Leaf on the Wind

Awwww thanks.

Not so much done on the work front, but Guitarist messaged me back to say that he had simply forgotten what he said that in all the stuff surrounding that whole incident, and telling me he's not going this time because he said he wouldn't, as well as answering my various questions. So I'm feeling much better about the whole thing.

Another + in the "just talk to people" column.
 
Everything around here is pretty okay with the exception of current events grinding me down into depression and wanting to drink. Raven is kind of seeing a new guy, I think for a fuckbuddyship, and I think he's alright. Processing poly stuff has been low-priority lately.
 
Things are still boring over here. I have no crises so I'm sort of just cruising along. Stuff with Guitarist is back to mostly fine. He's not sure if things are going to work out with Magical and I'm sad for him but also selfishly glad I'm not the only one relationships don't always work out for, you know? This probably makes me a shitty person.

I can't recall if I mentioned that Emma and I had the "so this isn't going to work conversation," but we had both reached that conclusion. It was bittersweet but it was nice to have some closure.

I'm planning on seeing Raven tomorrow. Not sure yet what we're doing, if anything. With how much I've been seeing her lately, and all the quality time, I'm actually starting to feel sexual toward her. I think at this point we've been dating for almost nine months now.

This definitely confirms my theory that my feelings of connectedness either require a lot of time to build up, a lot of time all at once to boost, or sometimes both for me to get to a sexual place. Demisexual life, I guess.

Then Saturday I'll be going out of town to a local metal festival with Tiny and Tiny's former roommate. It turns out the roommate is trying to quit drinking alcohol too so that has actually alleviated a lot of my concerns with wanting to drink lately and going to this show. Metal is a pretty alcohol-fueled genre.

Flame is trying to get off alcohol and onto antidepressants. I wished him the best of luck and he knows I'm here for him. He might start texting more again. He's definitely a lot more present in my life in times of crisis, whether mine or his.

That's really it. I'm pretty much just enjoying this time of peace in my love life and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
 
Over here in boring land, I'm trying to decide whether I actually want to go to the "Not" A Sex Party coming up, or whether my desire to attend is mostly FOMO. I'm leaning toward FOMO with a healthy dose of envy that both of my current partners enjoy that kind of atmosphere while I wish it was just the giant board game party part.

And there's also a hefty dose of apprehension that Guitarist broke our relationship agreements at the last party of this sort and what might he do if I'm not there. Which is recognize is completely silly and nonsensical because it's not like we're attached at the hip at these things so my being there won't change his involvement in any Flash Orgy that might occur.

Meanwhile, Raven has mentioned with puppy dog eyes that she hopes I'll be there so we can make out. As flattered as I am at being her hot piece of arm candy, I don't think that's enough to make me want to suffer through the rest of it. I do like dressing up and going and getting down to my undies and feeling sexy, though.

Earlier today I was like, man, I wish I had a partner who WASN'T going to this damn sex party so that I could do something fun during it instead of sitting at home and feeling the missing out. And then I remembered that there is, in fact, a poly meetup that day at a bar. So maybe I'll go to that instead.

  • I wish I could drink without destroying my mental health so that I could relax at this type of party.
  • I wish both my partners weren't going. At the same time, I don't want them to not go because of me.
  • I wish I wasn't ace-spectrum and could enjoy random sexy time with acquaintances.
  • I wish this didn't make me feel broken or less than fully human.
  • I'm not actually broken up by any of this. It's more just a wistful set of feelings.
 
Tiny's ex roommate canceled on us for the metal festival and then Tiny didn't want to go (which I get). I asked if she wanted to come over and hang out, instead, and she turned me down for board games or TV watching in favor of hanging out with her guy. I could have gone on my own, but the anxiety of driving an hour to a new place, combined with the anxiety of attending a show alone, without a backup friend in case something went wrong, just slammed together in my head and I couldn't make myself go.

I used to be perfectly fine going to metal shows alone. Despite the aggressive music, it's one of the most mutually supportive communities, at least around here. But my safe feeling was really shaken a couple years ago after a group of non-metal chicks at a friends and family concert ganged up on me and I thought I was going to get my ass kicked. Anyway. I couldn't go out to the festival alone so I ended up staying home and moping.

I'm on my way down again. I can feel it but I can't stop it. Sometimes I feel like a drowning person: I surface for a while into a healthy place but I'm just trying to catch my breath and tread water until the next time my head goes under.

Hopefully this mostly planless week will help me get my head on straight again before the upcoming weekend. Other than seeing Raven on Friday there's not a thing on my weeknight schedule.
 
Still hanging in here. Raven has to work four hours upstate on Friday and she invited me to a late curry dinner with her, RavenHub who I'm now dubbing Gardener, and Gardener's significant other. I'm not sure whether I'll go.

Our make up date will be Saturday day, we're going to drive out to a cider mill out by [place] so she can pick up hard cider for the party and I can have bunches of regular cider and doughnuts. I'm like, 90% at this point thinking I'll go to the party for a couple hours. I couldn't stay late even if I was feeling pressured to because Sunday I'm taking my dog to my parents' cabin for a family day. So I'll have to get up at some point in the morning. Monday I feel like I have something I'm forgetting about, and Tuesday I have off from work. Any which way, Tuesday will be a recovery day.

It's been officially a year since I started seeing my counselor. Even though I'm pretty bummed this week, I think in stress about this fucking party, things are drastically better than when I was suicidal. I had an activism meeting on Wednesday night that cheered me up significantly, too. I'm starting to see the light at the end of this episode tunnel.
 
Today was some kind of day. I got to spend a big chunk of it with Raven, since we went out to an orchard about an hour away. Then we went into the small city and wandered around the farmers market. We were looking for a specific taco truck but we couldn't find it, so we ended up eating at the other taco place at the market.

They were really overwhelmed. The wait was long. I shouldn't have ordered the chicken tacos, turns out, because as I was getting ready for the party I got extremely ill. But at that point I was excited about going, already dressed, had my makeup on, etc. I decided to give it a try since my body had gotten rid of everything already (so I thought).

It was a bad move. I wasn't feeling that great, and I got to play a fun game, but immediately after that there was a situation where I was having to wait for the one bathroom.

That was just not going to abide. Not with what had been increasingly obvious food poisoning. So I went home after exactly an hour and a half of party.

Oddly enough, I don't feel bad about it at all. I went, I would have had fun, my presence was clearly desired by both my partners and it was lovely to hold both of their hams at the same time. Then I spent most of the rest of the evening between Netflix and the bathroom but I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm 100% glad I went.

I'm probably not going up to my parents' cabin tomorrow. I can't imagine doing a two-hour car ride in the shadow of this.
 
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Since I got food poisoning from some chicken tacos at the farmer's market I went to with Raven before the party, it ended up being a lot of worry for nothing. I was at the party for like the slowest opening hour before it became really apparent that lots of people and one bathroom was going to be a bad situation for me.

Guitarist reports, however, that these parties have very much turned into "people banging on the living room floor" varieties of alcohol-fueled sex party, so I'm not even going to pretend for the sake of his embarrassment (which I don't even get) that they're something else. At least he didn't break any agreements this time.

Apparently Guitarist and Raven did make out though. They both independently checked in with me to make sure that was as okay as they thought it was (they were right, I'm totally fine with that, and that was very sweet of them to make sure). I don't really know how I'd feel about more than making out, though. At least in terms of at these parties. I already get major "bummed at missing out" feels about them. I know they would be a lot of fun if I could drink like everyone else.

But I can't.

And even though I've expressed multiple times to both of them how bummed I get about not being able to enjoy those parties with them, they just kind of shrug it off, without even a "hey is there any way I could make you feel less left out" from either of them. Leaving me feeling pretty unheard on that issue. And I'm too tired to bring it up again, because it seems really uncharitable of me to be jealous that the people I love are having fun.

Alas, pretending that I'm a better person than I am does not make it so.

That bit of processing aside, everything is actually pretty good here. Focusing on the positives of the relationships I have has been really good for me. If only my pessimist self can keep this up!
 
Stuff has been going on in my life, I just haven't felt pressed to update!

In poly land, me and Guitarist had a board game night with Spice and Spicewife, which was fun. We got to play two times through Dead of Winter, which I feel really captures the essence of zombie horror and makes it into a fun shelter defense/worker assignment game.

At one point we were kind of chatting and of course because it was recent, the sex party got brought up. I thanked the Spices for the standing invite but said that it just wasn't my kind of party. I said something like how seemed very fun, and that I was envious that they all got to have fun without me, but it just wasn't working between sobriety and anxiety. Which led into a thirty minute or so gush between Guitarist and Spice about how awesome the party was.

I didn't want to be that guy so I just tried to ignore it. But I did say something snarky to Guitarist on the way home about how that didn't help with my envy issues.

That helped kick off a conversation this last Monday about how he hadn't interpreted my statements as envy, but rather as disdain for the party or type of party. Which... the complete opposite is true. I'd actually love that kind of party if I wasn't sober. But I can't do the one drink to relax thing. Not only am I just anxious at the party in general but I get hugely bummed out about what a great time I would have had in the past. My mental health is totally worth it, but that doesn't make it less of a bummer.

Anyway. I hadn't been communicating very clearly about my complicated feelings around the party, and it feels good to have that all out in the open, at least with Guitarist. A similar conversation will need to be had with Raven, I think, but that's a problem for future me.

I've also been doing a lot of looking into oral sex STD transmission rates and I've been thinking that I might maybe change my hard stance against unprotected oral as a big deal even if all parties are testing regularly. The thing is, I'm not really sure that even if I decided that unprotected oral with partners who aren't engaging in riskier behavior would affect my relationship with Guitarist at all because he's still not testing. Which is his prerogative, but I don't think I'd be willing to give unprotected oral to someone who isn't testing. It still bears thinking about though, especially on what it might mean for my boundaries going forward with both of my relationships. Not that I have a sexual relationship yet, but I get the feeling that's going to happen at some point eventually, after some STD discussions, and I should have my boundaries known before then.

I have a lot more reflecting to do there.

Everything else is pretty drama free.
 
I've been in mild depression since I mentioned that I was on my way down, but last night was kind of a tipping point. Plenty of "why are you here" and "what the fuck are you doing with your life" thoughts. I brought up the idea of writing my feelings as a novel with my therapist and she was seriously for it. So I think I might slightly fictionalize my life and write something horribly autobiographical and hopefully cathartic. There is no space in me for fantasy right now.

I've read a couple novels lately for my book club, which makes me feel like I'm really not a novel person. These novels are some really cringey shit. One book by standard white guy imagining himself as a group of religious minorities during a war, one book by a standard white woman imagining herself as a slave woman. The woman did a better job than the man, but neither of them felt authentic because duh. Anyway, I prefer my fakeness in the form of genre fiction. I may quit this book club.

To throw some poly stuff in my depression blog. Guitarist's rut funk ended up tipping me from mildly depressed into heavy chest land. I brought up again last night to Guitarist how depressed he seems and he just shrugged me off again. He responds, not by telling me that he isn't depressed, but by listing how many things he IS doing. As if that's the problem itself and not a symptom.

I know that from the inside of depression, it's hard to see how bad things are getting. I mean, it took me about a year and a half to go from my standard dysthymia to suicidal, and right up until the end I thought I had things under control. Until I woke up and realized that I was actually probably really close to committing suicide. So, yeah, I'm concerned about him, and it's weighing on me.

He hasn't been sleeping well for months because his cpap is falling apart. He mostly just plays video games. He seems to be working on his music but barely. He neglects house stuff. Every time I talk to him about it, it's like he nods along with what I'm saying but doesn't hear me. He has even stopped seeing Spice and Magical the last couple weeks, which is like Serious Social Withdrawal Red Flags.

A lack of quality sleep and the fucked up state of this country are seriously depressing. I get that.

I'm like, hey, maybe sleeping better might help. I know it has helped my depression oodles. Responded to with a kind of shrug and a yeah, he should work on that. He's been "working on it" for months and it keeps not getting done. I can't do it for him. I don't know what parts he needs and I can't take his sleep study. But I did offer to make the doctor's appointment for him with our gp, to at least set it into motion, and it can be hard to budge your own inertia when you're in depression. Shot down.

Today, I've been wondering a lot today what the fuck I'm even doing. A lot of my fantasies revolve around quitting my life, taking my pets, and moving to a house in Small City, where I don't date people, and I don't care for anyone. If you don't love anyone, their apathy toward themselves can't destroy you, right? Or maybe I cash out my 401k early, leave my pets with my parents, and leave this fucked up country. Other countries are also fucked up, but at least it would be an adventure.

Fantasies of just taking off on your life are a form of suicidal ideation. I think we're coming up on ultimatum time where I tell him that he has X amount of time to get his mental health shit handled because this is seriously affecting my own mental health. I feel trapped in my life right now and that's not okay.
 
Post-script: I've felt a lot better this afternoon since vomiting all of that forth, getting it out of my head. Yay processing blog for processing. The helpless anger has subsided and I mostly just feel hurt. It's like... maybe stop dismissing me because I might know something about this and also hey I care about you?

Also, I know, I KNOW, the reason he defaults to telling me about x y and z thing he did is because of his upbringing, where he was called a lot of names and so on. Which just pisses me off at his parents. I care a whole lot less that the dishes aren't getting done every day than that he doesn't seem to be happy, or at least (considering the current political climate) able to get by. But I swear what he hears when I say things like you seem depressed because you're coming to bed late, you're not sleeping, you don't really talk about your music anymore, the part he hears is "you aren't doing this and this," when what I'm trying to say is "I'm worried about you for this and this reason."

I also truly don't think he realizes how much this is affecting me. I think I think I'm saying it, but he's not hearing it, he's hearing whatever he's been conditioned to hear. I think a talk is still in order for later, but I think more of a sane one.
 
It was a good talk. I got to hear a lot about how Guitarist is feeling, which has been better the past couple days. I was probably interpreting his tiredness the day before as something it was not, and combined with the not seeing his people, and the hurt feelings. He said he just needed to take a break and recharge and that, along with some habit changes on his part, it has been working. He also said if he's still seeming down in a couple of weeks we should revisit the conversation though and I can remind him about it so he can get some help.

This morning, I woke up and I'm actually in a decent mood. Instead of varying degrees of blah, I'm just here, looking forward to the weekend. Saturday I'm going to a renaissance festival with Raven and then Sunday I just have a day off. I wish my chainmail was more complete, but it's more like a short sleeveless shirt at this point, so I'm not going to wear it. Maybe next year. Instead, I think I'm going to wear my fest boots, my leather leggings, I'm not sure whether the white or green top, my corset, and my cloak, and I'm not sure which jewelry yet. Or which hat. AAAAAH I should decide these things.
 
I don't know why work on Friday is a thing. I never get much done. I'm exactly as productive when I don't show up and go through the motions at all.

Today, I slept well for the most part, the sky is blue, I have plans I'm excited about tomorrow, and I don't have anything major due at work, so I think I'm just going to sit here day dreaming and maybe go out to lunch. I do have to remember to hit up the ATM for spending cash for tomorrow, though!
 
The ren fest was good, but 100 degrees (literally, that is what the thermometer in my car said), we got parked in the overflow lot, Raven has knee problems, and I almost fainted on the walk back. Other than that though, it was a lot of fun, and I was relieved that Raven was an excellent hinge when I was hanging out with Raven and Ravenhub. I have a picture of us all together being goofy and happy. I adore this woman so much.

I also miss her like crazy because yesterday was Ravenhub's birthday, so she asked if she could spend it with him, which of course I agreed to. A person only gets one birthday a year. I'm going to be on vacation with Guitarist much of next week, so next Saturday is the earliest I'll be able to see Raven. I'm glad I had such a great time with her, and I miss her already.

Guitarist has decided to go see a therapist to talk through some of his depression and mood swings. I'm so relieved. He had been filling Spice in on his recent troubles, and it seems like she was also very concerned, and he now agrees that the time to get counseling is now, when he's feeling marginally to moderately better, instead of trying to add that as another stress when he's feeling shitty. That's one of the great things of poly. Having two people who care about you saying the same thing can often overcome the resistance to just one. I'm going to talk with my counselor on Monday and see who she might recommend.
 
Criminey, it's been two weeks since I've posted! I've just been busy with my life and with work stuff, and since I've been pretty much just straight happy lately, I haven't had a lot of processing to do.

I had a great week-long vacation with Guitarist. Lots of food, lots of quality time, lots more food. Some more good food. We spent most of it gorging ourselves and curled up on the hotel bed watching Netflix. It was like, the epitome of introvert vacation.

I've been missing Raven but not going crazy over it. The missing makes sense, since it's been about three weeks since I've seen her, and the not going crazy over it also makes sense. I'm pretty sure my obsession with seeing someone a lot in the beginning of a relationship is purely an NRE thing. I'm seeing Raven tonight though and I'm really looking forward to it.

Flame is moving back to the midwest soon. I'm beyond excited about this, guys. It's been years since I've seen him and soon he'll be within (like 8 hours but still) driving distance. I'm sad his time on the west coast hasn't been everything he hoped and dreamed, but I'm glad he'll be getting to see his son more.

I'm thinking about applying for the job my boss recently vacated. It's a supervisory position, which means I would have to work more hours, but also that I would get to teach the new attorneys how to attorney. I love teaching. I actually went to college for it, before I realized what a mess public education is and how little teaching our teachers are allowed to do because of all the administrative hoops they have to jump through.

My sister got married. I'm still really ambivalent about that. She's happy, but the guy she married... yeah, anyway, not going to go into it.

The rest is all happy stuff!
 
I had a good date night with Raven, and a good weekend. Guitarist and I got lunch and saw a movie on Sunday. The rest of it was mostly relaxing.

I can't realize how close we are to NaNo kicking off again. It seems crazy to be trying to fit that into my schedule, but that is how it is.
 
I can definitely tell that a couple days of bad sleep, from a sinus headache and nightmares, have been adversely affecting my mood.

In other news, I found out yesterday that Flame will be moving back to the midwest on Sunday. Not in a month or something like that: Sunday. He did tell me that he had found a place, but he hadn't mentioned moving preparations or anything.

He hasn't mentioned a thing on social media. It turns out from talking with him yesterday that he's planning a surprise to his gaming group, who he's been playing with online all this time. They're supposed to meet Sunday, and the DM is going to leave his car's trunk unlocked. Flame is going to put duct tape on his mouth and get in the trunk, and then his DM is going to bring the group outside and act like he kidnapped him for the purposes of gaming. I wish I could be there, it sounds like it's going to be pretty funny.

I was sort of planning on going out there shortly after he came back though. The second he said he was moving back, I was like... dammit, I want to see you. So now I'm planning a trip out there, maybe taking the train, it depends on how close it gets. That's going to merit some more discussing with Guitarist as well, since I told him that Flame was planning on moving back to the midwest. But not so soon, or that I wanted to take a trip out there soon.

Guitarist's first responses were "are you going to hook up" and "well does that mean I can hook up with someone."

Yes, almost certainly (provided he gets tested, etc., I have loved the guy for years after all, and there is definite mutual attraction there) and... what does that even have to do with the topic at hand?

The way he said it, it sounded like he meant without talking about it with me first. I don't see what the one has to do with the other because here I am, clearly talking about Flame with him before I am going out there. But it definitely hit all of my insecurity buttons around his cheating behavior. Especially since we have already talked about how he is welcome to have sex with people as long as we talk about it first, and that I don't care whether it's a FWB relationship or what level of involvement he has, provided that they've talked about testing and it isn't sprung on me after the fact. So... I don't really know what he was getting at with that, but it rankles.

I should probably talk with him about what he meant by it, but I don't have the energy to this morning, and I have to go to work and to a NaNoWriMo event after.
 
It turns out Guitarist was just overwhelmed with defensiveness, he says for no reason. I understand that. I get that way myself, sometimes, and I just need to get through it to see how irrational the emotion is.

The important part is that he wasn't talking about going out and having sex with people without talking about it first. We've already discussed that, as long as we talk about it first (and everyone is on board with testing), then we're fine. I don't have any business controlling how emotionally involved he is with the people he has sex with, as long as the sex is safe.

Of course, Guitarist isn't on board with testing, so there is that entire other issue that really bothers me but that I'm not pushing right now.

Another thing he said "well, what about Raven?" Nope. That just makes me too uncomfortable.

I have thought about it for a while, since the whole making out at parties together thing dropped, and there's no situation where it doesn't turn into a huge anxiety thing for me. If Raven and I broke up, that would be something else, but I'm not getting involved in another messy triangle. I will NOT feel like I'm competing with my husband for my girlfriend's affection and vise versa, and that is exactly how I would feel, so no. Besides, there are plenty of other people in the area he can get involved with who aren't already my girlfriend. I only have one girlfriend, he has practically infinite possibilities.
 
I kind of wish I had more things to say lately, but at the same time, I'm glad I don't. Things are going decently around here! Raven's talk with her family seems to have gone pretty well, and Guitarist tells me that Spice has an offer for a job she really wanted. My date night with Raven this week is going to feature playing a scary game at Spice's house, I think with Guitarist may be there too, I haven't actually asked.

I'm kind of curious how poly is going to meld with nanowrimo, if I'll get totally burned out or what. This is the first year I'm going in without an outline, and with two established relationships, that could make hitting my word count goals interesting.

Which reminds me that my dating anniversary with Raven is coming up in like early January, depending on what day we're counting from. I should probably get a lock on that exact day and maybe talk with her about possibly doing something.
 
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