Recently Noah asked me if I thought I could handle moving out to the middle of nowhere with just him. Would I be content without the huge network of people I’ve built.
Today I had the thought: There will always be women (and men) in leather flirting with me.
Even if we moved to the middle of nowhere. Let’s get real.
Dangerous.
Tonight I told one of my lovers that I was off from the party to go have sex with my husband. He replied that I was a good whore.
Hm. Am I?
I didn’t feel good tonight. I felt… empty of stuff to give. I felt like I was letting my submissive and his partner down.
I had no topping energy in me. I just couldn’t do something to someone. I don’t know why I hit as empty as I did. Part of it is tired, but it is bigger than that. Topping is hard.
Even though I know these two people love me and want to accept anything I want to do… there is something in me that holds me back. I don’t know what they really want. I don’t understand yet. And I’m afraid I was too assertive in how much I wanted to talk when we had a date. “Hi. I know you are here for hot sex but how about if we have an intense conversation about abuse and motivation and history and triggers and…”
What? That doesn’t pass for foreplay in your house?
How well you can roll with the intense conversations decides a lot about our future. That’s why I’m so fanatically loyal to Sarah and Pam and Jenny and Noah. So many hours of intense conversations.
Today someone I had a casual hookup with is writing me to ask me for advice dealing with mental illness in a person close to them. Damn. I don’t even remember telling you that I’m crazy. But here you are. Awesome.
Let me affirm for you that you feel alone but you aren’t. You reached out to me. Because you know you aren’t alone. You know that at least I’m here. I don’t know what it means that I’m here. I don’t know what I have to give.
Tonight I didn’t have a beating to give. I’m sorry.
Instead Cupid palate wrapped me to a board and suspended me. That was fun.
And you know what?! Cupid was all lovey and kissy. PEOPLE ARE SO FUNNY.
We all have off days and the fortitude with which others tolerate those off days makes a big difference in long-term relationships.
My submissive was sweet and tolerant and accepting of the fact that I just didn’t have a beating in me. He was disappointed, but he didn’t complain or criticize. He was supportive. One of the best parts of knowing him for fifteen years is I know that if I can’t do it on one day… another day will come. But I feel like I want to make up for lost time. I want to play hard with him while I can…
But that isn’t how energy works. It really sucks. I can’t just decide to have it.
A little bit I can. A little bit I can fake. Mostly… not so much.
My date with Cupid was not the most exciting date of my whole life.
There will be others, I think. It’s ok that we all have off days.
Is this part of what being a grown up means? We all get to be where we are. It’s ok to not be a perfect performance of the kind of relationship that people want to get. (It occurs to me that part of my trouble with monogamy is balancing what I feel I “owe” Noah and adding people makes that problem worse and not better.)
I feel like Noah and I have done so many shifts lately we are dancing not walking through life. What are we doing?
Alternating having fun with having sex and making each other cry?
I mean… what do you do with your time?
Tomorrow will be lovely. Drive up to get the kids. Then we throw a goodbye luncheon for our dearest Pam who has been claiming she’s leaving for a while now. This week is finally it? I am going to miss her like a phantom limb. This will be hard. I wish her luck on her adventures. I love you. Come home someday. Tell me stories.
(In my whispering voice but I can’t figure out how to make smaller text on wordpress)
Deity is coming over for dinner. I’m not saying more about that.
Are you shitting me. Are you god damn shitting me. After all these years, after all this crying and arguments and fuss…
Now you scheduled an appointment for a consultation on a vasectomy reversal.
I… I don’t even know what to think or feel. I’m overwhelmed. I’m happy. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I’m so excited I almost feel like I could puke.
Shit. I need to look for a high risk OB. I’m going to be a most medically managed bitch.
I have to survive this and… that will take some effort on the parts of folks who have some serious training. I shouldn’t have another kid. It’s a death wish. But really my whole life is a death wish.
As much as I can’t promise no suicide forever… I will raise my children. I will.
So this would reset the clock on that a bit. I guess that’s a way to work around this problem.
I am so excited. I am so excited I can barely breathe.
I don’t know how to express how I have always wanted three kids. I know there will be problems. There are problems now. There were problems with no kids.
I want this baby so bad. Yes, it is selfish. Yes it is population growth. I know. I know I’m a bad, selfish person. I am.
You don’t understand what my relationships with my children give me. As much as I chafe at portions of it, their existence and their interactions with me give me the most security and happiness I’ve known.
Yes, I want more of that.
Noah is looking at me sharp and asking if I will want to stop at three. I don’t want a child who will be in the same age position to their oldest sibling as I was in. I have to stop at three for spacing reasons.
How is this going to work?
We really don’t know yet. We have a while to discuss it. The rest of our lives, really. But some factors are more immediately pressing. Things like a vasectomy reversal is about 40%-54% successful. How do we feel about spending that much money for a coin flip of a chance?
Have you seen this man’s babies? I’ll do it.
But what if it doesn’t work? How do we feel about someone else knocking me up? I’ve been a gigantic asshole for years about wanting to be a woman in my family with one baby daddy. Today it occurred to me that I am much more upset about the idea of an accidental pregnancy than I am at the idea of multiple fathers.
Being unwanted has colored my whole life. I don’t want a surprise baby. I want joyously conceived intentional children. Children born into the fullness of love and welcome.
I need to give that to other people because I couldn’t have it. That is important.
I know that this will be a hospital birth. If they push me for a section I’ll say yes. I know my hemorrhage risk.
I know.
This isn’t how I want to die.
Once upon a time 50% of women died in childbirth. I won’t be motherfucking one of them.
No, monogamy won’t work again. For so many reasons. I wanted it to work. I poured every ounce of try I had into making it work.
I failed.
What does this mean? Well it means what we thought we agreed to like a fucking week ago is… yeah. Probably not the final agreement or anything close to it. uuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhheeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
fuss
Cause if I’m getting knocked up again… this time I can’t do the maintenance sex all the time. I just can’t. It is eating my soul. I need to stop having sex when I’m not in the god damn mood and yeah that means I need to get over being so jealous of Noah having sex with other people.
In my defense I handled that bit well during a previous pregnancy. (Ok I was weird about the couch. I DON’T KNOW WHY I AM SO WEIRD ABOUT EITHER OF US FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE ON THE GOD DAMN COUCH.)
No really, I was ok when I was pregnant and completely not interested in sex. I wasn’t pissy at all about him having sex with a friend. Yay them.
So yeah. We are discussing what polyamory (I refuse to claim it yet. Oh god) might look like for us. Live in forever partner? Coparent?
We would like (a) serious coparents.
We would.
Which makes me feel like the biggest asshole on the planet for how it went down with Sarah.
At least my mistakes were huge and easy to see and uhm easy to avoid duplicating. God I hit so many huge fuck ups in such a short period of time.
Fuck.
So who knows. Life is long. Why in the world would anyone want to do this sort of thing with me/us?
Shit I dinno. But I don’t know why Noah is here either. Maybe someone else has equally mysterious needs of their own.
Who are you though?
Sometimes Noah writes long screeds in private where he calls me on my bullshit and the holes in my memory. I always wonder why he doesn’t do it publicly. He doesn’t want to make me look bad.
Maybe I make myself look bad.
Noah is right that most of our play issues over the years have not been his fault. We’ve really struggled to get bdsm play where we want it to be. Realistically we are closer to where we want to be and we are doing better than we ever have.
And I’m still bitching. What an asshole.
His memory for the rough patches and the failed attempts are better than mine. But that also means he gives me, perhaps, too much understanding around my frustration and impatience. He remembers the fuck ups better than me.
I just feel pissy and can’t articulate why.
I think Noah is right that seeing me play with other people is really important because without that I am shit at explaining what I want from play and why. I can go do it. I can’t always explain it well.
Things are improving and I’m glad for that. I think things will continue to improve. Mostly because Noah is patient, kind, giving, and tolerant.
Thank you.
In my secret heart I hope that the group play helps. Because when Noah and I are bouncing off another person we see sides of one another we don’t otherwise see.
Maybe that is why it is so hard for me to watch him play. Those are pieces of him I don’t get. But I feel like when he watches me play he learns about pieces he could get.
I’m really not fair about this.
Ugh. Ok, the day should start.
Today I wake up feeling happier than I have in a bit. From a mood tracking point of view this is significant.
I was feeling some feelings of potential rejection and I processed them with a nice friend who was all, “Let’s talk context” and then I got full circle to “Shit. I’m acting like a spoiled baby who isn’t being aware of the limitations of the people I like a lot. Knock that crap off.”
Thank you for your patience with my selfishness and self-absorption.
I worry a lot about whether or not I am using my time in the most useful or effective or fun ways.
Sometimes life isn’t about that. Sometimes life is about being with someone when neither of you feel exciting. Sometimes life isn’t about maximizing “Make me have fun today or I’m kicking you to the curb.”
Sometimes life is just sitting together and having dinner and being tired. Because that is where you are. That has to be ok too.
If you like someone, you have to like them all the time. Even when they are tired and don’t have a lot to give. Or you are an asshole.
Ok, I know I’m an asshole… but I try hard to not be that flavor of asshole.
As I sit here mooning over the Sweet Boy Noah is making fun of the fact that I’m not really ready to stop expanding the roster.
But I want to spend the time everyone on the roster already deserves and time is limited. Sometimes the right kind of time to be spent isn’t what you think you want, and it is bonding anyway.
What is the difference between being someone’s friend and using them for sex/play?
I want to be your friend. I like you. I’ve liked you for such a long time.
Ok, but next time it is a date can I ask for at least more kissing and hugging? I’m ok with no sex and play. We are all human animals and we get tired. But I feel like, for me, to call it a date I’d like at least some more kissing and hugging.
I want to be your friend too. But I also want to mack on you because yeah, that’s totally why I’m there. Because I want to be your friend who macks on you. It’s a thing.
The funniest part of chasing so many people right now is how insecure every person is. None of us feel worthy of being liked this much. None of us feel like forsooth someone will like us.
But I like you and you and you and you and you. Near as I can tell you like me back.
How can we work on some of this mythical “self esteem” bullshit I hear so much about? How can your love for me help me love myself and how can my love for you help you love yourself? Can we help one another feel worthy? I don’t know. I want to find out.
It helps with Noah. It really does. Being with Noah has changed me. As much as it hurts my fucking finger, wearing the rock he gave me (err, that I picked out and bought for myself on his dime) has changed how I feel about myself in the world. Because it changes how I’m treated by random people.
Do you know how weird it is for a dirty street kid to have people genuflect because you must be important to be wearing a rock like that? Blows my fucking mind.
Worth is all about games of perception.
I think I’m going to try to have a week off pot. I’m just going to have Abilify in the morning and Klonopin at night.
Wish me luck.
Noah and I had a long conversation yesterday and then I’ve had lots of thoughts since then. Goodness figuring out what to call it when I hang out with folks is complicated. I’ve always defaulted to calling anything and everything a “date”. I date my kids and let me tell you, there is no hanky panky.
So when we get into our feelings of jealousy and possessiveness… what counts as an infraction? A date? A concession?
A sexcapade?
We talked at great length about Daddy. Daddy is a friend I’ve been hanging out with lots for over ten years. We’ve played off and on over more than twelve years. We finally just fucked. Am I now barely allowed to see him because he has to be part of the “one date a month” thing?
Complicated.
My one date for the month last night turned into a no sex and no play date. I won’t get another date this month. I don’t have time. So I guess it counts as a date based on what I’m allowed to schedule at the beginning of the month and if it doesn’t turn into sex/play them’s just the breaks.
I don’t have more time to give to it to “make up” for it not going all the way. I get what I get.
I have mixed feelings about last night not turning into sex. Some of them I don’t want to write about because complicated.
How mercenary am I going to be in this lifetime? How blunt? How aggressive? How demanding? How much do I get to say, “Yeah if fucking me isn’t appealing then we… don’t need to date.” I have so many hang ups around sex and desire. I need to feel like when I am carving time away from my life it is to be with someone who is very happy that I am there and yes by golly they want to fuck me.
By the same token I understand that not everyone can get it up every day. There are days I can’t deliver.
I don’t want people to be a life support unit for their genitals so I can get laid either. There is a balance. I understand that sometimes we are tired. Sometimes… it just isn’t a good day and it doesn’t matter that you don’t get another day this month. That’s life.
But I feel like I need to figure out how I feel about this kind of going forward. How do I handle it when Sweet Boys tell me they want to play again but I suspect they want more play like this weekend… where I was so good.
Oh darling boy. Really I’m a debaucherous slut and I was so good about keeping my hands off your intimate parts. I don’t have that kind of self control over the long run.
Ask my submissive. I was supposed to tease him for a while. Shit. I barely made it through one scene before I was ripping his clothes off and telling him that I needed him to fuck me.
oh god.
I don’t have much space. I really don’t. And what I have is… full. Busy. Spoken for.
But golly you are hot.
Nooooooaaaaaaaaaaaah. I’m so bad.
So bad. So bad. So bad.
God he’s hot.
I think I need a cold shower.
Noah and I are still talking. He keeps saying things like, “Where we are so far” and I have heart palpitations because I want to treat the negotiating up to the last minute as tentative.
Today Noah said to me: “It sucks that so many of the things you do to make me happy hurt you.” I asked if there was much that worked like that in reverse. He said not so much.
I feel like we are getting to the point where “fair” is becoming less of a thing. Good. There is no fair here. We never wanted 50/50. We haven’t tried to be “fair” about earning money, housework, childcare, bill paying, planning for events… we aren’t fair. That’s not what we do. We each shoulder a burden. Is it even?
There is literally no way to evaluate that.
Does it work?
I don’t know.
My sex life is tricky. I have a lot of layered weird needs and restrictions and problems. Learning about all of them takes years of practice and attention. Which is to say Noah has helped me learn more about them than every other lover put together. Because of the difference in time and attention. A huge part of the problem is that everything is inconsistent. What works one day will do the opposite the next day. That’s not fair.
It isn’t fair for Noah and it isn’t fair for me. And there isn’t much of anything I can do about it. It is hormonal, chemical, and unpredictable. I have no choice but to ride the roller coaster. My other option is dying.
Noah is agreeing that he shouldn’t date. Not saying that he should never have sex or play with people, but dating is different. Is it fair? No.
Life isn’t fair.
I’m going to get one evening date a month and if I can make a day-time-during-babysitting date happen I can have one more date in a month. If.
So. I still won’t call myself poly. Because.
There are more nuances, of course. But that’s kinda the beginning of the frame.
Like, arranging play dates with friends together is totally ok. I know I’ll have feelings about that too. But I have historically done much better with this than other configurations. Is it “nice” to Noah that I am so insecure? No. But I am. We can deal with it by causing more damage to me or we can choose to try and avoid a few land mines just cause we can.
We are still talking about more intense play between us. This is going to be fucking hard to negotiate.
I am typing very slowly. And I should stop. I’d say my arm pain is at an 8.
But I want to type for four hours straight about my feeeeeeeeeelings and all the nuances of sex.
I can’t.
Negotiations are still in progress. Given the turn they just took, I’m glad I’m not recording more specifics of the back and forth.
Don’t get attached to pieces at this point in the process. We don’t fucking know yet.
If my arms were great I wouldn’t be able to type much because I have four kids here. My arms suck though. There are a few things I want to try and remind myself of, maybe so I can talk to Noah about them.
My shrink is quite perturbed by my level of interest in Deity. This is becoming A Thing We Talk About. She’s all: “Sport fucking! Yay! Falling in love. Boo.”
When I mention that I already love other partners she cocks an eyebrow and says, “You don’t blush and stammer when you talk about them.”
Well, maybe that is true.
I have a better idea of what I want from my submissive. I have times when I don’t feel I have the oomph to do what I want to do but I feel deeply secure that the line of stuff I’m interested in asking for are all things that are right up his alley.
I have… more comfort around Cupid. I think I’m a lot more into him than I should be. I’m tap dancing on a high wire trying to figure out how to keep him in a spot in my life even though he’s probably not going to be interested in the group stuff everyone else will put up with. I went from wanting someone to do something to wanting Cupid to do things but I’m not 100% sure what.
I’m really not interested in hunting just the now. I feel like I have a lot to explore and learn about and I’m really excited about that.
And I get to balance it with helping Noah feel secure. The whole ship won’t sail if he feels insecure. First I have to figure out how to help Noah feel loved. Then I can figure out what it means that I love these other people.
Because I do. I love my Daddy’s. Every single one of them for different reasons.
What do these loves, these attachments mean? I don’t know. Many of them have been there for a long time. (I messaged Daddy James today to say that even though I was in his neighborhood… I still am not fucking him. Sigh.)
I do love these people. But what does that mean?
What is love?
Some love is possessive and about ownership… but not all love. Sometimes love is about generosity and sharing and wanting them to get joy from anyone but you. Loving someone can include hoping they find the girl of their dreams and settle down and don’t have time for me.
But not Noah. He’s not allowed to run out of time for me.
I fall in love easily. I fall in love often. I fall in love with great intensity. Usually I love forever.
If I sat here and listed allllllllllllll of the people who have a piece of my heart… I’d sound like I was bragging. I would be bragging.
Aren’t I a lucky bitch? I have been able to love so many people.
Some of them even loved me back. At least a little. For a time.
Do any of those loves mean I do not love Noah? I don’t see why that would be true. I married one man. One man has seen me through hardship and illness and despair. One man helped me create the babies that give me life.
It really doesn’t matter how much I love other people this will always be true.
Noah is the only person who ever really looked at me and decided that he was going to prove to me that I am worthy.
Loyalty my friend, loyalty. But what does that loyalty entitle him to? My friend who was here the other weekend says jack shit. My shrink says definitely not sex.
I don’t know what I think.
I know I shouldn’t care what random people out in the world think. I really shouldn’t. I was stupid enough to read one of those “People who commit suicide are selfish” posts. I shouldn’t have. I should have opted-out and done some self-care.
Suicide has shaped my whole life. My grandmother killed herself by overdosing when my mom was pregnant with me. My mom dealt with that loss through my infancy. It was hard. She had been very close to her mother. I don’t really know why. My brother lit himself on fire because he could not cope with the pain of his life. Given how his life was… I don’t feel I have the right to anger. Was he selfish? Yes. But he had the right to be. He was left alone in care facilities where he was abused and that was all he would ever know. My father sat in the garage with the motor running and wrote notes to everyone in the world telling them that I was an evil liar and he was innocent. Even though he’d already confessed and collaborated every story. He wasn’t going to drive himself to the court room that day.
Selfish is just so beside the point.
My therapist OD’ed on heroin. She could not deal with the pain in her life. My adopted step-mom (long story) OD’ed on injected pain medication she was not prescribed. She could not deal with the pain in her life.
I have been institutionalized for attempting suicide. My stomach was pumped and I’m still here.
I don’t have a lot of the attachments other people have. I get what I create. I do the absolute best I can with the platonic friends I have…
Sharing sex and intimacy creates tighter bonds.
I don’t feel like I’m in a position to turn down a good twitterpation. Even if it makes my therapist uncomfortable. Am I going to wreck my life over it? No. I hope not.
Noah’s parents just sent us a cheerful letter to tell us about the cruise they are going on. The same month as the one we are going on. The one they won’t go on with us because they have to “get the hay in”. The hay they won’t touch with their hands because they have employees.
What is attachment?
I’m listening to the kids as they play in the back yard. I’m kinda ridiculous about enforcing outside time. “Y’all spend too much time inside. Get out into the sun. Go. Go. Go.”
I do go with them…
Right now I medicate. It was a long day of driving and being sober. Processing with my therapist. I feel like I’m almost ready to be happy. But not till I deal with Thursday. Oh Thursday.
I love you so. I have been such a twat waffle and I do not deserve your forgiveness. I have no. no. no. no idea how this will go.
Fuck.
I’m thinking of a pithy movie quote, I think from Girls Just Want to Have Fun “You always hurt the one you love.” Shannon Doherty? Is that it?
Anyway.
You know… I think I love my biological father. Even with everything. Most of the people who raped me… I loved them. Many of them I love them now. I might feel really angry with them… but I love them.
What is love?
Even though Tommy spent my childhood beating me and trying to rape me… I loved him. I’m sad his life was so terrible that he had to die to get away from it. I cannot bring myself to be angry with him for not wanting to suffer more for my convenience.
It is almost the anniversary of Tommy’s death. Next month. Eighteen years now. In three more years he will have been dead as long as he was alive.
Rest in Peace, Tommy.
What am I doing with my life?
I am trying to stop being a destroyer. I want to be a builder. I want to be someone who makes less pain in the world and not more.
There are reasons for temporary physical pain that alleviate intense emotional suffering and I don’t know how to deal with that dichotomy. Sometimes I don’t know what I am doing.
I want to figure out how to help there be less pain. One of the ways I do that is to understand and find compassion.
I like loving lots of kinds of people. They all teach me different things. I learn best by being able to stand very close to someone and bask in their presence. I know this after many years of trying a lot of ways to learn. I will pick things up faster. I will learn more quickly. I will try to synch up with this person in any way I can because the drive to conform is what keeps our species alive.
The main reason I manage to be so god damn weird is because I have allowed myself to pattern off incredibly different people. Contradictions are ok. We can all solve different problems.
Ok. Time to be off.
I love you. Even when I have no idea what that means.
Well. I am starting to set up conversations with people. It’s going to take a few days to schedule all of them. Scheduling is a moving target. And I’m trying to figure out how to build the wave. Looks like the first chat will be the easiest and least stressful. The next scheduled one is the one I’m most anxious about. Then I don’t know where the rest of them fit in yet. I need to leave time for crying after these.
It won’t be someone else’s fault I’m crying. I do it from stress.
I’m scared. I feel like I still… know my boundaries when I run into them and have to cut to stay “ok” in my day to day life. I don’t realize until I’m way way way over capacity “Oh I should have stopped a while ago.” Then what do you do? Because if you cut to cope because you are over capacity PEOPLE ACT LIKE THE WORLD IS ENDING. OH NO. LET’S THROW EVERYTHING IN THE AIR AND CHANGE EVERYTHING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS WRONG.
Or maybe I was a little over my rev limit?
Fuck. I don’t know.
I feel bad that my ability to cope is so limited. It is a lot bigger than it used to be, but I still have limits.
It really complicates things that interacting with children (and their uhm questionable fucking ability to respect body autonomy) changes how I can handle adults. And that is so variable and it feels so incredibly unfair. Like, if Noah had a date scheduled after the day/night I had with the kids yesterday…
Oh god I would have flipped out. But when you are dealing with other people you need to schedule commitments and keep them. So my boundaries with other people aren’t allowed to be fuzzy and squiggy like that.
But my life is fuzzy and squiggy and variable and I am not someone who can manufacture consistency for another adult’s sake.
I have a hard enough time providing consistency for kids. That is my limit.
I have a hard time being patient and giving and loving with adults when I’ve had 12+ hours out of the last 24 with a kid screaming in my fucking face and hitting everyone. One of the kids had a hard day this week. It happens. These are tiny little people who have a lot going on with their sensory systems. There are days they are just fucking overwhelmed and they are obnoxious as fuck to deal with.
At the end of that I have no patience to give to grown ups. I really don’t. And that’s not fair. I feel like a fucking asshole but if I am activated that many times in a day I literally just can’t turn around and give to an adult. I will flip out and start screaming and breaking things.
I need to go hide away from people after that. Because I’m frazzled as fuck. I got through it without being mean to the kid. I didn’t scream. I wasn’t unduly rough. I didn’t punish harshly. I did enforce a metric fuck ton of time outs. But that seems appropriate and useful. Stop hitting people. It’s not ok.
I’ve seen a bunch of kids go through phases like this. It isn’t about a kid sucking or being bad. It’s a hard phase and it takes patience, love, and correction correction correction.
I get so tired.
I feel like an asshole playing the “traumatized body/brain” card a lot. But the reality is that my central nervous system is shot. I have an acute stress disorder. These things are noticeable strain. I do have limits. Things that activate my emotional system… I can only be calm through so many. Once I get scared enough… I’m not physically capable of thinking and processing the way I must in order to act like a fully present adult. My range of tolerance is wider than average (according to the shrinks I’ve been seeing for a long time) but it isn’t infinite and I start off so much more distressed than average.
I don’t want to take things out on people because I am moody and variable. That means that mostly I assume to defaulting I should offer nothing sustained at all. Because I might fail.
So far Pam is the only sustained once a week dinner guest who can actually deal with my emotional variance and the fact that sometimes you show up and I’m screamtastic and fussy and… no fun.
Everyone else stops coming.
And Pam is leaving the state. Eventually. She keeps threatening. We’ll see.
When I feel ok I have a lot to give. I have patience, love, energy, tolerance… when I don’t feel ok I feel like a bank vault. You don’t open that easily or for fun. It’s fucking hard and takes a sequence of codes and… then only take out what you fucking have to what the fuck close that fucker already.
This is why I don’t want “polyamory”. I’m not good enough at being consistent enough to be a dependable part of a group of people like that. I feel ashamed of myself, but it is true. I have very good friends who sometimes want to have sex with me. And I love them a lot. I will move mountains for my friends. When I can.
When I can’t… I fucking hope you have other support people too. Because I will fail you. I give you what I have to spare. That is what I can give.
I have signed on for being the sustainer of my children. I have signed on for helping to sustain Noah, with the strong caveat that he knows sometimes he has to catch himself. (Hey–he can’t always catch me either. Seems fair.) I have signed on to be a consistent source of non-continuous sustaining for my Bonus Kids. I’m one of Their Grownups. I like that. I like that I did manage to find someone who thinks I am worth the trouble of coming to because their kids need someone like me.
I’m grateful I managed to find folks for that. It wasn’t looking like that was going to work out. It was looking like I was not worth that much effort from anyone.
I’m really grateful things have gone this well for 6 years with my Bonus Kids.
I would never ever ever ever ever play with or sleep with the parents of my Bonus Kids because I can’t fuck that up. That’s like shitting in the waterhole. It’s really stupid long-term.
I fuck up a lot of sexual relationships. I fuck up a lot of non-sexual relationships too… but I fuck up sexual relationships faster. I run hot and cold and that hurts people.
Even I need to understand some boundaries.
I know many dozens of non-breeding long-term polyamorous adults. I have never been capable of the emotional consistency I see them enact. That’s bothered me my entire adult life. That is part of what reminds me of how broken I am. I know so many people who can do it. Who can be consistent and dependable in their emotional reactions.
My emotional reaction to thing A is impacted by thing B and thing C and thing D and thing E and I don’t fucking know how that will go on any given day.
I’m more predictable and calm than ever in the past. How come this progress never ever ever ever feels good enough?
Ok, I just thought of a piece of why Noah dating is so difficult for me…
I always know, every day, that at the end of the day I have to handle the extent of my emotional variance on my own. Noah helps a lot more than anyone else but he has limits. His manufactured cheerfulness is part of what he does for me. That consistency of affect helps me more than words can say. I calibrate off of him. I try to match him. I model after him. When he isn’t here and I am flailing… it’s hard. Even if he can’t sit down to process with me for hours, being around him is regulating.
If I am going to leave more space in my life for not depending on him to be physically present and I know that he is leaving me to go do something fun with someone else…
I need to lock down hard on not depending on him. Because I will resent the fact that I will sometimes have really shitty days and he will be out having fun instead of helping me. Because I built a life that was very near my carrying capacity and then I added shit and sometimes I get really overwhelmed and… I don’t have enough help. Getting less is hard.
I do encourage him to go do things with friends. Because I feel guilty as shit that he doesn’t have much of a life. He works and has the social life I bring to him, mostly. I don’t know if he’d be more motivated to seek out more of a social life if I provided less of one? I do invite a lot of forking people over. He’s not just hiding at home with his family or working. But not much is of his initiation.
But dating is… different. I feel bad about that but it is.
It isn’t fair that I don’t really believe someone can treat me like I’m important and be seriously in love with someone else. I think people can fuck their friends and still be nice to me, sure. But be really in love? Not really.
Love means so many things. What is love?
I will lose time and support in that equation. Because love may be infinite but time is not. I’m doing fairly well… because I have the level of support I have. If it decreased I would… have a hard time.
If I have to spend yet more time alone with my kids regulating myself… that has a cost. The road trip demonstrated that to me quite clearly.
I wasn’t all that nice by the end. Not really. The kids were so glad to get home.
Both kids have commented a lot recently that I’m doing better. They have individually and collectively commented on the fact that I’m not screaming anywhere near as much as I used to and that is really nice.
I’m scared to rock this boat.
I’m scared that being selfish with my energy and only wanting to give it to my kids like this means I have no business pursuing nonmonogamy because I am just using my friends and I’m not offering good trades.
If I’m going to do this… I need to get more comfortable with canceling going forward. I can’t pay the cost of doing something I don’t want to do in the moment any more. And that’s complicated.
I’m not dependable enough and… that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be doing this at all. Maybe swinger parties. Other than that I’m too much of a selfish asshole to date.
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
This is part of my transactional shit. Noah and I talk very explicitly about what we trade. What kinds of energy expenditures we each need to receive. What are our priorities and which can be dropped when things get tight?
I don’t have enough to trade other people. Not really. I have “what I have going spare today” and often that is so little.
The only consistent front to Noah dating that I can manufacture consistently is space. I can’t promise closeness. I can’t promise loving reconnection. If I have to cope on my own then I need to fucking cope on my own and that is messy and hard. Because mostly how I cope is to be pretty fucking hard on myself. That is how I have come this far.
I did not get this far on compassionate self acceptance. I got this far from being a fucking dictator with my body who doesn’t give a shit what I’m feeeeeeling.
Just work, bitch.
But Noah really wants me to be sunny for him. I can’t do that when I’m coping on my own. It is variable and inconsistent and happens randomly. That’s how it has always been. He is spoiled by how consistent I have been able to be while bouncing off of him for hours a day.
That’s from you. That’s from modeling off of you. When I lose you…
Noah teaches me how to be nice. I can hear it in his voice. When he errs towards nastiness it feels like an instrument being played off key and I instantly mention that he’s harsh. He stops, gets this weird look on his face, and tries again.
I think that is a lot of what has allowed me to be as stable as I’ve been in the last ten years. He works so hard to model it.
When I lose my model I fuck up so much more. That doesn’t feel like a fair burden. And, I know this is bullshit, but I’ve had a hard time with how much he works. I’m not supposed to feel like that is a choice to be away but that’s been hard. I’ve had to be very conscious and deliberate around not being an asshole to him over that. It’s not a rational reason to be mean to him and I’ve had to work on it because it is triggering to me.
It has taken a lot of time and effort to be truly supportive and not kind of an asshole about how much he works. I think I’m pretty good now, but it wasn’t easy.
Noah is the person who makes me feel safe. That’s not fair. I know I should “feel safe in myself”. Whatever. I don’t. I never have. I spend a lot of time feeling like I’d like to vibrate out of my fucking body to get away from myself because I am the problem. I am the one who brings so much pain on myself.
I am the one who can’t behave consistently enough to be worthy of love.
Maybe if I were someone who could say, “Today is a bad day for a date… you should reschedule” I would be able to handle him dating without wanting to scratch his fucking face off when he comes home all excited and I had a shitty day with a side of shit salad. But I am not capable of doing that kind of thing. I’ll put my head down and tell him to do what he wants to do and then I’ll need three days away from him because I hate him so much.
It isn’t fair. Or rational. Or whatever. I know.
I have never had a time in my life when I was not giving to other people pretty much at the extent of what I had to give. I’ve never had a time when I was just… idling. I’m tired. I have hard days with this caregiving crap.
Noah is tired too. His job isn’t easy. He comes home to us.
I’m sorry I am not good at letting you have other people in your life who are more dependable and worthy.
That’s something Noah brings up a lot. I’m really insecure about the fact that everyone he has wanted to get involved with since we got married is just… so mellow. He brings it up really frequently how irrational I am because these are incredibly non-threatening people. They are not drama.
I’m the problem. It never comes from someone else. Just me.
But he also doesn’t want to deal with the fact that giving him space to go be with people who are not worthless pieces of shit means that I am going to spend a few days hiding to deal with the fact that I don’t really like being the problem, the drama, the variable one who just can’t get her shit together.
I feel embarrassed that I fucking exist.
Just stop crying about things that shouldn’t make you cry you stupid, whiny bitch.
None of these people should make me cry.
Being alone makes me cry.
Then why do I need to go be alone once he comes back?
Because I had to hold it together in front of the kids and I need space to recover from that facade. I can’t model off of you when I need to react to you and I have not been allowed to do so even a little bit all day. I needed to pretend all day that I was fine and everything was fine and I don’t mind lots of extra alone time with the kids, sure why not.
I have to pay the piper for that later.
And I’m not supposed to take it out on you. That’s not fair either. I can’t let my tone of voice get shitty. So I need to be alone. In order to not take my emotional variance out on you I need to be alone.
I’m told that my “yelling” by having a harsh tone counts just as much as when I escalate in volume and start screaming.
So yeah. I need a lot of alone time.
Even though I don’t decompress very well alone. I can’t decompress in the presence of the person I am feeling activated because of. I can’t use you to calm down when I am upset because of you. That’s what I mean when I say that it is losing my safe person. If I’m crying because I had to spend more hours manufacturing sustaining cheerfulness alone because you wanted to go fuck someone else… I can’t be in a room with you. I just can’t.
I know we are already talking about several steps down the line from this. I know.
I feel like I should have some idea of what my feelings are given the conversations I’m going to have soon. Fuck my stomach hurts.
I don’t have enough to trade. I have no right to even be having these discussions.
I feel like shit.
Luckily the first conversation will happen this weekend and will actually be the lowest stress one of the bunch. I need to finish scheduling them. Oh golly.
*head desk*
If only I wanted to fuck fewer people this would be easier. Or Noah. Either of us, really.
Something occurs to me: a lot of this comes down to… I don’t ask for additional support on the really hard days. I just don’t. You have to just show up and see that I need it and provide it. Or it will be invisible to you. If Noah is going to be present less, he will see a lot less. Which will be massive in my life. That will be a huge reduction in support. Because I will not be capable of asking for more support in other ways. I just… that’s a thing. That’s a very known thing.
It all comes back to being my fault. Everything would be fine if I were less fucked up.
It has been true so long that now it is almost funny. When I am being really really self-hating… the fastest way to break that mood chain is to get cranky at someone else.
This time I’m cranky at a friend who said something true but in a very unkind way. It isn’t that this friend is wrong. It is that the delivery… wow that was… shit dude. You never ever get to comment on my lack of tact again. Fuck.
Who is the asshole in this relationship? I think that answer is both of us.
I also think that the solution to my problem isn’t completely where my friend thinks it is… even though that was a true statement.
It was also a very blamey statement and whoa. Given the shithole I have climbed out of, telling me that all my problems are because of _____ is a bit uhm.
Yeah.
I had kind of an interesting set of realizations. (This won’t be as long as I want it to be because of pain.) I do not aspire to have a concrete set of boundaries I present to the world as “who I am”.
I truly don’t. I don’t want to have a set persona and this is who I am and this is how I must be treated. How I must be treated varies from person to person and is in large part constructed based on our past experiences and reasonable expectations between us.
I exist in context of my life. Different people have different kinds of access to me for very complicated reasons and those are not strictly tied to how long I’ve known them nor what kind of previous exchange of relationship duties we’ve had.
Even though Jenny is my oldest friend and has been there through some of the most fucktastically intense moments she isn’t one of the people I can be most assuming with. She has boundaries of her own. So that relationship is shaped by our mutual agreements.
Ok, this is what I’m arguing with. But I’m not going to give you context for why it was brought up.
I think I am mostly motivated to argue against it as hard as I am right now because I am so pissed off with the delivery around it. I am not very rational like that. I don’t overall mostly think it is wrong. Only I strongly disagree that I have to want autonomy and to not compromise.
I do make special rules for people to show them that they are special. I like it that way and I am not going to give up on that because someone else thinks it would be a superior lifestyle. Maybe you have had the kind of life where you can have one united front of personality. I didn’t.
I don’t think each relationship with outside persons is independent. I think that a relationship with X is compounded by the fact that they are dating Y who is dating Z who is dating A who is dating…
That whole chain impacts my life. I care about the whole fucking thing and that makes discussions about boundaries not about a bunch of autonomous people negotiating one to one in my opinion.
Long story short: it occurs to me (after being asked, cause I’m a self absorbed bastard like that) that we should talk to the folks we want to see in the future this month before we finalize agreements and stuff between us. We aren’t negotiating about imaginary possible people. We are negotiating about people who are already embedded in our lives. That’s a lot of layers of extra complication.
Oh. Shit. Yeah. Thinking about everyone’s feelings. Shit. Shit. Shit. Yeah. We are supposed to do that.
Oh.
Whoops.
Usually I like coming to folks and saying “I want x. Yes or no.” But this is deeper than that. Quite frankly, these are mostly folks where we already love them and that means this really should be an actual conversation.
Oh fuck polyamory.
I DON’T WANNA BE A GROWN UP. FUCK RESPONSIBILITY. FUCK CALCULUS.
Then be monogamous you skank.
…. Ok fine we can talk.
Fuck.
Giving space for negotiation was smart. It means that both of us are feeling less reactive and terrified and likely to freak out. It means that today’s conversation doesn’t feel SUPER IMPORTANT because someone has a date tomorrow. We agreed that we would treat the first couple of weeks as just… speculating out loud. In the last week we are going to sit down and write up formal contracts.
Cause I take written agreements fucktastically seriously because I can reference them over and over. That helps.
Today’s conversation was great. Thank goodness for Minecraft. Let the kids have two hours of screen time and we can have a real chat about what we want.
I’m still scared, but it isn’t at a fevered pitch.
I feel like maybe y’all were right. We’ll sit here and grind until we figure this out. We are good at figuring shit out. I feel like we found gratitude again today and that helps. It is nice when we can both point out that we see the hard things the other is doing.
Like Noah working like fuck to manufacture cheerfulness for me. That’s hard for him. He does that for me because it makes my life better.
I do want to owe him for that. He took this thing I liked and worked and worked and worked on it. He isn’t actually the most cheerful person naturally. He’d like to be kind of a cold bastard. But I really need him to bring me up. So he does it. Day after day, year after year. He is my ray of sunshine so that I remember that I have so much to be glad about.
He does it even when he’s kinda depressed. It is such visible strain sometimes. Yes, Noah. I see you. I see how hard you work to be positive and cheerful and bouncy for me.
Thank you.
That’s a huge thing you do. And you do it basically every fucking day. Even when I’m a pain in the ass. Even when I’m depressed. (Ok you falter when I’m being an asshole but that’s fair.) Even when I’m not putting out much. Even when I’m whining about how you aren’t enough.
You still deliver.
Thank you.
I really like a lot of the suggestions that have rolled past today.
Let’s keep talking. We aren’t writing anything down yet. Too much left to discuss. I’m glad I get to talk about this with you.
Yesterday Noah asked me why I didn’t use my words to ask him for something if I wanted it. I hissed, “How well does that go?” He said that I get a lot of little things I ask for and almost none of the big things. I just about screamed, “That’s why I didn’t fucking ask.”
There is this story about my mom that goes around and around in my head. My mom got tired of having her little boys play with their Matchbox cars in the kitchen, the only non-carpeted room. She knew my dad would tell her no to ripping the carpet out of their bedroom. “It would hurt the resale value of the house.” So she waited until he went to work (he worked graveyards), put the kids to sleep in her bed, took speed, and ripped the floor up by herself. She had the laminate mostly installed before he got home.
I asked my mom why she didn’t ask him. She snorted and said, “If I ask then I get told no, then the consequences are big. If I just do it… he’s not going to undo it.”
I think that’s a lot of why when I decided I couldn’t be monogamous right now I said I just couldn’t follow rules and I needed to try stuff. I needed to see what felt right and not say no to things before I even really decided what I felt about it.
And that backfires. Like such arrangements do.
Sometimes. And sometimes it is absolutely the only way to get what you want at all. Yeah, I was a serious asshole. I really was.
I feel like the fact that my sex life has been entirely measured in someone else’s satisfaction for many years now has broken something in me. Something I don’t know how to fix. I’m bitter about how much “taking one for the team” I’ve done.
I guess the thing I’m getting from the team is physical support through disability. Oh.
It is interesting having a friend visiting for the weekend (sorry I’m puking) who is an absolutely ardent feminist. Of the take-no-shit-variety. I was doing my expounding on trying to figure out what I “owe” Noah.
She looked so pissed. I said, “It’s ok. Say it. Even if it’s mean.”
“I want to punch you in the face. You don’t owe him shit.” She went on at more length. But that bit is enough.
An awful lot of our relationship is predicated on transactional trades. We spend a lot of time talking about how much we owe one another. It’s complicated. It is a lot of what allows both of us to feel safe.
But there is no fair.
How much of everything in life has to be changed just because of one shift. I don’t know.
Yesterday I emailed all of my folks and told them I am not going to go out on a date again in May. We need to actually negotiate. This is involving some really long, rough conversations in person and a shit ton of livejournal entries on our private filters. There are things my kids don’t need to see someday.
I am so weird about boundaries.
I think that part of the problem right now is I have made a lot of deals over the years I probably shouldn’t have made. Not how I did. They took from me in ways I didn’t really have that much to give. And I feel long term hurt by them. And I’m feeling bitter. And I’m holding it against Noah.
That list of done-me-wrongs never needs to be part of the public record. That’s kinda like crying rape because you didn’t like the sex. The fact that these are in retrospect not deals I should have made…
That’s not something I’m going to publicly take Noah to task for. That’s complicated.
I made choices. I made choices I shouldn’t have made, but I didn’t know that till it was too late. That isn’t something to punish Noah for. But I clearly do.
Recently Noah made a list of shit he was holding over me (good god that. STILL?!?!) and I should probably do the same.
That won’t be public.
Noah and I are in a funny place. We both understand very clearly that if we don’t make this marriage work… we will just not ever be ok again. We won’t get over this failure. Neither of us would remarry and have more kids. We would date and be complete assholes about never trusting anyone again. This is… one of those things about our personalities. We both walked into this not sure that it was really a good idea to be taking a risk on even one person when we have been burned and burned and burned and burned.
When you learn before age 3 that you are not loved, not likable and all you are worthy of is abuse and contempt…
Trying once is really what you have in you. Getting over that is brutally hard. You can try once. After that it will be broken in a way that can’t be got back.
We get one shot at happily ever after.
No pressure.
To be fair most of the first ten years have been excellent. This really has been a good marriage. But some things need to change and how they need to change and what that shape will look like is… in flux and that’s god damn terrifying. Change sucks donkey dick.
I find it… interesting… that Noah is really willing to talk about a third kid lately. Yeah. That would put me right back on a choke chain. It’s true. I would go home with my baby again.
I want another baby. I’d see a high risk OB. I’d be at a hospital the whole time. I’d follow orders so I wouldn’t die. But… yeah. I don’t think it is going to happen for lots of reasons.
I know my friends are starting to talk to me about adoption but I’m really not done grieving the son I wanted to give birth to.
This is complicated with a gender fluid kid who really… is on their own journey.
I wanted to work through my shit with a little boy. I know that isn’t “fair” either. But I did. I have to grieve not getting that. I mean, I have a great relationship with my Bonus Kid and I’m really happy he visits more lately. But it’s not the same.
I have never been allowed to love a little boy of my blood. My nephew was the closest I came to that and… complicated. My brothers were violent monsters. I had no other family contact.
This is just a thing.
I dreamed about my son for years. Sometimes I wonder if I was dreaming about the sons I could have had with previous partners and that just wasn’t meant to be part of this story with Noah. I don’t know.
It’s complicated.
Yes I know there are lots of kids who need homes. They are going to have different problems genetically than my family. I don’t already intimately know what needs to be done to correct their unavoidable issues; I have researched everything that has touched my family extensively over the past fifteen years. It is going to be a very different very hard problem to work with a different child.
I am so tired.
Now that I have an almost 8 year old and an almost 6 year old, do I really want another baby?
Yes. I really do. But it isn’t going to happen. Sometimes I wonder if wanting space away from Noah is part of grieving that. He doesn’t want another baby.
I get why. There are good reasons. I feel sad.
Being a mom is kinda the thing I think I’m best at. I get quiverfull. I get it.
This is all so complicated. Because if Noah was all “Fine let’s have a kid” I’d be all “Bye side-boys. I’ll see you in 5-7 years.”
Even though the rest of the deals are still not where I need them to be long-term. I wouldn’t care.
Life is so complicated.
My biology understands that I exist to breed even if the rest of me would like to do other things with this meat sack.
People are so fucking weird. Even though I don’t really have the spoons to have a baby I would. I’d start trying this month if Noah consented. He’s about to be 40. Time’s a wastin’. I turn 35 this year.
But that ship has sailed. We need to figure something different out. Shit. That’s hard. It hurts.
We construct these careful houses where we can be safe. Do this, don’t do this. So we try to draw as little negative attention and as much positive attention as possible while maintaining stasis. We accept limits that may not be sustainable in service to particular goals.
I don’t know what sustainable means. I am not the best sustainer in the world. I work best in sprints followed by periods of collapse. Parenting that way sucks. So I have to be more level for them. Which is an interesting thing to balance. I can stay level if I stay small. Or if I get bigger with support.
I can’t be a bigger person and take up more room and get no more support and stay completely level. I can’t. [delete text that doesn’t go into the record].
I’m having feelings.
Thank you to everyone for the extent of the “I know you two will solve this” message I’m getting from a variety of folks. From folks we date/play with to other friends. It’s kinda funny. I feel all y’all believe in us far more than I do right now.
Thank you. I need you to carry that belief for a bit. It is hard for me.
Part of being able to construct your own reality rests on the basic requirement that you must be able to believe in what you are doing. I have a pretty good reality distortion field. But it’s flickering and I feel like I am not able to believe in what I am trying to make true.
I don’t know how to feel more safe and open right now. I feel closed off, defensive, scared. I’m not negotiating from a mindset of generosity. I have a scarcity mindset and I feel so tired of always having to take one for the team.
But Noah takes a lot for the team too. I’m not acknowledging that enough. We have both been running deficits for years. It isn’t just me. I… I don’t even know where to begin in this negotiation. This is so hard. Do we make lists of things we have been missing/pining for and then rank them in importance?
How do we deal with time? Is it about how much time we spend together? Is it about “how dare you spend time with someone else?”
Honestly I was out too much at night in April. I wasn’t touching base with the kids the way I want to. I have arranged all the night time babysitting we are going to have till the end of July, I think. I’m not going to go out more than that. No matter what it is for.
This time with my children goes so fast. If I miss much of this time I can’t ever get it back. I don’t get a second chance. I do remember that priority.
But I don’t ever get back the chance to have the sex life I want to have in this life either. If I just… don’t… that’ll be a thing.
How much do I want? I don’t know. Honestly given how busy my life is… I literally don’t have time for as much independent dating as I did in April. That’s going to kill me. No hyperbole. My body will give out if I don’t sleep more than that.
What does sustainable mean?
What is a need and what is a want?
I feel like I need to have some kind of nonmonogamous contact in my life. What that is… I don’t know. I think the need level is probably actually fairly low. I think one date a month probably would be ok. I’d like to go to parties at other times and be allowed to play then. I could accept having to play together. That would be fun to figure out. It would change who we play with somewhat and what kind of play we do. Maybe?
I can deal with evolution. I don’t have to play how I used to play, not exactly. I don’t anyway. So much has changed.
I feel like I did need to go try. It was wonderful and I’m really glad I got to be reminded of what SM means to me. And I got off a lot.
I do need some of this in my life. I may increase how much I need as my children need me less.
For now I do know that my time and energy is still… mostly going into the kids. I choose this. I want this. This is who I want to be. When I finish growing up I will be able to look at incontrovertible proof that I can sustain something. I need to see the real evidence of that before I will believe it. I’m not even halfway there yet. Don’t get cocky, wench.
Hubris is dangerous.
I have about three more years till I hit the halfway point. I believe I have about four more years with Eldest Child and about six more years with Youngest Child to teach them what they need to know to keep themselves safe… or they will have to learn it on their own painfully. That’s my window. Either I help them establish the habits that will carry them through a lifetime… or they have to learn them later, painfully, on their own.
Development is a funny beast. I’ve studied it a lot. I have incredibly strong opinions about brain development and attachment and behaviorism and emotional health and mental health and…
And I get one chance to do this right. Period. If I fuck it up I will forever more be trying to heal damage I caused.
No pressure.
I love unschooling. I’m not even being sarcastic. This is my kind of pressure chamber. I thrive under this specific kind of “Succeed. There is no or else. Succeed” pressure. I just… do it. Ok.
If you can’t find a way you make a way. The most resilient people are the ones who believe they have no choice but to make something work.
This whole “owe” thing is complicated. I get the anti-feminist bits of it. I do. But you probably don’t see how much it gives too.
Ugh. Systems. They exist for reasons and some of those reasons are good and some are shitty. WTF
But I really do need to think about this “you don’t owe him shit” thing. What do we choose to owe and what is being extorted from us? I think that is the more crucial distinction. I think making conscious trades and feeling indebted for them is not specifically evil. I think that having someone extort recompense for trades… is a problem.
Where is the line?
Shit monogamy is easier. You give what you have to give and that is that. Kinda end of discussion.
I NEVER EVEN TOOK CALCULUS. FUCK THIS ADVANCED VARIABLE BULLSHIT.
My kids are asking me a lot of questions about Lemonade. Yes they get to hear it with the swearing. There are some fucking subjects that deserve swearing. The work is to figure out context. We talk about that a lot. Code switching is a big topic around here. If you maintain super formal “nice people” manners 100% of the time… a whole lot of people will think you are a snob. Having multiple kinds of approaches to talking to people is handy.
I said to a friend “We only fight about nonmonogamy.” The response: “So you only fight about sex.”
Ok, yeah. That’s true. Not money. Not kids. Not housework (if I start feeling peevish about not getting enough help I can ask for it and get it with great civility).
Sex.
Sex is so annoying.
WHY DO I LIKE HAVING SEX SO MUCH!??!?!?! Sigh.
I really do.
I like what happens in my body when I’m having sex with more than one person. I like it a lot. I like what it does to my general energy level. Is it worth this fight?
Yeah. It is.
If we are going to be married for many more decades… I’m not spending them always taking one for the team. I need my sex life to be about my pleasure.
And pain.
I’m pretty sure I know who I want to hurt on a longer term basis. I am less convinced I know for sure what I need from my bottoming/submitting/etc. I have some idea of pieces I’d like. But are those all needs? Not really. I could be pretty flexible. I could adapt.
I am weirdly conscious of how much of my sexuality formed around my Owner. I’m ok with lots of those buttons shifting. I have no attachment to them staying where they are. But I need them moved and not just… ignored. If that makes sense.
I am a cheerful situational pervert. I’m happy to please the one I’m with. I don’t need all aspects of my experiences to be the same.
I’m not the kind of fetishist who collects the garments and sized toys that all future partners will wear one right after another.
But I’ve sure worn a lot of them. For a little while. I have never been willing to do that for very long.
I don’t like anyone that much.
Do you know why some of the awful stuff between Noah and I really doesn’t need to be published? It’s bad enough that I’m an abusive bully. I don’t need to publicly humiliate him. That’s a very different sort of line. I say some awful things some times. It’s bad enough that he can hear it in his head. He doesn’t need to see it. And know that lots and lots and lots of his friends are going to see it. Know his children can read the things that hurt him the most.
Oh JesusFuckingChrist No.
No. There are things that can’t be taken back. I can say that things are hard for me. I can’t list done-me-wrongs. Not publicly. No.
I owe my family better than that.
See how the owe is complicated?
It is useful and problematic at the same time. Just like me.
I added it up. In April I spent 24 hours on dates too. So we spent pretty much exactly the same amount of time gone.
With my primary partner (this was true with my Owner, Daddy James, and Puppy too) I have a fairly specific set of feelings when they want to play with other people. Looking at the NVC book, here are some of the feelings I go through: agitated, anxious, aroused (yes in the positive sense), ashamed, distressed, downhearted, fearful, fidgety, frightened, furious, guilty, helpless, hostile, hurt, jealous, lonely, mad, overwhelmed, repelled, resentful, sad, sorrowful, spiritless, uncomfortable, uneasy, unhappy, unnerved, unsteady, upset, vexed, wistful, withdrawn, woeful, worried, wretched.
See why I don’t find this real helpful? How in the fuck does a block of text help? It isn’t one thing.
It is hot. I do feel aroused. It is terrifying. I am scared and fearful and I don’t know what is going to be the long-term result.
In my life I have not done very well when it comes to comparisons. I am not picked. I am too much trouble. So when it looks like Noah is going to go start having lots more comparisons to make…
I’m about to lose and lose big and I am completely and totally freaked out.
(It doesn’t help that my Owner spent years telling me I was “the One” then changed his mind because I was too much trouble.)
It doesn’t matter if Noah comes home and says I’m still his favorite. I’m being compared now. I may have “won” this round but I’m going to lose. I always lose. I am a fucking piece of shit and I don’t win competitions. I don’t fucking compete because I lose and lose and lose and lose and lose.
People around the world have very different amounts of contact with their loved ones. Here in America it is very common to spend 40-80 hours a week away from your family. Noah usually spends 45-65 hours away from his family because that’s my god damn limit.
I wish I got way way way more time around him. I have a hard time with the fact that I have to work really hard to get consistent adult contact in my life. I want there to be adults who help regulate me. I regulate my emotions partially off the people around me. I know I’m dysregulated because no one else is freaking out. I want them to be around a lot and arranging that has been so fucking hard in this lifetime. I never manage for very long.
For Noah to want to date means that the hours I already think are too many are going to grow. The hours I already think are too few are going to shrink.
Yeah, I know I’ve been dating. That’s been just about entirely absorbed by me giving up the alone time Noah facilitates. Which is fucked up and is going to cause me problems and isn’t sustainable. But hasn’t impacted how much time we spend together very much. And I’m using babysitters to cover a lot of the time. So whereas I admit that we are losing together time because of me… it isn’t that big of a percentage of the time I’m gone.
He doesn’t have that option. His time is already spoken for. I know I’m lying to myself about my time being away not counting as much. But, no really, him being gone is a huge thing. It’s bullshit and I see that. He shouldn’t be tied to the house just because I want him to be. But he was gone for about 12ish hours in each week he goes on dates. That’s like another part time job on top of his part time job on top of his job. And he likes picking up other outside jobs sometimes.
It all adds up. It all has to come from somewhere.
I have been bitterly fighting for a bigger piece of Noah’s attention for 10 years. Everything that threatens that is hard for me.
Whereas I feel like my time where I am not being Noah’s wife or a mom… usually can get counted on my fingers in a week.
I understand that his job(s) aren’t vacation time. I get it. But he doesn’t work that much because he has to. He picks up side jobs where he has to work alone because that is part of how he enforces alone time.
There is no fair here.
I have tried a lot of things over the years to fill that… awful feeling of having nothing outside my family. Writing… sorta helps? Not really. I tried filling it with relationships with home schoolers. Guess how many of them are still calling?
I tried filling it with platonic relationships with women in a variety of different scenarios. Most of them are… too busy or it didn’t work or…
I try.
I don’t feel secure. Which really sucks for Noah because he’s been trying for ten years. A long time ago I was told that trust is like dripping water in a bucket. Once it gets full enough any tiny nudge will cause lots of water to come spilling out.
It isn’t fair that I don’t believe Noah really wants me. I think, much like a guy I once dumped, he married me because he didn’t have someone better immediately lined up. (The dude I was dating was describing his first wife. He married her when he was young and not very accomplished. As he aged and… “improved” he felt he deserved better. I wasn’t interested in being wife number two under such an arrangement.)
Noah is not a monster who hurts people just because he has feelings. I think he deserves to have a partner who doesn’t hurt people constantly.
I hurt people by wanting things and not being able to handle it. I am not an adult. I do not know what my boundaries really are because pretty much the only thing I’ve ever done when someone crossed a boundary was just leave.
Because I have never really had other options.
And now that I can’t leave I’m hurting people so much more. Because I still don’t know what my boundaries are. And I can’t get out of the way and let other people have what they know they want and can handle without me being a problem.
I am the problem. If I weren’t in the way things would be fine.
This feeling goes back to my mom crying because she couldn’t go rescue Tommy from my dad because she had to stay and take care of me.
It was my fault Tommy was hit by the car. My mom couldn’t keep him because of me. Because I was such a fucking asshole I caused fights and Uncle Bob hurt Tommy and we couldn’t stay together. Because of me.
I always hurt everyone.
And I never ever ever ever feel like I get enough attention and I am always trying to manage that and when I try to get attention from more sources Noah deserves attention from more sources and all the sudden he is gone for 20-24+ hours in a month dating.
Because I was a stupid whore who couldn’t keep it in my pants.
And when he tells me he isn’t going to and he tells someone else he really wants to….
I feel like it is all my fault he can’t have the things he wants and I should die to get the fuck out of the way. Everything would be better without me.
I am the problem. I have been the problem since the day I was conceived.
I ruin everyone’s life. I ruined my mom’s life. My brother’s life. Ok, not everyone. But I’m afraid I’m ruining Noah and my kids.
I am a selfish piece of shit. Who in the fuck am I to model what it means to be a healthy, functional, or good person.
I understand why people choose to not trust me with their children. I do not understand why people trust me with children.
My children should be taken away and given to someone who does not deserve to die.
There have been times in my life when it wasn’t hyperbole to say I had nothing. I am deeply aware of how much I do not need or deserve what I have right now. Everything in my life should belong to someone who is not a piece of shit. Someone who is better than me.
I know these people exist. I have met them. It isn’t hard. You can’t really swing a dead cat without hitting someone who is better than me.
I may or may not be a more effective tool than average. But I am not a better person.
You know what sucks about freaking out like this? I’m shooting myself in the foot. Because I don’t want monogamy.
I don’t know what I want. But I don’t want or need Noah to be monogamous. But at this point he’s pretty much convinced that is what he needs to do to keep me from hurting myself.
I’m not sure that would be an effective life-long way to keep me from hurting myself. Not really. I think other things will come up. I think that locking yourself in a box will… not actually make it go away as a problem.
I don’t know what the fuck would.
I don’t know what the fuck would.
If I were to list what I’m feeling right now: afraid, aggravated (with myself), agitated, alarmed, anguished, annoyed, anxious, apprehensive, ashamed, bewildered, blue, brokenhearted, chagrined, confused, cross, dejected, despairing, despondent, disappointed, discouraged, disenchanted, disgruntled, disheartened, disquieted, distressed, disturbed, downcast, downhearted, embarrassed, exhausted, forlorn, frightened, frustrated, gloomy, guilty, helpless, horrible, horrified, hurt, keyed-up & lethargic AT THE SAME TIME, listless, miserable, mournful, panicky, pessimistic, sad, shaky, sorrowful, sorry, spiritless, tired, troubled, uncomfortable, unhappy, weary, wistful, withdrawn, worried, wretched.
You want feeling words, motherfucker.
This stupid book tells me I’m supposed to make requests.
I have none to make. Because anything I request might blow up and then it is my fault I have hurt more people.
Because I never seem to get this right. I just do it wrong and wrong and wrong and I hurt people. Because I am a selfish, insecure, petty piece of shit.
I feel like the fact that Noah is willing to give me more attention because I lost my shit means I neither deserve nor want the attention. You didn’t want to give that to me freely of your own will. You want to give that to other people. It is now not for me and I DON’T WANT IT. I do not want to receive attention because I have extorted it. I do not want to steal the attention my friends deserve from them. They are fascinating, wonderful people and if they have earned that attention they deserve it.
I know how worthy they are.
You showed me that you didn’t want to give it to me. You wanted to give it to other people. All the nope.
It isn’t mine now.
I feel like I need to plug that gaping black hole of need for attention with anything painful I can find until I finally get it through my stupid, piece of shit head that it is never going to be filled and I need to stop fucking asking.
And now I’m deleting thousands of words at a time because I’m not sure who I’m going to hurt with that digression. Good job, bitch.
Well. At least I knew enough to delete that wander. I really don’t want the consequences.
Fuck. I should stop.
I am pretty sure I am not ever going to feel like I deserve to be actually important.
I’ve been documenting my ups and downs for a long time now. This is something that happens. I have a really extreme range of emotions. In order to let people know me I document them about as much as I can. Which means people are invited onto the roller coaster with me.
Which means people always ask what they can do.
Not a whole hell of a lot. This isn’t about you. Even if you are one of the people who is closest to the center of the storm (like Noah) there isn’t a whole hell of a lot someone can do when I’m going up and down like a cork. That is in me and is only kinda sorta barely related to what is happening around me.
In general I do not request nor want major adjustments in life structure or behavior in the people around me because of my volatility. That would become problematic very quickly as I became controlling to everyone nearby.
That’s not more healthy.
Which makes monogamy shit really fucking tricky.
What can you do? Love me when I’m done. Be ok with me taking space. Let me know you’ll be there when I come back. Let me know you don’t hate me because I am riding this roller coaster.
I think that being on this roller coaster means I deserve contempt and abuse. Because I am hurting people by being so fucking difficult.
I am difficult. I do have ridiculously intense emotional reactions to things that logically I believe should not be a big deal.
No one is threatening any part of my life right now. No one put a single toe out of line. No one went a hair over a deliberate boundary.
But I want to die because I believe I am the source of pain for many people and I have absolutely no idea how to stop being that source of pain.
What should someone do for me? Fuck if I know. DON’T THREATEN TO SEND ME TO A HOSPITAL.
That’s the biggest and most important thing. If you want me to feel safe never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever threaten me with hospitalization. In my extremely well considered and educated opinion mental illness is best treated out patient within a supportive community framework which I already god damn have.
You go to hospitals if you are physically ill and you need medicine you can’t get any other way. You go to hospitals for surgery. Otherwise going to a hospital is asking to be hurt.
Don’t threaten me with hospitalization.
Let me stay home and snuggle my kids. Let me hide in my garage and write about my feelings in the safest environment I’ve ever been in.
The people who mostly know me now have never seen anything like the level of panic, fear, and dysregulation that would become dominant if I felt I would be hospitalized against my will again. I am literally not sure I could survive that experience again. I think my body would do anything anything anything anything to make sure I don’t have to live through that again.
You do not understand how traumatizing being in a mental hospital was for me. Any time I feel I am slipping a toe out of line on “how I am supposed to be” that is an undercurrent of why the panic escalates. Not a big piece of it, but it is fucking there.
Don’t hospitalize me. I’m sorry I’m bad. Please don’t punish me any more. Please please please please please don’t punish me more.
I’m sorry I’m bad.
I don’t feel particularly good about inflicting this on the people around me. I feel like it is all my fault. Sometimes the triggers really do seem to be my fault. There is stuff around nonomongamy that I 100% blame myself for opening the door.
It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening. It is my fault this is happening.
I do not blame anyone else. I did this. I hurt myself. I open doors I don’t want opened. Because I want other doors open and things are connected. I bring this on myself.
This is my fault for not being able to keep it in my pants. I deserve to feel pain.
I am not angry with anyone else. I am angry with myself.
It occurs to me that part of my trigger around Noah dating is probably related to the fact that my mom was incapable of loving more than one child at a time. I was literally sent to live with other people over and over and over because I was too demanding of her attention when she needed to focus on another child.
That’s not all of it. But it factors in.
If someone I love a lot loves people other than me… I’m going to be sent away. Because I will never be able to behave good enough to deserve being loved at the same time.
I sure make that true, don’t I?
Noah says that I’m lying about something and he’s right. I bitch about not getting off at all with monogamy… but that had already changed when I got back from the road trip. Things were doing lots better.
It’s bullshit that I want to fuck around just because I can’t get off. I do get off with Noah. Not every single time without fail. But there are times when he gets me off and off and off and off.
I shouldn’t make it sound like he doesn’t at all. There were a few years in the breeding period that sucked but I need to not hold that against him. It wasn’t about him. It was about my body. And it’s over.
Don’t be an asshole to Noah about that anymore. Let it go. That’s not ok to hold on to.
Be more honest, Krissy. Don’t conflate old problems and new problems. That’s not nice. That doesn’t help things get better.
I’ve said for a while that I’m not interested in being polyamorous. I also say that I’m not good at being monogamous. These are still both true. Noah and I have been talking and talking and talking. We are both wicked insecure. We both have a lot of abandonment issues. It makes sense given that neither of us have relationships with our families of origin.
We both feel kind of at sea in the world. We both have a hard time feeling truly connected, wanted, important. This isn’t a problem that one or the other of us have.
I’ve been hurting Noah. He’s been hurting me. I kinda feel like we need to do that sometimes just so that we have to stop and scream LOOK AT ME. STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
Because over time we take one another for granted. We try to be grateful. We try to be aware and appreciative but it’s hard year after year. Sometimes we need to go do some asshole stuff so we can apprciate the fact that mostly we aren’t assholes to each other.
Last post I thought I’d have three dates a month and Noah would have one. Noah doesn’t really like what I will have to do to deal with that one date a month without being mean to him. Because I would have to take steps to deal with my feelings and not abuse him. I would need to create a lot of space around myself so I don’t lash out.
Because I would want to lash out.
Noah dating triggers so many insecurities for me. I don’t like it.
This is weird to me because I don’t freak out about him playing with friends at parties I’m at. That doesn’t bother me and I don’t god damn know why.
But Noah wanting to go out on a date with someone else… One on one time where he can pay attention to them because they are special…
I’m a fucking asshole.
Because I sure don’t mind me dating. Uhm, we decided I need to go down to two dates in a month. Because yeah. We aren’t cancelling May. Because that’s asshole shit. But starting in June we are going to… not be going out with other people so much. Because yeah. We may not be perfect at monogamy but spending as much time together as possible is really what we both want from life. If we feel that way we should act that way.
Going forward I am very happy about the boundary: no sex in places our kids go (other than our house). That feels… like a thing for me.
I’m trying hard. I’m trying to figure out what wants to bend and what needs to stay rigid and…
This is all hard.
But Noah doesn’t want me to hate him. Not even a little. Not even for a little while. So yeah. Him dating is complicated. Because I do hate him when he dates. It’s terrible. It feels awful. But it’s there. I fucking hate him. He is pretty confident I wouldn’t be able to compartmentalize that long term. Maybe he’s been looking at me for a while.
And hearing about his dates makes me physically ill.
So yeah. How much dating should we do? Maybe not so much.
Is this fair? I don’t think so. But life isn’t fair.
I kinda want to list all the things we talked about. All the levels of insecurities. But the thing is, talking about that has the possibility to hurt my friends and I don’t want to do that. I’m not insecure because of the people involved. The people involved being this safe actually makes it that much harder to feel this way.
All of the people involved are wonderful, safe, kind, considerate and loving. I’m the asshole.
I’m so sorry.
I spent a long time talking to the Professor yesterday and he tried very hard to talk me into thinking that it is ok for me to get angry with Noah. I don’t feel like it is ok. I feel like it is disgusting and shameful because he deserves better than that from me. He really does. He is my whole world.
Even if I like fucking other people. Noah is everything.
Yes we still have a lot of conversations ahead of us about play. The intensity thing is going to continue to be a … topic… for a long time to come.
Sunday and Monday were so awesome. Thank you K for letting me have this. Saturday was… mixed. Mostly good. (Thanks Deity.)
My feelings are not because of the people Noah plays with. My feelings are because I’m neurotic, insecure, and I have very little intrinsic self worth. This is not anyone else’s fault. This is my shit. And it’s shit.
Noah and I talked a lot about whether or not it is easier for me for him to date strangers or friends and…
It is easier to have him date friends. It isn’t that I think anyone he has seen has any desire to be a homewrecker or a problem or hurt me or anything like that.
My fear isn’t rational. My fear isn’t based on anyone doing anything wrong. But it is intense, all consuming and there. I have to act like it is there and deal with it. Or it leaks into my life and I am a seriously problematic person.
I can’t keep verbally abusing Noah. I just can’t. Which means I need to take steps to make sure that stops. It isn’t something that comes up very often. I think this is the third time we’ve had to work on this issue in about 12 years.
When I feel hatred like that… I am fucking mean.
Yeah. I know exactly what to say to make you feel like shit. I’ve watched you for years. Yes. I can take you apart with a verbal scalpel. Yup. No problem.
I need this to be the last time I ever talk to Noah like that. It just can’t happen again. He deserves and has earned better from me. Which means I need to be careful about the situations I put myself in. Because when I’m that angry… I need to put physical space between me and Noah. Because I’m a problem.
And I don’t handle him dating. I feel really ashamed of myself.
Noah wants me to be open, vulnerable, transparent, and relaxed. I can’t be any of those things when I hate him.
I just can’t.
Which isn’t to say that I think him dating deserves me hating him. It doesn’t.
I am such an asshole.
I’d rather be told, “No really this ‘I don’t want to follow rules’ shit is over. Follow some fucking rules” than be told, “Fine then I’m doing what I want.” One of those effectively reins me in. One of those means… our relationship kinda sucks. But it only effectively reins me in after I’m good and hurt and pissed.
Like the mature and responsible person I obviously am.
It isn’t that I feel I must own Noah’s cock solely and permanently. It is that… I want to be there. I don’t want to feel like I am being left so he can go find someone more interesting. Which makes me a flaming cunt for dating other people.
God I don’t like me very much.
I have no particular desire to stop seeing my submissive, Deity, Cupid, or Daddy. But if I only get to see them every other month… that I can live with. To be fair I’ll probably make damn sure I end up at parties with my submissive every month even if we don’t make dinner dates every single month.
Noah won’t let me hit him. Ok he would let me hit him. He told me so. But he wouldn’t like it at all and that feels terrible. I have absolutely no desire to hit someone who is tolerating being hit but who doesn’t like it. That’s disgusting.
I feel… like a piece of shit for wanting to date and not wanting Noah to date. I am not asking Noah to be monogamous.
I notice that he puts a lot of effort into dates with other people. We have dates if I go find an event and I go find a babysitter and I …
That hurts.
I feel selfish and terrible.
Yeah. This is who I am. I am selfish and terrible.
My code switching skills are variable. Sometimes I’m excellent. Sometimes I really suck. I have managed to compartmentalized enough that I can have wild sex in every part of my house when my kids aren’t home. That is new. For years it was behind a locked door even when they weren’t home. Noah can testify that it was wacky.
I have serious issues with sexuality and children. This is about me and it isn’t fucking rational.
I don’t want either of us to be having sex any more in places where we bring the kids. I know our house is different… whatever. I don’t care. It makes me uncomfortable. That means I have to stop having sex at the house of friends who invite the kids over. It means Noah does too.
But that doesn’t mean I have to stop going to every person’s house. But it’s an A or B choice. Sex or kids.
Some of our sex-having-friends were tightly involved with our children before sex. That makes the boundaries… interesting to figure out.
I’m having an interesting time figuring out which parts bug me and why.
Like, my kids are never ever ever ever ever going to Cupid’s house or Deity’s house. It’s just not an option. Period. Because I go there for sex.
I have a very visual memory. When I think of places I think of what I have seen there. I am an asshole about getting mental pictures of what Noah is doing.
I’m weird about how that overlaps with my kid-memories of a place.
So like… my kids have been to my submissive’s house. It was a while ago though and so that means we need to decide… is it a sex house or a kid house. Cause right now it’s time to decide.
My kids go to Daddy’s house. I won’t fuck there again.
Is it fair?
Life isn’t fair.
Someday I will just know what these boundaries are and it won’t feel so angsty. I look forward to that day.
How in the hell am I going to be a slut and a good parent. How. How. How.
In no way shape or form do I think that the path I follow is the “One Twue Way“. I think there are many ways to be a good parent.
I’m just trying to figure out how to manage me.
My emotional volatility is a real thing. It’s well documented through lots of life circumstances and events and ups and downs and unrelated situations. And to get a handle on that I picked a life where it isn’t ok to be emotional volatile so I have no choice but to god damn figure out how to be more stable. That means other peoples choices don’t need to look like mine.
Human beings are complicated systems. I’m getting my digestion in order. I’m working on sleep. I’m increasing how much sex I have and the variety because it dramatically improves my mood. Even with the odd fight.
We genuinely don’t fight often. And when we fight it is because we are both feeling insecure and threatened and we don’t know how to ask for reassurance without being kind of an asshole. I think everyone feels taken for granted sometimes.
Maybe I’m projecting.
I’m trying to get things in place for me to handle the next stage of child rearing. We are done with babies. Next year Youngest Child is going into first grade. Kiddo will be 6. Not quite time for academics… but we can see it coming. Kiddo is decidedly resisting being asked to do any academics before 7. Adamant. “Do you want to try a little?” “Nope.”
Well done kiddo. I’m proud.
But Eldest Child is teaching herself to read increasingly complicated books at a rapid rate. This month I should figure out what I need to do to get her a tour at the part-time-homeschool-through-the-district program. She’s interested for third grade. So it sounds like we are going to slide towards school instead of waiting and going all at once when she’s older.
I don’t mind.
Limits are interesting to find. She wants more consistent push now. And she wants it to be with peers in a group. I’m ok with that. I wanted to wait until she was ready. She is now. I’m completely forking ok with the amount of separation she’s asking for. I might balk if she asked for full time school. I don’t think it would go well. Part time sounds great.
It will be nice to spend more time with Youngest Child alone. That kid blows my mind all the time. The jokes. The connections. The desire to have a sunny spirit even though the child has mood swings like a mofo. This is a kid who will have a journey in life. I hope I am going to be able to be the kind of support I need to be. I’m trying.
Part of the reason we need to cut back on dating in terms of time is because we can’t date that many nights and exercise and pay attention to the kids and date each other and have friends and get alone time.
Holy crap.
We need alone time for different reasons. But we both have times when we really need time alone in a room. Preferably with our computers. Our one true love.
I see you, Noah.
Although really if I had to give up my computer or Noah I’d bin the computer without thought. Even you, oh internet, are not as wonderful as Noah. You don’t get me off like that. Speaking of which I should stop typing for the day.
Our kids were invited for an extra night at my friend’s house. So Noah left me an assignment. I’m supposed to get off 30 times. That’s hard masturbating. So I’m going to need to spend a lot of time. Sigh. Poor me. Bye.
Ok, yeah. My life is awesome. It isn’t perfect every minute. But I really don’t get to complain. Not really. I can process the parts I don’t like… but good grief.
I am where I want to be. I have support. I have friendship. I have love. I have the freedom to try things and course correct when I figure out which parts work and don’t work for me. Because it only has to work for me and Noah. Well, and the folks we go on to negotiate with. Their consent matters too.
But we have to figure out our limits and boundaries first and then negotiate from that position. Which has been tricky over the last few months because we didn’t know. I wanted to go fuck around and see what would stick. I have a better idea now.
That’s the point of trying things, right? It isn’t that you have to be committed to always doing something the same way if you try it once or twice.
Hell, even if you do something for a few years you don’t have to keep doing it that way forever. You can renegotiate.