the Delicate t Bone

At almost 33 years old, I would say that I’ve worked hard to get to a place in which I am immensely comfortable in my own skin.  My 20s were not easy and I fought a lot with others and myself about who I am and who others are and where I stand and what my place is in this world.  I mean, that’s what your 20s are for, right?

But I’ve always been hard. I mean, I’ve always had up immense walls.  I’ve been a fortress unwilling to be vulnerable, unable to show weakness.  Showing softness made me Angry.  I think a lot of this stems from being the oldest child and having to take care of all my siblings when my parents were gone for months at a time when my youngest brother almost died.  Regardless, I’ve never been one to put my guard down, even though I’m a very sweet person to those that get behind that wall.  

What I’m saying is that I’ve spent a lot of time working on myself and while it hasn’t been easy and while I’m certainly not perfect, I’ve been more and more capable of giving people vulnerable me.*

And I’m bringing this up because I want to tell you all that I’m very lucky to have met my boyfriend - who I am deeply in love with and with whom I am able to be completely open and honest and vulnerable with.  While I knew that finding love like this was a conceptual possibility, I had never experienced anything close to this in reality.  I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, because I’m not.  I’m incredibly thankful to whatever forces allowed this to be the right time and the right place and with me in the right headspace to let this all happen. I’d always heard stories about couples that just KNEW and well I always wrote it off because I’d never had anything even remotely like that happen to me.  Well.  Well.  I’m just going to say that I think that allowing/forcing myself to get vulnerable is what allowed me to be in the space to have this happen.  It doesn’t hurt that S and I seem to have an effect on each other that sort of pushes each of us to be really honest and true - it’s powerful and I am in awe of it.

*If you have the opportunity to listen to the TED talk by Brene Brown about vulnerability, I highly recommend it.

There’s something really important about reclaiming your space, your self, your space after cutting ties with someone.It’s the most monumental part of the experience of getting over it. To get all of your self back, to clean up house a bit.

And this is not to say you’re erasing them or that you will never have memories, but the simple act of mentally owning your space and place again is a huge stepping stone.

And there are also some concessions to be made - like that not every space is yours, like there are shared spaces to avoid, like that space didn’t belong to you anyway.

oh y’all.

what’s that i say about how love is all about timing?  yeah.  That.  I think what i mean is that you can love anytime, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to all work out in ways that are uncomplicated.

I’m a tenderheart, despite the giant walls around me. I love in complicated ways.  I don’t like the easiest path.  Queer relationships don’t really always fit into the boxes that non-queer relationships do.

Real talk

My ex, D - the last cis guy I dated (we broke up 2 years ago after a year of dating but not fucking), is struggling a lot right now.  He tried to commit suicide a few weeks ago, and has threatened to do so quite a bit in the past year.  I have so little in common with him anymore - he’s 34 years old, but hangs out with 20 year old artist kids on the other side of town.  he sells drugs and does drugs and just spends way too much of his time fucked up.  I can’t have a conversation with him anymore and it makes me sad.  I don’t really know what to do about him.  I mean, other than phase him out of my life completely.  How fucked up is it to let someone go that you’ve known for 10 years (we dated for like 3 of those years non-consecutively). How fucked up is it to let go of someone who has known ME for that long - who has seen me change and experience a ton of shit? But I guess it’s time for that.  I just want to see him get his shit together and I feel like all he’ll ever do is cause pain to himself and those around him.

I’m just having a really emo day.  

I am working with some feelings regarding relationships in general. It’s good for me in a way to really examine the way I treat relationships.  The last one I was in would probably be something that lot of people want - it was mostly monogamous and comfortable and my main partner was always wanting to make me happy.  Except that I couldn’t quite deal with that.  I just don’t think that comfortable is ever going to be my goal when it comes to relationships.

I don’t know - basically I think it’s a fucking baby jeebus miracle if you can find someone who suits you for any period of time. Someone who is matched so perfectly that you are just blown away by that.  It’s one of the reasons polyamory is so appealing to me - all my needs are met but usually it takes village to make that happen.  Well that’s not true, but I certainly can’t seem to find it out of a monogamous long-term partnership.  I am not really interested in slutting it up.  I’ve done that.  I am not wanting a merry-go-round of partners right now.  I want a close-knit, carefully picked, small handful of partners with whom i can related with intensely and who will let me in as much as i let them in.  I can see myself in love with two people easily - or having a primary partner who really gets me and my needs and who knows how to deal with the many facets of me.

ohapoeticsoul:

Some guidelines for loving:

1. Tell them about their brilliance. They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.

2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship. Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.

3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.” Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful: don’t pollute.

4. Listen, listen, listen. Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.

5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different.  Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.

6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them. 

7. Don’t conflate accepting with being a doormat or betraying yourself. Let them be who they are, entirely. Then, you decide what you need, in light of who they are. Do you need to make a direct request that they change their behavior in some way? Do you need to take care of yourself better? Do you need to set a boundary or to change the relationship? Take care of yourself well, without holding anyone else in contempt.

8. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself. Stop if resentment is building and retool. Don’t do the martyr thing. It helps no one and nothing.

9. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. Treat them as such.

10. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: Everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.

What steps do you take to love others?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of long term relationships and commitment and why we value those things.  

If I am queer, why am I trying to conform myself into structures of relationships that have existed for the purposes of marriage?  Why is there a higher value placed on relationships that are long-term?  Why do we seem to have distain for people that do not maintain long-term relationships (I am not excluding myself from this critisicm).  Why do I fall prey to the ideas that long-term relationships work for me when clearly, historically they do not.  It makes me question why I continue to approach them again and again with the same perspective.  I think I’m done with that.  I think I need a new frame of mind about it all.  I’m already non-monogamous, how can I take the pressure of long-term out of the picture?  And how can I show my appreciation and love in a significant way that is both genuine and does not imply length of time?  Can I personally stop getting sucked into the idea that doing something binding means that i am somehow loved more or better?  Can I assert that I am bad at long term relationships and still have significant and intimate and important relationships and not just one-off sex? 

Can we have a discussion about this without it being insulting or weird? 

crankyskirt:

I’ve been really into the idea of living apart together for some time now. It feels a little weird/out of step with the mainstream, because cohabitation (with or without formalized union) is presented as a natural step in the progress of long-term relationships. It’s really hard for me to conceptualize myself that way, though, and I’ve felt this way for a while.

Right now I’m in the (incredibly, almost unbearably slow) process of buying an apartment. When I told two of my coworkers how excited I was about living on my own, they poked gentle fun at me and said that once I had a long-term boyfriend,* I’d change my tune and jump at the chance to play house. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the changing of tune is something I don’t anticipate happening for a long, long time (think a couple of decades rather than a couple of years).

I used to think that this was because I have, to date, never been in a long-term relationship (that is to say, nothing over a year… my longest didn’t even go for a full twelve months), and that I’d follow the party line once the Blue Fairy waved a wand and transformed me into a Real Grownup™. </tongue.in.cheek> My intuition tells me different, though. Perhaps I’ll change, but I light up inside thinking about meeting someone with whom I share a great deal of love and respect, making deliberate choices about spending time together in the context of our complex, occasionally hectic, fulfilling multilayered lives, and having the ability to choose solitude in a space that belongs entirely to me. It’s not a fear of vulnerability that makes me leery of cohabitation, but rather the desire for a model that suits my head and my heart. I want to be able to enthusiastically welcome my loved ones into my home, keep my dearest ties to folks thriving, and at the same time take care of my needs as an individual. No shade to Virginia Woolf, but “a room of one’s own,” an escape warren in an otherwise wholly-shared house, isn’t enough.

The question, then, is what would my ideal look like, in a culture that does not see any gradients between “alone” and “together”? What does that ideal look like with a child involved? Because yes, I do want to have a kid someday. I see my decision to parent as one that I’ll carry out alone, not because I’m not open to co-parenting but because I don’t see partnership as a necessary prerequisite to parenthood.

I’m cool with Future Partner living in the same building, or down the street, or in the same neighborhood as me. We’d see each other very regularly, have fun bouncy grownup-time sleepovers (and also the not-bouncy-but-still-lovely kind), share kid-care duties. In some ways, I picture the result to be not particularly radical-looking. (That said, what the fuck does “radical” look like, anyway? *kisses teeth*) The unique parts: multiple sets of keys. Household finances kept separate, except for focused savings goals (going on vacation, for example, or one partner helping the other with a significant financial endeavor). Each week, a couple nights’ retreat to our separate spaces, in which “good night” is said via phone or Skype instead of in person. A real understanding of the contrasts between “me alone in bed” and “me watching Bob Marley live-in-concert videos with Future Kid” and “me hugged up with Live-Away Partner (and maybe Future Kid if they have a bad dream and need consolation),” and a deep appreciation for all those states of being. A kind of companionship for which I can express daily gratitude, because I have the means of replenishing myself with time alone, and thus can participate more fully in the lives of my loved ones.

And later, maybe in the empty-nest years, maybe a little sooner, Future Partner and I shack up proper-like, with accommodations made for our separate-yet-together lives in the same space. (These women, though not romantically partnered, seem to have a pretty sweet set-up. If I can afford to live that way when I’m older, that’d be great.)

I’m aware that this ideal may be difficult for others to understand, and that I may well not encounter someone else interested in living in such a way. I’m completely comfortable with that - I see my obligations to my friends, my family, my community and myself as vital, whether or not a romantic relationship happens to accompany them. Single parenthood can be hard as hell, something I know firsthand. My mum, even while still married to my father, was the main parent in our household, and somehow earned her law degree while working full-time and raising a kid and a teenager. Still, I do not want to partner with anyone because I need their labor to sustain a nuclear family; I want to make the choice out of what feels right and is most sustainable to each of us, as well as for Future Kid.

As a queer person and as a person of color, I am aware of the forces out there who ignorantly assert that my desires for companionship and for family are degenerate. It is as a queer person and as a person of color, however, that I feel compelled to think critically about possibilities that work for me, in whatever form they emerge. I consider these ideas (still works in progress, and constantly evolving) to be my paying of respect to the idea of chosen family, to the deliberate crafting of a life that allows me to grow and to participate in the growth of others, in an environment of fierce love and nuff respect.

* For the record, the coworkers in question (and probably most others) assume I’m straight. A couple of people at my job assume I’m a lesbian or bi. I don’t have the inclination or the energy to explain to any of them why all of these are inaccurate assumptions. Whatevs, though.

oh damn this is a very well stated explanation of so much of my inner monologue about co-habitating.