Sometimes you need to write

[greenstorm]

Things were going so well.

I went down to the coast for two weeks to visit people. I was curious about when I would start to get antsy, when I would start worrying about home, whether I'd give up and fly home at some point to make sure everything was ok. I made it a week and a half without thinking about it too much, then came back on schedule without feeling like the last few hours of the drive were a race to get home. The company was all lovely: groups of old friends visited at a wedding, and new friends met; more visits to folks and a property on the Island I haven't seen visited in years; and a bit of a ping-pong around some Vancouver people that felt like too many short visits but was still good for the soul. I got to see Josh and things feel ok there, which is a burden lifted that I hadn't wanted to carry. We're still doing a thing, though who knows what it will look like? I also got to see Angus, maybe in private for the first time since the breakup? That was also really lovely. The connections that survive significant relationship change between us are of such value to me; I change so much that it's impossible to trust anything will endure until it's been through a few changes.

I've now been on enough trips with Tucker that I can distinguish between two kinds of trip: one where we're staying together most nights but mostly busy doing other things with a couple date nights in there and the other where it's a vacation-together focused on each other. This was definitely the former except for the roadtrip parts. He's such a traveler; I've never traveled enough with anyone to begin to categorize like this before and it takes some sorting through on my end. I really appreciate the flexibility to explore both. More generally I really appreciate the flexibility of this relationship to balance space and support/intimacy; in fact, let's talk about that.

For the longest time I only understood good or proper relationship in terms of two modes: always-together and completely-apart. Even in poly I felt like I had to be 100% available to all partners at all times if they needed or even wanted me. I believed that my ability to be in relationship was innately flawed because I was poly, and so if multiple partners needed me at once I couldn't be there. I deserved anything less than a good relationship I received from my partners because I could not give good relationship in return.

You notice there's no room in there for being unavailable for my own personal reasons.

So eventually I started to make room for myself for my own reasons. First I did this through work or school: being busy enough that I felt justified (though still conflicted and bad) turning folks down. It wasn't conscious, of course. Then I went away for the summers, for school but also work, where no one could place physical demands on me. Then I moved up north and didn't engage with anyone up here. And... then Tucker moved up here too.

An ongoing thread in my relationship with both Josh and Tucker is taking space. Josh just... takes his, completely apologetically, without warning me first. It's getting me better at asking for what I want with regards to time, and also with my sorting out whether and how I think he's bad at relationship by how he goes about things. Tucker wants periods of space and closeness both; he models talking about what he needs in that regard and then making it happen. In response I've been learning to do the same.

Some things only release their grip on my mind through habit and practice. I'm beginning to make habit and practice around accepting other folks taking their space, and around just starting to ask for space when I need it. I often still feel like a whipped puppy when I schedule something without checking with a partner first in time they might be available, but I do it, and the feeling has diminished over time. It's starting to normalize that I have control, not only over who I fuck, but what I do all the time. It feels rather extraordinary. And I'm starting to believe, just around the very very edges in tiny glimmers, that I'm not innately unworthy through taking time apart from partners even when they want me to be there. I'm starting to believe that folks can show up for themselves even without me.

And that's amazing.

That's all a giant sidebar, I guess. I got home, there were 2 sets of piglets and a bunch of baby ducks, frost had killed my tomatoes, my plumbing exploded, and home felt really good. I was happy.

And now today all hell has broken loose at work. A colleague spent an awful lot of time on a department-wide conference call telling me what was and wasn't part of my job (spoiler: he was wrong both on what I was supposed to be doing and what I wasn't supposed to be doing), in order to meet deadlines I'm going to need to work a ridiculous number of hours which is less important than that I need to have everything run through folks who have signing authority and I do not want them to have to work long hours since they're helping me out; I am having to fight pretty hard to get support from my boss; and of course the lumber market is awful and so while everyone still has a job we're not as certain on that front as we'd like to be. And of course this is the day everyone has chosen to ask me for lots of little odds and ends which I would have had plenty of time to deal with last week or next week.

I feel scattered and overwhelmed. Hopefully this will pass.

Anyhow, there we are.

Comments

[yarrowkat]

that is a lot of great stuff about boundaries & polyamory. as a poly person, i think good boundaries and self-care (meaning not just hot baths and dates with oneself and a good book, but also sufficient and easeful time to clean the house, pay the bills, do whatever needs doing to support one's life and self) are foundational to healthy relationships. i'm a chronic over-committer myself; always want to do everything with everybody. some years back i realized i was exhausting myself and everybody around me by doing that, and i started a practice of one night a week being my Night Off. meaning it's mine, and nobody else can get it, period. sometimes i use it to clean the house, but usually these days i manage to build time to do that in on the weekends (plus we got a roomba: useful little critter, that), and my Night Off is just me-time, to rest and write or read or watch netflix, and cultivate my relationship with myself in whatever way i need in that moment. it has made a huge difference. that balance between space & closeness in relationships is so un-discussed in modern culture, but also so important!

[greenstorm]

Yes to chronic over-commitment, though I find that became easier out in the country (maybe I should think about that again since I'm committed to all these animals now). I mostly rely on my other partners' need for space to give me the space I need because it's still so hard for me to speak up for myself. I'm also coming to learn just how much my space needs are also physical-space needs; I am happiest with my own home. I have the knowledge; the acceptance is slow to follow. I am so, so pleased that you have been able to set that up the space you need and maintain it for yourself, and I will use that bit of knowledge to help normalize taking my own space when I need it.

[yarrowkat]

i think "needing and wanting space is normal, it is very reasonable to expect this of yourself and to find a way to gift it to yourself" is where i was going with all that, yeah. :)

[greenstorm]

One of my life goals is "even if it's not normal, if it's what you need it's reasonable to gift this to yourself".

Someday.

[yarrowkat]

<3 that is an awesome goal.

[greenstorm]

Than you! I do *really well* with goals in my life, and I'm finding that defining the right goal is more central to living a good life than is actually perfectly achieving the goals.