Dear Past Kate, This Stuff is Hard

As I go back and read some of my previous posts, I feel like I've lied a little bit. Not about the facts, necessarily, but about the feelings surrounding all this hard poly stuff. That's right, folks, poly is hard, and if I've made it seem like solutions to hard problems are tied up nicely in little boxes with rainbow sparkly ribbon, I've been disingenuous. Here's what I would like to say to my past self.

Scheduling is Hard. There's nothing more disheartening than looking at the calendar with someone you want to see as much as possible and realizing that sometimes, there will be more time between dates than you'd like.

Sharing is Hard. At some point, you are going to read a status on Facebook about a partner and another partner and it's going to be so sickeningly cute that you doubt compersion* exists.

Trying to Disentangle Societal Trajectories for Relationships from Your Relationship is Hard. You cannot expect to follow the script of a rom-com. There is no script. You are making this up as you go along, and even though you thought you might never want to follow that trajectory ever again, it's still hard to realize that with some relationships, it's impossible. You have to make a new trajectory or better yet, ignore them altogether.

Acceptance is Hard. You will want to share your NRE with your parents. They will not want to hear about it. You will lie for the benefit of your relationship with them, and it won't feel great.

Change is Hard. Five years ago you didn't even know what poly was. Five months ago you weren't even very actively practicing it. Five months from now your life will have most likely changed again. But this possibility for change is what got you into this in the first place, remember?

The goal, of course, is that on a scale from hard to rainbow sparkles, you end up on the rainbow sparkle side more often. Preferably those rainbow sparkles that catch the sunlight and make rainbows on the walls too. Because you have to remember that while this is hard, this is also what makes you happy, and you no longer can see yourself any other way.

*the state of being happy when a partner is happy, most often when someone else makes that partner happy.

"to cope"

When I looked up "cope" in the dictionary, I found two definitions - the one I expected, and this:

"to meet in combat."

It's so interesting that this word, with roots in Greek and Latin, used to mean (depending on the language) "buffet," "blow," "strike," and "cut," when we now use it to mean "deal with and attempt to overcome problems and difficulties."

Isn't that just like our world today, though? We're less likely to need help buffeting the advances of swordsmen and more likely to need help dealing with hard emotional things. It's like the stress and anxiety and depression have become those swordsmen.

The first thing I thought of when decided what to write for this week was a phrase I've uttered more than once over the last few weeks: "I'm not coping well." I'm to the point in an over-booked semester (please, someone, remind me I can't teach five sections at a time ever again) when I feel overwhelmed by stress. I'm the one valiant knight in the middle of forty opponents at a time, and every time I fight them off forty more appear. And the more than I have to fight, the less able I am to cope - to buffet, to strike, to blow, to cut - effectively. The less able I am to maintain a fighting spirit.

Because that's really what we have to do when we cope, right? Whether it's anxiety, depression, the stress of 90 students, dealing with it all is a fight. Sometimes we're more equipped. Sometimes we even have squires or other knights who have our backs. But it's always a combat of one sort or another. I mean I'm glad, overall, that I'm combating argumentation papers instead of armored warriors, but sometimes I feel like those papers had better training than I in dealing serious blows.

I know I'll be victorious eventually, if not only because the semester has to end at some point. But until then, I'll continue to fight, even if I feel more like the Black Knight by the end.

National Coming Out Day

Friday, October 11, was National Coming Out Day (NCOD). Founded in 1988, this day was created to celebrate the (very often difficult) process of coming out and to raise general awareness for the struggles of the LGBT community. Though I mostly came out to everyone I knew closely back in the summer of 2011 and somehow missed NCOD that year, I decided to post something on Facebook last year. I had a suspicion that most of the people who follow me closely on social media already knew, but decided that it was a good excuse to perhaps reach some of those friends from my days of yore. In that message, I came out as both bi and poly.

Responses were all positive, as I imagined they'd be, from "Love you, no matter what" to "What a great, honest and humble post!" But the greatest two responses were the ones in which two distant connections, a college classmate and a cousin of a past partner, essentially said, "Hey, me too!" This, I thought to myself, is one of the goals of this day, and one of the goals, I think, of coming out in general.

In my own experience, and I think in the experiences of a lot of people who are coming out as anything (lesbian, gay, trans*, bisexual, queer, asexual, intersex, genderqueer, polyamorous, kinky, etc.), coming out has more than one important function. I'll speak from my own experience because I can't (and shouldn't) speak from anyone else's; I came out for three reasons:

1. First and foremost, I came out to feel more like me. This is, in my view, the most important reason for someone to come out. Suddenly I didn't have to talk about half my life, didn't have to use euphemisms or code words, and didn't have to feel like I was being insincere with anyone about who I really was. I'll be at a pub night or something with Joel and he'll marvel at how fast I can work, "Oh yeah this is my boyfriend but we're not exclusive" into a conversation. Or, "Oh, you know, at the nonprofit I work with, the BISEXUAL Resource Center..." It's like if I'm clicking with someone, even on a casual friendship basis, I don't feel like it's genuine until they know who I am.
2. I came out to raise awareness. It doesn't always work out this way, of course, but sometimes the more personal connection people have with someone who isn't heteronormative or mononormative, the less likely it is that they will make blanket statements of discrimination. And the more likely it is they will find out more, and maybe even start to shed those small-minded ideas a little bit at a time.**
3. Finally, I came out to let others around me know it's okay if they want to come out too. I think this is one of the best parts about NCOD - the coming out domino effect. Those two people who commented that they, like me, were not straight or not monogamous (or both!) were probably already out, but they felt the need to come out again to me because I had come out to them, and all of us probably had these awesome "You are not alone" warm fuzzy moments because of it. 

I read a lot of amazing posts on Friday, some of them from friends who were coming out for the first time, some from straight, monogamous friends pledging their support to those who need it, and a lot (like me) saying, "I'm already out, but just in case you need a reminder...I'll tell you again." The community I feel on these days is really quite amazing, and the hope is that the more support and community we pledge to give to those who are still in the closet, the more they will finally feel they are able to come out when (and if) they want to. 

There are many, many hurdles to coming out, both personal and professional, and I'll admit that there are many family members who I'm still not out to. But the hope is that with days like NCOD, and with support from friends and acquaintances alike, those hurdles will be easier to cross in years to come for anyone who wants to jump them.

**Of course, your milage may vary. Last Christmas, as we were all discussing my second cousin's upcoming lesbian wedding, an extended family member actually said, "I guess it could happen to any family." I still have not come out to them, but that's a different subject for a different day. 

Reclaiming the Mix Tape

Like many children of the 80's, I have a particular nostalgia for the mix tape, especially the mix tape from a special someone. There was nothing quite like being handed that little rectangular case, pouring over the track names I knew and wondering about the ones I didn't know, and waiting painfully through the school day to go home and play it. And then, I hung on to every word and wondered, Why did he choose this one? This song uses "love" twenty times in it, is he trying to tell me something? (Spoiler: most of the time, he wasn't.) I'd reply in kind with my own mix tape that would show him my profoundly deep fifteen-year-old soul (though I'd never be there for the first listen, because who wants to see someone see your soul?)

Though I never stopped wanting to make mix tapes for special someones, something changed. It wasn't a disinterest in music - I still very much look to songs to qualify certain feelings. It wasn't the creation of digital media - I just started making playlists instead. And it wasn't that love songs have changed. It was my that my relationships no longer follow a preset societal norm, and love songs, most of the time, just aren't that poly.

But I was on a mission to make a mix, so I asked some other poly friends if they also had trouble with music. Several shared my frustrations, that otherwise meaningful songs become less so when overtly monogamous or jealous themes pop up. There's nothing quite like listening to a song and falling for it, thinking it says more than you could ever say to someone special, before realizing it contains a line like, "You're mine." I asked them, what do you do with that? How do you avoid mono-normativity* in mainstream music?

My favorite answer, other than the one recommending I just switch to dubstep, was this: I just ignore it. Though it had certainly crossed my mind to pick and choose what parts of songs I really intended to be about that special someone, there was always some voice in the back of my head going, That song is perfect except for those three lines, so it's ruined. Move on. But the more I thought about it the more I talked back to that voice: Why can't those three lines be re-interpreted? Who says I have to go along with what was it was supposed to be about? And then I got angrier: If I was one to always follow what was "supposed to be" I wouldn't be poly in the first place.

So I started to just ignore those lines that ruined a perfectly good song. Or, rather, re-imagined them. And why not? Why can't "You're mine" mean "You're mine right now," or "You're mine and you're also someone else's"? Music already squishes pages of emotion into three or so minutes, so isn't there always more complexity intended than what's on the page? And, even if that intent is totally different than the one we need, who's to say we can't change it? We're already pretty damned good at re-writing rules to fit our lives, why not re-write the intended meaning of mainstream music to fit our mixes?

Maybe this is my creative nature showing through, but once I started ignoring the mono-normativity, I found that making mixes was more fun - maybe even more fun than it was when I was fifteen. There's more of a challenge to finding a song that not only has those lines I can ignore but that also captures the desire for independence and community I have in my adult relationships. But once I find it, it's more rewarding. I mean, it's not quite as rewarding as writing out track lists by hand on a tiny rectangular cassette insert, but for some things, you just have to dig out a CD-R and a Sharpie.

I didn't use any of my friends' suggested poly-friendly songs in my latest mix, so I present their suggestions here, for amusement. What songs are on mine? Sorry, you don't get to see my soul that easily.

CSN&Y - "Our House"
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - "If I Should Fall Behind"
Todd Rundgren - "Hello It's Me"
Tim Minchin - "If I Didn't Have You" (to combat "one and only love forever" feelings)
fun - "Take Your Time"
Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
Alanis Morissette - "Doth I Protest Too Much"

and I'll add
The New Pornographers - "Challengers"
The Human League - "The Things that Dreams are Made Of"

Feel free to suggest your own in the comments!

*the monogamous "norm"

All Kinds of Time: Impatience and Immobility

Last week, I was hit with several large stacks of papers to grade, so many in fact that I worked through last weekend and most evenings of the week. I didn't cope very well with the pressure. I found myself anxious, jumpy, and wanting to cry at the weirdest moments. I couldn't focus. I wondered if I needed to ask my doctor about pharmaceutical assistance. The thought that Oh god there just isn't enough time rendered me almost useless for more hours than I care to admit. Last week sucked.

But I don't think I have an attention disorder. When I have one or two things on my plate, I can get them done, no problem. But when my daily to-do list expands into a weekly to-do list, my desire to get everything done right now makes it hard for me to figure out what to do first.

Saturday, while relaxing for the first time in a week and a half, I admitted that I have a problem with patience. I see things that I want to happen and for some reason expect them to happen today or tomorrow, and when they don't, or when I can't predict when they'll happen, I get anxious. I start to wonder if they'll happen at all. And in my anxiety, I am unable to work toward those things that I can actually make happen. (See: my novel-in-progress, a short story that's done and just needs to be submitted somewhere, the short fiction papers I should be grading right now.) I was posed with the question "What is your ideal for right now?" and by worrying about the future so much, I had difficulty answering.

As I sat down this morning to tackle everything on my daily to-do list, I heard a song by early 2000s band Fountains of Wayne (and it wasn't "Stacy's Mom," though that song does certainly have its merits). The song, "All Kinds of Time," is about an ultra-slow-mo moment between when a ball is snapped to a quarterback and when he throws it into the outstretched arms of a teammate. In that moment of chaos around him, everything stops: he looks around, imagines his family watching him on television, is at peace, and just like that, everything falls into place and he feels like he owns the world. 

I'm not a football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but listen to it again and realize that in those moments of chaos when I'm working myself into an anxious frenzy of When will this happen or How will I ever get this done, I forget to step back and take stock. I forget to see that what I do have isn't worth ignoring for what I might have, and I forget to see that there are enough hours in the day, I just need to use them better. 

Patience isn't an easy virtue for anyone to learn, but I want to try harder because I feel like I've missed out on so many "own the world" moments. I feel like I haven't been able to separate the crushingly intimidating Future Goals from the totally obtainable Present Goals, and because of it have immobilized myself to opportunities. And mostly, I want to be able to answer the question "What is your ideal for right now?" so that I can attempt to make it a reality. Or, even better, realize that in a lot of ways, it already is my reality. 

My Big Fat Bisexual Pride Day

Today, September 23, is Celebrate Bisexuality Day. I posted about this on Facebook a few weeks ago and an old acquaintance commented, "They have to have a holiday for everything now, don't they?" My first instinct was to take him down in a brilliantly snarky, horribly piercing verbal battle, but then I took a step back, counted to ten, and instead replied, "This response is exactly why we need it."

I suppose one could question the "need" for celebrating something that's so obviously already celebrated during Pride. I mean, right? Can't you just so easily pick the bisexuals out of the amassed crowd? Isn't the parade just overwhelmed with bisexuals?

I'll give you a hint: it is. But you wouldn't know it by simply looking. Because so many doubt the existence of someone who can be attracted to more than one gender forever, it's easier for a lot of us to simply stay in one closet or another. Sometimes, we're already happily monogamously paired with a partner and therefore can blend into whatever community we appear to fit with. Sometimes, we are scared to come out because we're not positive we're bisexual because we've never had experience with more than one gender. Sometimes, it's just easier to ignore that others are erasing our existence and erase it for ourselves.

But we're out there. And we're not all just "confused," or "on the way to gay." We're not all more likely to cheat on our partners. We're not all poly (though, obviously, I'm not helping out with this stereotype). We're not all sex-crazed. We're not all experimenting. And today is the day out of the year that we try to remind others of these things, remind them of our existence, and remind them that even though we make up a significant portion of the LGBT population, simply celebrating pride with the greater community isn't enough.

Today, members of national LGBT organizations are holding a closed-door meeting at the White House to discuss the ongoing specific needs of the bisexual community. It is my hope that this meeting will not only allow activists from around the country to share ideas, but also spread awareness that we are a group to be supported, celebrated, and noticed. As for me, I will be wearing my bi pride colors today and will be happy to raise a toast to friends at the local celebration here in Boston on Friday. Thank you to all who already support our cause, and Happy Bi Pride!

If you would like to find out more about the Bisexual Resource Center and all that it does for the local and national bisexual community, visit our website. You can also support the BRC and all it does with support groups, literature, and education as the oldest nationally-focused bisexual organization in the U.S. 

Thoughts on the Word "Busy"

Last week, I decided I would try to eliminate the word "busy" from my vocabulary. This was spurred not only by my utter exhaustion of using the word (as repetition is the seed of boredom), but also because it's been the subject of several articles in my newsfeed the last few weeks. 

Laura Vanderkam of Fast Company challenges the notion that being busy equals being powerful, suggesting that "[a]nyone can be busy. It’s easy to fill your time if that’s your only goal. In our hectic world, the ultimate sign of success is empty space on your calendar." Carmel Lobello of The Week takes that idea a step farther, suggesting that "talking about how slammed you are can actually damage your ability to connect and interact with people." Finally, Meredith Fineman of the Harvard Business Review blog drove the last nails into the coffin of the B Word, in my mind, with this:

In addition to having entire conversations about how busy we are, we fail to share feelings with friends and family, ask about important matters, and realize that the “busy” is something that can be put on hold for a little while.

The last thing I want my job to do is keep me from having meaningful connections with people, and what's more, I think the more I tell people I'm busy the more I feel busy, and that leads to more stress and anxiety that I'm too busy. 

So I'm saying goodbye to the word "busy," and instead will explain that I am going to move my regular blog-posting day to Mondays instead of Fridays just because.