Redpepper's journey

[redpepper]

I live in a house now where I spend times in different areas of it for different reasons. I live between two houses. Downstairs I live with Mono. His furniture that we bought together, his space that he pays for to PN and I. He does the house work and makes his own meals. He has his own bed there and his own man cave set up where he watches stuff I don't like and goes on his computer. He helps out around the house when he feels like it or is asked and we borrow his truck sometimes. He has a spare room that I have my painting set up in and I have a room of my own in his area of the house.

Every night we share my bed and his bed is empty. I used to sleep there when I couldn't sleep but now we sleep wrapped up in each others arms every night and have done since the spring. We cling to each other and breath together. I listen to his heart beat still looking for signs that it is racing as it did when we were struggling this past year or two. I have no sign of it any more. I read him easily and there is nothing to read right now other than contentment.

Upstairs I am mumma. I make meals, do house work, discuss household activities with PN and plan social events. We host most social events upstairs unless the people coming over are Mono and my friends and then he and I host downstairs. LB has his room upstairs but he comes down sometimes to spend time with Mono and I and snuggle in my bed watching tv and reading as he is right now.

Outside PN and I garden and Mono cuts the grass. Mono helps out if we ask but otherwise he has his own space out there and he sticks to that. We spend time at the fire pit or sitting drinking tea each afternoon in the summer. There are apple trees that Mono eats all of the apples off of and LB has a trampoline that he bounces on every day.

Upstairs I have a dresser, clothes in PN's closet, coats in the coat closest, shoes, stored clothing and items, books on the book shelf. There is my furniture from my family up there and furniture that PN and I purchased together and family photos, music and tv etc. Lots of computers too as Mono likes us to have many each from various jobs he's done or deals he's found.

I have been getting rid of tons of stuff to make room for PN to have his own space and spread out a bit. He wants me to move my stuff out but there is no where to move it to. I have a side table by his bed to get rid of, clothes in the closet to move out, my dresser and accessories to put somewhere... I don't know how to achieve this and have my own space. He is patient and waits. If he gets a girlfriend I don't know how this situation will go down with her.

I am not really part of either house and don't really have a place. That bothers me sometimes but I also am fine with it as long as the guys are okay with it. If anything happened to change our situation I would move out, we would sell up and divide everything according to who owns what and what we need.

I have no fear of anything any more. I actually fantasize that I might have my own place as a result of change. While on the bike trip this summer I had time, sitting on the back of the bike, to wade through the pain of many different scenarios that could occur and now am at a place where whatever happens I have no fear.

 

[redpepper]

I've been having a great weekend. This morning I feel on top of the world. It's Thanks Giving weekend here and I have made lovely food, spent time with family and its a sunny bright day after a month of rain. Last night was a fun dinner at PN's mum's house and today we are taking our camper van to a nearby park we all love to eat more food and enjoy the sun.

The other night there was a dinner party put on by Brad's wife. I was surprised to be invited and had decided not to go until the last minute when Mono asked that we do. He thought we would enjoy the dinner at the very least and that I should get out and do something with people in the poly community who we have been close to for years.

The table was made up of Leo's wife (the wife of an ex of mine... a relationship that ended badly by way of a veto, as documented in this blog), my recently ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, several people I have and had varying relationships with. I was scared and not very well and it was a huge effort for me in light of my lack of energy to socialize and be around anyone let alone people I think take issue with me. I was courageous I thought.

Mono was right though, it was fine. He was pleased to be socializing and pleased to see his old friends. I was happy for him. I talked to many people that caught me up on their poly lives and they asked me about mine. I was glad I went.

Putting into words where I am at always helps me and being asked over and over again helped me solidify what my experience is right now. I walked away feeling a little uneasy that Mono secretly isn't happy with where our lives together have taken us but soon came to understand that really he just wants to stay in touch and be friends with everyone. To him that is of great importance. To me its a matter of knowing when to take my leave and taking it. I have felt its time to leave but that night I saw where I am wanted and useful even if I am taking a different path.

Everyone has relationships of different importance. Regardless of what they are called or whether or not those feelings are reciprocated of not, we all have a need to be with people. I might not have the room in my life or desire to make room in my life for more lovers but I still need people to be near me, love me and accept me for who I am. If I find that then I am truly grateful and blessed. This is my thoughts this Thanks Giving. I am blessed to be loved and accepted. I am blessed to be able to love and accept.

Afterwards we had guests over and I drove a friend home. It turned out to be a good night and although I get deeply sad sometimes I am fine.

Happy Thanks Giving fellow Canadians.

 

[redpepper]

Hello Here's an update....

I had a birthday yesterday. It was a very special one to me. Sure, birthday's are special but when I remember where I was last year at this time I realize how far I have come and just how much happened this year.

Last year at this time I was sitting in the airport in Toronto Ontario on my way to Halifax Nova Scotia to visit Mono and his family. I had a martini and a poutine and had a glimpse of things to come as I sat there completely alone and content with my own company.

Mono had been there a week already and already we were deeply in trouble in our relationship. I remember a visit of much silence between us and a ton of culture shock for me. I remember our only connection at the time to be one of massive amounts of sex. That didn't let up all year.

My relationship with Mono has been based on sex at times before and continues to be our biggest connection. Mono is my only in this way. I have fulfilled my sexual bucket list and I settle in for now to a wonderful sex life and solid connection to this man I put my sanity on the line for. I am content with that. Others are my only in other ways and I am also content with that. Together they all add to my life and I add to theirs. Its simple, uncluttered and I am satisfied.

Previous to this visit Mono and I had been struggling and I wasn't entirely paying attention. I was more consumed with my other loves and a busy life of poly community, burlesque and work to notice. I just assumed that the day to day was enough, that somehow we were all doing fine. This proved to be disastrously not true. We were talking but it was surface level talking. It revolved around a lot of deep rooted self doubt, lack of self worth and some salt and pepperings of denial of what was really going on for us. Add a lack of honesty to ourselves and each other about our real inner feelings and then a lack of being open to go to that place of dreaded analysis about our relationship and we ended up with this past year of sorting that out. Me and many people together.

Unravelling feelings and self discovery were what this year was based on. Details about who did what and what transpired are not what is important, it's where we got and how we got there through the amount we journeyed personally and all of us together that matter. Many people, many relationships and much personal investigation.

The first step was to face that I knew nothing of what was really going on for Mono and likely no one else I was dating at the time. The realization that things were not what they seemed and that there was an illusion of everything being okay was a great shock to me. It seemed simple at the time but there was complication underneath that was not brought to the surface until one huge climax this past spring.

I have since pieced together a story of what was going on for people in my life. I have come to the conclusion that nothing is ever what it seems and that I better damn well be ready to take my leave the moment I discover that. Even if its temporary. My emotional safety is what is most important and to have that I need to be able to physically leave or ask someone to leave. Creating a situation where that is possible is difficult, but I feel a sense of safety and freedom now that I feel I have some options.

It's become important to go over my own plans often and not rely on others for anything other than rent paid, agreed upon responsibilities carried through and I don't assume there is a future with them. What once was a feeling that I am grateful to those I live with and spend time with has become more of a feeling of expecting their gratitude at what I give to them in return also. This new struck balance has opened the door to loving and giving again for me, to myself and others equally. This is what I am grateful for now. I have the knowledge of how to do that better and what the signs are when I am not.

I imagined a poly family life and worked towards that for years. My poly family was close I thought, but for me there was a leak somewhere when the day to day meant that honesty and openness to change became stifled by duty to each other. Duty to keep the status quo even if the fit wasn't good any more. I doubt I will ever attempt a poly family again as the seed of doubt has now been planted. Still, for many years I was happy in my illusion of what I had.

I remember the dream I once had when I was about to marry PN. I had a dream that I would be part of creating a large chosen family with kids and adults alike blending and supporting one another. Complete childlike trust and naively blind devotion to that dream set my course as a younger person. I have become wise and realistic. I thought I had that and did for a time but then things shifted and the plates wobbled, eventually the plates fell and it became evident that there is no bigger mess than a lot of plates falling. If I had kept my life simple with less responsibility to the relationships I had and with more attention to my own destiny on my own then I might not of lived through the life lesson I learned this year.

It was a year of managing to create a solid family environment out of a mess of many relationships and I did it for LB. I know many families that have split up because those plates fell for the members. Divorce, separation, affairs... they seem to be around me everywhere. This was no different. The difference was that I worked hard and badgered others work hard to create a result that meant we could carry on with each other even if everything had changed. I did it, we did it. The change is upon us all now and we are all better off.

How did we all manage it? Polyamory; poly made me manage it. If it weren't for the philosophies I studied, debated, created and tried out here and elsewhere in the poly community I would not be where I am today. I would be alone, tossing my child back and froth from one house to the next, disappointed, betrayed, untrusting, damaged for life possibly and feeling as if love was never going to be unattainable again because it is never real.

Poly philosophy changed my life. I will never be able to shake what I have learned and will never be monogamous in the way that the mainstream culture I live in does monogamy. I've tried it now. After 20 years of being poly and most of my adult relationship life I can honestly say that when I tried to follow other rules I simply could not. I am not monogamous.

I doubt that I ever again will let myself become involved with "lifestyle" poly as a result of my experiences again. Lifestyle poly seems to be more about transcribing mono ideals onto many relationships, not living with a poly philosophy of relationships and connections with others. Love of many. For real. Not the giddy NRE love, but lasting long term devotion to that love, offered to many but coming from the same place in my heart.

I am not willing to have other partners in the same way as most poly people do either. I find that poly people shift the monogamous rule book to suit more than one love relationship more often than not. There is really no need to define or describe what it is. Its mine and I share it with others that own and share their love also.

The term partner does not fit for me, nor does friendship, nor does any term used in monogamous or poly relationships. Each relationship comes with an agreement that is between me and that person now more that ever. I don't title it anything so that no rule can be applied to it from outside of me/us.

I write my own policies and procedures manual for my relationships and when I hand that over to another like a gift of promise of who I am, I do it with confidence and without compromise. It becomes evident quickly how connected and close I am able to come to another by this process now and that is helpful in determining whether or not I should invest for their sake and mine. To invest in a relationship with me of any kind is intense, completely honest and means pushing one another beyond what we are when we meet. Without that there is no point in carrying on after a time. I expect the same from them back again now. It generally means we will fight often, make up just as often and reach levels of connection that few do. I scare people shitless most of the time I'm sure.

I feel as if I have come full circle some how now. I'm washed clean. The world is mine again and I am in control over myself and where I am going. The words seem small in comparison to how I feel. I've said them before as a token of where I would like to be, but now I say them standing firm on my ground and rooted.

Here's to a new year in my life. May it be a time of rest and reflection... of making plans and carrying them out... of enjoying my accomplishments and creating new goals.

 

[AnnabelMore]

Wonderful to hear that you're feeling so much clarity and strength.

 

[Cleo]

I doubt that I ever again will let myself become involved with "lifestyle" poly as a result of my experiences again. Lifestyle poly seems to be more about transcribing mono ideals onto many relationships, not living with a poly philosophy of relationships and connections with others. Love of many. For real. Not the giddy NRE love, but lasting long term devotion to that love, offered to many but coming from the same place in my heart.

I am not willing to have other partners in the same way as most poly people do either. I find that poly people shift the monogamous rule book to suit more than one love relationship more often than not. There is really no need to define or describe what it is. Its mine and I share it with others that own and share their love also.

Thank you for sharing this.. It's something I've been thinking about SO much lately. Since I became more involved in the poly community in my country it is exactly that what I've been experiencing, and it feels so stifling and limiting. But I also understand that it makes people feel safe like monogamy makes people feel safe.
I've followed your journey as chronicled here, and think it's beautiful the way you are describing coming to full circle. Thank you.

 

[redpepper]

I just dropped Mono off at his favourite place to drink a coffee before going to the companion job he has with a woman of 95. I'm freaking out a little. I'm not sure why as things have settled between us and for the most part I have stopped looking for signs of deceit. I went into the grocery store next to the shop and when I came out I could see him through the window on his phone. I know he needed to call about a computer job he is doing tomorrow, I know he has friends and a private life but that still very sore place inside me split open again.

I'm tired. Tired off that wound. The scar thickens each time it breaks open without my wanting to.

I don't have anywhere else to put this feeling but here so please bear with me. Most of the time I'm happy.

Sorting through what to do in our house is hard. PN wants out, I can feel it. I know it but he stays for our boy. We all do. It's not horrible... just feels trapping. He and I fight for space and autonomy and we give it where we can but my stuff is split in two parts of the house. Dressing in his room before going to work is akward, privacy in the bathroom is an issue, food is slowly being split up as he moves to different choices from me. I sense his loneliness sometimes and at other times he's happy when he comes home and I don't know why. We chat and have fun and spend time together but there is a marked change.

The other night he and LB got into an accident and I felt different about it where he was concerned. I love him very much but while I was desperate to hold my child afterwards I was content to just hear PN was okay.

His effort to know about me and my life has kept us apart. He doesn't fill the best friend roll any more. There is a lack of caring that used to be there between us. I'm wondering what happens next. For now I have agreed to make another step and move my clothes from his room into an armoire in the hall. Great, I get to dress in our diningroom. I recent that he gets the big master bedroom and I get a tiny room in the basement suite with Mono. Mono and I share it now. The bed anyway.

I have no moments of certainty. Perhaps it's the end of my naivity forever? Maybe doubt is a better answer as a way to live. I wonder sometimes if I will ever trust entirely again. I used to open my heart fully and let people dive in. I realized just now as I drove Monos truck to a parking lot on the other side of the city that I don't do that any more. I let them stick to my heart and can shluff them off when I find a reason. Am I damaged? Am I going to always be like this? Is that healthy?

When I imagine what an open heart would look like it reminds me of my art school days when I painted paintings of hearts with wings open and exposed arms out at the sides shining off the canvases. Now the paintings would be of a balloon like solid muscle protected by a thick skin layer. On top of it layers of other people close to me. It feels right and safe but it's such a huge change I feel toppley and like my head spins.

Just one solid relationship that I love and trust. Still my goal. I will be content with that. If that is just me so be it but I oh so don't want to end up only trusting myself.

Meanwhile I have new friends. Some soild old ones that I will never part with on my heart and many new plans for myself and my future. I invite Mono to join me and he is on board. We sat yesterday at the spot by the ocean we spent many tearful fearful moments and I said to him I thought we were passed our troubles and that I felt a clean slate was before us. Nothing left undone. All troubles sorted through. He said he had been there for monthes. I told him I still need to catch up.

Happy Solstice. I'm so glad the year is over.

 

[Arrowbound]

Good to hear from you Red, even if there are some uncertainties present right now. Hoping for the best for you and yours. (Hi Mono! *waves*)

 

[redpepper]

Hi to Arrowbound. Thanks for writing.

I'm struggling with the true fact that I love people. For some reason I feel really guilty about it. Shame for having strong emotional attachments. I love my Mono and together we have been really happy. Our lives have settled mostly and our family continues to be strong and together. Yet.... I cannot deny my love for those close to me. How do I feel this and figure out how to keep a structure that respects boundaries and is acceptable displays of affection and love? I so suck at this. I decided to not bother and show my love for others whenever it comes up. To me it doesn't mean I am swaying from the course I am determined and happy to follow but I get worried and scared others think I am too much in their face with my emotions and displays of affection. That it means more some how and that they are saying, "see. You can't do it. You need to have another partner." It makes me feel guilty and confused. I can rationalize it easily and chalk it up to just being myself but I am uncertain of whether I am okay or not.... I don't know if that makes any sense.

 

[redpepper]

Better today. Love is love and I over think things. I will continue to be loving and express love when it come up and let it go. I can only be me.

 

[LovingRadiance]

So glad I read both posts today!
I was thinking "OH HONEY! Don't over think it! It's ok to love many people and to show affection without it meaning you want to be sexually involved or dating them!"
But then-you wrote it all yourself.

 

[redpepper]

I just had a fantastic lunch with Ken. Remember him? He pointed out it's been almost two years since he and I spent time alone together. Back then it was because he began dating my monogamous co-worker who I thought would struggle with our connection. Now it's because he started dating someone else monogamous and wasn't sure she'd have the same response.

Two years and we just had lunch together. Wow. What a journey it's been and yet we are still friends and still able to talk each others ear off about many things. I let go of my fear of showing love and affection and told him I was really glad we could spend some time together. I thanked him for his confidence in me and my decision to stay with Mono and work on our relationship. It means a lot to me that people don't judge my choices but let me be and simply listen, challenge me with questions but in the end just witness what I struggle with. To me this is a sign of good friendship.

Now I have my dear friend and a new friend in his girlfriend. I've been working hard to let her know I am no threat and that I want their relationship to work out. I am giving to him what he gave to me. He was confident and respectful of my journey and choices and I am with his. I listen to his challenges and help sort out his feelings and in the end have no judgement or attachment to the outcome. Feels good. I'm glad to be there for him and am so glad to be given chances to give to people who gave so much to me.

(Waves to LR. Thanks for your message )

 

[nycindie]

Hey RP, you sound like you're doing pretty well. Just wondering - how is Polynerdist doing?

 

[redpepper]

Hey RP, you sound like you're doing pretty well. Just wondering - how is Polynerdist doing?

hi! Great to hear from you. Hope you are well?

PN is well enough. It's been interest in that sex and intimacy has been off the table but life went on similarly. Sometimes he and I struggle with moving on as my stuff is in his room and we share everything still. It will be awhile until we can "separate." He has his life and I have mine. We talk often. Fight just as much. He and I get resentful that we are not together yet still have the same issues with each other. It is what it is and we both do our best to let go of stuff. We also continue to work on doing things together as a family; everything from eating dinner together every night to planning next summers camping trips. We are becoming more and more interested in different things but we support each other with what we want to accomplish and work around our responsibilities to our child, joint finances and extended family obligations. Neither of our families know we are together as we used to be.

I am finding it works better to just not talk about labels actually. With any of my relationships. They just are what they are and it's between me and the other person. As soon as I call it something people come up with long lists of assumptions that mostly don't fit. I have opted to silence at this point about PN. I don't know what he says about us. No one has asked and only one of his friends has approached me and expressed any feelings about our not being together. Mostly that they were surprised and hoped I was okay after the year I just had. It was kind and caring and I appreciated it.

 

[redpepper]

I'm deriving much comfort from this blog again. I attempted to save it all on my computer as I was going to delete it. Then I had a crisis about it disappearing and now I think I'm at a place where I don't care. I just keep thinking of stuff to write and stuff to let go by doing so.

I miss Brad. He's gone on holiday. Its made me realize how much he is part of my life. Brad has always meant a lot to me from day one. Now more than ever since our break up. Our relationship is more dedicated and solid than it ever was before when our relationship was complicated with terms like boyfriend/girlfriend. We know we will be close for a long time and that is all that matters to either of us.

How did we get there? A lot of fighting it out. At first we were silently awkward with each other and then, over time and his persistence, he became my number one support with my Mono struggles. Every moment I cried, ranted, broke down, pulled my hair out, he was there loving me and holding me up. There was more than one time he carried me through by standing by in calm, unjudgemental yet honest patience. He has seen me at my very worst and is still around.

We fought out our new relationship dynamic and came to new agreements of boundaries and discussed at length our values and ultimate goals in life and poly. Over the summer we decided that no one would come between what we have regardless of their description or what happens in our lives. I intend to hold that agreement. I think he does too.

Over the space of the last 8 months it became obvious that it was his turn to need support.

Our huge similarities in our emotional selves made it easy to relate to each other when we talked. My experience over the last six years or so helped I think. His take on my experience was just as helpful to me as we compared our lives and situations. Agreeing to disagree and bonding over agreeing at the same time has made him become a close relationship.

The time between summer and winter has been my time to give back. It continues to be. I have found that its my time to hold him up sometimes. To be the quiet, unjudgemental, solid rock he needs.

I miss him. I realize how I have neglected other relationships because of his constant existence in my life and value this time to do my own thing.... find my friends. Find others who I have common understanding with. He said once that I am complex but not complicated. He has taken the time to unravel who I am and I am forever bound to him for that. So rare in my life. I am grateful and blessed.

Poly to me seems fraught with over layering of glee and then despair. In my experience it tore me apart as a person and partner who is willing to create depth and closeness with anyone as a result. The complication is absolutely not for someone who has deep emotions such as myself in my opinion. Its allure is tempting because it offers extreme heights of positive emotion... at first. After a time I have noticed with myself and others that a "little devil" comes out from somewhere and systematically breaks down everything that has been built up. The choices seem to be to let that happen or to continue on half in and half out of all relationships. Including the self.

For whatever reason I had no choice, in my mind, than to let the "little devil" create the biggest change in my life... Half relationships were not an option.

I am not everyone and I know people do what they are going to do so I'm not attempting to preach, but if I were to do it all again I would not be so cocky, arrogant and smug to think that having a bunch of partners is the most love I could ever have. It isn't. THE MOST LOVE IS SELF LOVE and I found that reflected in the eyes of someone willing to take my pain, fear and extensive misplaced love and mirrors it back to me by being real, honest to the point of bluntness and still risking my walking out on him. Brad did this for me. He did it for him. We are forever changed.

 

[sage]

I just popped in to post about a great movie that Mike saw last night and saw that you're back. Yay!!! I find this the best thread on the whole site and so appreciate your honesty and willingness to be so open with your journey. Thankyou

Sage

 

[redpepper]

I just popped in to post about a great movie that Mike saw last night and saw that you're back. Yay!!! I find this the best thread on the whole site and so appreciate your honesty and willingness to be so open with your journey. Thankyou

Sage

hi sage *hugs to you and yours.

 

[sage]

I think I'm on in a similar place to you except that I'm still very much in my nesting relationship with Mike. I explored poly for myself but it didn't feel good for me.
I have retained one male friend however and it's a very interesting and challenging experience. We have been intimate and we do have romantic feelings for each other but we are trying to retain an equilibrium of relatedness
By focusing on our very special friendship. It's a level of friendship I've never experienced before other than inside a primary relationship. It's challenging at times but I think it's a very expanding relationship.
Hope that makes sense.
Sage

 

[redpepper]

I think I'm on in a similar place to you except that I'm still very much in my nesting relationship with Mike. I explored poly for myself but it didn't feel good for me.
I have retained one male friend however and it's a very interesting and challenging experience. We have been intimate and we do have romantic feelings for each other but we are trying to retain an equilibrium of relatedness
By focusing on our very special friendship. It's a level of friendship I've never experienced before other than inside a primary relationship. It's challenging at times but I think it's a very expanding relationship.
Hope that makes sense.
Sage

yes it does sage.

 

[redpepper]

Over the holiday season LB and PN had an accident in the family car. It was tototalled. They were okay but the car was a write off. We got some insurance money for it and spent the holidays looking for a car. Mono and I were home with LB most of the season as PN didn't get time off work so we were the ones who did all the car hunting and buying.

The experience was bonding for Mono and I as we have never made decisions like that before. PN had a hard time letting go and trusting our judgement so we had to go with an option that I was not entirely satisfied with but was the closest I could get to being satisfied.

It turned out that the car we bought was on it's last legs and over the course of a month the transmission and other things went so the car had to go. PN and I took time off work to buy a new car and also bonded over the experience. A part from getting a car I wanted all along I also had a chance to bond with the two men I call home. We all bonded. Even LB.

In the face of adversity our family connected in ways we hadn't before and are a stronger unit than ever as a result. Our family is stronger for it. My marriage and my partnership with my boyfriend are strong. My marriage has become a marriage of two of us putting our heads together as a team to include everyone we want to include.

This week my ex wife moved back to my city. We've spent a good deal of time together doing every day stuff and family stuff. From sitting falling asleep in front of the tv to attending LB's piano recital we have worked her into our everyday life. It's early days yet but we have plans to spend more time together and I foresee much reconnecting as a result. I'm so pleased. LB gets his auntie J around! It's fulfilled as wish of mine that has been in my head for years.

I have decided to put effort into relationships that I believe will last. My brother, my parents, my in-laws are all part of that plan. Historically, during my years of having four partners, I have not concentrated on these relationships believing them to just be there without effort. Four partners made it impossible to find the time. I know I was missed by many people now. I intend to make up for lost time. As my parents and in-laws get older I can see that it's important to establish a more solid foundation so I know them better and they know me better. Family is everything and I have not believed this so much until this time in my life.

I started looking for a middle school (junior high) for LB. How strange is that?! I think when I started writing on this site he was just starting school! How time flies. He has successfully been raised in a three parents family for many years now and is doing as well as I could possibly hope. He's stable, happy, has a good balance of adult characters to identify with in order to figure out who he is, is respected and educated in many areas of life that he wouldn't be if he were not close to his parents and four grand parents.

What worries me now is a new school. There is a chance that he faces new challenges in the form of acceptance by others. I think my fear is bigger than the threat however and I have kept perspective so far.

I haven't been doing any burlesque for nine monthes now. I didn't think I was missed so I haven't even bothered going to events. This week Mono had a computer client that knew me from the burlesque world. I didn't know her but she knew me enough to notice I hadn't been around. Burlesque has come up several times in the last month and I think about it often.

I don't know where to go with my burlesque thoughts. I have been trying to think of reasons to go back and reasons not to. The whole of it is based on fear for me now and I am hoping to use my skills of removing fear from my life to gain perspective on the pros and cons.

The last show I did I looked out over the audience and saw that I had taken a turn in my life that had lead to a result I wasn't comfortable with and that I didn't want. It had lead to decisions being made by those in my life that I was not comfortable with and looking out off the stage in the direction of my loved ones I suddenly got smacked in the face with it all. Everything changed from that night on. My distractions in life had caused me to go down a path and suddenly the path was clear and unwanted. It's hard to explain that but now that I am on a path that works for me and those in my life I find it hard to figure out if I would be going back for good reasons. Yet I think about it often.

I am tending towards simplifying my life more and more. My days are long and unfilled which means that I am free to make plans as they come up. I am working on my loneliness and boredom by going into my body and mind and reminding myself that everything I need comes from inside, not from outside. I have lots to entertain myself with just on my own. Fear is not my friend and I am not alone. I have not been abandoned.

I am saving money now that I don't do burlesque. Don't think that burlesquers make money by doing what they do. It costs more to get a routine together than the cost to see a show usually. I have time and some money now. All I want to do is make travel plans, and have a good time with family.

Last week Mono and I went to a neighboring big American city just over the boarder. It was a trip for my birthday. My birthday was before Christmas but timing and money before Christmas is tight so it waited. We had such a good time. We went to a British pub and enjoyed that it didn't close at 2am as they do here. We met people, talked, drank, ate and played pool (not so British, they had a pool table) for hours. It was just what we like.

The next day was lots of walking and people watching. It was so relaxing and we were so content. At night we lay in bed from 4pm until morning holding hands, watching shows, ordering Chinese food, and snoozing in each others arms. Sex was off the table due to my period but we made up for it all this week. always do. A few days away from sex means a week of fucking like rabbits afterwards.

We can't get enough of each other now that our lives have settled and we are content with just us. I'm really not missing a thing so why change it. They say no one can fulfill all your needs but sexually and touch wise I am fulfilled and so is he. What I am not fulfilled in is being reassured and hearing affirmations from Mono but I am noticing that he has begun to start telling me what he thinks and details about his life that he didn't before. It's helped me feel confident that we will be and are okay together. I feel as if I am his confident and that he loves me as a result. I need that to heal and slowly it is coming. Communication is getting better now that fear is put aside. I have paranoid moments often still and likely always will but by addressing it right away and hearing him tell me his thoughts, it will definitely lesson in time. Chosing to divide what is my problem and what is his, trusting him and letting go all helps.

 

[redpepper]

Saturday morning;

Mono and PN are out picking up wood to make raised beds in the vegetable garden. LB and I are preparing for his friend to come over for the night. I sit in the sun with the coffee Mono brought me and think about Brad coming home from his holidays today, AJ (my ex wife) coming skating with the young boys and I later, an evening of playing Settlers and eating pizza with family and friends and how damned happy I am I made the choices I did in getting my life back on line.

PN has gone through some really hard stuff lately and I have had the chance to prove to him that I, all of us, are here for him as we are his family. I spent time with Ken this week and we are bonding again. I have had a chance to support and give to Derby of late too and that makes me happy. I am loving getting the chance to give back to those who have given to me.

Here's to life and going with the doors that open, the honest, truthful to me route, and walking through fear regardless of the outcome.