Fun and Frolic With Long-Term Love

[KC43]

(do you read KC39's blog? If not, check it out!)

KC39? I thought I was the only KC around here. LOL

Bluebird, relationships are stress. Family is stress. Travel is stress. Sometimes the stress piles up, and all you can do is push through, and that isn't easy. And sometimes you have to push through under your own power, because the people who help you push through aren't available or can't push you hard enough to get you through it.

You can do this. It won't be easy and might not be fun, but you can. Your guys love you whether they're with you or not; I understand that's hard to see or feel sometimes, though.

And kittens. Kittens are definitely NOT stress. Except when they pee on comforters.

 

[Bluebird]

Yes, I am used to a high level of stress though. It's just lately it is rather relentless, it feels like.

I wrote a big post but the ether swallowed it.

I do not feel like I need to talk to a therapist right now. I have seen several therapists in the past - good and bad - and believe it or not, I have made a crap ton of progress. In the past, I would curl up and not leave my bed for the entire week DarkKnight was gone on a business trip - to the detriment of my household and my mental health. Now I schedule activities and fun things to look forward to doing. It isn't a perfect plan, but it works most of the time.

I did not ask WarMan to cancel his work trip. I did not say anything to make him feel bad about going. I am not an idiot. Of course he has to work. I don't do this for DarkKnight either, and if it were an issue for PunkRock the result would be the same. No, trips and stretches of time apart are inevitable.

That said, this was shit timing. I don't feel like asking to be a priority is selfish. Separation IS difficult for me, unplanned separation, more so. Separation when I am already feeling anxious about a relationship - fuck that. I am absolutely allowed to ask for time to connect before my boyfriend leaves on a business trip. That's not being unfair, or doing something disturbing. It's asking for consideration - which I desperately needed.

Which WarMan decided against giving me. He told me he would try to make it over early and didn't. I didn't pitch a fit or act like a spoiled brat - instead I continued my day and did the things I needed to do. I was unhappy, and I can't say it was a bonus for our relationship, but I didn't burn up his phone with texts, or interrupt his time at all. Honestly, when we are apart, I don't text him much at all, because I am not comfortable intruding on his time unless he has said it is ok. I don't push on that. If anything, MY time with him is intruded on by others having emotional issues, more often than not. He gets sidetracked on our dates or time together because of Monkey.

On Ssturday where he canceled our date day because of a scheduling miscommunication, I didn't flip out or stay home alone and pine for him. I went out with DarkKnight, had a great lunch with him and then spent the day knocking out ancestry stuff. I also didn't message him hardly at all, except when he was asking when I'd be home, or what I was doing.

I may have written about in hindsight how this blew goats, but I see zero instances where I was being "unreasonable in my demands." Needy, yes. But I have never hid my need for in person, physical contact. Maybe it would be more than you personally might be comfortable with, if so, fine, don't date me. We are not compatible. But if you pursue me and say that you are ok with that, then you better be, because if you want me to trust you, you need to back up what you say. I don't rely on just anyone to help me with my attachment issues - I don't allow myself to BE attached if I feel the person is untrustworthy. When WarMan tells me he wants me as a primary, then to me, he will be there for me when I ask him to, and if he's not, then the relationship will not be primary.

I have never been indiscriminate with my body or used sex as a way to fill holes in my self-esteem, Dagferi. If you re-read what I wrote, I think I am fairly clear that I wouldn't do that. I might see it and recognize it as something that might soothe me temporarily, but it isn't going to be a long term solution, ever. Sex can feel good and being with someone sexually can stop me from having to think about some of the stress I might be dealing with, but I absolutely realize that's a bad trap to get into doing. So I don't.

To answer a question asked on WarMan's blog - it's two. I NEED two guys and that's my husbands. They do help boost my self esteem when I need it, but I certainly don't parade them around like trophies I've won. It's implied that I need a harem to feel good about myself, but I am honestly kickass in a lot of ways, which is why my guys love me in the first place. I don't need more of them to validate me on a regular basis - I am awesome. Lately I have needed a lot of support, and they have given that in a myriad of ways. They're pretty amazing.

If you read back to when I was first dating WarMan - or even before dating him - I didn't go looking for this relationship. He contacted me. He asked for a date and I accepted because he seemed chill. I was not looking for a long term primary relationship or a 3rd husband. I've found someone great in WarMan, but I agree with you NYCindie, that I probably have been trying to get him to fit like a puzzle piece into my life. Unfortunately, the space I have for a third primary relationship is not huge. If he doesn't fit, I am not sure where that leaves us. I have been willing to stretch and adjust my plans and life. He has as well.

I didn't have any shitty feelings about myself, this weekend. I feel crappy about all the upcoming and ongoing stress and I struggled with how I was going to effectively deal with it all, but never did I think - "hey, Bluebird, you suck as a human being and people hate you." I did get anxious about WarMan leaving and I told him as much when we talked. He asked me what I needed and it was absolutely the first and only time I have ever told him outright that I felt like my needs weren't being met or considered with his plans. That made me feel shitty,
but when he deigned to assuage those fears by making time for us to connect physically today, I didn't guilt trip him or sit around feeling sorry for myself. I messaged him once, as he asked me to, when I returned home from the cat clinic. Then, he told me he wouldn't be over until 3, and I said fine, and went on with my plans.

 

[Bluebird]

That said, when he did come over, WarMan surprised me with this:

I named him Griff. He's handmade - WarMan MADE me a freaky, crazy cool goat thingy. Complete with swag.

Holy shit, right?

I did get snuggles and kisses and pets in the time he was with me today, and though it wasn't what I really needed, it sufficed because it had to do so.

I love this guy, an awful lot. I am going to continue to be as clear as possible about what I need from a primary relationship though. I refuse to see that as being overly demanding or unfair. I would posit that not mentioning anything would actually be those things.

My cell phone battery is dying now and if I don't get any sleep tonight I will be a wreck tomorrow. I absolutely need to get my shit together tomorrow, because I have errands to run and my paperwork for my last Biology class EVER needs to be completed.

Here's a pic from tonight, by the way:

It was PunkRock's company Christmas party. The best part was when we sat down and the people across the table were joking about being sister wives. One lady was saying how two of the guys could call each other brother husbands. I froze for a second, thinking, wait, are they making a joke about me? But no, they had no clue that they were sitting with a guy who actually IS a brother husband. PunkRock and I laughed about that afterward.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

Apologies in advance if the chiming in here isn’t welcome, but I’m another person that reads both of your blogs (actually, yours is one of the two I read cover to cover, back when I was new to poly and freaking out, and it was a huge relief to read about someone actually doing it mostly with success). I think that you’re both under huge amounts of different stress right now. That makes it hard to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. I see a lot of if he loves me, he will X, or she needs to X before she gets upset, not approaching things from a benefit of the doubt place and using a lot of the most negative possible language to describe situations and yourselves and each other (selfish instead of having needs, complained instead of brought up, etc.).

If it was you going on a business trip unexpectedly, of course he might be upset if you didn’t seem to be trying very hard to fit him in before the trip. And if it was your friend who was suicidal, of course you might feel put-upon if your boyfriend seemed to begrudge you spending per-arranged time with the person in crisis. But the key word is “seemed.” To the person on the other side of the situation, the feelings or actions seem perfectly justified and the reaction appears to be coming out of left field, for the worst possible reasons. A person who is under a lot of stress can reach the most negative possible conclusion very easily. Stress makes it easy for the fears to take over and it makes it easier to attribute negative traits to yourself and others.

This doesn’t feel typical from either of you. You both come across as very thoughtful, introspective, genuine, mostly positive people, and in the past you seemed to give others and each other lots of benefit of the doubt, even if you don’t always communicate in the same style. So I’m hoping like 90% of your current difficulties are just stress and that you both have an easier time communicating in the future. Anyway, I think you’re both fabulous and I’m still rooting for you, individually and collectively!

 

[Petunia]

OMG, that's the best stuffed animal evah!

 

[Bluebird]

I know, right?!

Today has been really frustrating for me. I have a week to finish this family tree scrapbook and I have no idea how that is going to be possible. Three hours this morning, I just looked at my online ancestry account and felt like it was futile to try and condense information to a usable format. This, of course, was not helpful.

Things that I know: I am producing a 12"x12" scrapbook with 20 pages. It'll cost me about $55 to get color copies made. This book will ONLY deal with my maternal grandfather's side of the family.

Looking at just direct ancestors - meaning grandparents, great grandparents, great-greats and up, I have about 44 people. This is not including all of their children, or siblings, etc. A lot of them are boring as hell (at least, the information I have is uninteresting, or just hard facts). Their siblings or children are the ones who are freaking awesome and I have a lot more stuff to focus on. I can't even do one page per person for direct lineage, much less break out the extended peeps. So, well, fuck.

I am going to spend some time right now, looking at online examples of ancestry books to see how others have handled this. I have saved a lot of pages in Pinterest, previously, but haven't had time to actually look at any of them. So, that time is now.

OMG though, I have no idea how I am going to find the time to actually get this thing going! FREAKING OUT. So, goodbye, I am going to go immerse myself in the past for a bit.

 

[breathemusic]

Since some people only have basic boring facts and others have really interesting stories, could you maybe use 2 pages (open like left and right, not front and back) for a big picture of a family tree and showed even extended folks and then use most of the individual pages to just talk about the people that have the most interesting stories? If you want more than that you could always do the one big picture, then use a few pages to discuss branches of the tree (like one branch per page), and then save the bulk of the pages for the interesting people. That way it might not seem so out of place if you sort of skip around and spend more time only talking about the people that have lots of good info?

I've never done something like this, so that was just sort of a random stab in the dark based on what I'd probably want to read of someone were giving me a genealogy on my own family.

Good luck though!

 

[Leetah]

I don't know how many copies you need but have you looked at Lulu?
https://www.lulu.com/

My Dad used that for our family scrapbooks and he probably had them make between 10 and 15 copies I think.

Leetah

 

[IndieSolo]

Most genealogy software (such as Legacy Family Tree) has printing formats for publishing the family trees in all sorts of ways, both graphical (with the ability to insert photographs, etc.) and text-only. Do you have any?

I use Legacy. It's great. It even comes a built-in reminder that pops up with the message, "It's 2:00 am. Go to bed!" I kid you not! I didn't set it to do that at 2am, it came with the program like that, 'cause, well... genealogists!

 

[Bluebird]

No, I don't do much digital Scrapbooking, since I started into the hobby over 12 years ago when I adopted my older two children. Nothing was digital then, so even though technology made strides, their lifebooks were already started as physical things. I have made several small vacation albums online, but those have been using creative memories or Shutterfly.

I think I figured out a great way to lay out things now and my mockups are gaining momentum. The only issue now is that it looks like I will end up with 26 pages instead of 20, which would jack up the cost from $54 to $70. We will see as it progresses, but if that is what happens, it is what happens! I decided to not stress over it. Instead I'll just continue to stress about how much time this is taking!

Today I am teaching my last two Biology classes, on genetics. Love the subject, but I have a video for part of the class, so I can hopefully squeeze in time to do some more layout.

 

[Bluebird]

OMG can't wait for today to be over! Classes went well, though 3 of the moms (at different times) asked if I was teaching anything in the Spring. 2 lobbied hard for Chemistry and told me they would pay double my rate. Oh, someone shake me! I need the money, but I don't know if I can handle the stress! I have decided to table things until after the New Year and then spend January planning. If my schedule is too full - it's too full. I enjoy teaching chemistry, but last time I felt like I was teaching math more than anything some days!

I actually got some cute goodbye/end of class/Christmas gifts from kids today. I got a homemade chocolate cookie as large as my head, a mug with Biology stuff painted all over it, and a simply ginormous assortment of chocolates and candy. I am going to be ill trying to eat it all!

One of the moms took a lot of pictures of Winnie with her son and she sounds really excited about maybe adopting her. I hope that happens. She needs to sell the idea to her husband though. I was down a bit today, thinking about the kittens being all gone soon. Though, I'm not right at this moment because they are playing "race across the room and make super loud noises for no reason."

Today was apparently a meeting of the "Boys Only" club in my pajama drawer. The guys wouldn't let Winnie in to play at all.

Ray, Egon and Venkman (with Winnie on the carpet)

Since they were riled up, I didn't try to get into the drawer myself. Such little stinkers!

Most of the evening, after classes, I spent working on my ancestry book. I still have zero pages complete. I was really hoping to finish a 2 page spread today but it was not to be. I tried out a free program to help lay out the actual mini-trees for certain sections of the family, but after 2 hours of trying to get it to print and format the way I wanted, I trashed the software and spent an hour on Microsoft Word drawing boxes and lines. Now that I have a basic outline grouped and saved, things should go much more quickly. PunkRock took me to CVS on our date night tonight so I could print out the first wave of photos - he's such a trooper!

So I guess you could say I did accomplish some things, but I am itching to actually finish a spread and gain some momentum with that. I am at the moment contemplating climbing out of bed right now and going downstairs to work on it again. My neck hurts though, and I am tired. But I want progress, dammit!

WarMan called me once yesterday and today in the morning and evening. He is really swamped with everything in Louisiana and he is already changing his ticket to stay at least another day. He told me I sounded a lot better than he expected, but I am not sure what he thought. I certainly would not be hysterical or anything. More like just resigned to the fact that I feel like we are going to have little to no connection when he returns. *shrugs* It doesn't help to dwell on things and with everything going on, it's not like I have time to worry about things.

Because see, DarkKnight scraped up my car tonight. I know he feels just awful about it, but I was just overwhelmed when he came in to tell me and apologize about backing it up along a pole. It's seriously several deep, angry gouges down the passenger side. I was just like, forget it - I can't deal with this right now. Call the insurance company tomorrow, get an appointment to get it looked at, and then get it done. I don't want to know about it or have to get anxious over it. I don't have anything left in me to have to focus on it.

Last night I was shanghaied into working on the Christmas charity stuff for an hour or so. I put together a spreadsheet and figured out how many more donations were needed to handle the two families we are sponsoring. We have a single mom with 4 kids - ages 18 months to 7 years old - and an aunt who just took custody of her 10 year old niece. THEN I get a text out of the blue from my brother, asking if I could get an 8 year old boy sponsored - his girlfriend's nephew's parents are both suddenly unemployed after moving into a new apartment and they can't afford a Christmas. So, I talked to my other 2 co-chairs after working the spreadsheet, and we are going to do it. We need another $200 to make it work though, and things do not look good. We need $400 to fill all of the families' wish list requests, but $200 more can make it work. It is so very difficult to be involved in this when I am 2 states away, and without feet on the ground there to assist me. I mean, 100% of the donations go to the families - everyone volunteers their time and someone covers even the PayPal fees. It's pretty great. One of my co-chairs is having surgery tomorrow. This is such an awesome charity to be involved with, but it really is falling on me way too much when I was supposed to be completely off the board this year.

Anyway, it is stressful because everyone is expecting me to have all of this organized and to do all the shopping and figuring out how to make it happen. WarMan was getting agitated with me, the last time I was talking about it with him, because he feels like the others involved are taking advantage of me. I don't think so - honestly, some years the happiest part of Christmas was volunteering with this program. I have 13 or so years invested in making it happen and I can't just let it die when the donations are still trickling in. Anyone here want to donate? I'll post the PayPal link if so - I am not the treasury person so I won't see your info as that is separate from what I do. I just get handed the envelope of cash on shopping day. Most of our donations range from $10-$25, so smaller gifts are welcome.

That's my shilling for the day.

Oh, I am tired. What else? Oh, today I realized that my daughter's learner's permit expires in March. So, I unexpectedly had to find her a driver's Ed course meeting before then, since 30 hours of that plus 6 hours on the road with them is required to get a license. That's plus the 60 hours of supervised, documented driving required by our state. The class set us back $300. That did not sit easy with me right before Christmas, and then to have DarkKnight come in to tell me about the damage to the car! I'm like, oh hell to the naw.

Enough pity party though.

Haha! Happiness! Our photographer was able to have his files recovered, so we will be getting our family pictures after all.

 

[Magdlyn]

Thank god about the photos!

Do not teach Chemistry. Do not teach Chemistry.


I am sure you will find a way to connect with Warman after a week or less apart.

 

[PinkPig]

Great news on the photos I love the pictures of your kittens! They are so precious...makes me want a kitten since mine is 2 years old now (and super fat but still very playful, lol.) Her poor brother never gets to eat because she's a hog, lol.

Christmas time is always so stressful! It's ironic that the 'thankful' and 'giving' holidays/season is also one of the most stressful...we're too busy to be focused on the 'thankful' and 'giving' part, lol. I hope your life slows down soon!! And, I hope your reconnection time with WarMan (when you get it), is totally awesome and worth the wait

 

[Bluebird]

Well, so far today I have managed to complete 4 pages. I need to finish at least 2 more to reach the goal I set for myself. I have a 2 page spread on my 4th greats, Jonah and Mary, and then another 2 page spread on my 3rd greats, Isaac and Rachel. The other 2 pages I want to complete today will be focused on King Coal and the mining industry in Scranton, PA and in Wales. Everyone on this particular section of the family tree was involved in mining in some way.

Actually, it is kind of disheartening. There is zero doubt that my ancestors were involved in the pollution of the Susquehanna River Basin - one was an engineer at the Lackawanna Coal Mine and decided where exactly the waste water would be sent, and the other worked as the pump runner that actually dumped it into the rivers/streams nearby. There was another entire section of my family who lived in Niagara Falls, NY and worked at the Hooker Chemical Plant, and they were at the very least indirectly involved in the first Superfund site in the US - the Love Canal. One of them was a foreman and directed where the pollution was dumped.

So yeah. I guess I should be happy that at least my generation of descendants haven't been responsible for the rape of the environment where we live and work. Merry Christmas? lol My relatives are probably not going to be excited about finding this information out.

DarkKnight discovered today that our deductible for my car repair is $200, and he is out right now to find out if the damage will hit that. PunkRock says he thinks I just need a new door skin and I told him to stop making man talk at me and let me be. We'll see shortly!

 

[Bluebird]

Shit. $1100. I hope they don't total out my car. I just bought it in February for $3000.

 

[Bluebird]

I ended up completing 6 pages of my Ancestry album yesterday. While that is good, it feels kinda light for an entire day's worth of work! Today my goal is to finish at least 2 pages - I am hosting a game club for my daughter's friends most of the afternoon and won't have time this morning or then to focus on it. So, date night with PunkRock will be the same as date night with DarkKnight last night - me completely ignoring them while I crack out on the paperwork!

So far I am really happy with how it is turning out.

So poly relationship stuff - things have been going really well. I had been feeling a little bit disconnected from DarkKnight, and I told him so the other day. Not from lack of sex - though that is always an issue with him - but just that we haven't really been out together or shared any neat experiences lately. I've been distracted with WarMan problems or stressed about other issues and just haven't felt like we're a lovey-dovey couple. So he and I have been making an effort the last few days to be extra affectionate, which has definitely helped. Actually, I don't know if he even remembers the conversation, lol, so it is probably more accurate to say that I have been making an effort! I wish I had some time to go away someplace with him.

PunkRock and I continue to have a really strong connection. Lately, whenever he even walks into the room, I just get this rush of horniness. We had incredible sex after midnight last night, which was probably not a good idea since he had to wake up for work at 4 am, but I regret NOTHING. Holy hell, I was dripping wet for no reason at all except that he was next to me with his body pressed against mine. Jesus, I need to stop writing because I am getting all flushed just thinking about him!

I am missing WarMan, but things have been feeling weird for me. Which is expected. I'm just resigned to him being gone and it sucks. Last night he told me that he will have to go back to Louisiana next week, and he's stressed about it because he not only has a pain med appointment, but his vasectomy is scheduled for Thursday. I am leaving for NY on Thursday as well. So, I don't know what he is talking about, next week? If he comes home on Friday night, what, he's staying home for the weekend and then flying back out and coming home Wednesday? That doesn't make any sense. I will have to ask but I don't think it's been clarified to him yet either.

I continue to be amazed at how wonderful my family is with handling and accepting my poly self. Meaning - my children and the guys themselves. Talking to them about the holidays and seeing how excited they are about gifts they bought for each other - wow!

I suppose I need to stop writing here and concentrate on other things this morning - namely prepping for the game we are playing this afternoon - plus grocery shopping and there's charity work I need to do today. Oh! And get some of my own Christmas shopping finished!

 

[Bluebird]

I finished NOTHING yesterday, but got hung up on designing a fan chart from scratch for the album. I was able to complete that today - and the page it went on, but so far that has been it.

I dropped the kittens off this morning and felt so terrible about it. I wanted to grab them up and make them understand that I love their little faces so much and that I'd be back to get them tomorrow. The vet's office did call to tell me that the boys all had their surgeries completed, and they have had their rabies shots now as well. Winnie will be spayed sometime this afternoon.

The other thing I managed to handle this morning was grocery shopping, so at least that is set for another week around here.

WarMan messaged me this morning that my PMS is scheduled to begin (he has a tracker) so I figured that was prolly why I was feeling all weepy. Then, like, a few minutes ago, I went to the restroom and saw that in fact my period had started today. Yep - an entire week early. Stress always does this to me!

I am going to try and get two more pages completed before 5:30 pm - PunkRock and I are going to the dinner theater to see DarkKnight perform in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Oh, I sent an email out to my homeschool group, as a feeler, to ask if anyone had interest if I were to offer an Astronomy class or a Chemistry class in the Spring - hoping that no one would, and then I'd be off the hook. Instead, I had enough replies to fill one class of each. Fuck a duck. That's before offering it out to the general homeschool population in the area. Now I have to decide what I want to do about this. Astronomy would be a 3 month course, once a week for 3 hours a class. Chemistry is a 6 month course, twice a week for 1.5 hours a class. Astronomy I could start with little to no prep, since I just taught it and don't need to purchase anything since I own my telescope. I'd have to plan some field trips and book planetarium space, but that is not very stressful. With Chemistry, I lost my chemical supplier and would have to find another. I would probably have to shift and purchase chemicals in large quantities - like a jug of this, a box of that. My old supplier would just give me a scoop of each thing, or a couple of droppers of a fluid. So after my labs, I didn't have anything to dispose of, and storage was easy. So to plan for this course, I'll have to research what I need and how much to order, and where I am going to keep it all.

Shit. Oh, I don't know why I can't tell myself no to teaching! But I know it'll bring in cash, and it is really needed and wanted in our community. Sigh. I have some time to talk myself out of doing this. I really need to be talked out of doing this...

 

[Bluebird]

This weekend has been brutal, in terms of what my to do list has been like. I won't bore you with the list, but trust me when I say I am exhausted.

WarMan came to see me on Saturday and things started off sort of hesitantly on both sides, I think. We were so glad to see each other, but both of us were concerned about the other. We spent a couple of hours that afternoon at a PopUp Shop event downtown, where I bought some things here and there, and we were able to reconnect a bit, holding hands and just being together.

Things were emotional and tense when we finally got back to his house. He wanted to talk about his feelings and how he had been nervous that I was going to dump him when I saw him. Since I had been worried he was sick of me, I soon dissuaded him of that notion. He actually was kind of teary most of the talk, and he told me he was just really tired of feeling guilty of hurting women in his relationships - long term and short term. He said - in a sentiment that I've heard from him before - that all of his relationships up to this point have been failures, and at age 40, it's just really difficult to keep trying. He wanted me to repeat this back to him, that I was aware of this fact.

He really knows how to break my heart sometimes.

I was on a super heavy day of my period, so we didn't have any penetrative sex, but we did manage to make each other feel good physically. I felt really snuggly and safe with him by the end of the night, and if anything, even closer the next morning. When we returned to my house today, the plan was that I'd do more scrapbooking and he'd work on some crafty stuff at the same time, but he ended up actually running an errand for me and then taking my youngest daughter out so she could by a Christmas gift for a friend. This freed me up to focus on what I needed to get done.

That said, I have SO much more to do on this scrapbook, and only 2 days left. I have got to get it printed on Wednesday morning, so I can do touch ups on the copies I make for my mom that evening, before heading to NY.

Shit, I just realized that I no longer own a minivan, and I have to not only take myself, my son and my daughter up to NY, but a large cat crate with two kittens in it up there as well. Fuck. That back seat is going to be crowded!

Anyway, I am just now getting to bed and my list for tomorrow isn't getting any shorter. I am so very tired just thinking of it all, but I am feeling pretty positive about my life in general today. I feel really loved and supported by all 3 of my guys, and where I am at today emotionally is tons and tons better than last week. There's just something comforting about being able to believe that I am loved so very much.

 

[Magdlyn]

I am smiling at how you reconnected with Warman and feel better about things again.

 

[Bluebird]

On the way to NY!

Ray and Egon are going to their new families...