There was much cooking and cuddling and laughing and drinking. We went grocery shopping and doing that and other grown-up stuff together felt really natural and awesome, which was super encouraging. Because of my history of suicide stuff, people making me food really means a lot to me because it says they want me to stay alive and are willing to work for my survival, so every time I eat the risotto N made me, I get all warm and fuzzy and close to tears. And when me or N said "I wanna get drunk" we had someone there to say "me too!" We ended up pouring cheap wine, three day old cider, and jaegermeister into a cup and drinking a surprising amount of it. True love, or something. :P

Some of the stuff that I expected to be weird because of bad past experiences weren't. Like I've been in threesomes and kind of casual triads before and been lied to, manipulated, and ignored, and aside from one freak-out that I handled pretty well, I felt secure with everything. Apparently trustworthy people exist. I will never claim that love can fix mental illness or a history of abuse, because real life ain't Disney, but the right person or people can really help you learn to cope and keep your shit together.

Apparently many of the problems we have are a result of distance rather than inherent problems in the relationship. I think my failure to communicate and express affection properly are at least partially a result of not being used to doing those things remotely, and I think seeing what that's like in person made N feel better about our relationship in general. Likewise, she and I are both kind of emotionally weird without lots of sex and cuddles in our lives (respectively), so we all felt way better this weekend than we have and that is awesome and obviously a really good sign. Though of course renewed NRE from being in person has a little bit to do with it, I feel super optimistic about the whole thing and I think it has a pretty rational basis.

I am so glad to have a relationship structure that feels like a family. I am so glad to have found people who want me to be genuine with them and want to dig their hands into life and who want to shove everything they can into their brains. I am so glad to have found people who feel words as deeply as I do. I'm not afraid anymore that happiness is what sane people call numbness. N and J make me a better person and somehow the reverse is true as well.