Watching the Wheels

The Problem With Definitions…

2010-03-05T15:39:27Z

You know what I can’t imagine? Going on a first date with someone and having a 40-page contract handed to me. I couldn’t imagine that before I decided to explore polyamory, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

And by “any time soon” I pretty much mean all of Ever.

In fact, I might just laugh at anyone who tried to do something like that.

Part of my little corner of the Twitterverse has been abuzz today from a blog posting posted by @Joreth, a poly / atheist activist and frequent contributor to the Poly Weekly podcast. There’s a link at the bottom of this post to the entry in question, but basically the issue boiled down to a conflict of ideas about polyamory that resulted in her leaving a popular online forum.

Joreth wrote a great post, and it’s been whirling around in my head all day. I just can’t fathom putting myself into a situation where what I needed and/or wanted from a relationship was secondary and/or non-negotiable to someone (or someones) else’s needs and wants. Or a prescripted situation in which those wants or needs were actually contracted out.

Polyamory is difficult in the same way that any interpersonal relationship is difficult. Relationships (not that I am by any means an expert) require open and honest communication, and entering into any relationship is an exercise in compromise. Boundaries are discovered over time, through experience, and can be removed through experience as well. Part of what makes a relationship interesting, fullfilling, and fun is figuring that out. Figuring out what works. Or what doesn’t.

The human tendency to organize, define, and categorize things to simplify them simply doesn’t work here. For me, at least. Creating rules, boundaries, and contracts to govern an organism that’s brand new in the world is just premature in my opinion. I’m not ready to change my whole life. But I will hold the door open to let change come in at it’s own pace.

Shortly after we had both read the post, Stego messaged me, slightly panicked. “I don’t act like that, do I?”

There are a gazillion and one reasons that I love this man (and the number grows daily), but definitely high on the list is that neither he nor his beautiful wife act like that. We’re walking with eyes wide open, watching, talking, enjoying, savoring, learning, and most of all loving. I don’t think of myself as a secondary or a long-distance alternate universe primary or whatever else, and I’m not sure that he/they do either.

I think of myself as someone who has been seeing someone for a couple of months and really, really likes him and is excited to see where things go. Isn’t that normal?

I don’t want a ready-made family or an automatic role in someone’s household. I want the luxury to figure out if that’s even something that I’m interested in. I’m sure they’re not ready to make that decision either. Isn’t that what dating is for?

Are there complications due to geography and scheduling? Sure there are. We discuss them! Am I likely to visit him more than he visits me due to his family situation? Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes, but it’s not because of a rule or pre-set expectation. It’s because I generally believe myself to be a considerate person and I treat people the way that I would generally like to be treated. That, and the fact that I adore his wife and children. At some point I will be the one with the extenuating circumstances, and I would expect the same respect to be accorded to me.

Coming up with complex guidelines and definitions just seems to over-complicate things to me and would take the enjoyment out of the situation. I’d constantly be wondering if there was a line I was crossing or whether I had kept to the rules. People – whether they’re in relationships or not – make mistakes. But that’s also how we learn and grow. Without that, all that’s left is a stagnant, two-dimensional situation. And that will never be my choice.

***

A New Normal

2010-02-23T02:32:25Z

Willkommen, my brethren. I’m happy to say I’m back in the blogosphere, still defying all SEO best practices by jacking up the first paragraph of my post with random banter. Like this.

But hey: I’m a Georgia peach. We have to be polite, sugar. Think of it as my own brand of Southern hospitality.

If you followed along at my old blog, thanks for coming through the transition. The old Blogger page saw me through a couple years of serious growth and change. I’ve made a conscious decision not to import any of those old posts, but might reprint relevant bits every now and then. Not because I’m embarrassed by anything I wrote before but because a lot of it just isn’t relevant to who I am anymore.

So what’s new other than the fancypants Wordpress page?

Hmm. I would say the biggest change is the fact that I have found myself happily entrenched in a relationship. If you read the old blog, you might remember my “In Which I Have An Imaginary Conversation About Yard Work” post (1 November 2009). Or not. So here it is:

Fall means hot cocoa and warm sweaters and fires and leaves turning and great excuses to snuggle up with attractive young men.

Sadly, I’ve been rather bereft of attractive young men in my life lately. Not that I’m really trying… I keep telling myself I’ll put a bit of effort into it once I recover from my surgery.

Or when I finish school.

Or when I am not working so much.

Or when I…

Le sigh. I’ve always got some sort of excuse. In fact, my excuses for absolutely any area of my life (not just men) generally fall into one of three categories:

I’m a basketcase.
Truth be told: I’m a bit of an introvert IRL. Social situations intimidate the crap out of me. I will speak in front of an anonymous audience of a thousand or more (and have) with no problemas at all, but if you put me in a more intimate setting – say, a cocktail party – with 20 strangers and/or mild acquaintances? Yeah. I’ll be the one in the corner.

Or better yet, the one pretending to step outside to get some air. Here’s a secret, just between us: I’m getting the fuck out of there.

When I tell most people this, they don’t believe me. If you ever met my professional persona, you’d understand why. She’s very much an “I’m-in-charge” kinda lady. She gets things done. She ain’t skeered of nuttin’.

No one realizes that that’s a character I play.

So, yeah. There’s some issues there that might make it difficult to meet people. But I have been trying. I’ve been making a concerted effort to meet new people and make new friends. I started online – which I have to say is going pretty well if I do say so myself – and am starting to branch out into IRL areas as well. (If you see me at a Meetup.com gathering and I’m hiding in the corner, please do a sister a favor and help me find my way out of it.)

I overcommit my time.
On top of that I have had very little free time. I have this idea that tomorrow won’t be perfect unless I’m doing all this shit today: career, education, creative fulfillment, writing…

At the end of the day, I end up botching most of it and having a nervous breakdown or a case of exhaustion like Michael Jackson had that time he had to check himself into the hospital.

So I’ve decided (just today actually) that moving forward that I’m only going to take one class a semester. Not six (which is what I started with when I went back… while working full-time), not three or four, and not two. Just one.

One is manageable. One allows me to have some free nights during the week. One lets me see my family and friends.

One does mean it will take me like four years to graduate even though I’m already a senior, but WTF does it really matter? I’m 32, I have a very successful career by most standards already, and was planning on working while I wrote freelance anyway until I had enough gigs going to support myself. What prevents me from doing that now?

(Answer: just me.)

I’ve got pretty particular standards.
I’m not religious. In fact, I’m an agnostic atheist. I can’t stand stupid people. I love being a woman, but I’m not frilly. I don’t want children. I think monogamy is anachronistic. I probably have a couple of other things I can’t think of right now that are socially outside of the norm. And you know what? You don’t meet a lot of people who truly appreciate all of those things.

I don’t see many of those things changing, and I’m kinda happy with my choices.

And we’ve come full-circle…
So it was really no surprise today that – in the moment that I realized that fall also meant yard work – I was standing by myself in my front yard.

In a fit of rabid frenzy I pulled out my hedge trimmer and started whacking away at the bushes along the front of my house. Twenty minutes later, I trudged into the house.

My cat was there. He meowed.

I imagined if I was in a relationship that my attractive young man would laugh that I had just trimmed the bushes in my new crushed flannel grey ballet flats.

Then I would have laughed because he said trimming bushes.

He would comment that I was done fast, and then ask me if I cleaned up all of the leaves and branches or if I just left them sitting there on the ground in the yard.

Maybe, if he was real, he would shake his head and then help me rake them up.

For now, I think I’ll just leave them sitting there. I don’t feel like dealing with it today. Not by myself.

First? Yes. I do see the irony in immediately reprinting an old blog.

Second? Yeah. I’ve met someone (who, for the sake of privacy, I will refer to as Stego) who makes me ridiculously happy. He not only makes me happy but somehow also manages to meet all of the seemingly-impossible list of demands that I made back in November.

So after tip-toeing around it for somewhere between six month and a year and then finally dating a few poly guys in the fall, I’m finally involved in a polyamorous relationship. Stego is very happily married with two children. His wife is an incredible woman that I am lucky to be developing a friendship with. I am in love, and life is beautiful.

Unfortunately, unless you stick a keyboard in front of me, I really suck with explaining all of this to people who might not be familiar with polyamory. Partly because of societal pressures to pursue “normal” monogamous relationships and partially because of a fear that people who have known me IRL might not give me a chance to explain that this is not what they think before passing judgement.

Because I’m of course convinced that they’re all thinking that I’m having another affair that will end badly. (I had one seven years ago. And it ended very badly.) Or that it’s just sex. Or that I’m being used. Or that the “freedom” is one-sided and that I will be in a monogamous relationship with someone who is not monogamous. Or that…

My imagination can get carried away, so I’m just going to stop it there.

My decision to be open and honest about becoming polyamorous flies directly in the face of this fear. I have found something absolutely fantastic, and I want to shout it from the top of any rooftop I can climb on top of.

Unfortunately I don’t have much experience with coming out, so to speak. So far I’ve done a pretty spectacular job of botching it left and right. Or at least it feels that way. Until this past weekend. (Maybe. I hope.)

Stego came up to Atlanta to spend the weekend with me. Before we finalized this, I had already committed to (and wouldn’t miss for the world) attending a coming-home party for a dear old friend who was returning from Afghanistan. It was basically going to be 10-20 of my closest friends. A couple of them knew about Stego already. Another had known I had been dating poly guys in the fall. Most hadn’t seen me actually bring someone out to a social situation in years.

I made a decision to just show up and introduce him like I would any other normal love interest. Because this is my normal. When I act like I am doing something wrong or make excuses for my normal, it looks less normal. We answered any questions that came up, including whether or not he had kids. No one asked about the wedding ring, although I have on good authority that it was noticed by several people. We hung out, chatted, and in general had a great time.

Are some of them concerned or wondering what I’m up to? Possibly. But when they ask me I will answer them honestly and confidently. I have no doubt that not everyone will accept this with grace, but I have faith that I have chosen my friends well and that, given time, they will accept this choice of mine.

It feels good to be me today.

***

Also? Stego volunteered all on his own to assist with some yard work this morning. If that’s not synchronicity at work, my friends, I don’t know what is.

***

Nearly There!

2010-02-16T02:47:48Z

Whew! This has been an adventure. I think I’m just about ready to start posting again, folks. All that’s left is the blog roll, which is daunting at best as I read entirely too many blogs.

That said, I might or might not get lazy mid-way through the list. So if you’re interested in being listed, feel free to leave a comment with your blog site. If it looks like something my readership might be into, I will happily include a link to you. I must include that filter, not because I don’t like you or your blog but because I simply to make sure I am referencing relevant content for my target audience.

Anyways, otherwise we should be just about done. Take a look around and let me know what you think!

***

We’re Becoming!

2010-02-09T12:57:29Z

As you can see, the WordPress install is done, DNS issues are resolved, and the world will soon be full of sparkly unicorns again.

Well, maybe not that last bit.

Your continued patience during my renovation is appreciated! XOXO

***