Greenstorm's Journal

Well.

Super rough couple days.

Here I am, awake on time. That helps. I got a ton of snuggles and a massage last night. That helps. I had time with no demands on it, where I didn't have to be hurrying somewhere or doing something. That did the trick best of all. Now I feel tired, but clearheaded and less overwhelmed.

Those hard times point out where the problems are, but I cannot possibly solve anything from within them. All I can do is hold myself with as much compassion as I can manage, love myself with as much mindfulness as I can scrape together, and wait it out.

I fell down on the last one. I was busy seeking external support and also busy Doing Things. It let me get way off balance.

Now that I'm back near centre, though: what do I want? What can I put up with? Who do I want to be, and for whom? How many faces am I comfortable wearing? How many closets am I okay lurking in, and to what end?

And here are some answers:

I want people who love who I am, and who I love as they are in return. People are not projects for me, except for myself, and I have no desire to be someone else's project. I am neither a fixer-upper nor a display piece nor a garment that needs just a little alteration to be perfect. I may choose to make some changes on myself for someone but that shouldn't be necessary or expected.

I can put up with a lot, and I will, but it makes me unhappy and I don't want to be unhappy in service of loyalty or longevity in interpersonal relationships right now. So my actual tolerance for putting up with uncomfortable things is pretty small except that it's so easy for me to accomodate folks that I often don't notice I'm doing it. Then I get increasingly constrained and unhappy and I don't know why. This is why I'm so happy my anger exists: it's great at showing me where I am putting up with things when I didn't know that's what I was doing. It's important for me to self-check when I feel uneasy and figure out I'm doing this. I don't want to put up with constant friction, with frequent backbends and contortions, with repeated amounts of unexpected relationship work. If I feel like I am not the driver of this work it's much more comfortable for me; I'm better with putting in work when someone else is meeting me halfway or more.

I want to be pretty much myself, who I am now, with a bit more focus on work and a bit clearer social mandate. It's important enough for me to have my close folks around me that I'm going to start my family dinner potlucks up every two weeks again when I am back living in town. I'm happy to put in that work to be a person surrounded by friends of my choice: the people I love most, who aren't necessarily selected in the same way by other social hubs (not that there's much of a social hub right now). It's important for me to sink energy and time into getting and maintaining a job I actually enjoy, one that's good for me. This will necessitate less general social energy since that's where a lot of my effort is bleeding off right now. I will try countering this with those structured social events.

Shifting faces for different people really holds no interest for me. Because it's instinctive in me to try and make people comfortable, to give them what I think they want, I've been exaggerating or suppressing parts of myself. I just don't get good value out of that sort of thing: hiding my self and what I want away to make folks happy just assures that I'm surrounded by folks who aren't happy with who I actually am. That's a bad scene: I start feeling bad about myself, the other person feels bad when bits of me peek out, no one is happy. It's better to part ways than to force the issue. There will always be a certain amount of presenting some parts of myself to some folks and others to others but I can't justify tweaking those faces much in one direction or another.

Of course that bleeds into the idea of being closeted. In order to have a venue where I can be closeted I need to meet new folks, since I'm pretty out to everyone who reads my facebook or my blog or who speaks to me about partners in any capacity or, or, or. What's been happening for me lately is that I've been encouraged to suppress some of my stuff, not for a new person in particular, but for his housemates and workmates and all that business. I find that very uncomfortable and it starts to make me ashamed about my stuff. That shame can only go so far because I know with such certainty this is what I need right now and there's nothing wrong with it, but I feel neutered, suppressed, muffled. My people are really important to me, both poly/sexy partners and close friends, and the shape of each of our relationships is fascinating and dear to me. Knowing I need to cut those things out of how I present makes me uneasy even if it requires no overt change of action on my part because it never comes up. So, I'm not into closeting myself except for brief, not-really-repeatable stints.

So there.

In the transition from new relationship to more-permanent relationship, there's the Poly Thing.

It's sometimes easier or sometimes harder to negotiate, but either way it's been a long time since I did so.

This instance, in my relationship with Blake, seems to be particularly difficult given the last couple of go rounds. He's smart, he's an arguer and a kick-back-er, he's not nice when he's hurt, and it hasn't taken long for all the skills I learned with Angus and Michael, where I watched my mouth and was gentle, to slide.

I don't like this. I don't like to be mean while I'm doing it, I don't like the feeling I get afterwards. I'm not a wounded animal in the corner of my life anymore; I'm a person who makes choices to share myself in various ways with other people, I'm pretty awesome, and I'm good at enjoying life in a whole variety of circumstances.

saxifrage00 reminded me last night that it helps to be very clear exactly what my position is during these discussions; I can't be clear to anyone else if I'm not clear in my own mind.

In the midst of the noise and pain of Blake's distress, I've been reacting rather than acting; I haven't been able to step back and look clearly at what I want, agree to shared goals, and figure out how to get there. Instead I've had more of the 'ohgodpleasestopallthishurting' reaction which ends up with nothing good or long-term-helpful happening, and myself making bad decisions.

I've taken some time to myself after work today, despite the 'are you punishing me?' questions, to sort my mind out some. I feel clearer than I have in a long time. My relationships tend to happen to me, and this one really has done that, with the result that I really don't know what we both actually want out of it, what he thinks a good long term relationship actually looks like, or any of that jazz. I've been busy with school, I've been caught up in the beginning-feeling, it's all good.

Now I have the opportunity to start the process of making this into a real relationship, of figuring out shared goals and plans and desires, and of co-creating a vision for the future that we can work towards. This is what will make an us-together rather than two very separate very strong-willed stubborn people.

There will be obstacles. I've been here before, though, and this is a strength I'm bringing to the discussion.

Wish me luck, please.