~Middle~

“What I’m afraid of,” I told him softly as we were laying in bed, “is that you’ll forget about me.”

“Ha,” he said.  He was kind of scoffing at me, but he quieted down and just listened.

I think.  A lot.  Special Man sometimes calls me an overthinker, but he knows I hate that, so he doesn’t do it often.  He knows  ME, and he knows how I process and integrate things, so mostly he lets me be.  He listens.  He disagrees sometimes, but I see him really trying to  acknowledge how I’m feeling nonetheless.

It wasn’t always like this.  SMF is a fixer.  A thinker, also, in his own right, but his process is much more “get in, get out.”  If I was struggling with something, I would want to work through it out loud.  Talk, discuss, mull, integrate.  He has always been able to compartmentalize things, and not spend time stewing.  And he would give me his advice, which would often end with, “Try not to think about it too much.”

And that was that.

Anyway, since our failed breakup, (or our fake breakup, as my 8 year old calls it) I think we’ve all (me, SMF, CC) shifted the way we communicate and relate to each other and we have found a comfortable place.  I have found a comfortable place.  I feel safe and accepted.  That isn’t to say that I don’t have insecurities that come up that need processing.

“CC’s your wife,” I said.  “You guys have this history, and she’ll always be the one who got here first. Mrs. A is cute and fun and new and exciting.  I’m not new and exciting any more. It’s like I’m the middle child now.  I have middle child syndrome…”

We kind of laughed about that for a minute, but it’s been on my mind for the last couple of days.  CC told me this week, that we all just need to “jostle around a little to find our spaces.”  This is a new space for me.  A new dynamic. This is what I’m doing.

You can’t BE poly, without DOING poly. So here I am, doing poly.

Just don’t forget about me.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Middle%20child%20syndrome