Prismatic Reflections of Sun

Not a ton going on in my relationships lately. MonkeyMan and I have been fighting off a cold all week; RacingSnail and I continue to talk over email about the future, and flirt over text messages in the present. I read a bunch of fiction from the library that was okay but not amazing (the latest Anne Bishop book, and the Collegia Magica trilogy by Carol Berg).

The thing I’m most excited about at the moment is actually a crafting group that got started as an offshoot of a support group I’ve been involved with for three years or so, for women with chronic illnesses. It feels great to find a creative outlet again! We’re going to have a table at a craft fair in early December.
 
Feeling deliciously upheld by my complex network of relationships this weekend. Yesterday was my birthday, and my housemate baked me an apple pie! Today I got a positively gorgeous silk scarf in the mail from RacingSnail... and tomorrow MightyCupcake and her fiancé are taking me out to brunch! Poor MonkeyMan has been terribly overworked with his freelancing, but he has hinted that he’s going to make me some kind of original art. ^_^

Then of course my parents and sister are spoiling me, too. My dad bought me comfy socks and organic cotton produce bags; my sister made me an amazing cross-stitch; the package my mom is sending next week is going to have a magnificent sweater she’s been knitting for me from a pattern I bought on Ravelry. (We went yarn shopping together for it in the spring.)

Life is good, and life with a lot of love in it is really awesome.
 
House hunting

Yesterday I went to look at a house. MightyCupcake and her fiancé (Dynamo) are getting ready to become homeowners, and she wanted my opinion on a little place that’s about a mile up the road from my house! I don’t know if they’re going to take the place or not (though I did like it) but being asked for my opinion felt really great. I love being included in MightyCupcake’s life in all of the amazing ways I am. I’m so glad that our relationship weathered the transition from being girlfriends to whatever this family thing we have now is, all those years ago.

I have to admit... I get such a kick out of the two of them as a couple, too. Despite the fact that MightyCupcake and I stopped dating about eight years ago, I totally get compersion over their relationship, and I kinda feel like Dynamo is a meta to me.
 
Senryu

A poetry exchange that RacingSnail and I had over text this morning...

Me: acutely aware
of the distance between us
my arms lie empty
I dream of a wise dragon
hold only shadows and smoke

RacingSnail: I thought of calling
But restrained myself wisely
(Just after midnight)
I sleep alone again
But carry your memory

Distance is hard, y’all. Still another 4.5 months until we see each other again.
 
I am constantly bowled over by the cooperative spirit shown by my sweet guys!

Just in the past week, I was complaining to MonkeyMan how I miss RacingSnail, and also apologizing for going on about it at length. He reassured me that there was no need to apologize, and he actually found my mooning about kinda cute. I asked him what there was about it that he liked, was it because it implied how much I would miss him, if their positions were reversed? No, he said, he just loves my enthusiasm about my relationships, no matter who it’s focused on in any given moment.

A few days later, I was texting with RacingSnail, telling him all about how I wished he were closer and all the good sexy fun we might have if he were. Well, he suggested kindly, there was a nearby target for my enthusiasm should I choose to spend that energy elsewhere! And I have to admit, my heart went squish at his generosity of spirit.

I’m so lucky. 😊
 
I am so damn excited. I’ve spent the past three months planning and assembling the most amazing birthday puzzle/treasure hunt for RacingSnail, and today is the day he gets it in the mail!!!! In order to open the locked trunk containing the most awesome part of his gift, he’s going to have to solve a riddle, reveal a clue, go visit a local friend (who has the next part of the adventure in her keeping), assemble a puzzle, decode a cipher, and retrieve a key! Along the way he’s also going to get a present that my daughter made for him (a fact that 100% makes my heart go squish) and gain access to a secret email account with both written an visual presents in it!

I can’t wait to see if he’s able to do all of this by his birthday (on the 22nd) or at least by Thanksgiving. Because after that? The pace of his job between Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t leave time for much else besides eating and sleeping! It is possible that he won’t get all of his birthday present until January if he doesn’t get it by Thanksgiving. Hence the early start!!

Of course the ironic thing is that he still hasn’t sent me the second part of my birthday present from last month. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m okay with that. Part of his pseudonym is ‘Snail’ for a reason! :D But I mean it fondly.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! So. Excited.
 
RacingSnail is on track to have his whole present before his birthday. I hadn’t reckoned with the laser-like focus of his cleverness! It all seems to be going very well, though. Not too difficult, not too easy. He did the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in one night, though, and thanks to not sleeping came down with a cold! Oops. Didn’t mean to give him a cold for his birthday!
 
I clicked on your signature link here and read a few posts on your Wordpress blog. Am passing your thoughts onto my poly family. Thank you! :)
 
Thanks, Karen! That really makes my day. :)
 
Spent Thanksgiving at home this year, feasting with MonkeyMan, our kiddo, MightyCupcake, and Dynamo. It was purely delightful. I’m grateful for a husband who did 3/4 of the cooking, a kid who decorated our table with flair, a best friend who makes an *amazing* mince pie, and a friend who engages with my husband in wicked geeky post-dinner conversation. Also a cat who purrs on my lap multiple times a day, if I’ll just sit still for it. :D

RacingSnail texted to tell me he was enjoying his day with his family, and that the music he put on (a birthday gift from me) got compliments from his relatives. Yay! Sure wish I could snuggle with him in my post-dinner semi-coma.... maybe another year.
 
The Distance

December makes the distance harder. RacingSnail is in the midst of putting in 111 hours of overtime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and as you might imagine, I’m not hearing from him as much.

Last year we were only just starting our relationship at this time. I was quietly head-over-heels already, but he says January 4th is our official one year anniversary... fair enough. Now I’ve had lots of time to get used to our close contact (as close as one can from 2,000 miles away). The transition is rough. I’m counting the days til Christmas for more than the usual reasons.

There were a lot of people at the local poly meetup on Sunday with long distance partners. It’s nice to be in community with this.

In December

Like a curtain of fog, lowering between us,
The tide of overwork rises, sowing silence.
Laced with rare, bright beams of glancing light,
Small bursts of sweet communication,
It is a patient and companionable silence,
Though lonely nonetheless.
How I anticipate your homecoming:
First by voice
Then by written word
By gifts
By laughter
By planning
And longing
And finally, returned to my arms.
 
Oh, golly. Feeling all the feels today because I got a thank-you note for the birthday present I sent by surprise to RacingSnail’s niece. With pictures of her li’l adorable just-turned-one year old self playing with the toys we handed down that used to belong to my kiddo.

Putting the family into polyfamily even from the other end of the country.

:D
 
I have a new friend! I’m not even going to call it long distance, because I’m expecting it to stay all online (so really, he’s as close as my pocket, right?) but bathing in mutual admiration and doing the getting-to-know-you dance is really perking me up. Captain Jack and I have a *lot* in common, personality-wise. And he’s happily poly with his whole circle of loves where he is. And he is sooooooo fun to flirt with. And I love that I can, and it doesn’t have to mean or be anything other than what it is.

Best of all? I was inspired by this new connection to renew an old one, which is also making me really happy. GreenLantern and I haven’t been super close recently despite our history of being metamours and housemates and friends. He’s got a chronic illness, I’ve got a chronic illness... trying to find times when we both feel well enough to hang out and aren’t busy with other stuff has been a challenge! But I think that may be changing now that he has a car during the day....
 
Today is RacingSnail’s and my first anniversary!!! Yay!!

Given the fuzzy nature of our LDR email romancing last year, we had a whole week or so of dates to pick from, so like the geeks we are we let a random number generator pick the specific date of our anniversary. :D

He’s gonna call me later.

Squee!
 
As it gets closer to RacingSnail’s next visit, I find that everything in that relationship is slowly rising in intensity, like a numbed limb waking or the long-awaited coming of spring. Six more weeks until the end of this particular winter. But for now it’s all pins-and-needles in my awakening heart.
 
So... 17 days until RacingSnail visits. He and I have been having a big talk over email about commitment. :eek: :eek:

It’s not clear whether or when he might move out here, but it looks like we really are in this for the long haul. The only one I’ve talked with about it is MonkeyMan. He said something like ‘huh, I should start thinking about what this means.’ Because I am introducing this new person into his life, too. And the two of them have had minimal chances yet to interact in the grand total of nine days that RacingSnail visited here in 2017. But this year will be a bit different on that score. A week in March... and the whole month of October. It’s going to be an adventure!

RacingSnail also spoiled me most magnificently for Valentine’s Day. I got gifts and surprises and a whole lot of recordings of him singing me songs (some with emotional significance stretching all the way back to the first time we dated in ‘03-‘04).

Meanwhile, MonkeyMan sent me the sweetest text for me to read when I got up in the morning, and we had some really excellent sexytimes. Goddess bless the public school system, giving us some privacy. :D
 
10 days until RacingSnail visits.

A lot of stuff going on in my wider polysphere at the moment. This Saturday I’m hosting one of my tea & discussion gatherings for the local Queer Poly Women & Nonbinary group I co-run. If my housemate Naturalist doesn’t attend, it’ll be my first time as facilitator! Looks like we’re having a small turnout though, so I’m comfortable with that.

The new local group that has been in planning stages, Social Poly Adventures, is getting closer and closer to our first public event. I’m putting together the website in Wordpress, and next week I’m going to go open a checking account for the group. One of our other organizers is working on getting a venue for our first games night. I’m excited!
 
RacingSnail went home yesterday, and I slept the sleep of the mortally exhausted last night. Still recovering even after that. It was a wonderful visit, and I’ll be awhile sorting out how I feel. Our next encounter is scheduled for October... and as you might imagine, that seven months looms large just now. My regular routine feels strange to me this morning. Or... disappointingly normal, when I want things external to myself to be as different-from-regular as my insides feel. But the earth keeps turning, and it’s Monday morning, and I have a lot to do.
 
Supporting a long distance partner through depression is hard. I mean, that probably goes without saying. But not being able to deliver any hugs... it sucks.

RacingSnail’s variety of depression runs more toward getting apathetic and withdrawn than sad or suicidal, so that’s good. But much like the first time this happened between us, nigh unto 14 years ago, when somebody withdraws and they’re already 2,000 miles away... that emptiness echoes.

However, here are the ways this isn’t like that time. First, he is still managing one text a day (kind of like a message in a bottle). Second, I’m still calling him once a week. Third, and most importantly, unlike before, we’ve made an explicit commitment to each other. So I have a better grounding for my faith that we’ll come out the other side.

It just remains to be seen how long that will take (I suspect months) and what kind of shape our relationship is in when we get there.
 
RacingSnail’s bad patch continues. This week we were both away from our respective homes on vacation, and we’ve been texting each other vacation photos. We spoke briefly on the phone last night (a little trickier than usual, as there are three hours between us instead of two). I miss him terribly. He’s said he misses himself too—the non-depressed version of himself, anyway. We’re both hoping for that guy’s triumphant return as soon as possible. And I still wish there was more I could do to help.

MonkeyMan is really looking forward to seeing me and the kiddo tomorrow. And likewise! I was listening to a podcast from NPR last night about a book someone wrote on ‘The All or Nothing Marriage’ and I have to admit, it reminded me how I’m one of those lucky people who has got it all (and then some)! I feel really thankful to have made a compatible match with someone with whom I can grow and change and work on being the best version of myself, and watch him get ever-awesomer as the years go on. We’re working on 13 years together, 11 of them married as of this summer, and I wouldn’t trade in a minute of it.
 
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