Sometimes when explaining my identities to people, they get stuck on the word poly and I need to explain what it is and who it is and, for me, why it is. I often jokingly simplify it down to “I don’t want the person who wants to go out with me dancing all night to have to be the same person to wake me up with waffles in the morning.” Poly doesn’t mean collecting all the bits and pieces of personalities that appeal to you in the form of seventeen different people and then plastering them, trading-card like, into a neat little label: the partner who loves fancy dinners, the girlfriend who you can adventure with, the rainy day fiance. I realize how ridiculous it is to boil someone down to a sum of parts and shine up the bits you like best, fitting those ones on your poly mantle and collecting others to complete the scene.
And yet, I often forget it’s equally impossible to do the opposite. It’s completely outrageous to think someone could be someone’s everything. I’m not bashing monogamy here – I’m being quite literal. Even a happily married monogamous couple doesn’t do everything together. You’ve got friends and family and business associates and acquaintances who fill the needs in your life, and you love them for and despite this. Your tennis partner is likely not your road trip buddy is not your lover is not your business partner. Sure, there’s some people with tons of overlap in the roles in your life, but they’re not every part of your life.
And try as I might, I can neither be every part of a partner’s life, nor remember my dogged determination to do so until I realize I’ve swum out too far. Until I’m so far out of the depths of where I know me that I have a moment of panic. I’m in unfamiliar territory, trying to be something I’m not. But, luckily, I learned to tread water early on, and if I can just catch my mind, I can lay back and float, and come back to myself, remembering the reason they love me is simply because I’m me.
