Neigh

I know the conventional wisdom: You can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do even if it is a good thing and, an even lesser favorite, Life’s not fair. I get that. I really do. But, I still think that advice sucks. Those two adages that are far easier doled out then received. I guess I am not as zen as I would have hoped.

 

I found myself sitting in front of my computer screen tonight watching the Facebook messager waiting for a response or at least a confirmation that he had seen my message. I knew he was on. The green light by his name said so. Not sure why I sat there and waited. As I typed my message I looked over at my husband and said “ You know he isn’t going to write back.”

 

So, why do I do this time and time again. I put myself in these situations where I reach out to people who are, for whatever reason or series of reasons, not in the same place I am. I want to catch up with them or find resolution ( you know I love me some resolution). I am not sure what they want. They’re not talking. Apparently I am not good with non verbal cues.  I am not great at letting things go. And, I like to control situations, so you-know- those are great qualities. Those qualities lead me to sending messages that I should know from experience will not get a response. (Ahh an opportunity for another obnoxiously accurate adage: Fool me once…)The ex that I can’t seem to apologize to enough, that random friend who I really only knew for a few months but I felt a great connection with until she just stopped talking, and the one that really gets me: my cousin.

 

That is who I was waiting for tonight. He had been my best friend once. I called him, “Neigh”. We were less than a year a part and as children I wanted to be wherever he was. My favorite childhood picture is of the two of us staring out the window. I can’t remember what had caught our curiosity, but that picture reminds me of all the wonder we shared. When his little brother came along a few years after us, the three of us had many adventures. When I was in middle school, they moved to another state and I remember feeling like my heart was breaking. They were the only cousins I had on my mom’s side of the family. I had cousin’s on my dad’s side, but only saw them a few times a year.  Through a series of family dramas the family divided and geography became only one type of distance between us. Our parents chose sides and we were young enough that our sides were chosen for us.

 

Other than at the funerals of our grandparents, just a few years later, I haven’t seen them. Every couple of years I would look them up in the white pages or google them to see what they were up to. I wrote a letter once, dialed a few numbers, and once made it through. I heard my aunt call me “peanut” as she always did when I was a child and heard my younger cousin’s now manly voice. I thought it meant we would stay in each other’s lives but it didn’t work out that way. That was in college, I haven’t heard any of their voices since.  The last time I remember talking to Neigh was to try and comfort him at our grandfather’s funeral.  We must have talked at my grandmother’s funeral- but I don’t’ recall. My grandfather’s funeral was the first time I ever saw Neigh cry that wasn’t from rough housing too hard or falling from grandma and grandpa’s tree.

I wanted to be just like him as a child and have always wondered what kind of an adult he has become. I have never stopped wondering about my two cousins. I always wondered what version of the family story they got, if they missed me, if they thought of me. I wondered what their lives were like. I grew up and made new friends and made a life for myself, but I was bonded to them in a way that you don’t just forget.

 

When I finally gave in to Facebook this past year I thought I would look them up. My mom’s brother was not on- in fact he seems to have fallen off the grid. From what I hear my aunt and uncle divorced years ago. I reached out to my aunt but no response. I looked for both my cousins but only found Neigh. Oddly enough my cousin’s aren’t even friends with each other. This only led to more questions- do my cousins not speak to each other? They are brothers. I would find a deep sadness in that. When I sent Neigh a friend request, I wasn’t sure what I would get. I was surprised and delighted to see him accept my friend request.

 

If you have ever read this blog before, it will come as no surprise that I wasted no time bombarding him with questions. I was worried he wouldn’t give me the chance to talk to him, so I just laid out all my crazy in one big Facebook message. I told him everything I was taught to believe on my side of the family divide and the way my views have changed. I gave him my whole life story. I asked him if he remembered our grandparent’s as I did. I was hoping to rely on him to clarify several hazy childhood memories. I just barged into his life in my over sharing style filled with excitement at the potential for reunion and for catharsis that I had been waiting for.

 

I am not sure what I had expected to happen. No, that’s not true. I had dreamed of the moment we reunited- where the three of us would sit down and talk. We would admire with pride the adult the other had become. I always imagined  our reunion in a living room on a giant couch- actually the couch of their childhood home- sharing about our lives for hours- crying and hugging.

 

It is hard for me to key in to the rational adult side of my brain and consider the many flaws in my plan. Most especially that my plan involved two other adults and that perhaps their aim was not reunion or catharsis. I saw that he viewed my message and I waited for months for a response.

 

Then our aunt got sick. I felt like it was my responsibility to tell him. So, I turned to my good ol friend Facebook messaging and left this graceful message:

 

 “I know you didn’t respond to my last message, but I want you to know that I got a call today that aunt Nancy has only 48 hours to live-I have the telephone number if you want it- I haven’t really talked to her in a long time..I wanted you to know”

 

I always want all the information all the time, so I make the false assumption that other people do too. There is not a hint of malice in my intent but yet it occurs to me (after sending the message) that perhaps my cousin does not want to find out about our ill aunt from an online message. Perhaps, he doesn’t want to know at all. That notion, however, does not stop me from sending the following message the next day:

 

“She just died- thought you should know



”

 

Then nothing.

 

That was in August.

 

Today, I was online and I saw that little green light tempting me so I decided to step in the direction of hope even though I was armed with evidence to the contrary. I thought I would give it once last try. After all, he didn’t unfriend me after all of that. So I messaged him. Instead of something so heavy I went with “Hi.” I waited… no response and then the green light was gone.

 

So, assuming he got offline to avoid me (self-centered or true? You decide), I decided to  unfriend him. Seems counterproductive, I admit. But, I am a self admitted control freak and at least unfriending him was doing something-  I was taking some kind of action. I do not know how to sit idly by ( there is room for a nod to yet another adage here but I am getting adage-ed out). I guess in some ways I seem to do better with finality than the unknown. But, the truth is, at least on some level I am never going to stop dreaming of that conversation on that big comfy couch where the three of us catch up on our lives. That is why I didn’t just unfriend him, I explained why I was unfriending him. I do this sometimes. I call it the “soft unfriend” that is like a “soft no” in which there is room for possibility. That went something like this:

 

 

“Ok. Not trying to bug you. Saw that you were on and thought I would try again to reach out. Not sure why you are my FB friend if you ignore my messages. But, I get that you don’t really know me anymore. I just hope you are well and I welcome an opportunity to talk to you should you ever want it. My email is _____ and I hope that at some point you will want to talk with me. Sorry if I have intruded on your life after all these years. I have so many questions and just genuinely care that you are well. But, I need to realize that that may not be where you are at. So, I am going to unfriend you now. You can friend me again on here anytime if you want to reach out or email me at the above address. Be well.”

 

 

I read these things after I write them and think: who is the woman who writes these messages? She really puts her crazy out there. Well, that might be true. But, I am ok with it. Because no one can ever say that I didn’t try. I make my life messier than it needs to be at times, that is true. Certainly messier than a lot of people would choose- but I am in it. I am honest and authentic to the best of my ability and I am down in the nitty gritty of my life and I am owning it- mess and all. Besides there is a lot at stake here.

 

 

This is bigger than just a bond from childhood. This is our family’s story. It is hard to write a memoir when so many of the voices are missing.

 

I know a memoir is primarily from my perspective, but I think the best memoirists do research outside of themselves. There are so many questions and gaps that I can’t answer or even speak to- parts of the puzzle that the perspective I was raised in do not address. There are old photos to be shared and memories of our grandparents to write down and compare.

 

There is another generation now. The generation above us is still divided, but all the more reason for us not to be. Why fight our parent’s fight. Our grandparent’s are dead and our aunt is dead. That only leaves my mom and aunt who raised me and I know their perspective well but my cousin’s do not, and my aunt and uncle who hold stories and perspectives that I know nothing of, but wish to.

 

We are all that is left. If my cousin’s don’t have children our family name dies with them. We are a tiny family now and a broken one as well but there are still so many stories to be told. As a writer, as a lover of archives, as a mother and as a member of this family it crushes me to know how many stories died with our grandparents and our aunt and; how many family heirlooms got thrown to the wayside and their meanings and their meanings along with them.

 

From what I have been able to gather, Neigh seems really Intelligent. A little snarky and sarcastic maybe. A bit of dark humor and a skeptical eye. All things I can appreciate. It seems he might be a writer too- and thus, I assumed that he would have a similar love for history and story as I do. Maybe he does. The problem is, I just don’t know, and I don’t need a stale adage to remind me that that sucks.

Rose Petals

Do you ever have one of those moments where a certain thing or smell hits you and you are instantly transported to a specific memory?

That happened to me twice today. I walked into the craft store and there was an overwhelming smell of rose petals (the artificial smell). It stopped me for a moment. I found myself emotional, almost teary eyed. I remembered my first baby doll that my Aunt gave me for Christmas. It was so scented with rose petals that you could smell it through the wrapping paper. It took years for the smell to fade and even when I was “too old for dolls” I would sometimes sniff the baby’s head and smell the faint aroma of roses. It was oddly comforting. The baby looked so lifelike that I used to freak people out with the way I carried it. It was one of my favorite childhood toys and to be able to remember it unexpectedly was beautiful for me.

Then, at the checkout I saw these suckers called Twinkly suckers. They have this really long plastic stem and when they sit together they look like a bouquet. I couldn’t help but smile. Instantly, I was a sophomore in high school spending the best Valentine’s Day of my life. A friend and I went to Door County, this sweet little touristy area on Lake Michigan to spend Valentine’s Day. I don’t remember why we went but I remember the whole day. We weren’t dating and that actually made it better, more relaxed. It remains my favorite platonic date I have ever been on. We took a horse and carriage ride and bundled up under blankets with corn filled hand warmers. We went to dinner and sat by the window looking out at the water. After our carriage ride we started walking by all of the shops and stopped in at a candy store. That is where I had my first twinkle sucker. The suckers were ridiculous and the stems were unnecessary, so we had to get them. We just walked down the snow covered streets talking about who knows what with suckers in our hands. We ended up at a play Jesus Christ Super Star which a friend was in. And, on our way home we stopped at the grocery store and got our own pints of ice cream and ate them on the drive home. Mine was strawberry cheesecake. Why I remember that specific detail I am not sure. I haven’t thought of that night in years. I remember feeling completely enchanted by the experience-I remember feeling my first glimpses of autonomy that day. We haven’t seen much of each other since high school but seeing the sucker today made me stop and think about my friend. I wonder how he is doing, what he is doing.

It’s strange how sensory our memory can be. How one moment we are totally in the present or maybe day dreaming about the future and then we smell, see, hear, taste or touch something and we are instantly elsewhere.

Readers:  Have you had a moment like that where a sensory encounter reminds you of something you haven’t thought of in years? What was it? What was the experience like? Was it positive or negative? As always, I welcome your thoughts and your stories.

A Year In Review And Happy New Year To You

Well, my dear friends it is officially the New Year. I know I haven’t written in a while. I have been focusing on school and the job hunt and I spent the last week being around friends and family and putting all work and writing on hold. But, alas, we begin again. I am more than ready to bid adieu to 2012, but not before acknowledging all that is was in its difficulty, growth and strength. And in particular, after writing this post, it became clear to me that if I had to sum up this year in one word it would be: friendship.  The things that are so difficult about the year scream out so glaringly to me that it took writing out the synopsis of this year for me to see just how filled with love and friendship if truly was.

I begin with my Facebook status message from today (if you already read it on FB then scroll down past the three paragraphs in italics).

2012 was a year unlike any other. It was a difficult year. A growth year. I have never learned more about who I am and who I want to continue to become than I did this year. I began that process in the year before, but it was only in 2012 that I began to articulate myself. I can literally say that in this year my world view has changed tremendously, from a view of the world motivated by fear and shame to a view of the world motivated by openness. This year has proved very difficult in many ways, but also very beautiful. In particular when I look at the level of love I am surrounded by, I am humbled. I feel honored to have beautiful, loving and incredible family and friends. There have been losses, struggles, torn relationships and unrealized dreams but there has also been tremendous growth, a move across the country and reunited relationships.

In the year 2012, the thing I am the most proud of is Adam and I making it through the “dark night of the soul” as a friend’s recent blog called it. We made it through that dark period where we had to reevaluate where we stood in each other’s lives, where we stood in our own lives and if we could overcome our past and move towards a shared future. We made it through some bad places together and came out of it better for it, stronger and together. I most especially have gratitude for the friends and family who held us up through that. From the friends who lived far away but called and Facebook messaged to check in on us to the new VT friends who were just starting to get to know us and stepped up to be there for us offering tea, a listening ear and time with friends to Adam’s parents who went above and beyond in every way they could to our closest friends who literally helped to hold us up when we were convinced we would fall apart and who have become our family to my mom who put aside our laundry-list of differences to be a listening ear while Adam and I struggled through.

So, 2012 ended on a gratitude note, and that gratitude will carry over into 2013. But, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t totally excited for a new year, a fresh start. I am more than ready for it. My heart is open 2013. I believe you will be a year of great love, friendship, family, prosperity and opportunity. I am ready for you and I am more than ready to say goodbye to 2012.

Before I officially say goodbye to 2012 I wanted to look back at the year. I found myself wanting to have this deep cry at midnight last night, a sort of farewell cry to the labyrinth of emotions that the year was. I have always wanted to do one of those newsletters in my Christmas cards that give the highlights and major events of the year. I know sometimes people hate being sent those newsletters but I love them. I love reading about people’s lives. Well, this year we didn’t send out any Christmas cards. But, I wanted the opportunity, if for no other reason than to reflect on and synthesize the events myself, to recap my year.

2012

January

2012 began in an interesting place. It began on the heels of a lot of recent self-discovery. I had begun the practice of transformational breathing and it highly impacted the way I saw myself and my world. Through it, I experienced God as a female presence (which I had never really allowed myself to do) I found immense joy, found a place of forgiveness for my father and saw myself in the light of love. The year began on rocky ground for my mother and I, as I had just told her that my religious and faith views had changed and that I had many questions for that which used to be so certain for me. I had just graduated from an entrepreneurial program in December of 2011 and Adam and I had recently started a small business celebrating Health and Wellness, Creativity and a fusion of eastern and western spiritual themes, a few months before the New Year. I found myself spending a lot of time at my favorite coffee shop in town, in my favorite red chair. It was my safe place, my place to write and to meet up with friends. I had been developing a friendship with two incredible women whom I would meet at the coffee shop frequently. Both women helped me become more myself and both women inspired me. I had never had a friend like either of them. My friend Mary mentored me and taught me about holistic wellness and inspired me to claim who I was and follow my happiness. Her own story inspired me. Kim and I started a friendship over writing. We would share our newest work and provide feedback and soon we met regularly not just to share our writing, but to share stories about our lives, especially to share our stories of parenting. Both women were there for me as I worked through the emotional process of writing my memoir.  We knew we had been considering moving to Vermont by this time and we had also considered moving to Madison, WI. We had an offer on the table to consider buying a yoga studio turned health and wellness center in Madison. We knew we weren’t in a place where we could take something like that on, and so in January we said Namaste to the current owner and declined. But, it set into motion many conversations about where it was we were headed if it wasn’t there. Adam opened an art show at a local gallery and I turned 26. Running with the emotion I had after writing a chapter about him, I sent an email to my first love (whom I had rekindled a friendship with) and told him that our friendship no longer had a place in my life. That was certainly not my first unilateral decision made out of emotion and I can’t even say it was the last one made in 2012.

February

February was a peaceful month. I began teaching classes to small groups on writing, health and wellness and eastern and western religion. I realized how much I loved to teach. This was the first month that I allowed for the possibility that my singing voice was not as awful as I had believed and I began recording music with Adam (though I still haven’t let anyone else hear it).

March

In March the first round of edits on my book were done. It would need more edits, but I had officially written Santa Claus And Circumcision And Other Things That Keep Me Up At Night.

We made the decision to move to Vermont, believing that we could be the best versions of ourselves there.

April

Perhaps it was that we were leaving the state in a month, but an odd boldness took over Adam and I and we finally stopped talking about being polyamorous and started acting on it. We had been talking about being polyamorous for over a year but we had never pursued any partners. In that month, we had experiences with our first partners. We learned a great deal about ourselves and about what we were looking for in our romantic life and in life in general.

April was also the month that I lost my relationship with my friend of 24 years (though it will always be my hope that we will reconcile) and gained an incredible friendship with a new unexpected friend.

By April, I had spent months having snippets of conversations with the man on the other side of the counter at my favorite coffee shop. I had become a regular there. Somewhere over random conversations and me sitting there for hours at a time working on my book, Brandon became my friend. Through Brandon, I met his wife, Heather, who also became a great friend. There was sadness in realizing I had just made great new friends only to have to move away shortly after. I had spent the last two years not really meeting many people or making many friends. Then, as we were leaving the state, here were these two great like-minded people that had been right under our noses. We continued our friendship across the distance. Brandon has become one of the people that I care about most. He has amazed me in his ability to be there for me; they both have. He is one of those friends who you can talk to about anything, who will sit and analyze things with you and make you see the world differently and calls you on your shit but loves you through it. In particular, later in the year when Adam and I went through a difficult time, Brandon and Heather were two of the people who supported me and checked in on me most.

May

May 1^st was our first full day in our home in Vermont. We spent our first night with two of the people I love most in the world, our friends John and Michael. They have become our family. Vermont felt like home right away because they were here.  John and I grew up together and had not lived in the same city since high school. We had all kept in touch and even over distance maintained our great friendship. The year ahead would be a tough one, but the four of us would do better leaning on each other. John had been pushing me to get Facebook for years and I always refused. But, moving across the country sounded like a good reason to join Facebook. I figured it would be a great way to stay in touch with my loved ones in the Midwest. I went from someone who never used social media to a person who realized social media could be a platform. It was in my first month in Vermont that I used Facebook to come out as bisexual and as polyamorous. I also used the distance and my new found perspective on life as an opportunity to see if there was a chance to reunite with my father. And, on May 15^th, my dad responded to my email. He talked to his granddaughter for the first time later that year and we began to rebuild our relationship.

June

In June I began this blog and started trying to write more regularly. I had tried to stay with a blog before. But, this time I wasn’t so afraid. Being one who always wants acceptance and approval from others and is a bit of a control freak, maintaining a blog, especially one that can be so intimate at times, has been a challenge. But, it has been totally worth it. I also joined an LGBTQ social organization that John and Michael introduced me to and began to make incredible new friends. I soon joined their steering committee and have been enjoying working with them since. It has been an incredible way to meet amazing new people in VT. In June we also made some unlikely friends. I met a traveling hippy couple in town and in our new found spirit of openness; I invited them to our house for food and showers. They ended up staying with us on and off over the next few months and we grew into fast friends. They had openness to the world and a capacity for love that I have rarely encountered. They had lived a way of life that was new to me. Their stories challenged me and pushed me to grow. They were incredibly kind to us and to Aimee. They treated us like family. They had this incredible connection to others and to the earth and their ability to live outside of conventional means fascinated me. And, a few months later, just as unexpectedly as they had entered our life, they left our life. Perhaps our paths will meet again, perhaps not. But, never- the- less, their friendship changed Adam and I both for the better.

During this month my mom and my aunt came to visit. It was particularly meaningful to me that my mom, with whom I had been struggling, came to visit so quickly. It did my heart good.

 

July

July was quite the month. I was fired from The Salvation Army and during the week that followed and the media interviews and the petition I started, my mother-in-law visited. Her visit couldn’t have come at a better time. She was there for us during this unexpected experience and helped be a calming force. While she was here, she got to see her son in drag for the first time and see the people we were here and why we wanted to move to Vermont. Aimee began preschool this month and Adam and I had to pause for a moment and realize how big our little girl had become. I also joined the Pride committee. It was an incredible way to give back to a community that had been giving me so much. It was also a great way to make new friends and to plan an incredible event.

August

In august, my mom’s sister, my aunt Nancy died. We had been estranged for many years, and only the year before had we begun to reunite. As is the case with the death of loved ones, her death came with realizations about the frailty of life and the frailty of relationships. Through her death, my mom and I began to start mending our relationship.

September

September was a challenging month for us. Adam quit his job for mental health reasons and we found ourselves without either of our incomes. Adam and I hit an ugly place in our relationship and decided to file for divorce. We had been talking for almost two years about getting a Great Pyrenees. And, in the middle of all of this chaos, our beautiful dog Max came unexpectedly into our lives. His timing was oddly perfect. He provided a calming force in our home and proved to be an incredible companion for us. Adam left for Minnesota to seek help at the end of the month and Max helped Aimee and I cope. Before Adam left, we celebrated the Pride festival together as a family. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work by many amazing people and a beautiful event. We knew after that weekend that we would always be a family; we just didn’t know how that looked anymore. Shortly after meeting them on a committee, my new friend Claire and my new friend Meg and I planned a women’s event together that we hosted at the end of September. The day of the event also happened to be the day that Adam and I officially announced our separation. Claire and Meg and Cori ( Claire’s wife whom I had only briefly met before that day), all stopped in the middle of setting up the event and reached out to me. They could have walked the other way and not dealt with my relationship troubles and I wouldn’t have blamed them; I was a new friend. But, instead those three women showed me incredible friendship over the next few months and all reached out to me and checked in on me.

October

Adam came back from Minnesota in October. We originally thought the distance made the most sense for us, but soon found that we didn’t want to be without each other. Even though we were separated, we wanted to live close to each other for us and for Aimee. During this month Adam and I had to really look at one of the major factors that was leading to our stress and our divorce: money. And so, after much thought and conversation, we decided to file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy put our divorce on hold, which proved to be an incredible blessing because it bought us some time to decide if divorce was really what we wanted. We shared an awesome Halloween together with our new friends Claire and Cori. It was the first year Aimee picked our costume theme. We went as Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Aimee was Mr. Popper (the book version not the movie version) and Adam, Max and I were her penguins. Also in October, I joined another amazing committee for an incredible local LGBTQ organization working on development projects and community events and again met great new people and got to know some new friends even more.

November

The presidential election this past year was the first time I ever voted the way I wanted to. In previous elections I had always voted the way I felt pressured to by my family or by religion. Or, I didn’t vote because I was afraid to upset people with my vote. Casting my vote this year was a big step for me in autonomy. This was also the month that I realized just how much I love doing development work and event planning for Nonprofits. I began to reexamine my career goals and to look at my previous career experiences through this lens. On our way to pick up Aimee from school one night in November, we got into a car accident.  I had to go to the ER, and as I was getting lifted into the ambulance with Adam watching, I realized that I wanted to work our relationship out. That our relationship had been through so much that it deserved another chance. We ended up being totally physically fine, but emotionally, it was a heart changing experience. Our friend, Heather also came from the Midwest to visit us in November. It was our first visit from a Midwest friend in Vermont and it was so wonderful for us to get to have her meet some of our friends here and to see some of the reasons we love Vermont, especially the farmer’s market.

December

December was a very difficult month financially, but it was filled with celebration and family and friends and with us learning our new normal. I took the LSAT this month as one of the possible paths I am exploring in my career and education life. Aimee had become this incredibly big girl over the course of this year and all of a sudden, she was this great conversationalist and one day in December she wrote her name, my name and Adam’s name. Adam and I, knowing that we want a polyamorous life, began online dating as a way to make new friends and potential poly partners. Claire and Cori took us tree hunting for our Christmas tree, which was touching for us. We had gone to the same tree cutting place every year since Aimee was born. They helped us start a new tradition. Then, they hosted us for Christmas Eve and in addition to nourishing our hearts with their friendship and with how great they are with Aimee, they nourished our stomachs with awesome southern food. Before they left for the holidays we were able to have a Vermont family Christmas with John and Michael. It was a beautiful time for just the five of us. We have always considered them family but I looked around that room and realized how incredibly important my little Vermont family had become for me. December was a month of friendship. Knowing that we were not able to go home for the holidays, our friends Randy and John took us in for Christmas Day dinner at their home. Their gesture really filled us with holiday joy. Right before the end of the month I had the opportunity to really reconnect with an old friend. We have talked a few times since we moved out to Vermont, but I haven’t seen my friend Mark in almost six years.  We have talked on the phone on occasion over the years, but, thanks to Facebook ( I never thought I would thank Facebook for anything, but John was right it is great), we have the opportunity to sit up and chat. Other than Adam, Mark was by far the most influential person in my college experience and one of the dearest friends I have ever known. It was wonderful to end my year with rejuvenating our friendship.

Last Night

My New Year’s Eve was a simple one. We had planned to go to a small gathering with friends, but first we went to pick up John and Michael from the airport as they had just flown back home. By the time we got them home, we were all beat (especially Miss Aimee). But, it was perfect for me to be around my Vermont family on the last day of 2012. We were all in agreement that 2012 could go. I looked at the four of them and I knew that they were my people. They had helped me get through 2012 and some of the most beautiful and hideous moments of the year had been spent with them by my side. This morning when we woke up, Adam, Aimee and I opened the door and said good bye to 2012 and breathed in the new 2013 air. We stood by the door with Max and in unison said “welcome in 2013.”

FAQs

The more public we get about our open relationship, the more my husband and I encounter similar questions. Most of the questions we encounter aren’t actually malicious but a combination of curiosity and concern. I recently read two excellent blog posts, one about navigating the holidays at your family of origin when you are part of a poly relationship and the other about how one couple makes their open relationship work. It was encouraging to read posts by people who had similar lives to ours and it made me want to write my own post. So, today’s post is a response to our most frequently asked questions.

The questions we get most frequently are: Why? Are you polyamorous to cover up a deeper problem in your marriage? Are there rules? Do you get jealous? That question is usually followed by either “I could never do it!” or “I’d be way too jealous!” What if you fall in love with someone else? Are you greedy? And, because we have a child, we get: What about your daughter? And, of course we get the logistical questions: how do you meet someone, go on a date, Etc.

Why?

Well, we are delving further into a polyamorous lifestyle because we believe it is part of our most authentic selves. It began as a way to explore areas of our sex lives that we hadn’t been ready to explore before our marriage, but now it has grown into a larger part of our lives. We have come to realize that there are incredible benefits to sharing our lives with other people, and not limiting that just to friendship or a sexual relationship, but also to romance and relationship.

Are you polyamorous to cover up a deeper problem in your marriage?

Especially because we have had a lot of difficulties in our marriage over the years, we encounter this question a lot. And, I think it is a fair one. I am sure, that at times, people do reach for an open marriage when they are trying to avoid divorce or deal with issues in the bedroom. We were absolutely certain this wasn’t us, but when we recently looked at getting divorced, we had to re-examine our motivations for being in an open marriage and see if they were because of sexual or other incompatibilities. For a while, we wondered if our issues had unconsciously led us to choosing an open marriage. But, actually I think it was the other way around. Despite our issues, we still managed to both grow in the same direction and realize that our desire for polyamory is authentic to who we are. It isn’t a last stitch effort to stay together sort of thing.

Actually, our recent break up and reconciliation wasn’t at all motivated by our recent relationships with other people. That part, while it provided us with a lot to talk about and work through, was actually going well. Like many other couples we had a lot of things bearing down on us like stress and money that ultimately made us separate. It wasn’t the jealousy and it wasn’t that the other person didn’t please us or make us happy anymore. Though, I have come to learn that it can be debilitating to expect one person to completely fulfill you and meet all of your needs and interests (for both parties). And, I have learned that when a person can’t meet you in one of those areas it doesn’t make them an unsuitable partner. We both still want to have sex with each other and we learn to grow in this area constantly. But, we also want sexual experiences with other people. We both still want to romance each other; we also want to experience new romances. We still love to grow and learn and share our interests with each other; we want to share our interests with us too. When we faced divorce, we realized that we had let ourselves slide in our communication, in our sex life and in sharing our interests. We had to look at how we could revitalize those things. The stability of our relationship still comes first to us. It is something that we constantly have to keep tabs on.

Are there rules?

There are most definitely rules. We actually sat down and typed up our rules together. We used to keep a copy of them in the car and have even given them to partners. I think we are easing up on the giving them to partners thing- a long list of rules can be intimidating and off-putting. We have realized some things are not as important as we thought. On the other hand, we have learned that some things affect us more than we expected. For example, I learned the hard way that I cannot be in the house when he has a partner in our room (unless we are all together). Physically seeing him behind a closed door with someone else does something to me, and I find it upsetting. He learned that he can’t be in the room when I am texting someone back and forth. In both of those instances we have learned that we don’t like the feeling of being out of the loop. We don’t mind our partner engaging in those activities, we just don’t want to be in the room for them. There are definitely rules that make it onto the list after an experience doesn’t go as planned or as we learn ourselves better. But, in general they go a little something like this:

1. Kissing and “feeling someone up” (for lack of a better term) do not require a prior discussion. They are free reign and should be done as the person deems appropriate. They just require you tell the other person after the fact.

2. Any other form of sex requires a discussion in advance. Each partner retains the right to say no to a potential partner for the other person.

3. In most circumstances the other person must meet the partner in advance of sex or anything serious. There are cases where this doesn’t apply. But, if someone is a potential longer term relationship, then everyone must meet.

4. We must disclose to the new partner that we are married. If they are with someone too, all parties must be on the same page.

5. Oral sex seems to be a point of contention, mostly from an STD standpoint. So, the rules are actually a little stricter on oral sex than they are on intercourse. So, this one remains on a case by case basis.

6. Safe sex at all times is a requirement.

7. There are a few very specific things that we never do with any other partner, and we both know that doing them in the context of another relationship would constitute cheating.

8. You never have to do anything you don’t want to. Either party can say they need a break from seeing other people in general or that they aren’t comfortable with a particular partner. If we are in a group situation and either of us says we aren’t comfortable it ends immediately for both of us (obviously if the partner(s) says they are uncomfortable it ends too).Constant communication is the most important. Since there are no secrets between us, our new partners have to know in advance that we will be telling our spouse what happens. We do this so that new partners can decide if they are comfortable with that disclosure or not.

Do you get jealous?

Yes. I think people who say they never get jealous are lying. We have learned that it is usually weird things that make us jealous. Not often the things you would expect. Sometimes it is little things shared with another partner that get to us. I got jealous once because he held someone’s hand under a blanket in front of me. It was just because it felt secret, had it been in the open I wouldn’t have cared. It’s odd what you find gets to you. The rule on jealousy is that we talk about it right away so that it can’t get bigger or get between us. Jealous is often such a dirty word, that we were both sort of afraid to admit jealousy at first. But, we have learned that it can have a healthy and honest place within a relationship. We spend a lot of time looking at why a certain thing makes us jealous and often we learn a lot about ourselves, each other and our limitations. It is not a possessive jealousy, we understand that our reasons for wanting the open relationship are greater than the reasons for jealousy, but we still allow ourselves our emotions. We have learned that allowing and owning your emotions is key. We need to name our emotions. We have learned that we have to admit our emotions even when we are surprised by them ourselves. Honestly, sometimes it isn’t pretty. There has definitely been crying. There will be crying again. You try to learn what gets to the other person (our jealousy triggers are definitely different), so you can avoid hurting them. But, balancing an attempt not to hurt your partner and staying authentic in all your relationships can be tricky.

What if you fall in love with someone else?

This is a completely real concern. The number one answer is: be honest about it. It is not easy to hear that your partner is in love with someone else, but we have agreed to always tell. When we first thought about an open relationship, we saw it more as sex. So, we thought we would just put up safe guards not to fall in love with other people, never letting ourselves get to close. That has changed. The more we look into living a polyamorous lifestyle and talk about living with other partners, the more there is a realization that love is a possibility.  The word “love” sucks. It is too vague. There are so many types of love. I find it hard to believe that I will ever be in love with someone the way I am with my husband. We have a love that has made a daughter; a love that has brought us through all kinds of things. So, in terms of loving someone like I love him, I don’t think that is likely. He has echoed similar statements. But, I also know myself well enough to know that on more than one occasion I have been convinced I was in love, some of those during our marriage. It has never been the same as how I feel about him, and maybe it isn’t even being “in love.” I think there are levels to love. I think that it is likely that at times we will love our partners; in fact, I know that to be true. We love our friends, so it stands to reason that we will love the partners that grow into a deeper friendship than just a casual fling. I am not totally sure I can articulate what separates our love from the love I have for other partners. I can say there is a difference. I would have previously said that my husband is the only one that I wanted to settle down and build a life with, but now that isn’t even an appropriate definition of our love as we leave room for the possibility of making a life with one or more other partners. So, maybe our love exists in that place that defies language in a place that we can feel is different, but we can’t explain to other people. I used to think that a marriage could recover from someone being unfaithful but not from one of the partners falling in love with someone else. I think, if anything, a relationship may not be able to recover if you fall out of love with your partner. But, falling in love with someone else does not mean you are not still in love with your partner. So, I am open to a world where there is room to love more than one person. Relationships are unique and so is the love that forms in them. The answer then to all of these questions is basically the same: honesty and transparency. If it happens, you have to talk about it.

Are you greedy?

I hate this question. I especially hate it when we get it for being out as bisexual (which is an orientation not a choice). But, I do not like it in terms of our lifestyle choice to be polyamorous (that is a choice). Anyone who knows us knows that this isn’t why we live this way. We don’t do it to get as many partners as we can or have our cake and eat it too (a phrase I have always despised- because if someone gives you a piece of cake why the hell wouldn’t you eat it?). It actually can be the opposite of greedy (I don’t want to say selfless because that isn’t accurate), you are sharing your most beloved person with someone else. So, no we are not greedy people.

What about your daughter?

I have spoken to this in a previous blog. After which several people unfriended (is that a word?) (is that a word?) me on Facebook and some even told me I was a bad mother. First of all, whether you have one partner or ten, no one has sex in front of their kids. Everyone tries to be discreet about these things with their children. When we have partners over, it isn’t any different to Aimee than when we have our friends over. When she is older she may have questions, but like everything else we will answer them candidly. Obviously, if/when we choose to live in community with other people our daughter will be a factor. We would only enter such a living arrangement with someone else if it was an enhancement for everyone involved, and only if they loved our child. There are polyamorous families who have children. It can be done, everyone agrees to pitch in with the child(ren) and everyone loves them and looks out for them. We would be adding love to her world. And, yes there is the possibility of being ridiculed at school for having parents who live in community, but I think that has a lot to do with the messages parents give their children. So, we would attempt to make sure we surrounded her world with open minded adults and their children. Obviously, we would want to protect her from ridicule or confusions, but if it came up, we would handle it like everything else, we would talk about it. Our understanding of love will not hurt our daughter. I think it “hurts” (read: offends) adults who don’t understand it, and then they use our child as a way to attack our life choices. I assure you that we will do our best to grow our daughter into a beautiful, loving, and well-rounded adult. We will do that no matter who is in our bedroom, whom we love, how we love or how many people we love.

How do you meet someone, go on a date, etc?

Ah, A logistical question. I like the logistical questions. They seem less morally heavy and totally worth asking, since frankly, there is a little navigating to this whole process. So, we are interested in a couple of things. Ultimately, we want to find a couple or two (or an individual) who are a great fit for both of us. Ideally, they would be bi-sexual so that there would be freedom in terms of pairing up sexually. We would want to sort of date them. We want a couple or person to go out with and try new restaurants and go to shows. We also want someone who wants to stay in and watch movies and snuggle up all together on the couch, someone to talk with and share with. We are really looking for a relationship, not just sex. However, we know that such a couple or individual isn’t necessarily that easy to find. And, in the pursuit of such a couple or person, we don’t want to miss other great people. There is a reality that sometimes one of us makes a connection to a person and the other one does not. So, we leave room for that possibility. That is where the individual dating comes in.

So far we have fallen into our relationships with other people. There are friends and acquaintances that over time you realize have similar views on relationships, sex and openness. Figuring out if things could happen between you is still never a graceful conversation (at least not yet). I have tried the bold approach, “my husband says I can sleep with you,” and the subtle trying to figure out where someone stands by asking leading questions. And, like the awkward moments of monogamous dating, you do the “accidental” brush of your hand on someone else’s….hand. But, it gets easier once people know you are in an open relationship. Of course, you do run the risk that your friends wonder if you just want to be friends with them to get with them. The majority of our friends are platonic and we are more than fine with that. It is important for us to have friends that are just friends. And, frankly it is a point of anxiety for us when we wonder if our friends are nervous around us trying to figure out if we are trying to sleep with them. It changes our individual relationships too. When you are someone’s married monogamous friend, it is clear where the boundary is. Married non-monogamous friend, less clear.

We have spent the last six months on somewhat of a break from this lifestyle as we settle in to our new area and as we worked through our own relationship things. But, as of recently we are (slowly) hitting the dating world. We put out an ad in the paper (yep-we did that): Polyamorous couple seeks polyamorous couple. Filling the questioner out for one of those things is a bit daunting. More daunting still, is the online dating profile. We both joined an online dating site. That has been, interesting.

Online dating certainly welcomes all types of people. You definitely encounter your share of creeps that hover online waiting for anyone with a pulse to chat with ( I have seen some “pulse optional” types), those who are into things with acronyms that I don’t even want to or pretend understand and those who expect you to have supermodel looks never mind their photoshopped picture. But, you get the occasional bread maker who lives off the land and loves everyone, or the guy who still has a soft spot for punk rock; these people welcome further conversation.

On the site we joined you can see how many people view your profile. This is a feature I do not like. You have to have a thick skin basically, because unlike real life encounters where you may not know if someone is interested or not, a view of the profile and no message means “no thanks.” There are inevitably more “no thanks” than there are messages. Yet, the pressure is lessened because we are already together. So, we are at a “take us as we are or leave us” kind of place in our lives. We aren’t searching for our “one”, so in a lot of ways we feel freer to be ourselves in our profiles and less obligated to continue talking to people who aren’t a good fit. Especially because we have a child we do not go out that much, so this helps us make sure that we meet more people and go out with the ones that are the best fit. I am still a little leery of meeting someone in person that I met online, but having a spouse who either comes with you or at least knows where you are going and with whom is really nice. The reality is this. There are far more straight men on the site we are on than there are straight women or anyone in the LGBTQ community, that dynamic affects our dynamic. Almost by default then, I have more messages. There haven’t been a lot of people yet who are interested in dating us as a couple, or people who are interested in couples in general. Mostly, we have found people who are just interested in us as individuals, people who are ok with the fact that we are married, but just want to get to know one of us. We have discussed it and are open to this form of dating. But, we approach it with more caution and stress communication even more because it is a new world to navigate and it has the potential to leave one of us feeling left out.

Some of the people we have encountered would make really great friends, and so we have been using the site to meet like-minded people in that way as well. We have yet to meet anyone off of the site, so I really can’t say how navigating that all goes. But, I think the plan is to approach it like dating: one date at a time. It has been great fun for us as we read the compatibility questions and learn even more about each other. It is fun to see who the other is attracted to. This is especially nice given that we both like people of all genders. It’s fun to help each other get ready for dates and to dish about it afterwards. It is a bonding experience for us and ultimately builds intensity and understanding between us.

Since becoming polyamorous we have become better mates to each other. We are not commitment -phobic, greedy people. Our new partners are not chosen instead of our spouse. They are chosen in addition to our spouse. We are not cheating (though cheating can exist inside an open marriage if you go outside the established rules), we are enhancing our relationship. We recognize that for many couples this would not be an enhancement of their marriage. We acknowledge and respect all marriages and understand that each marriage is unique. We do not think we are more enlightened than other people. We think we are more enlightened versions of ourselves than we had previously been, but we never apply that to other people’s relationships. Some people use the argument for open marriage that it is natural and that monogamy is unnatural; that nature proves it. I don’t know what I think about it. I am not sure that I would even argue for open marriage except to the extent that it should be respected as a choice. I think it is much too individual of a choice to tell others what to do, but then so is monogamy. I have learned more about myself and what I am looking for in a partner(s) than in almost any other process. It has made me redefine the idea of soul mate, marriage and even love (for myself). So, the only thing I am willing to say is that I am an advocate of open marriages and polyamory if it works for the people involved. I am an advocate of it in my own relationship. This is the way we currently make our open relationship work, and I suspect that logistics of that will change over time too.

So, dear readers a few questions for you: Does this post affect how you see open marriages and polyamory? What other questions do you have about this world? What thoughts, emotions or questions does this discussion stir up for you? As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

Thank You for taking time to read this post.

An Unexpected Thanksgiving Discussion: Where American History and 4-Year-Olds Collide

My 4-year-old keeps saying: “We learned about Americans in preschool and they wear dresses on their heads!” I am slightly worried about what they are teaching her about early American history. I am going with: she is learning about Native American’s and headdresses (I think).

It sounds kind of cute and innocent when she says it, but I am oddly sensitive about how children are taught about Native Americans. I feel like there is an over simplification of the image we present to children as “Native American.” I worry that there are certain images that children are given to explain Native Americans, like pictures of headdresses. That bothers me. There are so many customs that are tribe specific and so much more to this history than ceremonial clothing. I don’t pretend to know nearly as much as I should about history, but I do know that the images from my childhood of Native Americans were exactly those expected stereotypical shots. I was a lot older before I began to have a broader picture of early American History and more specifically, of Native Americans.

I remember feeling disillusionment at the idea that the history I was being taught in school was often times biased and told from a specific racial perspective, namely a white perspective. I remember the moment I realized that there were versions of history. I remember looking at pictures of Native Americans taken by Edward Curtis and learning that he staged many of them, and even removed some modern items to make things seem more primitive. I remember reading that he would carry around a trunk of ceremonial clothing and have those he photographed put on the items- at times garments that were not even from the same tribe.

I get that Aimee is 4 and that on some level it is adorable that she understands Americans to be people who wear dresses on their heads, but I worry what she is learning. Of course, she only reports certain parts of the story, so it is hard to say what they are all teaching. Ultimately, it is my responsibility to make sure my little girl has a well-rounded understanding of history- I cannot just rely on what she is taught at school ( though it is also my responsibility to know what they are teaching). I want her to have an understanding of history where culturally diverse perspectives are honored. I want her to love and engage with history in a way that I was never given the opportunity to.

Dear friends I think this is a particularly fitting discussion given that Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I hope you will engage in the discussion with me. I am interested in your perspective:

What do you think? Did you have a moment where you realized there were different “versions” of history? Do you know the work of Edward Curtis? On one hand he gave visibility to Native Americans through photography, on the other hand, he created images that were not culturally authentic- images that shaped our understanding of Native Americans. What is your perspective on this? How can we be sure that each generation has a better understanding of history and a greater reverence for cultures? Parents, have you ever run into a similar situation where you questioned what was being taught at your child’s school? What did you do? Do you have any book suggestions for my daughter’s age range that are historically accurate and culturally sensitive that begin the discussion about the lives of Native Americans?

Dear Adam

Before you read this post a little disclaimer: This post deals with some really heavy things ( not that my other posts haven’t). It isn’t all heavy, in fact some parts are sweet and even funny. I have really outdone myself this time in terms of my ability to be long-winded. This post is written in letter format addressed to my husband. As I have mentioned, my husband and I are separated, and have thought very seriously about divorce. This letter is sort of an exploration of the past 8 years together and the perspective a few recent events have given me on our relationship. If this disclaimer hasn’t made this post seem too off-putting to you, I encourage you to read on. Thanks. 

Dear Adam

I had a lot of time to think lying in the ambulance strapped down to the stretcher, my body unable to move. I have kept myself in a constant state of busyness since I told you I think we need to get divorced. I was forced to pause and suddenly left alone with my thoughts, a place I am often afraid to leave myself these days.

We were so glad when we didn’t hit the car in front of us. You slammed your breaks on just in time. We unanimously turned to each other and took a sigh of relief. We were exhaling when the SUV hit us from behind. We didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t the first accident that either of us had experienced, but it was the first time we were in an accident together. For a moment I was in touch with the reason that some parents choose to take separate planes.

Seven years ago, the accident was so much worse. The roads were icy and I didn’t see the truck coming. You were in Minnesota and I was in Wisconsin. That time the trip in the ambulance was so much more frightening and a lot more uncertain. As soon as you heard, you found a way to get to me. You stood by me when we went to the salvage yard to get my things out of my mangled vehicle. You drove me everywhere for the next 2 ½ years until I wasn’t afraid to be behind the wheel. I went back to work after that accident, and you went back to Minnesota to go to school, but it only lasted for a few weeks. Things weren’t the same. That accident changed me. It forced me to ask myself questions. The type an unexpected event make you look at, mostly: “what am I doing here?” and “what do I want?” The first question I still seem to be answering, I think that one reveals itself slowly. But, the second answer became clear: I wanted you. I took the money from the accident and returned to school in Minnesota to be with you.

I am sorry, that it takes accidents to inspire moments of clarity in me. But, like the accident seven years ago, the accident two nights ago gave me a moment of clarity. The question and the answer are still the same: I want you. You and I have been through a lot. I know people always seem to say that, it’s almost a cliché thing: we’ve been through a lot together (sometimes with an over emphasis on a lot).

I lost focus. I started to only be able to see the bad. I could only see the times you lied. I will never excuse lying, but the lying appalled me so badly that I stopped looking at you, and never allowed you to explain where it came from. Every time I looked at our dwindling checkbook it was a reminder to me of the sacrifices I have made for your poor choices and the lack of stability that has surrounded my life since you entered it. I forget sometimes that I didn’t have stability before you entered either. And, perhaps, that is exactly why the instability bothers me to the level it does. I have been seeking stability my whole life. Our areas of incompatibility started to be louder than the areas of compatibility. Every time I looked at you, I saw all the things I worked on to get emotionally healthier and all the areas you refused help. I didn’t see the areas you improved, or the areas I still haven’t. I could only see the areas you haven’t changed yet, not how far you have come. Yes, these things exist: You have lied. You have made choices that have forced us to move, leave friendships behind, accrue huge debts and endure excruciating emotional pain, because you weren’t ready to name your problems and seek outside help. I hate those facts, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to stop hating you.

Every time I thought of separating, though, I thought of the past we have together and our beautiful little girl. Every time before this one, those were enough to give me pause, they were enough to give me hope that things would get better. I lost sight of hope this time. Let’s face it: hope hurts. I looked at you the last few months and couldn’t see past the bad. I knew I still loved you, but could barely grasp at that feeling. I have had a lot of practice at forgiving and asking for forgiveness, you would think I would be good at it by now, but I’m really not. This time was different: I wasn’t sure I wanted to forgive you, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try any more. I thought it would be less painful to call it a loss and go our separate ways, than to hope for things to get better. I needed time to see if we still had a future together, I wasn’t sure if they people we have grown into are compatible. They say that people either grow together or apart. Actually, I think you and I grew together, but I haven’t been able to see that under the haze of my anger towards you.

We suck at being away from each other huh? We separated and you left the state for one week before coming back here. And, even here we remained separated, but in the same house. We spent nine months apart that second year together when I was working out-of-state, but after that, I can count the nights we have spent apart. We even planned business trips so that we can travel together.

You changed colleges four times before graduating, and each time, I moved with you, changing my school too. I hated you for it. I saw it as something you did to me. So many of the things that I feel you did to me, or I saw as irresponsible (not that they weren’t  were part of the process of you finding yourself. Getting married as juniors in college has made the process of finding ourselves so much harder. We have had to go through a lot more heartache and experiences that felt like losses in our process to find ourselves. I am not sure that would have been felt so strongly if we hadn’t intertwined our lives so early on. I love our little girl, and I love that we tried for her. And, in any other set of circumstances, she wouldn’t be our Aimee. But, we were young parents. Hardly any of our friends had children, and 8 ½ months pregnant with no jobs we moved to a new state and tried to make it on our own. Our identities as individuals weren’t formed before we made a joint identity and before we created a new life. It’s not to say that I would have done it differently. I reject the idea of a world without our little girl. Yet, I wish I could have told our college selves to enjoy college, to figure out ourselves and our goals and then come back together. I would have told our college selves that at 26 and 27, we would look back and regret that we only took one year of dorm life. I am not sure what it is that propelled us to be such serious individuals so early on, but that was certainly something that bonded us. We both came to the relationship weighted down by heavy pasts.

It’s kind of amazing if you think about it that we made it this far. My college roommate said she would come from anywhere in the nation to see us get married, because it was so improbable, and that’s what she did. We stood before a room full of loved ones (half of whom were rather vocal about their disapproval of our union) and confessed our vows before I was even old enough to drink. We spent the first year of our marriage living alone in a tiny cottage with the constant chatter of mice in our walls, the second year with a curmudgeonly one-armed elderly man, an alcoholic, a Canadian and a metal head. In the years subsequent to that we would live in a multitude of places including a period of not knowing if we would have somewhere to live.

When we met, I was a straight-laced catholic girl trying desperately to repent for my sins. Fighting between my budding sexuality and the churches desire to squelch it. I came with a lot of fear, a lot of shame, guilt and pushed down anger, and a desire to get back in god’s good graces. You were a wounded-self-loathing-shoe-hating-vegetarian-hippy. By the time we had gotten married, we were trying to hold onto the things we loved about our faith, but find a way to integrate our belief system with the church we were raised in. We were starting to fall apart from friends whether distance or changing beliefs began that process, our marriage propelled it. We didn’t know how to be married and keep our friendships, and our single friends didn’t know how to have married friends. In an effort to throw ourselves into our marriage, we unintentionally pushed many people we loved away. We poured so much into each other, that we didn’t have lives separate from each other. We mistook Co-dependence for marriage and I mistook your agreement with my thoughts as “our thoughts.”

Still children in a lot of ways, we weren’t prepared for your first mental breakdown or your second. Both times we ran to your parents, both times they bailed us out when we were in over our heads. Your third breakdown has forever marked me. It is one of those moments in which you regard your life as before it happened and after it happened. This last time, I just didn’t have anything left.

But, it wasn’t only your mental health that challenged us. It was mine to. A lessor man would have left. I certainly gave you ample reason. We had hardly been together a year when I cowered under the desk in my dorm room shaking and sobbing wildly repeating phrases, unable to explain what had made me so scared. You stood by through my neurotic fears and my incessant need to have you reassure me that I was safe. You didn’t laugh when I was afraid that something would kill you or me or Aimee. Even, if it was as seemingly ridiculous as drinking milk the day after its expiration. You knew that those fears for me more real. For years, you let me ask you “how many percent?” When you would tell me you were certain that something was fine, I always needed you to quantify it, and you always would. You must have been so frustrated, but you rarely ever showed it. You stayed while I faced the fact that I was an angry person, and that too many times, you were on the wrong side of the anger. You stayed while I worked through it. When I would wake up shaking in the middle of the night caught in that world between sleeping and waking, convulsing in fear, you would talk me down.

You didn’t laugh at me when we started having sleepovers freshman year and I had to tell you I still sucked my thumb. You understood that I had a traumatic past and that was a way I had used to cope. You never laughed, you never asked me to stop, but soon, lying next to you at night replaced my need to suck my thumb. I had resigned to believing I would always be a thumb sucker and that it was too late for me, but you helped me unlearn it. You cut all of my food and any dish we were serving to others for the first five ½ years of our marriage, because you knew that the fear of knives put me in a catatonic place. You chopped up all of Aimee’s food until she was two because you knew that I was terrified she would choke. You waited through all of that, while I believed I could get better without medication. You understood that my anxiety was so bad, that I was afraid of medication. You waited until I was ready. Being on the other side of that now, not really in touch with that fearful woman I once was, I easily forget how much of my neurosis you endured. I forget what it felt like to believe I would never get better. When I think about how mental illness has touched our lives, I always think about your depression and your anger. I forget about my anxiety and my anger.

There are moments you try to escape, and some of them you always carry with you, just below the surface. Your hospitalization was that for me. As a woman who usually gets lost in fear, facing your threats of suicide, the bags of pills in your coat pocket, you being taken away in handcuffs, wasn’t met with fear, it was met with devastation and then an immediate shut down. I would survive. I would find a way to make it. I would figure out who I was a part from you, so that if this were to happen again (and at that point I was sure it would) I would know how to survive without you; parent her without you. When you looked at me and told me that you knew Aimee and I would get over it, that we would be sad at first, but it would be better for us in the long run if you killed yourself, I couldn’t see that it wasn’t you talking. All I could see is that such an utterance was unforgivable and certainly unforgettable. Your suicidal episodes were the most “othering” experiences of my life. I couldn’t meet you in them, but I didn’t feel I could reach out to anyone either.

Two days ago, before we got in the car accident, you let me go with you to an inpatient intake for your anger management. They had you fill out that questioner that we are so familiar with. Rate how true the following statement is. You said, “Look at my answer for this one.” You pointed to the statement: I am worthless. You had marked untrue. “I haven’t been able to mark that since middle school.” At times, I can barely handle what your depression is like for me that I forget what it does to you. I will never fully comprehend living in a cloud of self-hatred. I have felt a lot of hideous things, but I do not know what it is like to feel worthless. Know that you have never been worthless to me. I understand the magnitude of you believing your worth.

I love that you know me in this way that no one else does. I love that you know that Ozzy saying, “I’m the F-ing prince of darkness” will always make me laugh. I love that you know that it makes me happy to deep clean our fridge, and if I am allowed, other people’s fridges too. I love that you are not too proud to ask for forgiveness or admit fault, like I sometimes am. I love that you would run into Lake Michigan with all your clothes on for me. I love that we used to steal other people’s bikes and ride them around town late at night and then return them before the morning, that we have ridiculous quotes that make us laugh, that we are the kind of people who go to the bathroom with the door open and the kind of people who go on adventures on a whim. I hate that you don’t take social cues well, that you often go too far with a joke and that you suck at staying up as late as I want you too. It bothers me that I feel like I often have to parent two children, that I have carried our financial burden the majority of our time together and that you have never kept your own checkbook until this separation. I love that when I am crying, even if it is you who made me cry that you know how to hold me. You know that I am not good at being vulnerable. When my mom told me that I was a sinner and I fell in the shower sobbing, you jumped in with all your clothes and held me.  You are the only person I know, besides me, who would willingly go in front of both your own parents and your spouse’s parents and recite a litany of all the wrongs you ever committed against your spouse and ask for forgiveness. Yep, five years in, we did that.

You are a self-admitted compulsive liar. You never seem to lie to anyone else except me and your parents. You never lie about anything substantial, but that doesn’t make it less of a lie. You lie in the way a child stands with a marker in hand and assures their parent they didn’t color on the wall; they don’t want their parents to be disappointed and when confronted with the truth, they will grasp at explanation after explanation until their whole charade is exposed. Your lying has undermined my ability to trust you, and you know that I regard the truth almost above anything else. It is ultimately the reason I thought divorce was our only choice. But, now that you are in programs getting help, I am willing to consider inviting hope in again. If we are airing faults I will be the first to say that I am certainly not without them. I often think that you meet my faults with more compassion than I meet yours; certainly with more patience. A few years into our relationship, when I told you I was in love with someone else, you packed a bag and left, but you didn’t even stay away a whole night. You came back home and lay on the bed and held me while we cried. You let me figure out the way I felt for him in the security of our marriage. That could not have been easy for you. I am not sure that at that point in our relationship I would have been able to stay if the roles were reversed.

Often times when one of us was a complete mess the other one pulled their shit together enough to hold up the fort. I think that is a part of marriage. But, there have also been moments we went through together: losing my dad, the years estranged from him and the reunion with him. The end of friendships, the death of six loved ones in 8 years, poverty, the loss of religion, our coming out processes, and our assertion of independence as adults. You scanned over documents and police reports trying to help me get the bottom of a family mystery, and held me when the fabric of what I believe to be true in my family started to unravel. You stayed through the years when I had traumatic flashbacks during sex. You were the first person to take me really seriously when I complained of stomach issues and you taught me not to be embarrassed about it and to seek medical help. You sat with me through two colonoscopies and a long period of uncertainty. You held my hand for hours in the waiting room while I sat four months pregnant waiting for my mom to make it out of open heart surgery begging God to let my mom make it to meet our child. That’s a lot of big moments for eight years. I think we have earned some years of reprieve. Those moments don’t include the various jobs, the moves, the silly Christmas cards, the gazillions of pets we have acquired, the movies we watched, the documentaries that changed us, the spiritual growth, the day-to-day, the birth of our daughter and the subsequent trials and joys of parenthood.

I have been operating under this notion that you and I do not share the same emotional intelligence. I came to this conclusion because I tend to be articulate and you struggle to make complete thoughts. I tend to be overpowering in a conversation and you tend to just agree.  Perhaps I am misidentifying what is going on. Perhaps what is happening is a lack of communication skills between us, an inability to find an equitable amount of speaking up and listening on either of our parts. Perhaps it is not emotional intelligence. Because, when I think about it, there are a lot of things that you have come to before me. Two years ago when we were lying in bed and you told me you weren’t sure if you believed in god, I was devastated. I wasn’t ready to hear it. I was angry and I didn’t allow you a forum to talk about it, or a safe place to explore it. It took me a while to catch up. The same is true of the LGBTQ community. You were one of the voices that showed me that it was safe to come out and that love wasn’t sin. You pushed me to learn more about politics. You have a far better grasp of history and geography than I do, and I lean on you a lot to help me through understanding them or navigating conversations that require such knowledge. You challenged me to channel my passions into advocacy. You were the first person I knew who believe dissent could be patriotic. You were also the first person to show me what that looked like in action. You constantly challenge me to see art differently. When you look at art, often times you see something I don’t. You were the first protester I ever knew. I didn’t know I could use my voice in that capacity. You give me insight into the world of music and I give you insight into the world of books. You say I showed you how to love and that being in love could be safe. I made you realize your lover could be your best friend. I rein you in when you get over zealous and I taught you that while a love for the world and global awareness are admirable qualities, they cannot come at a cost of not being there for those in your immediate world. You taught me that it was ok to fart. Before I met you I believed a lady never farted and held it in to the point of making myself sick. I made you grow up a little, and you taught me that sometimes it’s OK to be a kid. No one had ever given me permission to be childish before you, and frankly I hadn’t seen the point. I taught you that it is good to have friends and be social, and you taught me that solitude didn’t have to be a scary thing. You showed me the need to assert myself as separate from my parents, and I pushed you to let your parents in. I taught you that taking care of yourself and liking this is OK and that with the right attitude it doesn’t make you materialistic.

I think you have terrible taste in cats. The cats you pick are always ugly and have odd mannerisms but I love that you allow me to embrace my love for animals, and that you have embraced your love for them too. And, had it not been for your skill of finding the ugliest cat in the room, I would never have met Moose, my neurotic-slap you in the face when your alarm goes off- stare at the wall- ornery cat.  I like that you accept that I am someone who feeds strays ( even the ugly ones) and checks to make sure animals on the side of the road are dead and not in need of medical assistance. I particularly love that you took a giant leaf and scooped up a baby bird from the sidewalk when it fell from its tree because I asked you to bring it to the veterinarian. I love that when we were in line at the bank drive thru and we saw a family of ducklings trying to jump up the curb, you got out of the car to help the smallest one who got left behind. I love that you knew you couldn’t touch its feathers so you enlisted the help of that random stranger to create a ramp out of cardboard for it. I like that you go with my strange whims and my desire to try new experiences even the ones that led us to eat only raw food for a month straight or when I tried to convince you that chanting loudly with your feet on a stool was helpful for going to the bathroom (a practice I still maintain provides useful at times).

I find you really annoying at times and you have terrible timing, but you are kind-hearted. You were the first person to ever call me sweet that I believed. You were also the first person I ever trusted enough to sing in front of. You are the only person I know who will do middle of the night pirouettes in the living room in front of our picture window. We share an unbridled passion for nineties music. You have exposed me to all types of music and musicians and I have found myself in many of the songs, with the exception of Bob Dillon whom I will always dislike. I taught you that country music has its moments (as few as they may be). I adore that we sing Disney songs on the top of our lungs, and not necessarily when Aimee is home.

Some of the things that seemed so significant at the time have gone from a place of importance to funny anecdote. When you got arrested three days before our wedding for disturbing the peace because you and our friend were hammering the post off of a “3 way” street sign, I really considered calling off our wedding. When you got back you were so terrified I wouldn’t marry you that you started puking uncontrollably, that and other moments seem so dramatic. I was not at all amused, but like the time I sold my pants to someone who liked them, waiting in line for a concert, these little poor judgment moments bring character to our lives.

So, after I examine the pieces of the last eight years together, I can only conclude this: they were worth it. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like they were and there are times when hope is scary. But, three moments over the last few days have made me certain that I am not ready to be done. First, laying there in the ambulance and hospital room alone after the accident made me think of all of the times we have been in ERs, doctor’s offices and hospitals and all the reasons that brought us there ( good, bad and ridiculous). I realized that I never want to be in a situation like that without you. When I heard Aimee’s little voice say “Where is room 43?” and I heard you both coming towards my room, I almost busted out in tears of gratitude. And, early that day when you could truthfully answer that you weren’t worthless, I realized what a big shift has occurred within you. When that ass of a therapist did your intake and told you weren’t “depressed enough” or “anxious enough” for the inpatient program, I could have slapped him clear across the jaw. I was proud of you. You sat there and advocated for yourself and sought resources to get better. Instead of rewarding you for your progress, they punished you for not fitting in their box. “ Well, the bigger the net the bigger the holes,” the therapist said in his snide little voice, “This is a broad program for depression and it looks like you unfortunately fall through the cracks.” I love that we both couldn’t stand that guy and that we both see so many problems with the mental health system. I am happy that as a bi-product of these difficult experiences we have learned not only to be self-advocates, but to advocate for others as well.

But, you know what made me 100% certain that I am not ready to throw in the towel (oh yeah you also suck at knowing common phrases)? Bowling. After the concert tonight you and Aimee and I drove around and just talked; I love when we do that. We both saw the bowling alley sign still lit up, and despite parenting norms, we took our 4-year-old bowling at pm at night, just the 3 of us, just because. And that, Adam, is why I know I am still in love with you. This isn’t a free pass for either of us to slack of on getting healthier, and I need an atmosphere of honesty. I have a deep appreciation of how you have stepped up in the last few weeks to take responsibility for Aimee’s preschool, begin advocating for your own needs, and have been seeking resources for help. This letter isn’t an excuse to stop trying, but it does mean I want to try again too. I have noticed that you are working on getting better.

It is amazing, if you think about it, to look at how much we have changed as individuals and find that in many ways we have actually grown in a similar direction. We have both gone from being religious to realizing that there is not only one road to fulfillment. We have both gone from shame to acceptance in many areas. We have begun to move from feeling like outsiders to discovering that there is a LGBTQ community willing to embrace us. We have both found creative outlets in which to grow our unique voices and we have both gone from strict views of sexuality and monogamy to embracing the concept of a more fluid experience of sexuality and the possibilities of open marriage. So, somewhere in there, that rigidly religious girl and that self-loathing hippy grew up.

I think we have some easier years coming to us, and I sure as hell don’t want to miss out on cashing in on those. I’m not done yet.

143 always

me

P.S. I also love that you allow me to be an over-sharer, that you helped me take a quality in myself that I felt ashamed of and embrace it. Most people would not be as strong as you to have their lives read about in blogs and books. I thank you for allowing me to share our lives in a public forum.

Phone Call Follow Up

As I explain to him where I live now, he cuts me off, “I know. I saw you on YouTube and listened to you on the radio. I’m pretty proud of you.”

I didn’t know how our first talk in five years would go, but by saying this, he sets the tone for the conversation.

My dad is proud of me.

I realize, while talking to my dad, something I had forgotten: I really like my dad. He is funny and interesting. I forgot that. There has been so much between us for so long, that I forgot how much I liked my dad. I never stopped loving my dad in all the time we were estranged, but I forgot how endearing he can be.

He goes through the members of the family and gives me updates on them, mostly health updates. Apparently, grandpa feels the best he has in years and my little nephew isn’t so little anymore. He is 6 feet tall and has a girlfriend.

I make some comment that I can’t believe how big my nephew is, and my dad asks me to speak up, “I have to get a hearing aide, I don’t hear well anymore.”

It feels odd to realize he is aging. I am getting older, so it stands to reason my parents would to. But, I can’t totally conceptualize it. It creeps up on me in the little things, like realizing my dad needs a hearing aide.

I hadn’t realized people in the Midwest have an accent. Anyone who has ever heard me call a drinking fountain a “bubbler” may disagree. But, there in my dad’s voice, I heard it.  “What’s the weather like in Vurrrrmont?”

It was almost comical. I have only lived in New England for a few months, so I am sure I have not lost my Midwest accent, but I don’t hear it in myself.

I listen as my dad talks about the weather in New England and the history of the area. He has done research on where I live. Instead of telling him about where I live, he tells me. Previously, I would have found that intimidating and threatening, that my father knew more information about me than what I shared, but this time it was nice. I saw his initiative. I also saw his reverence for geography and history.

I find history interesting, but I don’t have the reverence for it that he does. I wish I did. I find geography utterly overwhelming, and an area I quickly embarrass myself. It took me a while to conceptualize that DC was not in Washington State.

“They don’t call them rummage sales there right? They call them something else, what do they call them….” he trails off thinking.

“Tag sales,” I smile.

“oh yep, that’s it: tag sales.”

I find it interesting that he knows these odd details. But, I like it. It makes me feel known. He may not be able to connect to the last years he has missed, but he can meet me in the geography and the history of the place I have chosen to call home. This time, I am ready to meet him there.

His voice pulls away from the phone, “…don’t pull the trigger.” I hear the distinct sound of a gun cocking in the background. The noise is a bit jarring coming from a man I have spent most of my life fearing.  I paused for a moment and realized my reaction wasn’t fear, but laughter.

“Dad, what are you doing?” I started laughing. “Are you loading a gun?” I don’t assume anything scary; I assume it has to do with hunting or something of the sort.

“Oh yeah, there was a bear or something, maybe a Mountain Lion…” now I really hear his Midwesterner coming out. “ Don’t worry, we don’t shoot um, we just shoot the air-the noise scares them away.”  This is a clarification I appreciate when later in the conversation I hear the gun go off.

He goes on to tell me they are on their vacation land up north. He tells me all the work they have done on it and all the issues with Mountain Lions they have been having. He talks about the protected wetlands nearby by and a drama that ensued because his neighbor didn’t get the correct building permits and built into the wetlands. I listen to him with pride.

He was always exceptionally environmentally conscious. He gave me a subscription to an Animal Fact File when I was a child. Every month a few new animals’ fact files would come in the mail and I could learn about them. I find it endearing that he comes off as this stereotypical Midwestern-simple-hunter-blue-collar- working man, because he really is a lot more. His circumstances sometimes keep his talents from showing fully, but he has great culinary awareness, great environmental awareness and a better appreciation of the wilderness and animals than almost anyone I know.

He goes on to talk about my grandmother, “of course grandma is almost done with all the Christmas shopping —-she knows how to take care of everyone on a budget– if we had a few more like her in politics we might be OK….”

I just laugh. That is exactly my grandmother. I leave the political comment on touched, I find it funny. I like that my dad cares about politics. I am not sure where he stands politically, and in this moment I don’t want the conversation to be stolen away by politics.

He asks me about my doctoral program, “Wait, so I could tell people ‘this is my daughter, Doctor Danielle’?”

“Yeah dad, you could,” I smirk.

“Well, that’s pretty cool!” So that’s a big difference from the MA program right? You could really command power that way.”

I smile, unsure what to say. I am contented to just listen to my dad speak; to hear the pride in his voice. I don’t think you are ever too old to appreciate your parent’s pride. He tells me that his wife found a picture of my daughter and I from Facebook and that he printed it and put it in his wallet.

“It’s the first one in my wallet, so when I flip to it I can see her [my daughter] smiling.”

We talk about her and all the things she likes and the ways she is like me. He says he remembers me liking to play dress up. He says she looks like me; she is tall like I was when I was young.

I decide to let Aimee talk to him for the first time. Aimee jumps on the phone.

“This is your dad, mom?” she asks me in an aside whisper covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand.

“Yeah honey, that is mommy’s dad.”

“Oh, hi….,” She says excited as she tells stories about preschool and her pets. My dad’s wife comes on the phone and she gets to talk to her too. His wife refers to my dad as “grandpa.” I don’t correct her.

Instead, I decide I like the sound of that. I know my dad only as a grandpa to my step-sibling’s children. I never thought that I would get to know him as the grandpa to my child(ren). It rolled off the tongue: grandpa.  Not only did I have a chance at a relationship with my dad, my daughter gained a grandfather.

My dad leaves the phone for a little while and I get to talk to his wife. She tells me that their wedding anniversary is coming up soon, “Your dad is the best man.”

This time I hear her. I hear the sincerity in her voice. For the first time, I don’t feel like it’s something she is saying to try to convince me. It is just something that for her is a fact.

When my dad comes back on the phone, I am delighted to hear that he is just as disgusted by New England’s inability to make potato salad as I am. He is further appalled when he asks me if there are brats (as in the food) here and I say, “not that I’ve seen.” He promises to send a care package full of cheese curds, sausage and brats—things a Midwesterner should not be without. I agree to send a New England care package.

Before we finish talking, I tell him that I recently won a cupcake baking competition. You can hear the excitement in his voice. “I always knew you could cook.”

“I got that from you, dad.”

For the first time in 5 years….

Today is a big day: it is the first time I will talk to my dad in 5 years.

It’s interesting how life changes and how relationships evolve.

My relationship with my dad has certainly not been typical. He has been in and out of my life since I was born. Five years ago, I told my dad there wasn’t a place for him in my life anymore unless he made some changes. Other than telling me once between that moment and now to “have a nice life,” in an email, I haven’t heard from him. He hasn’t heard from me either. The reasons behind our divide are for a different day- more so book length than blog length.

Five years ago, I believed unequivocally that there were certain things that were absolutes, certain things that could never be forgiven, or at least not forgotten. I believed then, that some reasons were good enough to kick someone out of your life. In some ways, I still totally think that is true. No one else can tell you what the threshold in your relationships should be. And, I do still think some reasons are beyond valid to no longer have someone in your life- safety issues or the need to remove a negative emotional influence- just to name a few. People have come and gone in my life for a variety of reasons- some of which I maintain were for the best, and others I am not so sure anymore.

I believed that my reasons for no longer wanting a relationship with my dad were more important than the reasons I still wanted him in my life. I saw them as completely intertwined. I couldn’t have a relationship with him because the reasons would always be there- and maybe that is true- but I have come to a point in my life where I think it is at least worth a try.

A lot has happened in the last five years. My dad missed almost all of my marriage, the birth of my incredible daughter, my coming out, my college graduation, the start of my writing career, all of my graduate school, the hospitalization of my husband, watching my mom go through open heart surgery, four moves, a variety of pets coming in and out of my life, the loss of several friends, and the addition of many more. He missed the moment that I realized what I wanted to be when I grew up, the moment I realized I wasn’t a Christian anymore, the moment I opened my own business, taught my first class, read my writing in public for the first time. He missed the first time I was brave enough to record my signing voice, my being medicated for anxiety, my being healthy enough to get off of the meds, the first draft and first round of edits of my book, the fact that I even wanted to write a book. He missed me going through major surgery, my managing a hotel, becoming a foster mom to juvenile sex offenders, and a few other odd jobs along the way.

He missed simple moments too- how I would listen to Alabama on repeat on the days I missed him, how eventually I had to delete Alabama because I couldn’t listen to it anymore.  He missed my wishing that at least one person in New England knew how to make potato salad the way he does. He missed the moment I realized I was a good cook, and the moment I realized that I got that from him. He wasn’t in the car the first time my daughter asked me if I had a dad, or the first time I tried to explain to her why he wasn’t in my life, the first time she said his name and the first time she understood that he was the man in our photo albums.

I think it is the moments with my daughter that he missed that hit me the hardest: the first time she walked the first time she talked, all the special first moments she has had so far, the ones that make us rush to the phone to call my mom and aunt and my husband’s parents.  He missed all those moments a grandparent should know about. He missed those moments in my childhood as well. But, this time is different. He had a choice to see those moments in my life- I didn’t give him the choice to see them in hers. Wondering if I made the right choice to not have my father in my daughter’s life is something that is constantly in the back of my mind. She doesn’t know him and she is surrounded by incredible grandparents and tons of aunts and uncles and friends who adore her, so it is not that she feels his loss. But, someday she might. Someday she may wish to know him. She may wonder why I kept her from him, and she may even be angry with me for it. I don’t know.

Part of my reason for wanting to talk to my father again is for my daughter, but a large part of it is for me.

I miss having a dad in my life. My father was by no means a model parent. But he had his moments. He had moments where he stepped up in ways I have never forgotten. When I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life and most of the people around me were disgusted with me, my dad literally picked me up off the floor and held me until I stopped crying enough to hold myself up. My dad was the first person I told I was getting married, and the only one of our parents to be truly excited for us that we were getting married. He accepted my husband into the family and made him feel comfortable. He did the dad thing even from a distance- he liked the boys I dated, but hated them the second they did anything to hurt me or even hinted that they could possibly hurt me in anyway.

I used to think it was too late for my dad and I to have a relationship. I made the assumption that because he wasn’t there for the majority of my childhood that I missed my chance for a dad. It is only in the recent years of my adulthood that I have realized you are never too old to need a parent.  There are a lot of moments he hasn’t missed, a lot of opportunities to still be there. I could certainly use a dad as I navigate the world of getting a divorce. I could use a dad to talk to about freaking out about taking the LSAT. I could certainly use his help with the logic problems section. I would love to have a dad to talk to about writing my book, about my job search, and I would love him to walk me through some of his recipes. I would love the opportunity to call him when Aimee learns something new or says something adorable (or not so adorable). I would love to have him around for the moments I don’t know are coming.

It wasn’t one thing that made me finally reach out to my dad. A series of events and several changes in the way I view life led me to reach out. So one day a few months ago, without expectation of the result, I emailed him. I was delighted to hear that he had missed me and did want to try again to have a relationship. We have sent a few emails back and forth, and I think he even subscribes to my blog. His wife follows me on Facebook and hopefully updates him on my life.

When I walked away from my dad there was a lot of “collateral damage.” I lost my relationship with two nephews, two nieces and three step-siblings and a step-mom. I think about my nephews and nieces a lot- I hope they know that I still care for them and that I never wanted to lose them in my life. Maybe someday they will be a part of my life again too. Only time will tell how things will go. I am working on taking things one step at a time- I am not very good at it- but, I am trying.

So, for today, my one step is to call my dad. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I know what I want

I haven’t written in a long time. I have missed it. Life has been hectic. I am separating from my husband whom I have been with for my entire adult life so far. It seemed odd for me to write about other things and act as if this large life event wasn’t happening. I wasn’t ready to write about it, so I found myself unable to write about anything. I am ready to write about it now.

What I have to say may not be what you would expect from a woman going through a separation. There has been the expected array of emotions and of grief that is true. I am not writing to share my woes, complaints or frustrations- quite the opposite. I am writing to share my hope for the future. This process has been a difficult one- emotionally manifesting in many ways. At times there have been these beautiful moments of stark clarity. This is one such area of clarity.

I have been struggling with where my husband fits in my life now. He definitely still has a place. The where he fits and how much is less easy to figure out. Our marriage doesn’t serve either of us anymore, at least not as it is. We certainly were not dealt and easy 8 ½ years (some of it self-induced no doubt). When those difficulties come at an age where you are still figuring out who you are that only further complicates things.

To be honest, I am not sure how I feel about marriage in general. I am not sure that I believe in the concept of marriage for myself. I so very much honor the marriages of other couples and will fight like hell for marriage equality. I think people should be allowed the right to marry and the beauty that a marriage can bring, but, for me, I am not sure that I want to be married to someone. I want deep relationships and I want commitment, but not necessarily in the way society would ask me to express it.

When my husband and I were together, we started a swinger lifestyle. However, I came to realize that what I wanted wasn’t really a swinger lifestyle which is more focused on sex with others. What I wanted was a polyamorous life. I wanted relationships with more than one person, affection with more than one person. Love with more than one person.

I want to live in a communal setting. A setting where there is a created family, where everyone is their own person and is free to be themselves. A place where we are all present to meet each other’s needs: emotionally, intellectually, and sexually. I want a truly intentional living environment. How beautiful that is when it works. I love the idea of living with a few people who work together for a common goal, who all pitch in to make a home: a home where each person contributes in their unique way.

What happens in a marriage when one person really needs emotional support, sex or just someone to stay up with them and their partner for whatever reason is not able to be there? In a polyamorous relationship that could be ok. If one partner needs time for themselves they don’t need to be afraid to take it, someone else in the home will be there for the other person. There is no longer the same sense of obligation to attend events you don’t want to, or alter your schedule for someone else’s- instead your relationship to each person in the home can be unique. Perhaps one person shares your same interests out of the home. Perhaps one person shares a sexual interest with you that you do not have in common with other people in the home. If all people can agree to the way of life and feel comfortable in their own beings- how beautiful could that be, and how many hurts that come out of totally relying on one person could be relieved or avoided.

I am not an idealist and I so totally understand that this way of life would have its own challenges. But, I have come to realize that it is what I am looking for. I am looking for a couple or a few individuals who want to live in intentional community together to share with each other. Granted, I have a child, so that can make such a lifestyle more complicated- but that can be beautiful too-a home full of people who love my daughter, who care for her. Perhaps people who love children, but do not want or have children of their own. I have thought of this lifestyle for quite a while, but didn’t know if I could have it because I have a daughter. Recently I watched a documentary about a man and a woman who met and fell in love but wanted a polyamorous life. A few years later they met another partner and he moved in with them. The female wanted a child, but the man she had first been with did not, but the second partner did. So, they three of them decided that two of them would have a child. They all love the child very much and are active in her life- but only two of them are her “parents.” I started crying while watching the documentary because it made me realize there are people like me and there are people raising children in this lifestyle- and it can be done and it can be done beautifully.

I know what I want. I want a polyamorous life. I don’t just want sex with other partners- I want to live in relationship with other partners. I want, in a non-cultish way to make my own little community that respects the freedoms and individuality of each member- but sees the benefits of several members coming together. I love the intentionality of it- the shared lives- the community- and also the freedom it brings for self-time and exploring life fully.

So where does that leave my husband and I? In a good place actually. I need a divorce- not because I no longer want him in my life, but because I need freedom from the constraints of marriage, at least at this point in my life. I need my own financial stability, my own interests and the freedom to pursue relationships. I need time to just be me and to continue to discover who that is. It is true I can have all of those things within a marriage. But, for me, even though there are many things that were amazing about our marriage, there is a lot of pain associated with it and I need a clear cut- a clear ending of our past, of our marriage- before I can welcome a new beginning with him or with anyone else.

We are going to try.

We are going to see if we can be part of each other’s polyamorous lives- if we can live in community together- we still care for each other-we still want to be one of each other’s partners- we want to raise our daughter together. I want a chance to enter into a polyamorous life with him as one of my partners and with him as the father of my child. But, I don’t want to enter into the lifestyle with him as my husband.

There then lies a freedom for both of us to move our separate ways if this does not work for us.  But, if it does work then it also allows for a further freedom to be individuals. Perhaps one of us will like the polyamorous lifestyle and not the other. Perhaps we will both like it but find that we do better not being in the same community. Those are real possibilities.

In a polyamorous communal living setting, we would each have our own bedrooms, our own space. There would be an intentional coming together of individuals, not an enmeshment of lives into one. I am not saying this is the case in all marriages, or that enmeshment into one is always a bad thing. But, in the case of my marriage we were enmeshed so completely from the beginning that finding room to grow proved difficult for both of us.

There is a lot of trust, a lot of admitting that you don’t control all the elements, a lot of being comfortable in who you are and in the constructs of the relationships and a lot of respect for each person that would have to be present for such a lifestyle to work.

I don’t know that I will be successful at it. I don’t totally know all the elements or how it all logistically plays out- or even how you find other people who want the same things. All I know is this: I am actively constructing a new normal for myself, a new path for my future and one of the only things I know for sure is that I want a polyamorous life.

You are never too old to play

A few days ago, Adam had the day off and Aimee was in preschool, so we spent the day exploring our new town. We ended up in this tucked back warehouse filled with vintage finds. Adam fell instantly in love with the huge selection of vintage printing press letters-less so infatuated with the price.

We were wondering around, when all of a sudden, we both stopped and stared at the same thing: A “vintage” Fisher Price Farm.We realized it was the same model we both had as kids. Mine at my grandparent’s house, and his at his Aunt Sophie’s. The model was actually a little older than the one that came out when we were growing up in the 80s. I think the model we both had was late seventies, early eighties at the latest. We just stood there in the store an talked. We touched all the pieces admiring how the cow and dog looked exactly as we remembered them. We laughed about how something we played with was “vintage” now. We stayed there for several minutes with the enthusiasm of a children examining a new toy, and the comfort of someone who has run into an old friend. Despite being only a year apart, Adam and I hardly had the same toys. It was fun to talk about the exact same one. There was something bonding about it.

Our vintage toy find made me instantly think of a dear friend of ours.. The first time I went over to our friend’s house, his living room was covered in early eighties action figures and toys. I held back a giggle. I thought it seemed odd for a grown man to collect toys. I never really understood the point of it. I used to love to collect rocks, and hoarded stickers as a child, but, as an adult, there is really nothing I collect- so I didn’t really have a way to relate.

But, as our friend began to explain to me the reason behind collecting the toys, I found it beautiful. He explained that you can bond with someone over a toy. You can be sitting in a room with someone that you don’t really know, you look up and see these toys and you can all of a sudden start talking about a specific toy. Maybe you both had the exact same one, maybe they didn’t have that model, but had a similar toy.  Or maybe, they didn’t have any of the same type of toys, but your toys sparked a memory for them of their own. Either way, instantly you are no longer strangers. There becomes a moment of commonality, an almost universality of experience.There is a bonding in that moment that is based on something at once simple and emotional. Our toys are tied to very specific experiences and, often times, specific emotions. 

I ended up spending a lot of time asking my friend about the toys he had growing up, and I shared with him the regret I had about not keeping many things from my childhood, especially certain toys. We talked about the delight that comes across your face when you stumble onto something that you once had. It ended up being so much more of an emotional experience for me than I thought. I went into his home skeptical of something I didn’t understand, and left, feeling very understood.

I had a penguin when I was ac child, that I loved more than any other animal. I have a few pictures with him and have even considered posting them, asking, “have you seen this penguin?”  He is one of the ones I wish I hadn’t given away. I can’t even explain the attachment I have to him. Obviously, at some  point I didn’t feel attached to him, since I gave him away. Perhaps it is not the penguin, as much as it is the time frame in my life in which I had the penguin, that I feel a loss for. Our friend let me talk about that penguin, about Puppy Surprise and Purrtenders and the toys I missed. The Fisher Price Farm, wasn’t even one I thought I missed, until I saw it at that warehouse staring at Adam and I, and it did exactly what our friend had said, it bonded us on that moment. Even though we weren’t raised together, or even in the same state- there was this piece of childhood we shared.

Adam and I can now be found in thrift stores and rummage sales digging to the very bottom of boxes to find old action figures and then sending pictures of them to our friend. We always ask him to tell us if the action figure we dug up is “a good find.” They aren’t even the toys we grew up with necessarily, but the idea that we could find a toy from our friend’s childhood, is just as exciting as finding one from our own.

Dear Readers: What toys did you love the most growing up? Did  you keep any toys from childhood? Have you passed any down to another generation? Do you regret giving away toys from your childhood? If you could find one toy that you used to have what would it be? And, did you or someone you loved have a Fisher Price Farm? What model? I hope this blog posts brings with it fond memories of your childhood, and, if it doesn’t bring fond memories- go create some new ones- bring out your inner child- let them go vintage shopping for that one toy you always wanted but never got to have- maybe now you can have it!

Remember: you are never too old to play.