Lessons from my 37th year of living, my 22nd year of romantic involvement, and my 16th year of polyamory

 I come up for air from my favorite spot on his neck.  We’ve been holding each other for hours.  We lightly press our foreheads together and feel the vibrations of each other’s minds in the quiet serenity of our vulnerability.

“I have a gift for you.  It was in my pocket.”  He hands over a small ziplock bag with a ring.  It’s my birthstone, but not the type I’ve usually received as a gift.  It’s a black iridescent opal, surrounded by tiny gems.  It looks like the cosmos, like the life inside of a black hole.  It’s magical and dark, just like me.

I’m speechless, near tears.  I’ve gotten romantic gifts from boyfriends before, and I can recall the various women I’ve been in those moments.  There’s always an orgasmic rush of validation, the importance you have, tangible evidence of the space you occupy in his mind.  It’s not a lie–he loves you.  He thought of you when you weren’t there, and planned on a way to make you smile the next time he sees you.

I had associated passion with dread since my first serious poly breakup in 2019 (ending a ten year relationship in which I’d got a matching, permanent body-mod as a metaphor for our commitment).  Even more so when my second serious partner of three years (with whom I had much smoother and more gracious communication) had to leave because of a traumatic event that had nothing to do with me…making me question everything about love.

“Will he pass the test?” my wounds ask.  “Will he make you feel safe, and then one day decide that you’re not worth the effort?  Will he love you until something difficult happens in his life, and then be unable to proceed?  Was it really love that you had before?  Or did you become blind?  Does real love last?”

These are all vain attempts of emotional calibration, because they’re my wounds trying to figure out someone else, rather than my own strength solidifying a foundation that will enable me to participate in a relationship.  It’s what scores of hours in therapy has been helping me to understand, and it speaks to centuries of patriarchal, religious, and cultural conditioning.

We did love each other, it did end, and it will keep happening.  We all will keep loving and evolving, loving and moving, with each other and by ourselves.  I will learn a lot along the way about triggers and desires and needs.  About habits and cycles.  About headspace and holding space.  How to say no without worry.  How to let my partner own their feelings and time while I own mine.  How to engulf myself in the present and be grateful.

I look at this beautiful, ardent man next to me.  Not more or less perfect than any of my exes.  Just here, this version of him with this version of me, sharing this time which is now more valuable than it’s ever been.  We geek out about a tribe in the Amazon whose numbering system is rooted in the fibonacci sequence rather than base ten.  We give our nuanced opinions about Taylor Swift.  We crack up over easter eggs in The Simpsons and Family Guy.  We recite our favorite lines from our own poetry.

Our trust tightens like a cable knot, because I still don’t expect anything from him except his genuine self.  I love the ring; I’ll tear up every time I see it.  But I’ll still be just as grateful that he decides to send one more text or schedule one more Friday.

Relationship longevity is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t proof of our individual worth.  No amount of passion, paranoia, or loyalty will prevent us from being shrapnel in the bombs that life decides to throw, should we become unfortunate enough.  All we can do is continue to rebuild.

Facing My Triggers, pt 1: Headspace

The following post is dedicated to Kendrick Lamar.  Thank you for writing Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers.  

A mantra has been visiting me lately, like a bird who’s been watching me from afar, but has finally landed on my window.  The key to serenity is facing your triggers.

I grew up with 2 rules: be an exemplary Christian, and get good grades.  Neither of those are bad things. But for a while, there wasn't a lot of room for much else. I got used to hammering myself, and others, into that identity. I judged everyone who didn't fit what I was told to achieve. My brother and I created a moral intellectual elitism that didn't keep anybody warm, but at least explained the darkness we both felt.

So like a good little artist I created my own triggers.  Among them:  1) having my intelligence belittled or judged, and 2) being perceived as heartless, cruel, or ignorant.

So here I am spinning through time with open doors and windows, desperate for approval, just as lonely in my 20s as I was when I was 11.

And then the therapist shows me "the work."

1) Cut out the people feeding into my negative self-beliefs. The ingredients for the perfect storm are much faster drawn together than the ingredients for a self-directed life. I never wrapped my arms around happiness and didn't know how...what to feel for, or look for, or move towards. Get rid of the people holding my arms in place.

2) Get in the ring and tackle those negative self-beliefs. 

I am intelligent, even if judgmental left-brained people make me feel like I’m not.  As it turns out, judgmental left-brained people actually don’t understand a lot of artistic metaphors, and use judgment as a defense mechanism to protect their own self-perception.  But that’s not what this post is about, and I’ve given those types enough of my headspace.

I am kind, even if I draw strong boundaries.  Fixing people is not my job.  Fixing me is my job.  Fixing others is others’ job.  I am kind even if I say no when other people want yes.  Other people have to learn to deal with disappointment, just as I have.

Cool cool sounds good.

But then the trigger comes.

It finds me in the same crevice it was created.  A tone.  A glint of the eye.  A tight vibration of impatience.  A sympathetic laugh.

Most of the time, my process is internal.  I don’t tend to lash out unless I am overstimulated and my nervous system is reaching out for a lifeboat.  My go-to suffering is rumination. 

Sweet, dark rumination. I create a prison for myself so I don’t bother anyone. The rush of familiar pain vibrates up my vagus nerve.

I debate down a spiral staircase, thinking it's about logic.  I wash my hair, and turn my brain as hot as my flat iron while I have real arguments with people who aren’t there and probably haven’t given me a second thought since.

I never. win. these. arguments.  Even though I create them in my head. We’re just having more verbose, deep-cutting versions of the same argument we had before.

Someone knocks on the door of my brain.

“You deserve more headspace than this,” she says.

“Yes, I agree,” I say, somewhat embarrassed, as if my boss just caught me goofing off on the job, as if my dad just opened my bedroom door at 12 PM on a Saturday to pull me out of bed.

************

I look down at the piles around my elbows and find another mantra. Like a tupperware–boring, but reliable, and every time it’s used it changes a little: Habits only change through repetition and discipline.  Failing is part of the process.  Failure only fails through the fail of the fail.

I'm actually supposed to fail a thousand times in order to do one single thing correctly.

So it’s three days later, and I’m washing my hair again.  And I’m ruminating again.  And the work comes in a little earlier this time, because she’s macheted herself a pathway in.

“Hey. You deserve more headspace than this.”

“What should I think about?”

“Whatever you want?”

“I want to not think about my ex.”

“That was always allowed.”

“How about I think about writing.  God I don’t write enough.”

“You could lower your standards, which would make you write more.”

*Seethes angrily at a reasonable suggestion* “Yeah, I could do that.”

“Just try it.”

“Okay.”

“...”

“This song slaps.”

“Hell yeah it does.”

“You know what, I have a complicated relationship with alternative rock.”

“Say more.”

Holy shit I’m thinking about something cool and interesting.  And enjoying it.  And not thinking about other people.  Is this what passing the Bechdel test feels like?