It's September, Friends.
*Cue Dramatic Music*
That means that there are officially 25 more days until the LSAT. Which means that I woke up at 6:30am this morning to take a full practice test before I went into work. This will be my day to day reality for the next 25 days. Crazy? Possibly. But I will crest 168 on that goddamn test if it fucking kills me. A 168 is 95 percentile folks. Right now I'm 8 points below that--at the 80th percentile. 8 points. The difference between UC Berkeley (#16) and Campbell Law--ever heard of Campbell Law? E-fucking-xactly. I want UC Berkeley. I want it so fucking bad. So it's nose in the books until then.
NO SLEEP TILL BROOKLYN!!!
*ahem*
Having said that, it's been an awesome two weeks. A week ago I was with The Man and Lady on a week long visit that ended significantly better than it began, and three days later my Swans (aka my best friends) came to visit for the weekend! It was awesome. We went out and bought big sunhats, gloves, and outrageous sunglasses and had an Unbirthday Party (you do remember your Alice in Wonderland, don't you?) for Sunday Bunch, after going out the night before. I'm not drinking (LSAT, remember? No part of my life has been left untouched--I swear to you) so I had a lovely brunch. Lol a few of the Swans struggled...although they looked fabulous doing it--so there's that lol. It was so nice seeing them again. Love those biddies. Really I do.
Anyway, The Man has finally gotten some work (joy!) and is really excited about it--having a steady income will do that for a person
. I also just feel really good about our relationship right now. We basically turned a metaphorical corner while I was there two weeks ago, and there's a deeper level of engagement and sharing that's going on. So we're past due to renegotiate some of the terms of our agreement--some include Lady, some do not. In the process of me working through what it is that I want and need, I've begun to see, with a startling amount of clarity, that I just don't know. Ain't that just the best? So then I began to do some research and found myself figuring out (very quickly) what I absolutely did not want. I see myself with them for a while, especially after the events of the last week, and so it's suddenly become extremely important for us to open up a deeper level of communication, and to be really honest with each other before I invest myself further.
The Man has given me instructions to begin thinking through what I'd want our dynamic to look like moving forward. Homework, basically lol. I was bopping around on the internet, like ya do, and I ran across an article (
http://unicorns-r-us.com/) on Unicorn Hunting. Such an interesting concept, that. Anyway, this article was written as a response to couples that post on poly forums (found it on FL) asking how to find a bisexual woman who would want to date them.
[I just want to take a moment to say, as someone who is new to poly, the idea of dating a couple is such a strange concept to me. I mean I guess if it was presented that way?...I can honestly say that if The Man would have come to me with, "My wife and I are looking for another lady to date", I would I have kindly told him to move along. Seems like a lot, honestly, to just want someone to walk in and be right in the middle of an established, pre-existing relationship like that. Just like a lot of things to juggle at once. I see you trading secret glances and shit--YOU DONT FOOL ME! It makes me itchy and anxious. <--that's not a joke. Do I have to date you together? Why don't we date separately, and then work on this group dynamic, because somebody's feelings are going to get hurt if I like one of you more than the other...which will happen. It's been six months and Lady and I are just casually talking about opening up a play dynamic forget about a real, romatic thing....maybe it's just me. I don't know and it's not entirely relevant to the discussion.]
Anyway, the article mentions couples with Veto Privilege and I immediately broke out in hives. That's not true, but it did cause an acute stress reaction. Mostly in response to some callously worded statements on Lady's part over the weekend, and it really did create a serious ball of tension that The Man and I then spent the next 3 hours working on. I got to see a lot of the messy pieces that are usually dealt with before I get there. I think that The Man sees his place as my Dom and the limited amount of time that we have together and doesn't want to expend energy on dredging up heavy topics or appearing vulnerable. But I don't mind at all. It makes me feel included in a way that I haven't felt before, and it speaks to the development of trust and intimacy. I like it a lot.
I learned a lot during that phone call like, (1) Previously, they've only ever dated as a couple--still strange. Apparently, I'm the first one that either of them have ever dated individually since they became a couple, (2) I'm also the only one that one of them has ever fallen in love with since they've been together, and to that end, (3) Lady has never had to deal with another woman sharing The Man's emotional bandwidth (and dear God does he have a lot of love to go around--It's awesome...but man, it makes me exhausted sometimes just thinking about the work that he does to keep us both happy lol). Which is interesting, right? So up until now, they've had play partners and lovers and girlfriends, but not a romantic entanglement that has excluded one of them. And of course, all of this happens during a time when they thought that they'd get to be having hyper-focused time with each other because she was in-between semesters of school, and they were saying goodbye to all of their friends and family before they moved.
Crazy, spaz moment aside--The Lady is an absolute saint. Way to roll with those fucking punches. So from that conversation I realized that I really should tell Lady how great I think she is. Really though. I kind of just marvel at her. And I understand (at least to the degree that I can from my limited perspective) how, given those things, it could be really, really tough to keep your shit together all of the time. That's just not a thing that humans do lol.
And that's all for now, kids.