Tag: ethical non-monogamy

i do not know if I can take being loved this way.

Yesterday was my birthday.
I turned 53 years old.
I spent the entire weekend with people and missing people who clearly love me and who I love so much.
I spent the weekend

I spent the weekend doing familiar birthday things,
Going to the Lyndhurst craft fair as I have done for decades
(maybe half the artists this time, different layout, timed ticketing, all due to covid restrictions)
stressing out from all of the unknowns
(known and unknown, thank you D. Rumsfeld)
wanting so much for normalcy
(but what is “normal”, anyway? I certainly don’t have a fucking clue)
feeling so much that I have to explain even though I know I don’t
It seems like all I have been doing for the past three and a half years is explaining and explaining and explaining because honestly I
don’t understand any of it.
Just when I think I do I get caught off guard and none of it makes sense again.

I suppose I’m not explaining to others so much as to myself.

I miss all of the things that we talked about, all of those things that we never did.
All of the ways we responded to each other, all of the good, all of the terrible.
The contrast, I think,
the contrast is what’s killing me now.
i do not know if I can take being loved this way.

I can say things out loud and
I can say things out loud and not worry about feeling stupid for saying them.
Being made to feel stupid for saying them.
I can say things out loud and not worry about
I can say things out loud and not worry about being instantly and immediately criticized.
I can say things out loud and not worry about who might be on my side.

I know
I know for sure
I know now that you loved me but I didn’t then. I never knew for sure. I never knew from one minute to the next.
You would rescind and retract your love like the outgoing tide.
Snatch it away from me,
away from my

craven, grasping, grubby little paws

I want to forgive you for saying these things to me.
I want to forgive you for this so much.

How can I miss you so much and still be so angry at the things you did to me?
That we did to each other.

I told your sister once that I never really had an accurate sense of your feeling for me, not that I felt I could believe anyway. That I always thought you thought I was stupid and not enough and too much all at once.
That now I can look at the last things you wrote, and know.
I can look at all the small lovelinesses you left behind.
I can look at those things and know that they are real, they are proof.
Not soon enough to be able to enjoy with you, no.

The very desperate need to hold onto them

((craven, grasping, grubby little paws)screaming to the sky to talk to you
for you to hear me

I am trying so hard to do everything I can to be well.
I am still so
I am still so unwell but I don’t feel crushed by having to hold up every other damn thing anymore if only because I have given up on everything it seems)

I can look at the small lovelinesses that you left and see them for the huge gestures that they were. Everything is relative.

I can see the unexplored and forever unknown possibility of us becoming better to each other, to ourselves.
Knowing how difficult it was even in the very best of us
knowing I would not be this person if you were still alive
proving my progress to the memory of a dead man
wanting so much to escape your critical eye, your devastating words
and yet wanting to show you that I am okay
I am not okay.

Yesterday was my birthday.
I felt loved, and cherished, and adored, and so sad for what we never had.
If you could see how people treat me now.
If you could see how people love me now and aren’t afraid to say, to show.
I know you would, too.

916am. 20th august, 2020

sweet man.
you dearest, sweetest man.
sweet and seeing my sweetness
nothing hidden, not even in the beginning
because friends don’t lie
Friends don’t hide things from each other.
I don’t want ours to be the kind of relationship where we hide things from each other.
no matter what they are.
there is nothing you can tell me that I will not hear.
you only have to tell me.
it’s all I ever ask for.

there is so much to talk about, always.
so much to share, to discuss.

it is this part that I miss the most, the talking
the hashing over
the intricate and meandering conversation.

I love listening to the sound of your voice,
your passion obvious and enchanting
as we talk about everything, and nothing

although nothing is nothing, is it.

cannabis diaries 8:41a, 28 february, 2020

Mojo and Momma

today began like every other one in our new place.
get up, take care of Mojo
(we’ve got a new/old meds/food routine!
took a minute but it’s so close to same.)
take care of momma
(coffee and cannabis)
it’s fucking frigid out there this morning on the porch
twenty-eight fucking degrees (fahrenheit. celsius is what
MINUS TWO POINT TWO TWO WHAAAT)
come back inside to plan the rest of my day.
:switch showerhead
:okay then, text building manager about getting that done. and the hello tushy thing.
:shower
:get Rosie inspected before work

feeling buoyant and happy, I ask Mojo if it’s dance party time.
of COURSE it is, momma
what playlist… ooh The Delish.
THAT one.
because he is coming over later.
Mojo in my arms, sunlight streaming in the windows, music on the Sonos.
“I’ll Be There” by Jess Glynne

“When all the tears are rolling down your face
And it feels like yours was the only heart to break
When you come back home and all the lights are out, ooh
And you're getting used to no one else being around
Oh, oh, I'll be there
When you need a little love, I got a little love to share
Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come through
You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you
I'll be there, I'll be there for you…
Oh, I swear, I got enough love for two, ooh, ooh, ooh
You'll never be alone, I'll be there for you…”

(I put this song on his playlist because this is 100% the essence of our relationship.
It isn’t an all-the-time holding hands and going places thing.
rather it is the inherent understanding that when we need each other, we are there.
in a somewhat unconventional way but valid just the same.)

what this is REALLY about, howmever, is the 10.628 pounds of fur and fangs and fierceness currently (and usually) the occupant of my left arm.
whether it is hormones (it definitely is) or bipolar (haylo!) or grief (can i get a trifecta? sure you can!)
music and cannabis and the FUCKING STRESS OF THE ELEPHANTS UPSTAIRS
are all coalescing to reduce me to tears
thinking how i can’t think about suicide because of Mojo.

reading all this and knowing just how fucking hard today is going to be at work and
knowing *that* is going to make it the tiniest bit easier.

having these reminders
these unbidden intrusions of
HEY
LOOK
LISTEN
don’t go anywhere yet
you got stuff to do here, still

i mean it.
just hang on.
please.

there are so many good things.
so many new good things.
so many.

so many that i want to see what happens next.

https://open.spotify.com/track/083Qf6hn6sFL6xiOHlZUyn?si=XUpRXZXbSrmaYWfyKxy-fg

Conversations after midnight. 22 January, 2020

J came over last night. I don’t think I can see him anymore.

It was so good. Right up to the point where he told me about all the amazing things he’s seen, the art, the museums.
With the girlfriend who doesn’t know.

I had actually forgotten just how good he is. I made the mistake of saying that, too. That I had forgotten.

I really don’t think I can see him anymore. It’s just way too upsetting. And now he’s gone and I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. I asked him, right before he left, when will I see you again? “I don’t know.”

He’s never going to tell her. And why should he? He’s content with the way things are. He has two other partners who are willing to be with him and not worry about being a secret.

I cried. I told him that I wasn’t going to say that I was sorry. That I wasn’t going to apologize. That I wasn’t going to apologize for saying the things that I said. I will never not be truthful and it hurts.

I told him that I can’t give him any of the things that she gives him. I can’t give him any of those things. The museums, the trips, the fancy dinners. The introductions to people who are so special.

He said, you give me enough, more than enough. But obviously it isn’t. I wish I didn’t care. I told him that, too.

The tldr version is: I should have said no to him coming over.

Because now I feel gutted. I really don’t like feeling this way. Especially since it could have been avoided.

I asked him specifically to not talk about her because he cannot talk about me in front of her. So no, he didn’t say her name. But boy motherfucking howdy did he tell me all the wonderful things they did together.

Why would he do that, you ask?

He was excited to tell me about all of the art. And I was excited about all of the art. Until he told me where it was and why he was there.

And that’s when I started to cry.

I think he has mostly good intentions. I don’t think he sets out to hurt me. But he is an old dog and apparently is unable to learn a new trick. To not kiss and tell.

I asked him if she knew what she had with him. If she understood just exactly how lucky she was with him. No upside to that conversation and I already knew the answer because I knew how lucky I felt, had felt, when we were together.

She does know. She loves him very much.

And because he is charming and so very talented, people remember why they don’t say no to him. I’m not going to do it anymore.

I didn’t sign up for this, being a secret with him. I said that last night, too.

He said, “I know.”
I know. Not bloody helpful.

To Be Without You (with apologies to Ryan Adams) 17 january, 2020

It’s so hard to be without you (yes it is)
Lying in the bed, you are so much to be without (dear gods more than any one, still)
Rattles in my head that empty drum filled with doubt (not so much doubt, anymore. No.)
Everything you lose, the wisdom will find its way out (this. this. this.)
Every night is lonesome and is longer than before (Not every night. And no.)
Nothing really matters anymore (There are things that really, really do.)

It’s so hard to be without you
Used to feel so angry and now only I feel humble (yes but the timing. not angry anymore. free.)
Stinging from the storm inside my ribs where it thunders (and inside my skull)
Nothing left to say or really even wonder (so much left to say! so much left to wonder, to discover.)
We are like a book and every page is so torn (some can be mended. Some discarded. Some set ablaze.)
Nothing really matters anymore (not in that desperate, urgent way. no.)

It’s so hard not to call you (I listen to your voicemails to me. Mine to you. You saved them.)
Thunder’s in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you (the wind’s been blowing like mad)
When everything was new and colorful, it’s gotten darker (richer, bolder, deeper)
Every day’s a lesson, things were brighter before (every day’s a lesson, things are clearer now)
Nothing really matters anymore (the things that do are still here)

It’s so hard to be without you (it will never be easy)
Everyday I find another little thread of silver (all the better to color purple)
Waiting for me when I wake some place on the pillow
And then I see the empty space beside me and remember
I feel empty, I feel tired, I feel worn (I feel good. I feel alive. I feel ready.)
Nothing really matters anymore (Everything matters.)

(I advise getting a little out of your head, listen to the music, and read along. that’s how I wrote it.)

13 January, 2020. Two years, four months gone.

Two years, four months.
It hasn’t gotten any less than this. Has not eased up.
no.
Has intensified,
solidified.
And that, I believe, is a good thing. Yes.

I’m fairly astonished that I had this much clarity only four months out.
In fact,
I am damn sure that this was my brain in ultra survival mode.

It is exactly the entirety of my body
my psyche
my soul.
It is exactly what I have been settling into for the past
eight hundred fifty-two days

no longer so foreign so
alien.

I am learning how to meet people where they are
and also to recognize that no matter how much love I have for someone
how much hope
sometimes it just isn’t enough to be sustainable.
not without harm.
I don’t want to be in pain over love anymore.
I can’t.
I won’t.

8:42a, 30 november, 2019

…oh what a world, i don’t want to leave,
there’s all kinds of magic
it’s hard to believe…

all of this, new
all these things, these
discoveries
conversations
realizations
breakthroughs.

I thought you weren’t here to see
I thought I couldn’t share them with you
and now I see how wonderfully wrong I was

…’cause you’re here right now
and I know what I feel…

you are here for every new thing.
all of them.
the you in me sees it all.

*Oh What a World by Kacey Musgraves

9:16a, 14 november, 2019.

okay so you know when i wrote to you and said,

“now that I’m on the other side of your being away,
I mean, you’ve been gone longer than what’s left,
it’s feeling easier.
I’m excited for your return, but not in a desperate way any more.
It doesn’t feel so empty.
Or at least, not right now. Hope is a good thing💜💜”

remember?
and then the next day
and the day after, now

nothing.

and now it feels desperate again.

I have none of the answers, I’m just guessing at them
i don’t even know what the questions are anymore.

It is the silence that I cannot bear.

Love is. 10:40a, 13 September, 2019.

Today I know how much I am loved. I have no doubt. I will never ever not know. I know what it feels like to be loved, and seen, and heard. I know what it feels like to be understood.

My evolution is ongoing. The path I started down two years ago is ever-twisting, ever changing. Forward, ever forward.

I’d brought this little bit of printing I’d done to hang up in Gary’s hospital room. To remind him that he is loved. I brought it home, taped it to the shelf on his side of the bedroom. To remind me.