Hello lovelies.
This is the first year Z’s really been excited about Halloween, and we are rocking it hard core. She wanted to decorate, so we put a few tombstones in the vegetable garden and have been creating “mosaics” with bats and witches and other spooky things to hang indoors. In related news, I am now the proud owner of an adult sized unicorn onesie, complete with wings and tail.
Continue reading “The (belated) Sunday Review: Unicorn Onesie Edition”
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Last night was rough. I expected us to be better. Smarter. Stronger. Instead we chose hate over love, exclusion over inclusion, bullying over cooperation.
I am glad that my daughter is too young to understand elections or politics. I don’t know if I am equal to the task of explaining this to her. Continue reading “Standing on the Side of Love, Redux”
1. Do something that scares you. I dyed my hair purple this afternoon, for the Avon walk and my friend Dawn. Ever since A started doing his beard again, it’s been like an itch I couldn’t scratch – dyed hair does not go over well at a law firm. Which means that if I dye it, I have to cut it. And that’s what scares me. Long hair, fairy tale hair, has always been a part of my identity. Even when I’ve cut it short from time to time – and I’ve never gone pixie cut short, which is probably what it will take to look “professional” again” – it’s always been on the understanding that short was a temporary measure. So I’ve held off on doing something I really wanted to do. Well, fuck cancer, and to hell with fear. I’m doing something that scares me.
2. You haven’t lived until you’ve played mini golf with a two and a half year old. My brother came to see us for the weekend, and we took Z mini golfing for the first time. It was a riot. She rolled the balls, granny bowling style. She walked them down the green and gently dropped them into the cup.She picked up our balls, sometimes returning them to us, sometimes bringing them to a “better” spot. And a few times, she even hit the ball with the putter.
3. Invincible with my headphones on. I fell in love with Matt Nathanson’s music way back in ’04, but I’ve rarely been able to see him play live. A and I got tickets and a babysitter for the show tomorrow, but then the babysitter had to cancel. So if anyone’s interested, I still have an open ticket for dinner and the show. And if all else fails, I will totally rock going to see him play by myself. Because Matt Nathanson.
4. I might be addicted to New York. I’m not sure how or when or why, but the city has slipped under my skin and settled in to stay. Most of my trips back east lately have been to the D.C. office (because, reasons), but this last one was NYC. It hit me on the walk from the hotel to the office – the frantic, throbbing energy, the pulse of subway and bus and taxi, tourists jostling mothers jostling suits. All the time we lived in the city, I felt like it was pushing me away, telling me I didn’t belong. Maybe it’s the distance. Maybe it’s because I am finally home. But I can finally see that while the city might have been saying “leave,” what it meant was “stay.”
5. Love each other. It’s been a rough week, and I don’t think it’s going to let up any time soon. Hug your loves, reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in awhile, and above all, be gentle with each other. We are all of us fragile things.
I’ve been in two relationships in my life that I thought might end in happily ever after. The second was with the man I married. The first was with a girl I met while I was in college.
Love is love is love. The people I had crushes on in high school were the ones who sparkled beneath their 90’s-issue grunge and goth. The ones with mad dreams, with snowflakes on their eyelashes, with a better-than-suburbia attitude. Sure, I dated a guy, but I would have dated my girl-crush if she’d been interested.
I’ve never hidden what I am or who I love. If you ask me if I’m straight I’ll say no. If you ask me what my orientation is, I’ll say queer. For the most part, though, people don’t ask. They assume, because I’m married to a dude and have a kid, that I’m straight. I let them.
It’s easy to be straight. It’s safe. I don’t have to wonder if my parents, whose gay friends are some of my favorite people, would nonetheless be upset that their kid identifies as queer. I don’t have to tell my extended family, some of whom, last time I checked, firmly believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, that I’m getting hitched to another girl. I can walk down the street holding the hand of the person I love without fearing cat calls or harassment.
My hope is that by the time my daughter is old enough to read this, she won’t understand why it was a big deal. That I’m able to talk with her openly, honestly, and without embarrassment about love and sex and sensuality and sexuality. That I can teach her it is truly okay to love whomever she loves fiercely, brightly, and with beauty.
I leave you with this.