jobs on the 1st. It’s not a placement agency but they help you with your resume and offer workshops and such. I am hoping they’ll be able to help me address some of these issues so I can find something suitable.

I mentioned back issues; well I’ve had them since September. I just woke up with them one morning without any rhyme or reason without having done anything out of the ordinary to cause it. Since then it’s only gotten worse. Presently I can’t work much more than a 5 hour shift on my feet tops, and have issues sitting up in a chair for more than 2 hours at a time. If I push it too much I have to lie down. I’m seeing a chiropractor but it doesn’t seem to help my back much and my doctor is useless and looks at me like I’m a hypochondriac every time I go in to see her with a problem. That it’s not getting any better and seems to be getting worse has been dragging me down as well.

On top of all that we have Bob who asked on the first day of the New Year for the engagement ring back. I haven’t sent it back yet, though he did ask again last week. That really upset me, but I already commented about that in my last blog entry. Right now I am on the fence as to whether to send it back to him or not. I’ve talked to a few people about it and they have different angles on what to do. My mother thinks I should send it back to him and hat he’s entitled to it since I was the one who cancelled the wedding and called it off though he was ultimately the one to end the relationship because he couldn’t accept me as poly. Other say because he gifted it to me it is mine and my decision whether to give it back or sell it myself, lord knows I need the money right now. So I’m indecisive. On the one hand I did tell him I’d send it back, but on the other I am reluctant to part with it, not even sure if I could sell it yet to be honest. I know it’s best to put the past behind you and I have been doing so, a little bit at a time but it doesn’t make some things any easier. I don’t hurt as much as often over Bob anymore, though there is the occasional song I still can’t listen to and the odd, becoming rarer, time that I still think of him and what we had together, though it doesn’t last long as its gotten alot easier to let go of now and not let it eat at me. So, yay for progress, and still don’t know what to do about the ring.
 
January and February (2)

Those two things bogging me down I ran into my first major poly obstacle about a week ago now with John. Beth had introduced a friend of her from our MMO we all play, I’ll call her Jenny, and asked John to do Jenny a favour by playing a part in a roleplay for the game, nothing erotic, and it didn’t bother me, why should it? After the roleplay though John and Jenny started to talk alot and he was giving alot of time to her, even doing hypnosis with her and I started to get uncomfortable. When he was doing stuff with her while we were talking and it was our usual time together for the evening, I started to get upset, but didn’t want to say anything. He seemed so happy with doing hypnosis with Jenny and other things and I wanted to be happy for him but I just wasn’t. I began to wonder if something was wrong with me, and if I was struggling with being poly but still having some mono mindsets because of how I was raised. It was upsetting me and I’d spent the better part of the day previous crying and upset. I had to go out of the house and go swimming to distract myself for a while but it didn’t last. The next day I spoke to Edge about it and another friend, both of whom know I’m poly and know about John. Both encouraged me to talk to John about how I felt. I was reluctant to until I had no other choice. John asked me one night if Jenny could join us in skype while he helped her with a quest in the MMO. When I didn’t answer right away hesitated when I did reply to answer affirmatively he knew something was up.

I had written a big long blog post about it for this blog which I decided against posting, it was mainly to help me get it out of my system and to give to John when it eventually did come up so he could see how it was bothering me as I often don’t communicate well when confronting problems with people. I get upset and can’t think straight so writing it lets me get out all that needs to be said and then what I wrote can be discussed. So that is what happened. I sent it to him to read and he read it and we talked. In the end things did get resolved part of my issue was that alot of the things he was now doing with Jenny he used to do with me and hadn’t done with me for a while and was doing it during the time we usually got to ourselves. So I felt left out and a bit neglected. Also with Beth and Dara, they’d always been there, they were there before I came along so it was pre-established, but Jenny was new, and I felt a bit threatened.

John apologized to me and said he hadn’t realized I’d felt that way, that he had taken for granted that with the shit going on in Beth’s life and in Jenny’s that I was okay, because I didn’t show any outward signs of being otherwise, and if I had he had not picked up on them and apologized for that. He assured me that Jenny was not someone he was interested in having that kind of relationship with and that she would only be a friend and that jenny had he own boundaries where that kind of thing was concerned anyways. He’d gotten excited hypnotizing someone new as every experience is different and he enjoys learning new things from the various people he’s hypnotised. We talked for a good long while about it and how to balance things out and other things, and in the end I really ended up enjoying the night despite how it had started as he and I haven’t talked like that for a while as often we have a hard time coming up with topics of conversation. At the end of the night he surprised me and said my name which always catches me by surprise because he rarely uses my full first name (usually uses a clip of it) except on special occasions or if he needs my attention. It did as it was meant, caught me by surprise and acted as an interrupt and he dropped me into trance. He didn’t leave me there long or really do anything with me there, he just let me feel what it was like again and to enjoy just quietly being there. When he brought me back up I was very happy he had done it and thanked him for letting me feel it again.

Since that night and the discussion John has cut back on the time and attention he gives Susan and has been paying more attention to me and how I was doing. We realized being poly has a learning curve and for us both being in our first poly relationship we’re both feeling it and going to have to take it as it comes and communicate better. That’s going to be a challenge for me, but I can try.
 
January and February (3)

And I’m not done yet! This is going to be several posts long I think by the time I’m done. This last week has been very rough as well. While I’ve not been given any shifts this week at work, it seems to have worked out being good timing. On Tuesday my grandmother fell in the parking lot of the mall across the street from her apartment building. She couldn’t get up and was lucky a lady driving stopped and saw her or she would’ve been run over. The lady stopped and called an ambulance and a couple people helped her up. She was in the emergency room for several hours getting x-rays, catscans and pre-op work done. In the end they said she needed surgery and would be called Wednesday to be told what time to come in for it on Thursday. They put her in a sling, gave her some pain meds and sent her home.

She can’t do much on her own so can’t be left alone. My mother took two days off work to stay with her and help her. They got a call Wednesday night saying my grandmother’s surgery was at 8:40 am the next morning. Well come the next morning hey called her to cancel it. On account of the snow here there was no room in the OR for her. This aggravated me and my family as she was in alot of pain, and the pain meds she was given she wouldn’t take cuz they made her feel dizzy and sick, so she was taking common Tylenol. We waited to hear from them again on Thursday night about a surgery for Friday, and they didn’t call. By about 8:30 pm my mother called the hospital and they said that she would not get surgery Friday. We were all of us very pissed off. My mother had to go back to work Friday so I went over at 6am to take care of her for the day. At around 9am the hospital called and told her not to eat or drink anything and call them back at 4pm because they might be able to fit her in that evening. So she waited and got hungry and thirsty and was in pain because she couldn’t take any meds. My mother arrived after work and let me go home to get some rest. Well at around 4 they called and they told her 9am Saturday. We were, again all annoyed because once again she’d fasted pointlessly. The concern now is that they will cancel Saturday’s surgery and if they do we’re taking her to the hospital and putting our feet down and insisting they give her the surgery. By tomorrow, Saturday it will have been 4 days since her fall and they’ve given her bandaid in the form of a sling without really treating her at all. If they are allowed to do this there is a fear the bone will start to heal and have to be re-broken, plus if they keep getting her to fast and then cancelling on her of dehydration and malnourishment. So that’s been a stressor and worry on my shoulders as well this past week.

And yes folks there’s more. I was talking with Edge last night and he had his runes out and asked me if I had any questions I wanted him to ask them for me to be answer. I asked him two questions and he did a casting for each. The first was about my back and when it’d be permanently cured. He told me he could give me a time but could see what might be preventing it from healing. The runes told him that something was disrupting my signals to cause my pain as though it had almost been wished or cast upon me and he suggested that a spiritual or psychic scrub might help, but that that kind of thing would need to be done in person so I’d have to find someone who knew how to do it. The second question I had him ask was where my being poly would take me and this reading turned up a very interesting result.

The runes told him that I didn’t feel whole, that I rely on others for my strength and protection and I get a great energy from it and defence, but that I didn’t feel whole presently, which isn’t entirely inaccurate. He continued to expand the runs to get more information on this subject for me and what turned up was that I’ve a need or desire to fulfill bur haven’t pursued it for some reason. I was avoiding a journey somewhere I wanted to go. I was confused by this and tried to think on what it might be but nothing came to me. Apparently it was something I wanted badly but had been avoiding. He couldn’t cast anymore runes for that particular subject so he reset them and recast them specifically on what that need might be. What turned up was that it was something within reach but that I refused to grasp. It was a someone not just a somewhere that was within my reach but I’d been avoiding grasping, but was also something that would help me to feel whole again if I took it or asked for it. At that point Edge told me his head was swimming and he couldn’t cast any more runes because it had drained him. He speculated though that it was possible it could be someone I wanted for one of my lovers that would accept if I only approached them about it. I told him I knew it wasn’t Bob, and he told me by the energy he read from it he knew so also, because he’d recognize it right away if it were. Bob can’t and won’t accept me as poly. He said he could tell it was a desire for someone I’m already close to, that I want to go to them but I hold myself back. He knows it’s not John or Beth because I would go to them if it were so. And with that he left me to speculate.

The reading upset me, though I can’t remember why now I knew at the time why it had. I think perhaps it might be edge, because I do love him, and I do hold back, because I have worried and doubts about it. It would complicate things even further in my already complicated life and would be another long distance relationship. I also know that he cannot fulfill two of my greatest desires, marriage and children. John does not want children and never considered it though has told me before he’d considered giving them to me. So I am rather confused, and perhaps it was that confusion that upset me. I have shared this reading with John and he has encouraged me to go and visit Edge and pursue it, but I am afraid of hurting edge if it does not work out and do not want to damage the relationship we already have. He has a fragile self esteem already and if things didn’t work out and I rejected him it would be extremely damaging and I don’t want to lose him but don’t want to be trapped either, perhaps that is why I hold back with him.

I think that’s everything, so there’s been ALOT going on in my life lately, yet somehow I survive and keep plugging through it all. I hope life will calm down and find some sense of normalcy soon.
 
Poly-Joy

Not sure if anyone reads these anymore but I started writing them I may as well keep going with it, even if it is sporadic. March, well, it’s been busy again. This year just seems to keep flying by. Guess this time I’ll start with updates on things mentioned in my last entry.

My Grandmother finally got her surgery and is recovering slowly. Things haven’t really changed for us on that front though as we still have to help her though gradually she’s beginning to do stuff on her own.

Things with John and Jenny have settled down significantly and they’re just friends now and I’ve started to form a bit of a friendship with her as well.

I’m still working on getting that energy scrub/smudge done to help me with cleansing me. There was someone at the women’s meet who offered to help though the only contact I have with her is via email and it seems she’s not very responsive that way so we’ll see what happens. I’d still very much like to get it done, anything that holds potential to help me I’ll try.

Bob still is bugging me about the engagement ring. Honestly I’ve not been thinking about it and he’s not going to let up till he gets it back. I honestly don’t want to deal with him anymore so I told him he’d have to pay for it and I’d send it CoD. He said that was fine. I’ve had him blocked on my im clients since last month and haven’t had any contact with him except in my MMO where I can’t do much about it. I honestly didn’t think it possible to “fall OUT of love” with someone, but I have, I don’t love him at all anymore, in fact I’ve grown to dislike him. I don’t want anything to do with him for now, maybe a couple years down the road we can be friends but right now I just want him out of my life. I’m hoping as soon as I send the ring back he’ll leave me the hell alone. I blew up on him this time when he asked about it. Told him I don’t break my promises, and in not so blunt terms he basically accused me of being a liar. I accused back, and he claimed he’d never lied to me, I told him he can’t live by a double standard; that being simply unspoken promises, apparently they don’t count when he makes them but they do when I make them. He wants to talk to me about what’s on his mind and get some closure, and asked not to leave him hanging on too long about it. I honestly don’t care what he has to say and don’t want to hear it. I honestly expect he’d just point and lay blame and try and hurt me more, I don’t think I deserve that and at the time of this writing, I don’t intend to give him that or allow it.

Things are hairy for Beth. He house has been put up for auction to be sold since the bank has foreclosed upon it and will go up in early may (I think, don’t remember the exact date). As if that weren’t enough, the free clinic she had been going to refuses to take her anymore since she’s not “technically” homeless. She has diabetes, heart issues, thyroid issues, neuropathy, depression and a few other issues. She had been seeing a counsellor there and getting the meds required for her survival for free. Now they’re shutting the doors to her and saying “you’re not homeless, go screw yourself and die” nice huh? I worry for her and what will happen to her but as she lives in a different country and on the other end of the continent from me, there isn’t anything I can really do to help except offer a friendly ear and try and be supportive when I talk to her.

My Dad now has something in common with Beth it seems. We found out Friday that he has diabetes. He’s been tested twice now. We don’t know which type yet, but they’ve asked him to eat healthier and exercise and will test him again in 3 months to see if he needs meds. His Uncle was a diabetic too, so it is in the family, though we had thought his was brought on by drinking, and diabetes usually skips a generation, in my Dad’s case, it didn’t. Some days he’s positive about it, and others he’s very negative. So we’ll see how that goes.

My job situation, well I’ve been going to a place called worklink and seeing a case manager to help me with my resume and cover letter and have taken a couple free workshops to help as well. So far I’ve taken the Hidden Job Market workshop and the workshop on interviews. I learned at both that I need to take another workshop for career planning to figure out what my skills are, what my interests are as they can apply to jobs and get an idea what direction I want to go in. That one is coming up in mid-April. It’s been rather helpful so far, though I’ve not had the chance to apply any of it, more on why later. My current job is picking up this month though as I am working a bunch this week, next week and the week after, so more money is good, just hope my back will survive it.

Now, why have I not started applying what I’ve learned in the workshops? Well shifts in my current job picking up but also in the past week I spent a weekend with one of the ladies from the women’s group out in the wilderness to celebrate the spring equinox and had an AMAZING time. Then when I got back I had a week to spend with Edge who came to visit on his holidays.

In the last month edge and I have sort of become partners in an unspoken way. I kinda just started introducing him as such to my friends that do know I am poly. He spoiled me thoroughly though I tried to protest he insisted, and said if I had to give it a reason to just call it back pay for missed birthdays and xmas gifts for many past years where I’d gotten him gifts and he didn’t get me anything. He told me I’d spoiled him but just letting him come to visit. We had some private fun as well and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On the last night he was here we went on a Ghost walk which was super fun cuz he can see sense, and sometimes see the spirits and can see auras as well. He even caught a picture of one on camera during the walk. It was really neat hearing his commentary to me along with the guide’s comments as well. The guide even asked for a copy of the picture! We had a great time and it was really nice to see him again. So I now have two partners in my life.

Speaking of having two partners, I spoke with John about my week after edge had to return home, and he mentioned he’d come to expect that when it was confirmed Edge was coming to visit me, that there would be sex. Even after the fact, he was okay with it! He was happy I’d enjoyed myself. Just hearing that is a poly experience I’ll never forget and once again affirms within me that Poly is who I am! I felt so wonderful and happy knowing that they both knew and know, and they’re both okay with it, and that I can keep them both. It’s truly a great feeling and it feels so RIGHT! It made me think; Polyamoury, where’ve you been all my life? I know I’ve been poly all my life but didn’t know about it till the last year and realize that’s what I am. So I had a moment of pure joy and glee knowing that this is who I am, it IS okay, and that all parties involved love me, will always love me and are okay with me having them both as partners. Just amazing!

It’s been a busy month, tried to keep this shorter, and seems I've managed to keep it to one post! And hey, I’m ending on a positive note this time too!
 
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