I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my birthday. Love for all the obvious reasons, hate because it’s in December, smack in the middle of snowstorm, flu, and holiday season. My ideal birthday celebration is to surround myself with friends and family—but travel plans, illness, and holiday party fatigue often get in the way of that.
But this year. This year. Continue reading “A Birthday Wish”
I played this board game recently. One of those really complicated ones that came with two rule books: the “read this first” book and the “actually contains all the rules” book. It also came with a default “I don’t want to look up the freaking rule” rule: in instances of doubt, choose the answer that will make the game harder (and therefore longer).
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For the past few months I’ve been dating someone who’s poly. Because splitting up with A and leaving the house I thought we would be in for the next twenty years wasn’t hard enough. Because being financially responsible for two households while trying to find a new job that doesn’t require me to travel 1-2 weeks a month wasn’t enough of a challenge. Because sometimes the universe hands you something, something wonderful and precious and rare, and the only possible response is to say thank you.
Poly is hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It means letting go of most of my social programming, letting go of things imprinted so deeply they seem like fundamental truth. Having multiple, loving relationships makes sense to me in a way that monogamy never has. The reality of a lover who has a wife he’s committed to and in love with is something else entirely.
***
They’re in Australia for a few weeks, my lover and his wife. The week they get back I have to travel for work. The week after that I have Z, making it somewhere between five and six weeks before we see each other again.
I’m terrified of losing him. I’m terrified that the space apart will make him realize what a terrible idea it is to be involved with someone going through a divorce. That the pheromone high will wear off. That the mono archetype will assert itself, that he’ll have enough time with his wife in the next few weeks that he won’t need or want anyone else. That he’ll drift away from me, maybe without even meaning to, so that by the time he comes back there’s nothing left.
***
I tried to end it before he went. Tried to get ahead of the fear and the jealousy by making a break up my decision instead of something inevitable that would happen to me. Tried to tell him not to talk to me while he was gone so that when my phone didn’t light up it was because I’d told him not to instead of because he was having too much fun to say hello.
It didn’t stick. Instead of a clean break I have a lover in the other side of the world and a whole host of insecurities.
***
It’s easy to believe he doesn’t really love me, that I’m just some bright and shiny thing, that distance and time will fade it, that he will come back cold and distant and done. It’s easy to believe that a few weeks with his wife will have him questioning why he around want anything else.
It’s much harder to believe that this is real. That I am loved regardless of time and distance. That I’m not going to be set aside in favor of the real relationship.
***
I am trying to make the harder choice. The one that will prolong the game. It is the most difficult thing I have ever done.
It has been a rough year, darlings. Triggers around every corner, hatred shouted at rallies and in the courts and by our president. An ever growing divide in our country, in our families and friendships. And in the midst of this, my own life examined and ripped apart and started fresh. I have been silent here, not from a lack of things to say, but from a flood of too many. A stack of half started entries that no longer seem relevant, a stack of entries not written because their stories are not entirely mine to tell.
In this space, I am leaving a wish for you, and it is the same two things I am wishing for myself.
Listen to yourself. To that innermost voice. Not the one that tells you what you should do, or what everyone else does. Your voice. The one that whispers shyly, nudges you along the path you’re afraid to take. Nurture it, cherish it, hear it. It is wiser than it knows.
And love yourself. Give yourself permission to feel good. To fall into and out of love. To enjoy the guilty pleasures without guilt. Know that you are strong, that you are enough, that you are worth listening to. You are exactly where you need to be.
I’ve more or less gotten to the point where time zone shifts don’t bother me. Another week, another city. I tell myself where and when I am and hold to it. Flying to the East Coast and back every few weeks isn’t crazy; it’s what I do.
It didn’t occur to me until after the fact that I might have hit my limit last week.
***
I planned to go to New York the week of the 10th for some much needed face time with my team. Passover was on Monday, though, which meant I’d fly in Tuesday and leave Saturday. Easy.
The day after I bought my ticket, plans changed – I had to be in Dallas on Wednesday the 12th for an all day meeting. Less easy, but manageable. I changed flights around, flying into Dallas Tuesday and New York Wednesday evening.
Friday of that week, plans changed again – I now had to be in DC for a meeting on Wednesday the 19th. Any other weekend I’d have stayed on the East Coast. Easter and Christmas are the two holidays that firmly belong to my psuedo-sister, though, and while she’d have forgiven me if I missed it, I wouldn’t have. So I changed my Saturday evening flight home to a morning flight (to maximize Z time over the weekend) and booked an in-Tuesday out-Wednesday trip to D.C.
Monday the 17th, our Wednesday meeting got moved to afternoon, late enough that I’d miss the last flight out of both National and Dulles Wednesday evening and would have to fly home Thursday.
***
After a while, pretty much anything acclimates to normal. I expect the last minute travel, the meetings that change times and dates half a dozen times. I never plan on taking the flight home that I booked – I’m almost always catching something earlier or later. So while I was a bit frustrated by the time I got on the plane to D.C., it was mostly because I had very much wanted to come home Wednesday night.
It was when my paralegals emailed me a simple question Thursday afternoon, and I replied that I’d been through four cities and five time zones in the last 10 days and could they PLEASE JUST HANDLE IT WITHOUT ME, that the full force of how insane the prior two weeks had been came crashing down on me.
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I fell into How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful on the plane ride home from D.C. Headphones on and the album on repeat, wondering how I’d waited so damn long to listen to it. Except that the music always finds me when I need it. This one wouldn’t have resonated the way it does now if I’d listened to it when it came out two years ago. I’m still breathing it in, letting it play over and through me, waiting to get to the point where it’s inked into my memory.
***
Lately, I’ve been trying to make more time for connections. Looking at where I am in the world and who’s nearby. Reaching out to one or two people in a city rather than doing the blast email trying to see everyone and failing thing. I’m happier for it, seeing and talking to the people I want to spend time with.
February is Letter Month, and I always mean to do it then never do. Too much time on planes, on hikes with Z, juggling bedtime and dishes and laundry and the jungle-that-is-our-yard. I miss it, though, miss the quiet silence of ink and paper, miss the tangled rush of thoughts into sentences. I miss the summer my best friend and I spent writing to each other, miss the long notes I used to write, the ones that rambled and meandered.
So. If you’d like a letter, let me know in the comments or by text or whatever.
I’m in Manila this week, somewhere between 3 and 15 hours out of sync. This part of the city is concrete jungle, Starbucks across from the hotel and McDonald’s down the block. On first glance, it could be any large American city: neon billboards for American brands, road signs and taxi markings in English.
The similarity stops at the surface. It is hot here, humid. Gulf coast humid. Like walking into a wet towel humid. Despite this, the sidewalks are clogged with pedestrian traffic, especially at shift change. Traffic on the streets is worse, a never ending tangle of beeping horns and weaving lane changes. It’s perpetually rush hour here. People ride three to a motorcycle or pack so tightly into Jeepneys that they hang off the back and cling to the roof. Women wear polo shirts or t-shirts – the only people I’ve seen in tank tops are tourists – and men and women alike use umbrellas to shade from the sun.
I’m here because Manila is one of the call center capitals of the world. It also happens to be in the time zone exactly opposite New York. The call centers run 24 hours, but their busiest shift is 9 pm to 5 am. The breakfast buffet at my hotel offers everything from bacon and eggs to salad to sliced meats and cheese to soup to chafing dish dinner entrees. I thought at first Philippine culture didn’t do breakfast; I realized later it was to accommodate the night shift.
I am 15 hours ahead of California, working New York hours. The call center is like any other office building: florescent lights, over eager air conditioning, constant hum of conversion in the background. It is a shock each time I pass a window – shades drawn – and see night sky though the crack between shade and glass. I am upside down, with no idea when I should be asleep or awake, half convinced that the top is still spinning.