Prismatic Reflections of Sun

Looking forward to watching the Pride parade tomorrow with a bunch of my poly friends!

I’ve been spending a lot of time in poly communities on Facebook lately. I think it’s partially to fill the echoing, hollow gap that was previously taken up with my communications with RacingSnail. *sigh* I sent him this poem last night:

Grayscale

My words of love fall on a numb heart.

Without a ripple, they sink into the conversation and are gone.
Slowly, softly, week by week my feelings start to dim in turn,
Going grayscale against the saturated background of my vivid, juicy life.

I beg of you, my distant love, call me home again.
Return to yourself. Return to me.
And return me to myself.
Seduce me back to my truest palette.
For I am so willing, and so lost.
 
A month gone by, and not much has changed, though I’m feeling rather less maudlin about it.

I decided, after a lot of self-reflection, to tell RacingSnail that my offer to have him live with me was dependent on him getting some mental health treatment. He finds that idea really overwhelming, of course. Not sure how that discussion is going to shake out over the next few weeks, but if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s how to make (and stick to) important boundaries. And this is definitely one of those.

Even if this means abandoning my dreams... it’s the right thing to do.

I hope it doesn’t. They’re such lovely dreams.
 
Anticipating Fireworks

Summer sun fades slowly;
humid air presses close, smelling of hot concrete and cut grass,
bug spray and charcoal and candy-sweet burning marshmallows.
In the gathering night, heralded by a hazy twinkling of stars,
shepherded by the beguiling blink of fireflies,
the fireworks are about to begin.
There is something in this rhythm—
the long wait, and then the burst of brightness—
it reminds me of the way we come together.
All that long anticipation,
and then magic sparkles in the dark.

Your light is not the dependable and steady sun.
Your love is not the changeless earth beneath my feet.
My time in your arms is not easy to come by,
not common as the blooming clover.
I do not love it more for its rarity,
nor do I love it less in its scarcity.
I love you, rather, for your intricate and subtle beauty,
the reflection of your inward soul,
the way you spark my heart to shining,
lighting up my courage and desire on the way.

Here in the warm darkness I keep company
with the nearer portions of my family,
so solid and raucous, watching the shifting light in red and yellow
reflect on their upturned faces, and glisten in their lively eyes.

But also I dwell with the ghost of you.
Watching the sky explode with pyrotechnic glory:
fragmentary color and sparkle raining down
out of the dark stage of the sky,
amid all these fragile, momentary blooms of fire—
I choose you, again.
Not despite the humid, held-breath wait.
Not because of it.
But with all my heart.

(In honor of RacingSnail’s and my half-anniversary; 93 days till we meet again.)
 
Beautiful!

(I can so relate.)
 
Thanks, Lunabunny!

So, this past weekend I facilitated the group discussion for our local poly community (it’s a monthly event that I’ve attended sporadically for years). I feel like this community has given me the environment I needed to slowly pick up the skills and the confidence to try this. First, I had a chance to watch other people doing it (with varying styles and levels of skill); then I ran the small group discussion for the Queer Poly Women and Nonbinary group a couple of times (usually about 8 people at that); and finally I took the plunge here.

It was pretty challenging at times, as the group (about 15 people) was pretty rowdy and people kept talking over each other and not yielding the floor appropriately... but I got a ton of compliments on how I handled it. I feel like I may have discovered a new skill, and I’m excited to run the group again in a few months. July’s topic was Long Distance Relationships... I think my next topic, in September or November, will be about Self Care in a poly context.
 
Solid Oak

Days go by, and warm summer nights.
The moon waxes and wanes.
The earth turns.
You tumble,
And I stand fast.
Against doubt, against fear,
Against forgetfulness and pain,
Against disconnection and sorrow,
Against chaos and loneliness and the slow drift apart,
Like an age-old oak, roots driven to the very mantle,
Solid as stone I stand.

Your night falls upon you, black as ink.
I hold the stars in my leaves.
Tenderly, hopefully,
I am here.
Lighting your way home to yourself.

——————————————————————

The past few weeks have been... not very good to my LDR guy. Persevering. 60 days until we’re together.
 
Always something new under the sun. This week it’s finding out how it feels to be entirely out of touch with RacingSnail, as he is camping at Yellowstone with his mom. This is the longest that I haven’t been in touch with him since we started dating. If MonkeyMan follows through on the business trip he’s been planning, I’ll be really on my own for Wednesday and Thursday nights while he drives up to Quebec and back.

I’ve been reading scientific research lately about loneliness, and this is not that. I’m incredibly socially connected, and my baseline level of contentment with life shows it. But missing people is also a thing that can be painful. And I’d just like to say for the record... ouch.
 
Yup, MonkeyMan is indeed off on a business trip in an hour or so. We had a fantastic time taking a short road trip out to eastern Mass to visit some of his relatives yesterday. I love taking road trips with that guy. He makes my heart happy.

And in other happy news, RacingSnail caught a little WiFi and sent me a one line email just to say he was thinking of me. :hearteyes: And sent me a photo of some wild purple lupines, to boot!

Feeling much better about being (and parenting) on my own for a couple of days.

And on Sunday? Heading on my summer vacation—a week in southern NJ at the beach with my kiddo, sister, niece, nephew, brother-in-law, mom, dad, brother, and for a day or two, my brother’s GF who I haven’t met yet, and for one night only, thanks to his job, MonkeyMan. :D Beeeeeach! I can’t wait.
 
The beach was fun (though my brother’s GF didn’t join us after all). I’m pretty well settled in home now, and school has started up for the kiddo, so my schedule is a bit lighter.

RacingSnail has been really down again this week. (ie - back in the Intolerable Pit of Despair, instead of his General all-spring and summer’s level of fairly depressed) :sigh: I feel like I could really help him cope better with his mental health if only he wasn’t 2,000 miles away. This combination of distance and depression sucks big hairy donkey balls.

He’s visiting in 29 days, now. We’ve been so disconnected for so many months thanks to his inability to communicate as much as we used to that I’m struggling with my feelings about it. I mean, it was already going to be an emotionally complex four week visit, ‘In Which We Figure Out Our Future Direction’ (‘cause visits can have titles like books, why not?). But now I don’t even know how I feel. Do I miss him? Do I miss him ‘enough’, or am I still disconnected? Is that necessarily a bad thing? But how and when do we reconnect, and what will that be like, and what impact will his mental state have on our important decision-making?

Gah.

The heatwave is over, things with MonkeyMan are great, and I’m getting some work done on my tattoo today. One foot in front of the other; I’m sure things will sort themselves out somehow. The love is there. The rest will follow, damnit.
 
T-12 days and 11 hours until I see RacingSnail.

He had a slight reprieve from the Intolerable Pit of Despair, and managed to send me one long email, the first since July. But now he’s back in the thick of it. House sitting for his parents when they go on vacation seems to have a negative effect on him. Maybe it’s being out of his usual routine a little, yet still having no other people around? He does get the company of his mom’s old sick dog and old friendly Siamese cat... yeah, I agree. Definitely not a substitute for human interaction.

It’s harder for me, in the shadow of seeing him, to be as comfortably detached and patient as I have been over the summer. I crave more connection, and not getting what I want stings more deeply. Not his fault, but damn this sucks. Also I have PMS. :rolleyes:

Yesterday I had a small but very satisfying potluck, and by coincidence many of my guests were friends from the poly community. It ended up being four people who live here (MonkeyMan, Naturalist, me, and my kiddo), two non-poly friends (MightyCupcake and Dynamo), and five poly friends, with a guest appearance by Naturalist’s local BF. I made cupcakes and served hard cider from my sister’s cidery. It was lovely.

Hopefully I can spend some extra time with MonkeyMan today. He’s been stressed out lately because there’s been a bit of a dry spell with his freelancing jobs. :(
 
4 days and 9 hours until everything changes.

In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, depression sucks a bag of dicks.

RacingSnail is re-engaging with his life—he cut himself off from the video game he was using to cope. So now he feels sad, and tired. Numb. Small, and broken, and full of worries. But he is also getting done the things he needs to do before leaving town.

He’s afraid that he’ll never get to feeling normal again. Never find his way through to feeling... well, much of anything, really, but specifically, in love with me again. Always be just going through the motions. I think it’s his depression talking, but I also want to take his worries seriously. So on the list of ‘questions to answer during this four week vacation, to decide if we should try living together long term’ I have added: “If it turns out to be true, that going through the motions is as good as it gets for him, can that be enough for me?”

It sounds rather dire, of course, and like it would be weird to accept that. But it remains to be seen whether loving actions performed despite an echoing hollowness of spirit feel different to me than ones that rise from spontaneous, warm-hearted affection. I’m willing to wait and see. And when you get right down to it, I’m able to explore this possibility because I am so closely held and solidly supported by all my other relationships.

Shall I not use the abundance of love in my life to stretch out love and compassion towards my bruised and broken, sweet and funny, smart and sexy oldest friend? Everyone is worthy of love. Even when they struggle. Even when they suffer. So I am carefully testing whether this is something I can do, while being mindful of my own resources and capacities. I need to build a life I can thrive in, not one where I’m just barely scraping by as I hold everybody else up. But I don’t dismiss the hope that this could be that life.

I guess we’ll see.
 
Both my guys under one roof. So satisfying. And so far, so good!

I’m happy.
 
RacingSnail said yes. He’s moving here sometime in 2019.

It’s still not feeling real to me... we haven’t set a date, haven’t started making plans or discussing it in detail, and thanks to his ongoing depression, he framed it as ‘this seems like the better option’ rather than ‘living with you seems awesome, and I really want to do it’... but it seems like, in the absence of strong feelings on his part, I can shape the world to my desires. One step closer. And I know that even without heartfelt enthusiasm, I can trust that he means what he says.
 
Things are moving forward. Slowly.

Right now, MonkeyMan and I are interviewing prospective housemates, looking for someone to fill in for the next six months or so until RacingSnail has wound up his affairs and comes to join us. And we’re letting the news out, one step at a time, to our friends and relations. Yesterday Em was visiting, and mentioned that they had told their mom. XD Apparently Em’s mom’s main question was “Is MonkeyMan really okay with that?”

Sometimes I forget how weird my life looks to people in the mainstream.

Sunday MonkeyMan leaves on a five-week business trip, and I get to try my hand at solo-parenting for awhile. I’m feeling blessed that my parents are willing to come fetch me and the kiddo so we can spend Christmas at their house like always. Sometime during that break, I guess I’ll probably get to tell them about RacingSnail moving in, too. And meet my sister’s baby! (He’s going to be born any day now.) Lots to look forward to.
 
Thanks for sharing, Leetah. I appreciate the support. :)
 
I’ve had the worst cold for almost a week... but in amongst it somewhere was RacingSnail’s and my second anniversary! Yay!
 
So, let’s see, a more substantive update....

MonkeyMan got back from his business trip, and is super busy with work (but at least I can be in the same room with him part of the time while he does it). We found a wonderful housemate for the season, and she’s even poly! She’s older, and has enjoyed a long and adventurous life of many loves.

I’ve been getting a bit more involved with hosting my queer women’s poly tea discussion group, as the member who was paying for us to be on Meetup is no longer willing to pay. (Totally reasonable!) So we’ve gone to a email-list format, and I made us a website to publicize it. I’m finding I enjoy writing up newsy little notes about upcoming events for our community, so that’s nice.

Kiddo is about to turn nine! My ex-housemate and friend Em is coming over on Friday to help bake the cake, and MightyCupcake and Dynamo are taking kiddo out on Saturday to the animal shelter while they pick out kittens for their new house. I love how poly makes more caring adults available to my kiddo. (And the reverse, too, as none of those three friends are planning to have kids of their own.)

RacingSnail sent me a package and a letter for our anniversary. I’ve been walking around on cloud 9 since I read that love letter, y’all. It was so perfect. And I’m starting to feel a glimmer of this dream of a life together getting real.
 
So! RacingSnail and I are making tentative plans for me to fly out to his place when he’s all packed up to move here (end of August/first week of September-ish) and make the epic cross country road trip with him!

Reasons this appeals to me:
- Possibly the closest we’ll get to a honeymoon-type vacation together, thanks to monetary constraints after he moves.
- I’d get to (re)meet his mom before I steal him away (good for cultivating that in-law-ish relationship).
- It’s an adventure!
- I ain’t gettin’ any younger.

Potential stumbling blocks:
- My chronic pain stuff probably isn’t going to react well to all that driving.
- MonkeyMan is not feeling tremendously confident about being in charge of our kiddo for the first week of school without me.
- It means RacingSnail will have even less room in his car for his stuff, and will have to pay to ship more.

What a tantalizing prospect! So much to think about.
 
Five and a half months to go until I fly out to collect RacingSnail.

Things have been going good locally. My most recent Queer Polyamorous Women’s tea and conversation group went spectacularly—we had quite a big crowd at 11 women! A mix of familiar faces and new, as usual. This coming weekend I get to attend a ‘meeting of the board’ for our larger local polyam group at my favorite tea house, and then next weekend will be the usual social and discussion for that group.

MonkeyMan has been working a lot, as usual. But we’ve managed to sneak in some really excellent conversations and a few quick snuggles and kisses. Sometimes the fact that we both work from home is really delightful. ;)
 
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