Today in amazing poly successes and endless sources of joy, my now long-distance boyfriend Leo (wahhh) who is still back in my old city (despite my constant pleas that he move here and live in the apartment above us) sent his valentine’s love along to both Pup and I because he is an actual angel.
Here’s to comperison and metamours who treat each other with abundant love and enduring respect in 2018.
Also to finally convincing Leo to please move here already.
“I’m happy for you,” Leo whispered against my skin, trailing a line of kisses across my clavicle. It was Saturday night and we were in my bed.
“Hm?” I asked. “Why’s that?”
It was late; I was just teetering on the precipice of sleep, a little drunk and otherwise exhausted. Oh top of having a long week, my apartment was packed: Pup’s and my roommate’s boyfriend hanging around and planning to sleep over, Leo was spending the night. Prior, he and I had taken a long hike and had a really nice dinner together, all accompanied by one of those vast, all-day kinds of conversations I love. We’d returned to my place to join Pup, our roommate, her boyfriend and another friend of ours for a silly night of boardgames and beers. He’s met my friends a few times before – and he and Pup get along famously – so the entire evening was an absolute blast. We’d all had a bit too much to drink, so Pup opted for the pullout couch (honestly, a poly lifesaver and one of our best investments, it’s more comfortable than our actual bed) and Leo and I took the bedroom.
“Your news. I’ve been thinking about it tonight,” he explained. “I’m happy for you, but I’ve decided I’m allowed to be sad.”
I’d been saving up the news that I am moving to a new city with Pup in six months for when I saw him in person. Though I’ve been slowly but enthusiastically getting around to sharing the news with people close to me, I noticed that this was the first time I actually felt a little twinge of melancholy in relating it. It was bittersweet. I’ve been a bit too busy to update you all on my life, but things have been going really, really well for us.
“I feel the same way about myself,” I admitted. “If that makes any sense.”
That night, I’d looked around my tiny kitchen and saw, packed in around our little table, a cohort of some of the most important people to me. And I realized that, four years ago, I didn’t know any of them.
In one of my favorite songs of his, David Bowie sings: “My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare/I had to cram so many things to store everything in there.” It’s a sentiment I’ve felt a lot lately, in taking into account the four years I’ve spent in this city. For as excited I am to move onto this new phase and the opportunities it holds, I have often become overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the little life I’ve created for myself here. So much of my life here is no longer comprised of the things I brought with me when I first moved to this city.
“I never knew I’d need so many people,” Bowie laments a few lines later, and I absolutely get it. Because, fuck, I am going to really miss all of this.
Yesterday would have been Sir’s and my anniversary. In the spirit of trying to be friends, we decided to meet up for dinner.
I was super anxious leading up to it; I hadn’t seen him since we broke up, although we have been talking. We’re both seeing other people, but I was scared I would cry when I saw him or regret the whole thing instantly.
But seeing him come up the block to meet me last night, I was filled with warmth for him. It’s hard to explain. But I’ll say this: we spent most of the first half of our twenties together, and so in a way we grew up together. There were so many firsts and so many beautiful things that I shared with this man. And so when he came up and hugged me, all of my anxiety faded away and I was able to just enjoy him again.
It’s hard to talk about the “end” of this relationship – though it’s not really ended – on tumblr. He found me here, you all watched this relationship develop. You were there for all the good stuff and the awkward stuff and the brave stuff. I was nervous to share the bad stuff because it always felt like I might be disappointing someone, especially when I used to get asks from people basically saying they envied our relationship.
I’ve said it before here and I’ll repeat it: knowing how it all wound up, I’d do it again. Especially now, after the wonderful dinner we shared as people becoming something that feels like – and hopefully will be – dear friends. And I know it sounds strange, but breaking up may have been one of the best things we could have done for our relationship.
We were very good to each other. I think that’s what made this all right. There were some really hard and bad times. But in the end it’s overwhelmed by gratitude and warmth. I’m glad we did this right. I’m glad I loved him. I’m glad we tried as hard as we did. And I’m glad you’ve all been with us, join us on this really unexpected journey.
I promise, I’ll get back to the sexy stuff soon.
Craftsmate/Sir and I had “un-anniversary” dinner and drinks tonight.
It’s overwhelmingly satisfying to see him and still have a friendship with him and have no ill will or tension.
We say hi.
Here’s why posts like this (and other “kids these days *shakes fist* ” type sentiments) rub me the wrong way:
Do you know why our parents/grandparents/etc stayed together? BECAUSE THEY HAD NO OTHER OPTIONS! They lived in a time when divorce was against their religion or frowned upon by their culture. One of my great-grandmothers divorced her cheating alcoholic bum of a husband and was literally shunned from her entire small European village. She had to take her daughters (who she was protecting) and move, and in their new town they just told everyone her husband had DIED to avoid the negative stigma of divorce. And you know what? I bet she would have LOVED the opportunity to have messages from 7000 followers saying “go girl” and “you can do this” and “your hair looks cute” when she was going through her darkest days.
The number of couples that were stuck in abusive, loveless or unhappy marriages is staggering. The number of couples NOW stuck in abusive, loveless or unhappy marriages is also staggering. Divorce is a good option for a lot of people. (So is not getting married in the first place… but that’s a different rant.)
Yes social media can be addictive and detrimental to anyone (coupled or not) who ignores their real life partner(s) in favour of online connections, but the same can be said for ignoring your partner for work, sporting events, candy crush, fantasy football leagues, video games or any number of things. A relationship can only be successful if it is given the attention and maintenance it deserves. A relationship of any kind requires your presence.
I (like so many of you) have found meaningful and loving relationships with friends and partners online and I really detest rhetoric that tries to say online relationships can’t have depth and purpose.
In fact I come from a long line of women who could have benefited from looking around and seeing that there were PLENTY of fish in the sea.
*steps off soapbox and swims by winking at you and waving my fishy fins glub glub*
OH SO WAS NOBODY GOING TO TELL ME THAT HER HAD A SECRET POLY PLOTLINE THAT WAS JUST WAITING TO DESTROY ME?
No, I’m not even gonna get all “thar be spoilers.”
I just. Ugh. I can’t.
A couple of people have tagged me in the thing where you pull up iTunes and post up the first 20 or so songs that come on your shuffle. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it, but I pulled up iTunes just to see what came of it.
The first song was one that I used to listen to right around when Sir and I first were messing around back in fall of 2012. Hearing it again, it took me back to the really weird space of that time where we sort of had no idea what was going on between us.
He’d given me the panic attack when he found my tumblr, he’d turned out okay, but I was still nervous. Even though I’d never seen him before at school, even though we had mutual friends and yet somehow had never encountered each other, once I met him he started turning up everywhere. Not in a stalkery way, in the way that something keeps appearing once you’re actually looking for it. And it made me anxious, because I worried about people somehow finding out about this blog.
I might just text you
Turn your phone over, when it’s all over
No settling down, my text go to your screen
You know better than that.
I come around when you least expect me.
I’m sitting at the bar when your glass is empty.
We started seeing each other behind everybody’s back. Not romantically, but just to mess around. After meeting him for the first time, I awkwardly got really subspaced when he tested out a flogger on me and felt really strangely attached. And I carried it out in doing this weird secret arrangement where he’d sneak in after my roommate fell asleep, tie me up and play with me, and then leave. It made me feel a little naughty and a little brave, and they say nothing brings people closer than sharing a secret.
You start calling, you start crying.
I come over, I’m inside you,
I can’t find you.
Aside from the obvious emotional fuckery that something like that comes with, I was coping with the fact that my relationship with that guy from my frat was not going to work and that he and I were awkwardly transitioning back into being just friends. To make matters worse, he was getting interested in my close friend, the Redhead.
And, even worse, I was placing all my shame and anxiety over this blog and my kink onto Sir. Worse, I was conflating it with him.
Meanwhile, Sir wasn’t over a girl and the two of us would just wind up venting to each other about our respective issues. I spent a night at his place, talking and crying on his couch until five in the morning.
I was wrong, but would you have listened to you?
In an effort to protect ourselves, we were absurdly cold to each other. He had trouble kissing me. I had trouble not turning every other comment into a bitchy wisecrack against him when we weren’t just messing around. It was a harebrained effort to protect my heart from someone I felt an instant connection with but who I wasn’t sure would reciprocate.
Looking back, it’s weird to think that I felt so ambivalent about someone almost two years ago who now means so much to me. It’s also clear to me now how freaking lucky we were, because this could’ve all come together horribly. We were navigating this strange in-between space, we were trying to subvert an intimacy that was attempting to take root. Until, one day, he asked if he could kiss me. And then, at a Halloween party, he forgot himself and kissed me in front of my friends. Just like that, we weren’t a secret anymore. And suddenly, we felt free to be ourselves with each other, I felt safe being sweet and open with him, he felt comfortable being affectionate with me.
So, Sir and I are in love and happy. Even that guy from my frat and the Redhead are happily living together and are some of our closest friends. But, damn, could that have turned out pretty shitty.
I guess the moral of the story is that even though he and I were fortunate enough to work out, don’t put up walls with people you want to let in.
romanticdominant-deactivated201:
When Tori and I were first starting to explore D/s, I worried myself sick that I would indeed hurt her at some point and never be able to forgive myself.
She is my world and I love her more than life so, yes, it was a VERY difficult thing to reconcile in my head. I love her, but I hit her? WTF?
For a long time, I discounted the idea that anyone could find pleasure through pain, but I have had to eat those words. Please don’t misunderstand, I would NEVER, EVER really harm Tori, but within the confines of safe, sane and consensual play, rough, dominant behavior from me took our sex to a level I could never have imagined.
What I came to understand and accept was that the level of force Tori and I needed was not something that could cause real damage. For us, dominance and control was what made our D/s work.
In addition, we ALWAYS approached anything new slowly and with great caution. She had her safeword and I absolutely trusted her to use it if things went too far and she absolutely trusted me to stop immediately if she used it.
Whenever we play, her safety is my first priority. I NEVER scene with her if my head isn’t completely in the right zone. Anger, frustration, impatience etc. have no place in D/s. You must be in control of your emotions, the scene, everything or postpone till you’re ready.
I told him I loved him before he could say it back.
And it was embarrassing and strange and I felt far too vulnerable. I regretted it almost instantly when he wasn’t ready to say it back. In the interim between when he could say it, I felt beyond awkward about it and worried that I had overextended myself. I’m usually not the person to say it first and when he couldn’t genuinely reciprocate, it scared me shitless and brought up some old, rotten feelings about being abandoned or suddenly disliked. Call it irrational, but it is what it is.
When he did, it was an accident. It slipped out twice in succession, once via text message before he came over and once when he was at my place before we saw this movie. He stood by it when he caught himself saying it, he was even happy and proud of it.
And so, when this scene came up watching the movie a few hours later, I couldn’t help but choke up. Call me a cheeseball all you want, but it’s not always about the whips and chains.
Craftsmate and I have had a rocky couple of days, hence the silence on the Dungeon Story front. We had a small disagreement that kind of erupted into a much larger fight, followed by a few little aftershocks.
We’ve had a bunch of tough conversations, precipitated by everything from mismatched expectations to the fact that we’re going to become a long-distance couple for at least a year.
So, yep, we made an initial appointment to go to see a counselor.
Tonight, we’re watching Game of Thrones and Mad Men and just not addressing some of this shit until tomorrow at least.