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greenstormApparently, extricating yourself from a complicated situation is, in itself, a complicated thing to do. Who would have thought?
Yesterday I didn't end up at the permaculture thing because I didn't think it was worth heading out there for 8am just to hang out on a wait list. Around 9 or 10 in the morning I got an email that said, essentially, there's room, come on down. By that time I didn't feel like making the trek out to UBC, so I spent a bunch of time just reading and soaking in the bathtub until the party in the evening. that was fun, lots of dancing that left me sweaty and feeling very comfortable in the morning when I was supposed to get out of bed. Whatever climbing is, it really isn't much cardio.
Today was climbingm, which was kind of scary-- my left wrist and to a lesser extent the anchor muscles on my shoulder are starting to hurt. It makes a certain amount of sense: tendons and ligaments strenghten faster than muscle, and I've built an astounding amount of muscle (or at least strength) on my left side lately to bring it into line with my right to be able to climb symetrically. Now I need to remember to take it easy and not push what I can do in those regards while the connective tissue catches up. So, slow and easy for a bit for me. I've broken into the 10s though, I almost completed an easy 10c and I've done a couple 10as and 10bs now, so it's not a bad place to stop for awhile.
Life, or rather, my intense relationship structure, has thrown me another curve ball. Here's the thing. For so many years I moved every couple of years, changed social structures, walked away from everything. Now I've been essentially in a community for going on four or five years. People rotate through the spots of intense contact but they're still *there*. While I've started to learn to deal with all the stuff that builds up in this case, I'm still having trouble with the intersection between logistics and emotion. I'm getting better at walking middle grounds, but I'm still not sure where I should be, or where I want to be. I'm not sure of what sort of obligation I have to devote time to people. Is there an obligation to devote time to friends? Lovers? Do I need to be consistent? What if I don't want to be? What if people expect more of me than I have? What if it makes them sad that I have less time for them? Does it make a difference what I'm spending the rest of my time on?
I have a tendancy to believe that I should be able to apportion my time as I see fit, but at the same time I seem to be a pushover when it comes to causing people distress. Given the choice each individual time, I avoid turning people down at the expense of avoiding the things I want to do (trying new things, meeting people I don't feel an obligation to but want to catch up with, doing things on my own, just veging out). Specifically this is an issue with the number of relationships I've been carrying lately. If I go climbing four times a week, go dancing twice a week, do housework and play with my rats, and maybe meet up with a friend once a week, I simply don't have time to spend a full day with three people once a week as well-- and for the most part these are people who seem to feel bad at any less than two visits per week.
So that's the situation. It's complicated by a couple of things-- you know the way that, when things feel like an obligation, you want to do them less? You know how, when people are unhappy with you most of the times you see them, you want to see them less? Yeah, that.
And I'm trying to figure out what do so about it. There are a lot of human elements to it that are hard to figure into the mix. You know, I love these people. I want to see them-- sometimes often. And sometimes I don't.
I get twitchy when any day that doesn't have an ironclad excuse gets seized on. Sometimes I feel like I'm at the middle of a feeding frenzy-- I say 'I don't have anything planned on Sunday evening' and I get repeated 'well, what are you doing, do you want to do x?' every time I talk to anyone.
Obviously a lot of this is about me, and about my discomfort with giving a no. If I didn't mind saying no, being asked wouldn't bother me-- and really, in many ways it's enviable to have the option to do so many awesome things with so many amazing people. On the other hand, it's an experience I have only had recently, and so I suck at managing it.
So, yeah, that's where my mind is at recently regarding my relationships. My friends all seem to understand that I'm flaky and cyclic, and they're fine with that (and oh, goodness is that ever an amazing and important thing). My lovers, not so much. I think I've tried saying, 'I don't have much time' but maybe I need to hammer that in a little more, and cave less after I've said it. Then again, I can't always tell when I'm saying somethign clearly, so maybe I'm just wrong on this.
What really hammered it home for me is the fact that, despite my anticipation of a double breakup last week, the period of having no relationship obligations made me practically euphoric, I felt light as a feather, and I felt like I owned my time again. Sure, I was sad, but still... And to have time to meet new people again, too! I feel stale without that.
And of course all this is compounded by the fact that poly is an innately dramatic way of living so something comes up every six months or so that requires extra time, extra talking, extra emotional availability-- and when I'm living at the edge of my resources, I just ain't got it for anyone.
So I guess that's my state-of-the-Greenie address for the moment. I feel better to have chewed through it in words, yay livejournal. I'm in a much better place than I was a few years ago (just look at the 2004 journal entries, ech!) but I've got some clawing to do yet.
Anyone dealt with this sort of thing before? What did you do? What do people suggest?
Yesterday I didn't end up at the permaculture thing because I didn't think it was worth heading out there for 8am just to hang out on a wait list. Around 9 or 10 in the morning I got an email that said, essentially, there's room, come on down. By that time I didn't feel like making the trek out to UBC, so I spent a bunch of time just reading and soaking in the bathtub until the party in the evening. that was fun, lots of dancing that left me sweaty and feeling very comfortable in the morning when I was supposed to get out of bed. Whatever climbing is, it really isn't much cardio.
Today was climbingm, which was kind of scary-- my left wrist and to a lesser extent the anchor muscles on my shoulder are starting to hurt. It makes a certain amount of sense: tendons and ligaments strenghten faster than muscle, and I've built an astounding amount of muscle (or at least strength) on my left side lately to bring it into line with my right to be able to climb symetrically. Now I need to remember to take it easy and not push what I can do in those regards while the connective tissue catches up. So, slow and easy for a bit for me. I've broken into the 10s though, I almost completed an easy 10c and I've done a couple 10as and 10bs now, so it's not a bad place to stop for awhile.
Life, or rather, my intense relationship structure, has thrown me another curve ball. Here's the thing. For so many years I moved every couple of years, changed social structures, walked away from everything. Now I've been essentially in a community for going on four or five years. People rotate through the spots of intense contact but they're still *there*. While I've started to learn to deal with all the stuff that builds up in this case, I'm still having trouble with the intersection between logistics and emotion. I'm getting better at walking middle grounds, but I'm still not sure where I should be, or where I want to be. I'm not sure of what sort of obligation I have to devote time to people. Is there an obligation to devote time to friends? Lovers? Do I need to be consistent? What if I don't want to be? What if people expect more of me than I have? What if it makes them sad that I have less time for them? Does it make a difference what I'm spending the rest of my time on?
I have a tendancy to believe that I should be able to apportion my time as I see fit, but at the same time I seem to be a pushover when it comes to causing people distress. Given the choice each individual time, I avoid turning people down at the expense of avoiding the things I want to do (trying new things, meeting people I don't feel an obligation to but want to catch up with, doing things on my own, just veging out). Specifically this is an issue with the number of relationships I've been carrying lately. If I go climbing four times a week, go dancing twice a week, do housework and play with my rats, and maybe meet up with a friend once a week, I simply don't have time to spend a full day with three people once a week as well-- and for the most part these are people who seem to feel bad at any less than two visits per week.
So that's the situation. It's complicated by a couple of things-- you know the way that, when things feel like an obligation, you want to do them less? You know how, when people are unhappy with you most of the times you see them, you want to see them less? Yeah, that.
And I'm trying to figure out what do so about it. There are a lot of human elements to it that are hard to figure into the mix. You know, I love these people. I want to see them-- sometimes often. And sometimes I don't.
I get twitchy when any day that doesn't have an ironclad excuse gets seized on. Sometimes I feel like I'm at the middle of a feeding frenzy-- I say 'I don't have anything planned on Sunday evening' and I get repeated 'well, what are you doing, do you want to do x?' every time I talk to anyone.
Obviously a lot of this is about me, and about my discomfort with giving a no. If I didn't mind saying no, being asked wouldn't bother me-- and really, in many ways it's enviable to have the option to do so many awesome things with so many amazing people. On the other hand, it's an experience I have only had recently, and so I suck at managing it.
So, yeah, that's where my mind is at recently regarding my relationships. My friends all seem to understand that I'm flaky and cyclic, and they're fine with that (and oh, goodness is that ever an amazing and important thing). My lovers, not so much. I think I've tried saying, 'I don't have much time' but maybe I need to hammer that in a little more, and cave less after I've said it. Then again, I can't always tell when I'm saying somethign clearly, so maybe I'm just wrong on this.
What really hammered it home for me is the fact that, despite my anticipation of a double breakup last week, the period of having no relationship obligations made me practically euphoric, I felt light as a feather, and I felt like I owned my time again. Sure, I was sad, but still... And to have time to meet new people again, too! I feel stale without that.
And of course all this is compounded by the fact that poly is an innately dramatic way of living so something comes up every six months or so that requires extra time, extra talking, extra emotional availability-- and when I'm living at the edge of my resources, I just ain't got it for anyone.
So I guess that's my state-of-the-Greenie address for the moment. I feel better to have chewed through it in words, yay livejournal. I'm in a much better place than I was a few years ago (just look at the 2004 journal entries, ech!) but I've got some clawing to do yet.
Anyone dealt with this sort of thing before? What did you do? What do people suggest?
