Poly Nirvana

Love, Life and Rational Polyamory

Tag Archives: Rant


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~Hurt~

Conflict is painful.

Everyone thinks they are right.  Nobody wants to be wrong.  If you can get to a point that you can even admit that maybe you were wrong, you certainly weren’t that wrong, and there was a very good reason for what you did, or what you said, or how you acted.

I can’t stand it.

It makes my stomach hurt.  It makes my eyes ache and my brain noisy.  I can’t sleep.

There’s a rift among my little poly constellation.  I’m involved, and I’m not.  I feel like everything is spiraling wildly off into space and nothing will ever be the same.  We don’t exist in a vacuum.  All our individual relationships, romantic or otherwise, make up this larger creature that becomes maimed when conflict finds parts of it.  I’m trying so hard to know what to do, what to say.  Right now I’m frozen, as I watch my people move farther and farther away from one another.

One of my favorite things about poly is the idea that we can be close to our partners, and our metamours, and their partners.  There’s a secret part of me that would have fit right into a commune in the 1960’s.  I adore the concept of the extended poly network.  The chosen family.  The clan.

I can’t talk about all of it.  But it is heavy on my mind, and my heart hurts.  I can’t take sides, except for my own.  I can’t talk to any of my people.  It’s a lonely place to be.  Events are being cancelled because this person can’t be around that person, or these people are mad at those other ones.  I’m stuck in the midst of it.  And I want out.

People aren’t disposable.  People shouldn’t be disposable.


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~Resting~

I slept thirteen hours last night. Hard.

Who sleeps thirteen hours?

I spent an hour last night at the local Hobby Lobby, with my baby sister and her fiancee choosing flowers for her wedding in January. I used to dabble with flower arranging, worked a in a flower shop or two, and helped out on holidays here and there over the years. It’s a big project, and feels even bigger because I’m not quite on board with the idea of her getting married at such a young age. She is just a baby! I realize I’m projecting some of my own personal baggage onto her, but I’m trying to keep it in check. She and Fiancee will be getting married in the local Mormon temple, which means that anyone who is not a worthy member of the LDS church, will be unable to attend. As a sinner, I get to wait outside while the ceremony takes place inside, and then the couple will come out and we will disperse to the church meetinghouse for a reception in the cultural hall, which is pretty much a multipurpose room and gym and sometimes there’s a stage on one end. Of course, they raise the basketball hoops out of the way for things like wedding receptions.

Lest you think I am not respectful of other people’s life choices, I am. I will make the flowers beautiful, and I will truly wish her well. I hope that she is happy, and that, unlike me, she doesn’t feel, in twenty years, that her choices were limited by the Mormon status quo. I used to be bitter. Now I’m just a little regretfully wistful.

I seem to be fighting with Special Man, and I’m not exactly sure why. I see a pattern, in myself, that I’m not sure how to change. I’m a terrible fighter. I want to withdraw, run away, apologize and make it all better. It’s not the apologizing that I take issue with. It’s that I use it as an avoidance strategy. It’s one I used with my exhusband often. Walk on eggshells, be the compliant good girl. Lose myself in keeping the peace. And now I’m hung up on being heard, and I wonder if it’s making everything worse; if I’m making everything worse.

So there it is. I’m going to nest in today, let the kids order pizza, eat some chocolate, and watch movies. If I can get some puppy cuddles in, all the better.


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~Politics~

This morning I had a small explosion of page views on a post from about six months ago, titled “Five Things Your Metamour Wants You To Know”.  I was surprised, but the internet is unpredictable, and I was happy to see it pop up again, as it is the inspiration for one of the sessions I’m presenting at Beyond The Love in two weeks.  I’ve been just a little worried about this one, as my personal story with metamour relations has not been a blissful fairytale, but we both keep trying, and I think that speaks volumes.

Poly is hard.  I ran across a discussion online that started with an article debating whether or not Polyamory was a choice or rather, an orientation.  And seriously, all I could think was “Who cares?”  Maybe I’m not academic enough in my poly.  All the talk of anthropological analysis, and how our ancient ancestors were wired, and whether or not the animal kingdom embraces patriarchal fidelity or how biological reproductive drives fuel sociological relationship structures… I don’t care.  I.  just.  Don’t.  Care.

What I care about is mindfulness.  Self-awareness.  Making good choices, for me, whether or not there are ancient natural biological urges to be monogamous or non-monogamous.  Maybe the intellectual dissection of polyamory is interesting and important, but I am so present-focused on being in my relationship, that I get weary of the constant back and forth.

I received an email today with the subject header, POLYAMOROUS POLITICAL ACTIVISM CONCLAVE FEB 23 2014: BERKLEY, CALIF.

I’ll be skipping that one.


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~Memorial~

Today in a thrift store, I found a wedding cake topper that is identical to the one that was on my wedding cake twenty-one years ago. I’d had a vague idea that I wanted to have something to represent the death of my marriage for the Day of the Dead altar I am planning on November 2nd. When I saw the white ceramic bride and groom, I stopped and looked at it for a minute before I picked it up. I was a little sad for that girl who got married at age 22, but I also was flooded with a feeling of relief. Who I am now, is far from who I was then. I lived the life that was expected of me for many years. I may still be trying to find my way, but now I try to live with choice and intention. And that is a very good thing.

I have a lot of patterns that I am trying to change. Patterns of shame which do not serve me any more. I am aware, and I am present. I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to live my life according to someone else’s idea of who I should or shouldn’t be.


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~Torture~

All I want is a bra that fits well, is comfortable, looks pretty, and holds my breasts where they need to be. I don’t want to be pinched and poked under the arms with underwires, I don’t want to be squeezed and suffocated by bands and straps and cups that runneth over. I don’t want my breasts to look misshapen. I used to have a killer rack. I loved it. Now, well, it’s just a rack that needs a little love.

Someone explain to me how every fucking bra manufacturer manages to make their bras so different, in the way they fit, and hold, and look, that it’s nearly impossible to find a bra that’s a perfect match for my body? Twice in my life I’ve found bras that worked well, and I bought those bras, in (what I thought) was my size for a year or two, and it was easy and stress free, and I was brand loyal, and THEN, twice, the bras were changed, or discontinued, and my body changed as I got older and my weight has fluctuated and now I’m back at square one. Braless. (Figuratively.)

I was recently measured, to see what my current bra size should be. I wanted something new and pretty, and I bit the bullet and presented my breasts for evaluation. I suspected I had been in the wrong size for a long time, as I think many women are. Okay, actually, I knew I was in the wrong size, because Special Man has been after me to get new bras for months. Or maybe a year. (Or more.)

By the way, I hate bra sizing.

So I had been in bras sized 40D, and I knew they were too big, sort of, except sometimes I was overflowing the tops of them, so who the hell knew if I needed bigger or smaller bras, and what does that mean anyway when you’ve got band size and cup size and then you throw in all the different varieties of plunge bras, demi bras, push ups and full coverage, and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.

The gal with the tape measure proclaimed I was a 36DD. Yeah, right, I thought. It sounded ridiculous. Still, I tried on a dozen different styles, and I could see that indeed, the DD was a good call. I danced around in the dressing room, attempting to dislodge the girls from the bra cups, and immediately dismissed any bra that lent itself easily to the overflow issue. I came home with a single bra. I had narrowed the field down to two styles, but at the last minute, I couldn’t commit to both.

I’m telling you, I have serious bra trauma.

Even now, I don’t think the size is right. It’s closer, for sure. But, still…

Someone shoot me.


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~Auto~

I got a killer deal on a car.  Older, well-maintained Pontiac Grand Am that I really like.  Kind of cute.  I figured I’d drive it until next summer, and then it would make an ideal car for my teenagers to drive.

And now I know why it was such a good deal.  Apparently there’s a common issue with a few makes and models of cars and their security systems, and my cute little new red car is one of them.   Randomly, the car’s security system will be triggered and the car will not start.  Will.  Not.  Start.  The security light flashes for about fifteen minutes, and when it goes off, then the car starts.  Talk about annoying.  I can’t figure out what is triggering it, and from what I read on the internet, it’s some kind of common electronic thing that just happens with the ignition reading something wrong. Or something.

It’s almost funny. (Almost.)  The car troubles that have surrounded me lately just keep coming.  I had a choice between a new 2014 car, or this (very) old, 2000 Pontiac which would keep me out of debt.  It seemed like such a smart thing to do. It runs beautifully, when the damn security system lets me drive it!  Also the click-click of the turn signal just decides to go off occasionally…there must be a short somewhere.  I’m not sure what my next step is.  Maybe I can live with it.  Maybe I can find someone to fix it, there are YouTube videos and web pages devoted solely to this lame little problem.

Now I’m off to find my big flannel nightshirt, climb into bed, and think about other, more pleasant things before falling asleep.  (And that’s all I’m saying about that…)


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~Ride~

I went car shopping today, after I went to the dentist.  I’m not sure which was worse.

I miss my old car, the one I left in Oregon.  You know what else I miss?

Coloring books and Colorforms.  Holly Hobbie.  Watching Little House On The Prairie.  Riding my bike down a steep hill, as fast as I could with no helmet on.  Bottle Caps candy, and Zero bars.  Colored tights and tight braids.  Sticker books and paper dolls.

Now it’s car payments and electric bills. Parent-teacher conferences and grocery shopping.  Making sure there’s always toilet paper in the house.

Being a grown-up is hard.