Keeping in mind that 2019 involved lots of gut wrenching transition, including divorce and selling my home of 11 years (the longest Iāve ever lived anywhere). Moving away from the tropics, to a place where the ocean is usually too far and my plants canāt live outside through the winter. I had a kid move out and away, for the first time.Ā Ā
My oldest friend also died last August, after a scant 3 month long battle with cancer. It was a real plague upon my proverbial dog, wife, and pickup truck.
And, of course, Iām living through a pandemic, and a long overdue but very emotional racial justice uprising, with the rest of you, now.
Anyway. OTHER than those things, my 2020 has been like...My sisterās gradually, gut wrenchingly cut off all contact with me over the past couple of years, culminating in the last couple of months, whenst we no longer speaketh at all. Iāve fought hard for this to be different and itās still very sharp. I donāt think Iāll ever give up hope, or stop making a fool of myself about it.
A new friend I was starting to really care about hung herself in April. Iāve tried to be there for her husband and 5 year old daughter when and how I can, which is honestly not much. Iāve taken several people who were scared to go alone, to her grave.Ā
I felt forced to break up with the person I thought was my soul mate, these past 3 years, and wanted to be with forever, and I have grieved it hard over the last couple of months. Iām still processing this. Iām gonna be processing this for awhile. My threshold for being anywhere near him without overwhelming sobbing is apparently approximately 45 seconds. In the beginning we were scrambled together, mixed in a celestial bowl and hand fluffed with a feather. And the tears of bliss were not amiss - it was a good day.Ā
But the story nears the present time
Of restlessness and wake up calls
Wake up!
Years have flown fast but then who's counting
The wars have been won but there's few left standing between us
And the shadows of Christmas past...
Critically acclaimed but sadly underrated -
Fortune definitely favored us, but no one celebrated.
Our wits were splitting at their ends...
We gazed upon the city lights
We each laughed aloud one final time and agreed:
This is one thing we'll miss...
On his way out, he sabotaged my part time foster childās momās tenuous, fragile relationship with me, so I no longer have the ability to connect with or help that child who he brought into my life. Who I love and wonder about and periodically hear horror stories about via mutual friends. I bent over backwards, I burned calories straining for that trust between the mom and myself.Ā Ā
Itās so terrible sometimes. It hurts so bad. Jean-Paul. LAURA.Ā Ā *MILLS*Ā Ā . Coralye. FUCK. This post brought to you with plenty of hard crying, and no shortage of echoing painful music. Iām physically sick about this shit semi often.Ā
I donāt normally let go of anybody, guys. But certainly not my fucking nearest and dearest.Ā
I have a lot. I have SO MUCH. I know this. I feel good a lot of the time.Ā
I have all 5 of my kids under this roof while the pandemic rages on, and theyāre all healthy and beautiful and they all love me and talk with me. Itās mostly all cake these days with them, Elise telling me where she is in her own solitary reading for pleasure, Ananda cracking me up, Jake biking to the grocery store for treats to share, Aaron showing me something amazing in the yard, Isaac washing dishes and giving me weirdly helpful and totally unanticipated advice. Theyāre almost no work now, itās all return on investment and I have tons of privacy and I use the fuck out of it.Ā
Iām deeply in love with somebody these past 7 months. Being deeply in new love AND devastated-heartbroken about lost love at the same time is honestly dizzying, I spent a first destitute day thinking maybe I canāt do polyamory anymore, period. Maybe this is too fucking much and Iām gonna be alone and focus on my career and my goddamned plants. (<--not fucking really, obv I am not gonna let the pain win and go full hermit. Brief compelling temptation, though.)
My career and my plants are great, btw, thanks for asking. Iāve got basically my dream job, itās flexible and lackadaisical AND meaningful and challenging, itās salaried with bonuses and hella benefits and amazing job security. Itās the whole thing, the culmination of 6 years in school and unpaid internships and volunteering. I even have a spare PRN position elsewhere that I mostly hang on to because itās fun when they want me to come make $200 for a shift, to mix it up a little.Ā
And I have solo projects, writing and web and mental health, all in the works, and theyāre good.Ā
I have seedlings sprouting. I have a yard that is pure magic, revealing new secrets each day.Ā
Iāve got some of my oldest people, like Jess. Iāve got some exciting new people, like Jill.Ā
The love, did I mention it? Holy shit. Iāve got Sterling, and that is a whole other story. That itās been this good while things are this bad is pretty astounding. His own drama quotient has been off the charts, too. I almost canāt imagine how wonderful it would be if we werenāt constantly adrift in a sea of bullshit, though I also strongly suspect we both need a certain staggering minimum quota of bullshit. Itās no accident that we met mutually chasing along after the wake of the same madmanās chaos. Weāre nursing some deep wounds in each other, waking up some old old hurts and soothing them back down smaller and smaller. Anytime weāre touching itās either syrupy soma sweet, blazing inferno hot, or a staggering blend of the two - and then we pull apart to try to actually speak with whole brains, and inevitably take turns being baffled, just hilariously relieved, at how easy it is to communicate. We alternate coming at each other on tiptoe, braced, and then feeling confused and just.... amused? Skeptical? that the other is totally able to empathize with what was just said and is accepting it gently.Ā
We donāt have a ton of objective stuff in common, on paper. Weāre both very wordy and linguistic, weāre analyzers, we draw unusual people who will feel safe telling us insane things. Weāre both hypersexual perverts, chronic pickers, we both wear too much black. It doesnāt go a lot further than that at a glance. We both have PTSD and ironclad outward facing coping skills, nostalgia for the Florida Keys, scientific skepticism mixed with some faith in magic.... we were both brilliant children who felt pretty isolated.
But I havenāt ever really felt like anyone is loving me the way I love people, before. Iāve never even felt like anyone else received my love, the same way I intended it, or at least not all of it. Itās like the intensity of what Iām conveying and meaning when I kiss somebodyās cheek, I dunno man, he experiences it. The goofy flowing sense I have, of holding hands, he comments on it all the time. Iām not just like.... alone, in my overwhelm with being touched, or my enthusiasm for sensations, and that is honestly pretty new to me. Sterling is not tolerating my affection for my sake, and Iām still gradually adapting to that with periodic backsliding into hesitance, and unneeded apologies. Itās like weāre totally fluent in the precise same love language, so nothing gets lost, and the feedback loop is instantaneous.Ā
Heās dark inside, but dark like Nine Inch Nailās A Warm Place. Dark like the womb.Ā
So as I was saying. I have so much. Including a candle thatās about Mills, and is burning behind me, giving me this slipping sense that I need to blow it out, I need to reserve it, itās gonna be gone soon. This one spans so many feelings, itās been positive, some new candle would be what, voodoo? Meddling? I donāt know. This oneās been in a drawer, with our ring buried in it (my dragon). What will I do with that ring? What will I do with all this love?Ā
How can I contain so much, anyway? Why canāt anything ever replace anything else? Itās like infinite space, and the empty places just keep throbbing, and itās like I sprout new spots for new fullness and the cavities pulse on.Ā
Iām deeply grateful for a certain self-completeness Iāve come to understand that I have, and that not everyone does. I am resiliant A-motherfucking-F (<--meta vulgar!). AND YET. OW OW OW.Ā
Iām sitting here trying to exposure therapy my way through my Mills playlist, as I write this, so Spotify canāt surprise me into sads anymore. Iāve gotten already to a place where sometimes i remember positive things purely positively, and laugh and tell a story and itās ok. Iām bitter as all hell that I canāt even talk to my sister about this breakup, after she had so many stupid goddamned feelings about the relationship itself, about polyamory in general, about ever knowing him (which might have allowed her to help me grieve at all).Ā
Sigh. I love the internet, maybe feel free to send me a message if youāre still reading, whoever the fuck you are <3