Gratitude Season

All month, I've been reading posts on friends' Facebook pages proclaiming things they are grateful for. Once or twice I thought about following suit, since one of the things I tend to do is zone in on things I'm anxious about, or things I want but can't have, instead of things that I do have. But as I'm trying these days to find reasons to get off Facebook instead of being pulled back in, I never joined them. So instead, here is my contribution to gratitude season. I am grateful for...

My Cat
Self-explanatory. I mean, look at her.

My Communities
The support of the bisexual and poly communities are invaluable, and I'm thankful to have the time and energy to put work into them to pass the support along to others.

My Job
This has been one of the toughest four months of my life, but I am employed doing something I (think I still) love doing. I am actually using the degree I will be paying back for many, many years to come. I can make my own weekly schedule, have a college work year with awesome breaks, and can grade in my underwear.

My Family
Despite the stress that comes with parents who do not approve of my relationships or sexuality, I still have their support. I know that there are so many people out there who have been cut out of their families' lives after coming clean about who they are, so I remind myself that no matter how upset I might be at times that I can't share everything, I am still their daughter.

My Friends
The support that my parents can't provide -- the emotional support that is related to living the lives that we live -- has been coming from my network of diverse, caring, loving friends. They are truly my chosen family, and the biggest reason I am reluctant to ever leave what I now refer to as my home.

My Partners
I still can't believe how lucky I am to have them: Joel, who has been my rock and the source of most of my laughter for (almost) five years, and Adam, who continues to give me new reasons to smile every day. They make all the challenges that go along with being poly 100% worth it. (And also happen to be two of the cutest guys I know.)

It might not be a whole month's worth, and there are certainly more things I'm grateful for, like Diet Dr. Pepper, Harpoon UFO White, the Internet, and buffalo chicken pizza. But those are the big ones - the ones I should hang onto when it gets dark just too damned early and I have to cram onto a bus to go home and grade. And to them I should add this: I am grateful that I have the ability to help others who have less than I do. Above all else, I think gratitude season should always remind us of that.

Road to Nowhere: Ignoring Societal Relationship Trajectories

Poly and Partner, sitting in a tree

(I haven't heard this one in a while.)

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

(Might be a little precarious up there, and depending on how high up...eh, I'll allow it.)

First comes love,

(Aren't we jumping ahead a little bit? I mean, first comes lots of talking, cuddling, and processing?)

Then comes marriage,

(Well, erm, this is awkward but, he's sort of already--)

Then comes the baby in a--

(OKAY that's enough. I want down. Someone find me a ladder.)

From the time we are born, rhymes like this one are pounded into our brains. There's of course not the same level of expectation as there was in our parents' generation or their parents' generation, but this trajectory is everywhere nonetheless. We always hear about falling in love with "the one," moving in together, getting married, having children. That's the goal, the end-all-be-all of societal happiness -- which, by the way, is out of reach for single people, couples who don't co-habitate, and the childless (or what I'd rather refer to as "childfree").

It took a long time for Joel's family to come to terms with the fact that I was his girlfriend but we didn't have that trajectory in mind - the years went on and there was no talk of moving in a certain direction, no planning to move in together, no rings. And even though my own parents are happy that I'm focusing on myself after so many years of being focused on my ex's career and what our relationship was doing, they, too, want me to get back on that road to marriage.

And these expected societal trajectories of relationships are a lot of times focused on in poly, too - as stories of ethical non-monogamy trickle more and more into the mainstream, they're very often about domestic bliss, raising children as a community, and planning alternative weddings. But what about those of us who aren't going to follow that trajectory in some or all of our relationships, either by choice or circumstance? What is all this pressure doing to how we view our individual relationships?

A few years ago, I was sad that Joel didn't want to co-habitate. But then as I grew more independent and busy, and we both started to date more, we realized that our setup actually worked pretty well for us. We roll our eyes at our parents, but take solace in the fact that we're enjoying our relationship in the way that is comfortable for us, not in the way that society says should be comfortable for us.

After working through it with Joel, it should have been easy to come into my relationship with Adam in much the same "fuck 'em we'll be who we are" way. But like so many things that come with firecracker-like feelings, it's more complicated than expected. Instead of seeing a lack of trajectory as being freeing, as it has been with Joel, it's sometimes unsettling.  I occasionally think more about what we will never do than of what we will do, or even more disappointing, what we are doing now. It's sad because I miss things. I'll be staring off at the patterns in my textured ceiling dwelling on something unknown while next to me, Adam's just happy to be there.

This is one of those things that made it onto my Poly is Hard list because these trajectories are something I can't escape easily. I want to just cut down the damned tree in the poem so no one has to kiss in it anymore. It is cheering to think back to a time I was sad about my lack of trajectory with Joel, and think about how far we've come. It's also cheering to think that someday I may meet someone whose idea of trajectories are the same as the ones in love songs, if that's even what I still want for my sappy, romantic self someday. But for now, it's hard.

For now, I'll attempt to cope by playing "Road to Nowhere" on repeat and keep telling myself, "Baby, it's all right." I'll attempt to stop staring at the ceiling and look at Adam's ridiculously cute dimples and feel his warm hugs and think of little else than how lucky I am. And I'll remind myself that there are people out there who have followed those societal trajectories of relationships -- I used to be one of them -- and end up not even a fraction of how happy I am with my partners. So maybe the goal to be happy with where we are can be a trajectory in itself, and the destination becomes the journey, the ride, the cuddles, that really good beer, etc.

Sounds corny, yes, and I'm not sure it'll work. But I have to try, because it sure sounds safer than trying to lug a baby carriage up a tree.

Return of the Jealousy Monster

While Adam was out of town with other partners this past weekend, I had a visit from my Jealousy Monster. It arrived on Thursday afternoon, settled in even as I tried to unseat it with a bubble bath and a relaxing evening of reading, and was still gorging happily on envy the next day, making the most annoying chewing sounds - like someone eating potato chips and smacking their lips in an otherwise silent room. My weekend, which was jam-packed with fun things, was at stake. I had to do something. 

In my previous post about managing expectations, I talked about the fact that most of what I know about navigating relationships comes from past experiences. I know, for example, that I fear the unknown, so when I've approached situations involving jealousy before, my first instinct is to have everything laid out in front of me. 

But this time, asking about the fun things he was doing made things worse, especially as I was, at that moment, grading a particularly horrible paper. I tried to explain that maybe I didn't need to know the details, at least not right then, and we even tried to change the subject. But the longer we talked the worse I felt. So I tried the complete opposite of my past inclinations: I told him I had to go. I wished him a good weekend, told him we'd talk when he got home, and closed the chat window. 

The immediate relief I felt was almost startling. Who was I? Wasn't I someone who felt that more communication, not less, was the solution to all problems? Hadn't I hated it in past relationships when the other person had requested a few days of silence? I continued to listen closely for my Jealousy Monster for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, but I couldn't hear him. He wasn't gone, but he was no longer making those annoying chewing sounds.

I took advantage of the silence and enjoyed my weekend. It wasn't that I didn't think about Adam, but I wasn't dwelling on the envy the way I might have if we'd been checking in every once in a while. Instead I focused on those other things that make me happy, and because of it was glad to talk again when he got home. 

I know that the Jealousy Monster is still there, biding its time to come out again, and I feel like before I revert back to my tell me everything inclinations I need to make sure I'm ready to hear it. It's nice, though, to realize there are still solutions to be found, and helpful to recognize that they might be the complete opposite of what was expected. Hopefully next time I'll know ahead of time to focus on what's in front of me that I am doing, rather than wondering what I'm not.