The Best Life Yet

Rider took tomorrow off, so we will be leaving super early in the morning to go visit Sam in College Town. We have to leave so early so that I can start my work day at the usual time (working remotely). Sam's brother is in town from Opposite Coast Corner, and I don't know specifically how much he knows about Sam and me, but I did go to their dad's house for Christmas with Sam last year (brother was not there), and the brother did surprise Rider, Sam, and I all shirtless in the hot tub last fall. He's not a stupid guy, so I assume he knows SOMETHING, at least. I intend to follow Sam's lead with affection things, I guess. Sam has been getting more and more comfy with the poly thing as time has worn on.

Rider and I are supposed to meet Shana, Al, and Allie out for Al's birthday celebration tonight. We are supposed to bring instruments and possibly join Al and friends on stage. I have not really played my bass in public yet (only at gatherings at Shana and Al's house of less than 10 people), so I may choose to sit that one out. We'll see how bold I feel. Right now I mostly feel stressed at the length of my to-do list before we leave town. And god forbid they want me to sing. I am so out of practice right now. :hides face:

We HAVE been able to work on music the past two nights for the first time in a long time. I learned the basslines for "Lovesong" by the Cure and "Think I'm in Love" by Beck. I am not good at them yet, but I know the basic components. We also practiced our originals, and I surprised myself by not fucking ANY of the lyrics up despite being out of practice.

My libido is slowly returning after the 40 days and 40 nights of work frenzy. The idea of sex no longer sounds terribly sapping and dreadful. I'm definitely still not up to full speed, though. Being on a particularly long rag hasn't helped.

Oona wrote a really adorable Facebook post about Toby. I'm happy for her that she's finally happy with someone, even if she is pretty back-and-forth about it. I have had a good feeling about him from the beginning; when she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep dating him or what toward the beginning and was trying to pick from a few guys, I told her I was on "Team Toby." When she has doubts about him and voices them to me, I can always see his side and see that his motivations are good, so I play a lot of devil's advocate explaining to her what he is probably thinking and talking her down from some of her less rational ledges.

Supposedly I am getting a check from my landlord any minute now. I got a certified letter notice over the weekend, and now it is the post office that is screwing things up: not redelivering on the day they were supposed to, etc. I called the hotline this evening and they opened a case for me and said that it *should* be waiting for me in the morning if I try to pick it up on my way out of town. We'll see. Life does not seem to want me to get this damned money!

Speaking of screw-ups, my boss got in touch with me about needing me to switch business trips in February because the new underling (now several months old) apparently completely FUBARed his first solo trip so now they don't trust him and have taken him off of trips. On the one hand, it kind of worked out for me, as the location they switched me to I like better than the one I was originally scheduled for. On the other hand, he is screwing things up left and right, and I am already too busy to take on more of his work if he gets fired. I remember what it was like when the last underling got fired. Just when I thought this one was finally all trained up...

OKC is still going really well for me. I put my communications on hold until next week (sent everyone a polite message letting them know) but I am still having really good conversations with several people I am potentially interested in. Of course, it will hinge on what IRL chemistry is like, but so far, the top 4 people I am interested in all seem to be interested back, and I also have very cool conversations going on with a bunch of people who, at the very least, seem like good candidates for friendship. I am not turning down conversation with anyone, and just kind of keeping things on the same level that the person leads with. I think I have a legit internet crush on at least 2 if not 3 people.

Yesterday Rider got the phone number of a girl who works at the brewery with Allie. This is a girl that we'd both identified as being cute, but Allie said she's really straight, so I tried to get out of the way so that Rider could position himself in her line of interest. I guess it worked? OF COURSE she waited to give him her number until I was back from all my travel. It would have been too convenient for her to be talking to him while he had all that free time. LOL. We've got less than seven weeks left in town, so who knows what, if anything, will come of it, but, hey, I saw Beckett for only four weeks and that was totally a thing while it lasted.

Speaking of Beckett, I'd told him I'd get in touch when I was back from being out of town all the time, which will technically be Monday. I'd told him "friendship or otherwise" and I am a person of my word, so I will probably message him. If he doesn't bite right away, though, I am going to let the matter drop. He obviously has whatever going on with ex-girl, and TBH, I am kind of over always having to be the one to reach out to him. I still have a crush on him, but it's receding again.

Last night while Rider and I were having sex, a thought popped into my head unbidden: how much nicer it is to have sex with someone I know well and love well than having to do that weird dance of trying to figure out what works with someone new. And I had Beckett particularly in mind, because he's the last new guy I've had sex with. The sex was REALLY good, don't get me wrong, but there was still that layer of discomfort, of awkwardness, of worrying about being judged—and I never feel any of that with Rider. Never did, not even from the beginning.

So part of me wonders whether it would even be worth it if I got to hook up with Beckett again. I've wondered that before, though, and his presence always seems to change my mind. Damned sexiness, haha. It lowers the inhibitions and weakens the resolve. That bridge is so far off in the distance as to probably be a mirage, though, so I'll cross it if I ever get there.
 
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I'm supposed to be waking up in only a few hours, but I just finished my work and want to type here to unwind for a moment before I join Rider in bed and fall asleep.

Al's birthday was fun. It was at a bar that I'd never been to, and it had a real stage and everything. Al was up there on acoustic while his friend played a hand drum. After a while, Al moved to the hand drum and Rider took over on the acoustic. I got some adorably bromantic video of the two of them doing Alice in Chains and George Michael songs, harmonizing and everything. I stayed off the stage and didn't even bring my bass out of the car. Thankfully everyone was far more interested in Rider than in me, since he has the musical reputation.

It was really good to see Allie, even if it was only for a short while. She sneaked away from work for like an hour to come out to the celebration. Apparently she has been working the same kinds of crazy hours as I have. No wonder Rider didn't get to see any of her while I was gone. She said her work schedule will calm down in two weeks or so and invited Rider and me to spend the night at her place once that happens. We've never actually been to her place—she lives with family, so she has always come to us. I was a bit surprised at the invite, but pleased. I am going to miss her hardcore once we move.

While at the bar, I was approached by a photographer who liked my colored hair and wants to take some pictures with me. He showed me some photos he took of a couple of the other girls present (people peripherally in my friends group) and they looked pretty cool. I haven't done much modeling at all; what little I've done was for, like, friends' school projects. Somehow my photographer friends always WANT to shoot me, but we never end up getting it together. I know that will change when I get to Opposite Coast, since two of the friends who have been clamoring for it forever live there. Maybe if I shoot with this guy it'll be good practice. I honestly don't consider myself very photogenic. I think I do OK in person, but in photos I make a lot of derp faces. Maybe it just takes practice not to make derp faces, haha.

I inadvertently upset Rider a couple of times today and felt really bad about it. Both times were related to trips I might have to take for work in the future, and in both situations I was trying to joke and tease with him about whether he wanted to come along, but he took it very seriously. He wasn't quite being himself—usually he is very happy-go-lucky—and he later explained that it was a stressful day at work. I hate accidentally upsetting him, though. It's the worst feeling in the world.

Reina and Ramsey began their road trip today! They are starting on one part of our coast and traveling to our part in I think a week or so. I am eager to see them. We'll probably see more of them once we're living on the same side of the country as they are, but it'll be great to see them here. I would like to hook up with Reina again. She is completely awesome. Last time they were here (or was it the time before that?) Reina had negotiated permission to do strap-on with Rider, slightly outside of the OPP that she usually has with Ramsey. But then it fell through, and I'm not 100% sure if it was for the reason she gave (being overtired) or if Ramsey changed his mind. They have all been friends for a very long time, so I think if there were anyone Ramsey would trust, it'd be Rider. But I know everyone has their limits. At the very least, I hope to get some time with her, boys or no. Ramsey is super hot too, but I think he is SUPER mono—eyes for Reina alone. That is the word on the street, anyway.

I have been missing Jake lately. I guess because it is this time last year that I was going to visit him a lot and we were pretty deep in rekindled NRE. I would spend a lot more time with him if he didn't live a thousand miles away, soon to be closer to three thousand. Specifically, I miss holding his hands and kissing him. I know we'll always, always be connected, no matter the distance and time passed. We'll always have the same hometown and parents that live within a few miles of each other. We'll always have moments when our paths cross.

Moss is back with that ex-girl again. I think it's time #3 for them now. I suppose I'll meet her when I get to Opposite Coast. Crazy to think it's already been more than 7 months since the last time I saw him, right before he broke up with me. He's another one where we're stuck with each other till we die, haha. Time passes, other people come and go, things turn platonic then romantic then platonic again, but we'll always love each other. A lot of people think it's a weird thing that I have that relationship with my ex-husband. A lot of people seem to think you're supposed to dislike your ex-spouse. But we don't.

That's really one of the coolest things about poly, in my opinion—how people just get to be how they are with each other and be who they are to each other. There is no perfect category that most of my people fit in, in relation to me.

Moss is at once ex-husband, recent ex-boyfriend, current platonic friend, and lifetime love. Maybe one day sex will slip back in there again. Maybe it won't.

Jake is at once childhood crush, long-distance lover, pen pal, and exciting rediscovery. Sex usually doesn't work between us but we still somehow have great makeout chemistry. It is what it is.

Oona is my BFF and my soul sister. But we've had sex on and off, only sexually not romantically, since 2003. If we were capable of being committed lesbians, we likely would have been married a decade ago. Since we're not, we both always have male romantic partners while sharing with each other a bond that surpasses our bonds with anyone else.

Sam is somehow my fiancé's BFF but also my somewhere-on-the-line-between-FWB-and-lover. Our connection is opportunistic and waxes and wanes with each of our moods. Sometimes I want it to be more than it is. I am certain that sometimes he does too. But never at the same time. And that is OK.

Kelly was a metamour who I struggled with, then my friend, and—once—a sexual partner. My affection and attraction toward her has grown commensurate with our friendship, even as her sexual relationship with Rider ended and she pulled a little away from us. It is only recently that I would probably make out with her one on one. But the opportunity is over. It's all delicious and complicated.

I am really curious to meet all of the new people I am communicating with in my new city and seeing what interesting hodgepodge of connections I have with them. Relationships are so much richer and more interesting when they can just be what they are, with no need for expectations or labels or unidimensional statuses.
 
The news really knocked the wind out of me tonight. Hearing about people CELEBRATING those senseless deaths on Twitter made me feel like I just learned the meaning of the word "monster." Rider and Sam and I were playing music together in the guest house when the news hit, and Sam heard about it from his brother when he went into the main house to fetch something. Our festive, creative atmosphere quickly dissipated and I came close to tears a few times.

Sam saw how disturbed I was and held me for a long time. It's become clear that he isn't trying to hide anything from his brother. I was surprised at one poiint when he brought up to his brother how much their dad likes me and talked about the visit we'd had there last Christmas. And he has been holding on for a very long time when he hugs me. I am feeling super affectionate toward him in the face of his openness and also because he seemed to understand the gravity of my melancholy in a way that Rider kind of missed at first. It made me feel close to him. I might see how the situation might shake out to sleep with him tomorrow night. It was also really cute that in a group chat (the four of us and the brother's wife), I explained that I had to work through happy hour today but that I wouldn't be perturbed if the boys went without me, and Sam said "happy hour is never as happy without you, Reverie." I had a little squee.

Tonight I am in the guest house with Rider, tapping this out on my phone while Rider cuddles me and snores. I feel so lucky that we are gathered here and that we are safe. It feels good to have a sense of tribe when tragedy strikes. Rider, Sam, and Sam's brother have long been a tribe, and I feel accepted as one of them. I even took Sam's brother with me to the grocery store earlier, just us, which gave us some time to joke around together and make things less awkward.

In the morning, I am going to make breakfast while the boys watch football, then get a little work done. Hopefully I will finish my work in time to cuddle boys for a while. It's always so heavenly when I get to be next to both of them. I think it's weighing a little on each of us that our days are numbered unless Sam really does also eventually head to Opposite Coast. We have two more visits planned after this one, including Sam's house being our jumpoff point for the big move.

On a positive note, I was making some serious progress learning bass before we lost our music mojo. And I can still somehow remember the bit of drums I practice only sporadically when I visit here. I haven't even been missing drinking, either, thanks to canned sparkling water. It's just as satisfying as beer when I feel like I need something flavorful in my hand. And less fattening!
 
The rest of my time in College Town was good. I didn't end up getting an opportunity to sleep with Sam at all (in the literal or figurative sense) but we did get a bunch more good cuddles in.

Saturday we all pitched in and did some yard work. I get some kind of sick delight at trimming vines; I don't know what it is. I'm basically a worker robot when someone has a yard chore for me—they identify an enemy and I act as a plant-seeking missile to vanquish it. :p

Once the yardwork was done, we went on an errand run to get some groceries. Sam was very cute in his reaching out for me to put an arm around while we walked through the store at one point. When we got back, I cooked some Indian food while the boys made good use of the newly tended yard to build a fire out back. Some friends of Sam's came by, and Rider and I did some songs by the fire. At one point, clumsy beast that I am, I tripped in the dark and busted my lip open. So then I had a fat, bloody lip for the rest of the night. It didn't hurt very much, just looked kinda stupid.

At the end of the night, I was going to try to work it out so that I could go to bed with Sam, but Rider ended up beginning to fall asleep on the couch that Sam's brother was supposed to sleep on, instead of in the guest house where he was supposed to sleep, and I could tell that I wasn't going to get him into the guest house without escorting him. I also knew that once we were down there, he'd want me to play with HIM, and that Sam would probably fall asleep in the meantime. I made a game-time decision that it would be best just to leave the matter alone and "default" to being with Rider. I wasn't 100% happy about it, but I was tired (and kind of cold) and I just felt too lazy to stir things up at that moment. I also didn't know how worth it it would even be, which I will explain in a bit.

Yesterday, I woke up with a headache, despite not drinking. That has been happening sometimes lately, and I am really not sure why. I am wondering if maybe I have finally acquired a caffeine addiction. But coffee didn't seem to help it, so I don't know. We all watched some movies and nibbled on snacks. Again, Sam pulled me in to cuddle him as I walked by the tall bar-style chair he was sitting in on my way back from grabbing a drink. We stayed like that for a long while, until the movie ended. It was very nice being so close to him, and again my attraction to him flared.

We all went out to dinner, and my day-long headache was beginning to wear on me. I guess I was being less chipper than usual, because Sam asked me over dinner if I was OK, and I explained that I still had a headache, and he said he'd take me to get some Advil on the way home. I was struck by how close attention he must have been paying to me to notice that something was wrong, and how partner-like he'd been behaving all weekend. The wheels were turning in my head.

So, to explain what I meant by whether it would be "worth it" to stir things up in order to sleep with Sam, it is this: Sam has an issue with condoms. He is not opposed to them, in theory, and he won't refuse to use them, but it's impossible for him to get off while wearing one. We've tried male condoms, both regular and large, and we've tried female condoms, but neither has worked. He doesn't lose his erection, and *I* am usually able to get off, but I feel bad that he doesn't.

For a while, we solved this problem by fluid bonding, because I wasn't fluid bonded to Rider yet, and I saw Sam so sporadically that there was plenty of time for testing in between. Rider and I both trusted Sam to a very great degree. This worked for us; Sam didn't have any problem sexually without the condoms.

But then, two changes happened: 1) Rider and I fluid bonded, which lengthened the chain by a link, and 2) I got to know Sam better and I noticed that he has a habit of getting so drunk sometimes on weekend nights that he doesn't really remember things. I supposed that he could get so drunk that he might not remember having sex with someone, and knowing that he has a condom problem with me suggests that he probably does with others as well, especially when drunk, and so the temptation to go without when inhibitions are lowered is probably high. I decided that I no longer wanted to take that risk with him.

Since then, the only way I've been able to get him off is through very vigorous, gag-me level blowjobs. Which is NOT the kind I usually give, and which I generally find to be pretty unpleasant. (Not to mention that would have been impossible for me Saturday night with my busted lip.) So I felt like we were, in general, kind of at a sexual impasse—not super compatible in that way, maybe, though our attraction was obviously strong. Before this weekend, I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that that facet of our connection would drop way down. But then...

He's been doing all that questioning about poly, and he's been being the way he was this past weekend, so attentive and affectionate. It makes me really want to open up the sexual side of things again more. So what I did was initiate a conversation with Rider on the way home. I told Rider that I was thinking about fluid bonding with Sam again IF AND ONLY IF he were willing to get tested beforehand. It would basically be like he would get tested before the next time he comes to visit, or actually ON his next visit, and then we'd be free to fluid bond again after he gets his results, whether it be next visit (if he gets tested before) or when we stop at his house on the way out of town (if he gets tested on his next visit). I'd present Sam with that option, and he'd be free to decide whether it was worth it to abstain from random drunk sex in the interim between testing and seven weeks from now when I leave the state. I do trust him enough to believe that if he made up his mind about that, he would stick to it, drunk or not. Rider said he didn't mind as long as testing happened. He said it was really up to me.

He did, however, manage to throw something in there about being most interested that HE AND I reconnect sexually, before he really wants to think much about my being with someone else. It's true that we've had less sex during my stretch of work-busyness. It hasn't bothered me, since stress and exhaustion kill my libido, but it apparently has bothered him. I told him that now that my libido is ramping back up again, that won't be a problem—there's no occasion where I'd NOT have sex with Rider because I had sex with Sam. Indeed, I have often gone straight from one bed to the other and found it super hot. Rider conceded that that was true. But his bringing that up did make me wonder if Saturday night wasn't an intentional cock-block, especially since I had already mentioned to Rider the previous night that I wanted to see if I could make time to be with Sam some that weekend. Either way, as I said, it didn't really matter, since the condom situation would still have gotten in the way. I was willing to let that one drop.

(continued...)
 
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(...continued from previous)

During that 3.5-hour drive home, Rider and I talked not only about where things were with Sam, but also about a whole host of other things, some poly-related and some not.

We talked about how far we have come in the past almost-two years—how we were basically babies in a poly sense at the beginning, and we have both grown a lot. He had spent more time actually in a quasi-poly relationship at that point, but it was more like DADT, which does not confer NEARLY the same amount of communication experience as what I think of as "true poly" where partners are informed of each other. I had a lot more background knowledge than he did, from reading books and this forum and being a longtime listener of Dan Savage's podcast, which often featured poly callers, but I had less "boots on the ground" experience, so my understanding was all academic and very little out of experience of actually working through stuff.

I was talking about how eager I am to start dating more poly-experienced people when we get to Opposite Coast. So far, with the exception of Jake (on my end) and Kelly (on Rider's end), most of our other partners have been more mono-centered and with very little experience with poly. They have ranged in experience from Allie, who has been a threesome unicorn a bunch but not ever in a real poly RELATIONSHIP, all the way down the line to Beckett, who found poly to be super strange and undesirable but was willing to date a poly person casually up until he got a chance at monogamy with someone he liked. In this way, a lot of our connections have been kind of the blind leading the blind, and we have tripped a goodly number of times because of this. We’ve learned a lot in the course of all of this stumbling around, though. I’m excited to see how smoothly things might go once we start dating other people who are also emerging from or long-since emerged from their stumbling stage.

We also talked about the effects that some of my recently acquired new perspectives have had on my attitudes toward people, connecting, and relationships in general. We specifically discussed how I have been making a conscious effort to let go of preconceived notions that I might get about people before getting to know them, and also how I have started looking at connections as falling upon a much more gradated spectrum between platonic to sexual to romantic, and how, importantly, it is not necessary to label or decide what each connection needs to be or to try to steer it. I can choose anew every single time I interact with someone what my relationship to them will be on my end. And they can choose the same about me.

I had thought awhile about this concept, wondering if it was selfish to feel like I was never obligated to be anything to anyone—like I had no duty to be dependable to be a certain way. In the end, I decided that as long as I let people know that that is what I’m about, then it is not cruel or “using” people or anything like that. On the contrary, I think it is pretty realistic to acknowledge that most things are possible in most situations, and this includes levels of intimacy that shift like the sands sometimes.

To elaborate further on this idea, I have known people who I had instant lightning-strike chemistry with. And I have known people who I had been platonic friends with for five years before an attraction ever grew. And I have known people who I have been close to for fifteen years and have never felt anything other than platonic for. And I have known people who I madly lusted after until a single ill-timed phrase on their end made me suddenly lose all feeling for them. And I have believed myself to be deeply in love, but have fallen out of love slowly over time. And I have fallen back in, even more slowly, with the same person.

And that was only on my end. A similar range of possibilities exists on the other person’s end in every single connection that I make. Those two dice being tossed together can turn up a different combination every time two people hang out.

Add to all of that the fact that I am realizing that my libido is…I’m not sure what the right phrase for it would be…maybe “easily spooked”? It’s like my brain makes a cost/benefit analysis about having sex, and there are a lot of situations where it doesn’t shake out in sex’s favor. If I’m tired, I favor sleep. If I’m busy, I favor getting shit done so I can rest later. If sex seems like it will be a lot of work with a particular person, I start to lose sexual interest in them overall. If I feel like someone maybe feels weird about my body or about what my needs are (mostly getting on top at some point to get off), I tend to want to lazily default to the comfy, good sex I know I can get at home. But at the same time, too much comfort and a lack of variety can also kill my drive—new partners usually boost it a bit. It just seems like, for me, sex is not a very strong underlying drive, and what I do have of it is very person- and situation-specific.

And so I want to make that clear to people at the beginning—that I don’t ever know “where this is going” in a sexual or romantic sense, but that I can tell them where I am at any given moment, and where it looks like I *want* to go from that point AT THAT POINT. I may want to make out with someone one day, and then go back to just being platonic friends. Or I may want to keep making out with them until I die. There are forward AND backward movements on that continuum, and no movement is bad, as long as we can agree on it. They can choose if it is worth it TO THEM to continue down whichever path we are on at the time. I want to connect with people who are OK with that—who like me the way I am in my ever-in-flux state. I understand that this will be uncomfortable for some people; indeed, not very long ago at all, I used to be among those people who would be made uncomfortable by a perpetual state of not knowing what the other person would ideally want down the road. Something in me has changed there.

I think part of it may be due to the fact that I have recognized that I wake up every day and CHOOSE Rider, because I love him so much that it feels like his soul belongs next to mine—nothing else makes sense. That I feel that way about him—that I have that feeling of certainty about him, and that it took so long to get exactly there—made me understand that it DOESN’T make a great deal of sense to think that I know where anything else is going with anyone else…until I get there. If a new person eventually ends up being a life-partner caliber person to me, we’ll know it when we get there. There is no amount of prognostication or planning that will make it so. Things will just be what they are, until they aren’t anymore. Or until they still are.

I have no obligation to anyone other than those obligations that I have willingly given my word for. I have promised Rider that I will always tell him when my feelings or intentions toward a particular person shift in one direction or the other, for example. He can expect that of me. But aside from explicitly stated promises and willingly self-made obligations, I don’t think that anyone should ever “expect” anything from anyone. And it goes both ways—this is not just about me trying to wriggle out of what people might expect of me, but also my recognition that they have the same rights as well.

To illustrate both of these points, actually, there is this: I had told Beckett I would text him when I got back from all my travels. Because I said I would, even though I was pretty sure nothing would come of it, I did. Today I texted him explaining that I am back, telling him when I leave for good, and offering that my schedule was pretty open between now and then. In reply, he simply sent a smiley face. I had already decided never to poke into his life again after that text, unless he gave me some kind of signal that he wants me there. Since he never texts me first, I am pretty sure that that won’t happen. And it’s fine. The way that I feel about that whole thing is kind of a pleasant neutrality. I’m not at all bitter, I’m open to something but not counting on it (even if I’d definitely LIKE for it to occur), and while the addition of something more could add goodness to my life, its subtraction or absence can’t add negativity to my life. I think this is the place I would like to be with all of my relationships, and I’d like to attract people who are capable of this same thing on their end.

I wonder if it is truly possible: to find loves without attachment to an outcome and without expectation, and to find a level of self that allows only good to come in from outside, adding to my own good that I have made for myself, but never taking it away. It seems like something to strive for.
 
Hey Reverie

Just wanted to check that you're aware you can get the vast majority of STIs through oral sex too? A blow job isn't such a great fall back after you've had a bout of chlamydia in your gums... and that's a comparatively easy fix.

And I'm just like you on the cost/benefit analysis thing hehe. Sleep wins a lot.

Welcome back, I always like catching up on your news and insights.

Arohanui, Evie
 
I just came here to squee over the hot, kinky sex I just had with Rider. It had been too long since we'd done that. Afterward, we were just lying there looking into each other's eyes and I was so flooded with loving everything about him.

There is this feeling that I've always gotten when I look at him, even when we were just friends. It feels like I can see him at every age if I stare long enough—I can see a child in his eyes, but at the same time, I can see the old man that he'll become, springing into being around the edges of him. It's a feeling of eternity and time travel, like we've always known each other and always will, even though that's not really true. We didn't meet until I was 31 and he was 36.

But his eyes speak to me of both innocence and wisdom, of past and future, even as they enrapture me so completely that all I am capable of experiencing is the "now," moment to moment.

I was thinking about something this morning. Rider talks about a couple of different eras of his life like they were the "good old days." There was the time during the '90s that he spent living with Sam and their other friends in that big, old house in College Town. And there was a period of time about 7–10 years ago when he was achieving a real sort of local success as a musician, gracing the cover of the weekly alt newspaper more than once, his name familiar to the ears of the residents and his gigs always paid. He was also a fixture on the fetish scene then, known and beloved by all the scenesters. Both of those time periods were very special to him for different reasons.

And yet.

Ever since we started hanging out, he's been telling me that the time we've had together has been his favorite time of all—that the two years we've spent in each other's company have been his pinnacle years so far, and that he thinks next year will be even better. That means so much to me.

And on top of all of that, he brought me flowers for no reason tonight! I am such a lucky girl. <3
 
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Evie said:
Hey Reverie

Just wanted to check that you're aware you can get the vast majority of STIs through oral sex too? A blow job isn't such a great fall back after you've had a bout of chlamydia in your gums... and that's a comparatively easy fix.

And I'm just like you on the cost/benefit analysis thing hehe. Sleep wins a lot.

Welcome back, I always like catching up on your news and insights.

Arohanui, Evie
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Hi, Evie. Yes, I know that it is not a risk-free activity, but I feel like my rate of testing (the clinic I go to does oral testing) and the fact that it's harder to transmit a disease to my other partners if I were to catch something orally makes it a more appealing choice if it is between that and not being able to bring my partner to orgasm at all.

Adding to that that I'm probably being kind of hyper-cautious with Sam to begin with—I really don't think he picks people up very often, if at all (he's pretty quiet and reserved, and one time, when I asked, he said I was the last person he'd been with though months had passed)—and I feel like I'm probably in the clear. It might be different if it was someone I knew less about or knew to be more promiscuous; I've been just trying to be on the safer side, given his memory holes sometimes. Very rare indeed is the case where this would be an early-date activity for me.

I think that, like with anything, a certain amount of calculated risk is worth a big enough reward, and for me, personally, this is one of those things. Everyone's mileage may vary, though, and thanks for the info. I know that there are a lot of people who AREN'T necessarily well informed, and more knowledge is always a good thing!
 
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Reverie said:
(...continued from previous)

During that 3.5-hour drive home, Rider and I talked not only about where things were with Sam, but also about a whole host of other things, some poly-related and some not.

We talked about how far we have come in the past almost-two years—how we were basically babies in a poly sense at the beginning, and we have both grown a lot. He had spent more time actually in a quasi-poly relationship at that point, but it was more like DADT, which does not confer NEARLY the same amount of communication experience as what I think of as "true poly" where partners are informed of each other. I had a lot more background knowledge than he did, from reading books and this forum and being a longtime listener of Dan Savage's podcast, which often featured poly callers, but I had less "boots on the ground" experience, so my understanding was all academic and very little out of experience of actually working through stuff.

I was talking about how eager I am to start dating more poly-experienced people when we get to Opposite Coast. So far, with the exception of Jake (on my end) and Kelly (on Rider's end), most of our other partners have been more mono-centered and with very little experience with poly. They have ranged in experience from Allie, who has been a threesome unicorn a bunch but not ever in a real poly RELATIONSHIP, all the way down the line to Beckett, who found poly to be super strange and undesirable but was willing to date a poly person casually up until he got a chance at monogamy with someone he liked. In this way, a lot of our connections have been kind of the blind leading the blind, and we have tripped a goodly number of times because of this. We’ve learned a lot in the course of all of this stumbling around, though. I’m excited to see how smoothly things might go once we start dating other people who are also emerging from or long-since emerged from their stumbling stage.

We also talked about the effects that some of my recently acquired new perspectives have had on my attitudes toward people, connecting, and relationships in general. We specifically discussed how I have been making a conscious effort to let go of preconceived notions that I might get about people before getting to know them, and also how I have started looking at connections as falling upon a much more gradated spectrum between platonic to sexual to romantic, and how, importantly, it is not necessary to label or decide what each connection needs to be or to try to steer it. I can choose anew every single time I interact with someone what my relationship to them will be on my end. And they can choose the same about me.

I had thought awhile about this concept, wondering if it was selfish to feel like I was never obligated to be anything to anyone—like I had no duty to be dependable to be a certain way. In the end, I decided that as long as I let people know that that is what I’m about, then it is not cruel or “using” people or anything like that. On the contrary, I think it is pretty realistic to acknowledge that most things are possible in most situations, and this includes levels of intimacy that shift like the sands sometimes.

To elaborate further on this idea, I have known people who I had instant lightning-strike chemistry with. And I have known people who I had been platonic friends with for five years before an attraction ever grew. And I have known people who I have been close to for fifteen years and have never felt anything other than platonic for. And I have known people who I madly lusted after until a single ill-timed phrase on their end made me suddenly lose all feeling for them. And I have believed myself to be deeply in love, but have fallen out of love slowly over time. And I have fallen back in, even more slowly, with the same person.

And that was only on my end. A similar range of possibilities exists on the other person’s end in every single connection that I make. Those two dice being tossed together can turn up a different combination every time two people hang out.

Add to all of that the fact that I am realizing that my libido is…I’m not sure what the right phrase for it would be…maybe “easily spooked”? It’s like my brain makes a cost/benefit analysis about having sex, and there are a lot of situations where it doesn’t shake out in sex’s favor. If I’m tired, I favor sleep. If I’m busy, I favor getting shit done so I can rest later. If sex seems like it will be a lot of work with a particular person, I start to lose sexual interest in them overall. If I feel like someone maybe feels weird about my body or about what my needs are (mostly getting on top at some point to get off), I tend to want to lazily default to the comfy, good sex I know I can get at home. But at the same time, too much comfort and a lack of variety can also kill my drive—new partners usually boost it a bit. It just seems like, for me, sex is not a very strong underlying drive, and what I do have of it is very person- and situation-specific.

And so I want to make that clear to people at the beginning—that I don’t ever know “where this is going” in a sexual or romantic sense, but that I can tell them where I am at any given moment, and where it looks like I *want* to go from that point AT THAT POINT. I may want to make out with someone one day, and then go back to just being platonic friends. Or I may want to keep making out with them until I die. There are forward AND backward movements on that continuum, and no movement is bad, as long as we can agree on it. They can choose if it is worth it TO THEM to continue down whichever path we are on at the time. I want to connect with people who are OK with that—who like me the way I am in my ever-in-flux state. I understand that this will be uncomfortable for some people; indeed, not very long ago at all, I used to be among those people who would be made uncomfortable by a perpetual state of not knowing what the other person would ideally want down the road. Something in me has changed there.

I think part of it may be due to the fact that I have recognized that I wake up every day and CHOOSE Rider, because I love him so much that it feels like his soul belongs next to mine—nothing else makes sense. That I feel that way about him—that I have that feeling of certainty about him, and that it took so long to get exactly there—made me understand that it DOESN’T make a great deal of sense to think that I know where anything else is going with anyone else…until I get there. If a new person eventually ends up being a life-partner caliber person to me, we’ll know it when we get there. There is no amount of prognostication or planning that will make it so. Things will just be what they are, until they aren’t anymore. Or until they still are.

I have no obligation to anyone other than those obligations that I have willingly given my word for. I have promised Rider that I will always tell him when my feelings or intentions toward a particular person shift in one direction or the other, for example. He can expect that of me. But aside from explicitly stated promises and willingly self-made obligations, I don’t think that anyone should ever “expect” anything from anyone. And it goes both ways—this is not just about me trying to wriggle out of what people might expect of me, but also my recognition that they have the same rights as well.

To illustrate both of these points, actually, there is this: I had told Beckett I would text him when I got back from all my travels. Because I said I would, even though I was pretty sure nothing would come of it, I did. Today I texted him explaining that I am back, telling him when I leave for good, and offering that my schedule was pretty open between now and then. In reply, he simply sent a smiley face. I had already decided never to poke into his life again after that text, unless he gave me some kind of signal that he wants me there. Since he never texts me first, I am pretty sure that that won’t happen. And it’s fine. The way that I feel about that whole thing is kind of a pleasant neutrality. I’m not at all bitter, I’m open to something but not counting on it (even if I’d definitely LIKE for it to occur), and while the addition of something more could add goodness to my life, its subtraction or absence can’t add negativity to my life. I think this is the place I would like to be with all of my relationships, and I’d like to attract people who are capable of this same thing on their end.

I wonder if it is truly possible: to find loves without attachment to an outcome and without expectation, and to find a level of self that allows only good to come in from outside, adding to my own good that I have made for myself, but never taking it away. It seems like something to strive for.
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This post was so powerful to me. It also is very true of where I am at in my life right now, I am struggling a lot with love without attachment. It's so hard to do and to find. And yes there is an element with poly of doing it and being new, and moving through all the different stages from unicorn, to solo poly, to couple centric privledge, to people who are poly friendly, or poly curious but not as committed to being poly. I find myself swinging all over the place with all these things. Your words give me hope and clarity on things very relevant for me now, except I haven't really found someone to go along with me with it, I wish my relationship with rocky was like yours and rider. You seem very compatible with each other, and I desire that level of commitment, because there does seem quite a bit attachment between you both. :) it s obvious in your writing how much you love each other.
 
starlight1 said:
This post was so powerful to me. It also is very true of where I am at in my life right now, I am struggling a lot with love without attachment. It's so hard to do and to find. And yes there is an element with poly of doing it and being new, and moving through all the different stages from unicorn, to solo poly, to couple centric privledge, to people who are poly friendly, or poly curious but not as committed to being poly. I find myself swinging all over the place with all these things. Your words give me hope and clarity on things very relevant for me now, except I haven't really found someone to go along with me with it, I wish my relationship with rocky was like yours and rider. You seem very compatible with each other, and I desire that level of commitment, because there does seem quite a bit attachment between you both. :) it s obvious in your writing how much you love each other.
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I'm glad you liked the post and that it resonated for you. Thinking about your response here gave me more to say on the topic.

It's true that Rider and I love each other very much and are very compatible. We are definitely committed to each other, as well. I know that we will always be in each other's lives in some capacity, because I know his heart, and he is the kind of person who loves lifelong no matter the circumstances. This is one of the main reasons I want to marry him.

Importantly, this does not exempt him from the possibility of being on that same ever-changing continuum that everyone else is on. I recognize that there may be some times when our sexual/romantic flame burns brighter and some times when it burns dimmer. I recognize that companionate marriages are a thing, and while I find the possibility rather remote that we might end up in that place, since we are so attracted to each other, I also feel reassured that—since our connection was born in friendship—it can likely handle making stops there again along our lifelong path, if that is where we find ourselves.

As for attachment to each other, at least on my end, that is something that is evolving. Lately, I feel much less needy than I have historically felt in relationships, and like I am floating in a space between attached and detached, emotionally, if that makes any sense. It feels like a space of comfortable self-containment—separate from being actually attached, but still somehow not in any way distant. It is close proximity, rather than attachment.

I'm not sure how much of that comes from finding a level of love that is now beyond NRE, how much comes from my having been in therapy for a while now, or how much comes from my own naturally occurring growth and internal sea changes, but it feels good, this lack of attachment. It feels like I have an inner stability that is all my own, so it will be much harder for anyone to rock my boat, even the person who is closest to me.

Of course, I am choosing to be financially and legally attached to him in marriage, still. Because I believe it has benefits that I would like to reap, and I trust him more than I trust any other person.

But I really feel like I am discovering that emotional attachment is unnecessary and maybe even harmful. Love, affinity, a desire to be near someone? All good. But attachment...I think attachment might be wrapped up somehow in looking for fulfillment in others that is better searched for and discovered in oneself.

I don't really know. I am still working all of this out, and this may be a wrong-turn spur on a very long road of discovery. But right now, this idea is at once piquing my curiosity and also bringing me a kind of peace. :)
 
Hmm. Some red tape appears to be getting in the way of the job transfer that Rider was hoping to get. The higher ups in the other location think that they want to wait until after the new year to hire someone after all (presumably for yearly budget reasons of some kind), but that would take Rider out of the running, since his buyout goes into effect on December 23, and once it has gone through, part of the deal is that the same company can't re-hire him again.

He's going to talk to his boss to see if there are any other possible options, but so far, it is looking like he'll be job hunting once he gets there after all. Which we had originally planned on, so it's not a huge deal, and we'll have the extra money from the buyout and from his unemployment coming in—that's more than we expected before the buyout offer happened.

Oona says that there is a chance that her company may be hiring in a few months, so that's another possible avenue, but I guess he'll start job hunting immediately upon arrival. And I guess we're back to the plan of finding a little one-bedroom in a cheap area for our landing spot.

I know it'll all be fine. I'm on track to be ahead of my savings goal, and I think he is right about on course. I still have the generous moving package coming from my employer. And we've decided to do the move on the extra-cheap, chucking all of our stuff except what will fit in a U-Haul trailer that I can pull behind my little hatchback and replacing the rest of our necessities with the money from the moving package.

We may not have much for those first few months, but we'll have a start on a new life! And each other. And that will be enough.
 
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What the...

So a date flub somewhere up the chain of command caused the OFFICIAL date for Rider's last day on the buyout paperwork to be listed as January 29, instead of December 23, which he had discussed with his boss. Basically, this means that unless he can change something, he must work through that day to get the buyout money and the unemployment. Importantly, that is a whole month after we are supposed to be leaving.

So this can possibly go a few ways, which I will list from best to worst:

1) Rider's boss can arrange it so that he can work remotely for that last month, so he will have an extra month of income and still be eligible for the transfer, since the prospective new department won't be hiring until after the new year. This eliminates the problem discussed in my last post.

2) Rider's boss can try to correct the date on the paperwork. Unknown if it is possible to actually do at this point. This will eliminate the chance of transfer but at least we will know what we are dealing with and it is our old "plan B" already.

3) The date can't be moved and he can't work remotely, so I will have to rearrange EVERYTHING so that we move at staggered times in order for him to continue to work on site through the date he needs to so he can still qualify for the buyout. This wil be very complicated and stressful.

Also, my cat is being a bastard this week. She's usually the best cat in the world, but this week, she is peeing on things, scratching me for no reason, knocking vases over and breaking them (more than once!), etc. I think she is mad that I was gone so much the past few months and is punishing me now that I am home.

I feel pretty zen about everything, I guess, even with stuff flying at me from multiple directions. I know we'll make it through.

I had my last appointment with my therapist today, and he said I seem like I am in a really good place with everything. I definitely FEEL a shit-ton more at peace than I did three and a half months ago when I started going. I feel like I have a whole new perspective on the world, and on myself, than I did before—than I even thought was possible, really.

On the bright side of everything, I found out yesterday that it will be Friday when Reina and Ramsey will be getting to town. I can't wait to put my face on Reina's face. :) I had already planned to (finally) dye the roots of my hair tomorrow—so long overdue!—so I should be looking pretty cute for her. Not sure which day this weekend we'll see them, but I'm excited that it'll be soon!
 
There have been several interesting turns of events.

Firstly, Rider DID get the consent from his bosses to work remotely for the month of January. He will have to use his four allowed personal days as our travel days, and will not have any days off the week of NYE except for NYD proper, so we will leave for Sam's after Rider gets off on NYE, and stay only until Saturday morning. Then we will arrive in Opposite Coast City on Thursday, 1/7, and Rider will work remotely from Oona's place that Friday while we get our internet set up and the whatnot.

So, this is an even better situation than we had hoped for! Rider gets to have a guaranteed income through the end of January, plus his continuing to work for his company means that he will still be eligible to be considered for the transfer, when the potential new department makes their decision. He could even interview in person! If he does NOT get the transfer, we will still have his severance and unemployment to tide us through about mid-year while he looks for work.

In terms of where we will live, I think we should still look for a place with the idea in mind that he might get the transfer. We will just have to get a one-bedroom rather than a two-bedroom, and try to secure a six-month lease in case he doesn't get the transfer and doesn't find work. That way, we can move to a bigger place if he does find work, or a cheaper area if he doesn't.

The second big news is that Sam told Rider today that he thinks he is going to quit his job and come on the road trip with us! Not a full-on move (not yet, at least), but it would mean he would get to experience the fun of the road trip with us. He also said he would likely hang out with us for a while once we get there, and then leave a vehicle with Rider for a while, so that we would not be down to one vehicle when we get there. (Sam has three vehicles, two of which usually just sit in his driveway untouched.) He would then fly to see his brother, since his brother also lives on Opposite Coast. None of this is definite yet...but I am pretty excited, nevertheless.

The third thing that happened was that Reina and Ramsey showed up a day earlier, so Rider and I ended up going out with them last night. I was really happy to see them, and I did have fun, but at the same time, things were a little strange. Reina got really drunk, and in her drunkenness, she was saying a bunch of things that seemed really strangely shallow to me.

One example is that she was talking about how Rider had the videochat party on his birthday weekend for all of the people who were out of town, and she and Ramsey ended up talking to Sam's brother and his brother's wife for a couple of hours after everyone else left the chat and "it was surprising because they aren't even hot." I was left wondering what being "hot" had at all to do with being interesting to talk to over videochat. :confused:

Another example is that she was talking about how it is cute to see Rider and me be lovey-dovey because we are both very attractive. And she said she knows people like it when she and Ramsey are lovey-dovey too, for the same reason. "People like it because we are hot!" she said. "People who AREN'T hot...no one wants to see that!" Then she mentioned by name a couple of our friends who are overweight and less conventionally attractive. And I just thought that was kind of mean.

And so I was just sitting there wondering if she has been that way all along and I just haven't noticed because I was being shallow and judgmental too, or if she was just being kind of an ass because she was drunk, or what. Whatever it was, it made me feel a little uneasy. She was still being super nice to ME. But was it all just because she likes the way that I look? I don't think I should judge her on one occasion of bad behavior—I know that I haven't been perfect in my life and would be sad if a friend held one night of intoxicated gum-flapping against me for all time—but thoughts are rolling around in my head.

All in all, the good of the night outweighed the bad, though. I sat on Reina's lap and we flirted, and she flirted hard with Rider, too. She made Ramsey put his hand on my butt, haha. As far as I know, they still have a OPP going, and Ramsey is still mono as hell, but he seemed like he didn't mind any of it. He is very go-along and good-natured, which makes sense, given Reina's strong personality.

And the fourth thing that happened was that I sort of told someone off today. Brandon was a guy that I saw briefly last year during the late summer and early fall, and he was always sketchy and flaky as hell, and then I discovered that he was almost certainly cheating on someone. It's a long story, detailed earlier in my blog, but what came of it at the end was that I basically told him that I didn't appreciate his initiating sexual and flirtatious conversations with me when he was supposed to be being mono with someone else, and when he said he still wanted to be friends then, I basically kept him as a FB friend but did a fade, only responding minimally when he would message me.

A few weeks ago, I did a FB housecleaning, deleting people who I didn't think there was much chance of my interacting with ever again. I honestly didn't think he'd notice. But today he tried to re-friend me and basically sent me a message asking why I deleted him and saying that he liked me a whole lot and we should hang out and blah blah blah. I tried to answer him politely and vaguely, not wanting to get into the particulars, but he kept pushing. Finally he had the audacity to ask ME if I'd used HIM for sex, since I hadn't wanted to keep up the friendship. As if! I wrote him a very particularly worded diatribe about how it was his ethics that I had a problem with, and that he was really grasping at straws if he thinks that I used him for sex.

I told him in no uncertain terms that I believed his girlfriend would be very unhappy to know the things he's said to me while they've been together, not that I'd ever get involved in unmasking his deceit because it's none of my business. I said it was despicable that he had said to me (last year) that maybe he wouldn't have "settled for her" if I'd still continued to see him, and that I couldn't respect anyone who would talk about their romantic partner like that in a misguided effort to compliment me. And I told him that I'd been TRYING to be polite in avoiding telling him all of this because I knew the way that he conducted his life was none of my business, but if he insisted on pushing me, grilling me, and even making accusations that I had been the unethical one, I would give him the answers he seemed so badly to desire.

I didn't even go into all of the evidence I had that I was pretty sure he'd been seeing her all along and just cheating with me. I figured I'd stick to the things that he knew that I knew.

So, yeah, that happened. Ugh. It felt kind of good to finally tell him off, I guess, even though I was hoping it would never have to happen. It's pretty rare that I have a valid reason for saying directly to someone the ways in which I find them despicable, but he was really asking for it. The really weird thing is that I had just mentioned him to Oona the previous day—mentioning how he had lied about his height on OKC when we were discussing some related topic. Another case of "speak of the devil"!

Tonight Rider is going to go to an art show with Anna and Laura while I stay home and get some work done. He's been trying to hang out with Anna since she and I moved out of our last apartment but their schedules kept not lining up. And Laura is along unexpectedly. I know Rider has a giant crush on Laura. She is pretty freaking cute, if I do say so (and I did share a three-way kiss with her and Aurora before that was hot as hell). She's a very talented painter and a lot of fun, from what I have seen. I bet he would be pretty happy to forge a closer friendship (and possibly more) with her in our remaining weeks. I'm curious to hear what ends up happening tonight.
 
Friday night, I ended up finishing my work right around the time that Rider messaged me asking if I wanted to come to Laura's place after the art show. Aurora had talked up her place a lot, saying it was one of the coolest apartments ever, so I was curious. Anna's boyfriend, Laura, and Rider swung by to pick me up. Anna had already gone home because she had to work in the morning, and also because sometimes gets jealous of the friendship between her boyfriend and Laura (at least, that's what Rider surmised).

So we went over to Laura's place and met a couple more of her friends there, one of whom I am acquainted with, and another who was new to me. Laura's apartment lived up to the hype: a crazy water view on two sides, some insanely cool furniture, and a mural all over the floor. She mentioned that a guy she was seeing had disparagingly nicknamed her a "trustafarian" and seeing her place, I can see why, though I still think it's kind of mean. That kind of location and luxury are not what one might normally expect from a dreadlocked painter hippie chick. Starving artist, she is not. I have no idea where she comes from or what her situation is, so I will judge her only on what she shows me of her personality.

We hung out there for a while, and I felt a little out of place. Rider was drunk, Laura and her two friends were blazed out of their minds, and Anna's boyfriend and I really haven't had many conversations longer than about twelve words on either side.

Laura went on at length about how she is turning 30 next year and how she has all these wrinkles now and is getting fat. She is NOT fat. Not anything close to it. And I guess maybe she is a little sun-worn for her age, in the hippie fashion, but it's not super noticeable and in no way do I look at her and think she looks old or ugly. She just looks like she's lived a full, adventurous life so far, with plenty of fun out in the sun! She's a cute little dreaded pixie with huge eyes and full, sensuous lips and devilish eyebrows and a flat, tanned stomach. She's adorable!

She asked me how old I am, and when I told her 34, she was just like, "Oh, I'll never look like you when I'm that old!" And I told her it's not even like that—we all look different and that's awesome. Life would be boring if we all looked the same. I'm not wrinkle-free, either, after all. After I said that, she moved on. I remember being on the cusp of 30 and worrying if I'd start to look old. It all seems so silly to me now. The 30s have been my best decade so far, and I can only imagine that the 40s are even better. The living I have done and the wisdom I have gained have EARNED me these wrinkles, lol. Do I do things to slow the advancement of my appearance-clock? Sure! But seeing someone else kind of wig out about it sort of made me see how silly it is if I ever stress about those things myself. It seems like every single situation I encounter is a learning experience these days.

Another thing that she did was that she THREW her cat at Rider. She had earlier been kind of bragging about how mellow her cat was that it never puts its claws out, and I guess her throwing it onto Rider when he was stretched out on one of her couches was her way of demonstrating that. While the cat did not put its claws out when it landed, it was perceptibly perturbed by having been tossed onto a stranger, and it seemed like a cruel, odd action. Rider didn't like having the cat thrown onto him, and the cat did not appear to have liked being thrown.

That's the thing about Laura that has had me on the fence about her each of the three times I've hung out with her: she is nice and talented and attractive, but she seems a bit crazy. It seems like she is willing to go to uncool lengths for attention or to prove a point. So I remain iffy about her. She's always nice to me, and she obviously knows how to have a good time—she'd probably be fantastic in bed—but my spidey senses just tell me there's something a little "off" there.

After Anna's boyfriend dropped Rider and me off, I asked Rider how things went with Laura, whether they had vibed or whatever. He was kind of like, "Ehhhh...I think she's attractive, and I think she thinks I'm attractive, so I guess that's a start." He said there was no especial flirtation between them though. I was a little disappointed for him, because I know he likes her, and a little relieved, because of the aforementioned spidey-sense thing.

When I woke up the next morning (yesterday morning), I was sick. I actually woke up a few times in the night because my throat was killing me, and I was having sick-nightmares all night about the Claire/Halloween thing and zombies. It surprised me because it's been almost a month since Claire's Halloween outburst, so it is old news. I told Rider about the dream and he said Claire used to have nightmares about me, too—that she once dreamed that he was trying to trick her into attending our wedding (long before we were even engaged). I dryly commented that she's about the last person who would be on that guest list at this point.

Rider went and watched football with our football friends and I stayed home, not wanting to be the angel of pestilence. Reina had moved the date of her next gathering to Tuesday instead of that night, so we didn't have to worry about begging off of those plans. I tried to answer some OKC messages but could barely keep my eyes open, so I gave up. When Rider got back, he cuddled up with me in my sick nest and we ordered Chinese in and watched episodes of Mad Men until we were ready to sleep.

Today was more sickness and more laziness. I had more nightmares; this time it was service-industry flashbacks. I hate having stress dreams about waiting tables, when I haven't done it since 2012. I wonder if they will always be with me.

I woke up really late and Rider cooked breakfast. We were supposed to go to an outdoor event, but between my sickness and the weather, we decided against it. The tickets weren't all that expensive, so it didn't chagrin me too much to waste them. Last night, I'd offered to Rider that he could take someone else if he wanted—Laura maybe—but he wasn't really interested and then the weather removed any question. Instead, we just vegged out doing indoor things. Rider had a serious squee watching footage on YouTube of his friend Jared performing on a television show. Then we watched a movie and played some music.

Rider taught me the bass parts for our originals, so eventually I will be singing AND playing bass on those at the same time. I just have to learn them separately and then get better at bass. LOL. We had talked about making our album in time to be Christmas presents, but I don't know if I can learn all 10 songs well enough by then. For an album, we'd lay the tracks separately, so no need to worry about multi-tasking for me.

Right now, Rider is having two of his wrestling buddies over. Normally, Pablo would come to something like this, but he has pretty much vanished. I guess he and Rider have maybe broken up? Pablo seems to be doing the fadeaway. Allie was supposed to come tonight, too, but I made Rider send out a warning that I'm sick to people so they can enter a their own risk, and Allie said she can't chance getting sick this week. It's just as well. I am not very social when I'm sick.

I'm hiding out in the bedroom on my laptop. I had a brief chat with Sam, offering him the proposition I'd discussed with Rider about testing so that we could fluid bond again. He said that sounded good to him. I'm pretty excited about the idea. It will make it a lot easier to take advantage of those little pockets of time that we find, and it'll also make it so that Sam can actually get off more often. Definitely after last weekend and how connected to him I felt, more sex with him is something that I want. Just thinking about it is turning me on a little, even through my sickness.

Because of him potentially coming on the road trip with us, my mind has also started dreaming up sexy possibilities of things happening in motel rooms. The first time Sam and I ever had sex, Rider was in the room watching, but since then, Sam has seemed to much prefer to take advantage of times that he and I were alone. I wonder if all staying in the same room over the course of nearly a week on the road trip will change that at all.

Tangentially relatedly, I wonder how Rider's family (dad and brother, who we are planning to see on the first night of the road trip) will react if we are open to them about the fact that I am also with Sam. Rider's dad knows that Rider is poly—he both hung out with Claire and met me for the first time, separately, on a visit last year—and he's cool with it, but I don't know if "cool with Rider being poly" necessarily equals "cool with Rider's fiancée being poly." I really have no intention of hiding unless Rider really wants me to. We haven't talked about it yet. Rider did say that he plans to hide from his dad the fact that he's bi, so there are certain aspects of his life that he prefers to keep under wraps. I just hope that marrying a slut isn't one of them. :rolleyes: :p

Whatever happens, it seems like this move and related transition are shaping up to be even more amazing than I had imagined. We're going to be in a better situation financially than I expected when I started planning, Rider has reconnected with his friend Jared (who we expect to live near) so he has even more of a social network in place for when we get there, and Sam might be coming out there with us for the trip part and to hang out for a bit at the beginning. I feel incredibly lucky!
 
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Ugh, I am STILL sick. I have been promising Rider an evening of "fancy" sex (dressing him up, strap-on, possibly some ropes) since Saturday, but I keep pushing it off due to not feeling well and really feeling like it would be a bad idea to even kiss him on the mouth. I suppose that tonight I will give it a try anyway, but without the kissing and with nothing done to me in return. Maybe I can work not kissing and remaining clothed into the game for an added element of hotness. I just feel bad continuing to postpone it when he has been looking forward to it so much.

Today I got Oona's confirmation that she will be willing to help with my apartment stuff on the other side if I need her to: picking up keys, doing a walkthrough, etc. And Rider heard from Allie that Allie might be interested in hanging out this weekend.

We have Thanksgiving plans with Ada at Ada's mom's place, and then Friday, I am supposed to have my trial run of reintroducing a mind-bending substance that I had sworn off five years ago—pretty much to the day, since my last catastrophe was Thanksgiving weekend 2010. Hopefully this stupid cold is gone by then, or it will ruin all of our plans. The plan had been for me to take it with Rider babysitting me, and then, if things go well, Sam will be coming down the following weekend to try it for the first time with Rider and me. It's kind of a rare thing to come by, but Aurora was able to hook me up before she left.

So I guess if we are to hang out with Allie, it will probably be Saturday night. We haven't had a threesome since I stopped drinking, and I am used to these encounters being pretty alcohol fueled. I hope everything is still as good as usual.

I have been wondering a little lately if my libido weirdness has—in addition to being tied to work stress-level and health—any connection to the lack of booze in my diet. I remember when it dipped the first time, and it was when I took a break for the two and a half weeks preceding our proposal trip. I don't know whether that is coincidence or not. I know that alcohol lowers inhibitions, and it is definitely true that I generally feel a little randier after a couple of cocktails or glasses of wine, but in general, I don't think I feel inhibited, per se. Just less interested.

Speaking of the whole booze thing, I think I am a little closer to making up my mind about whether I'm quitting permanently or not. Originally, I'd said I would quit until after my move, and at that point, I'd make the decision. I've been spending the time in the interim thinking about drinking habits, both mine and other people's, and observing behaviors, and thinking about things that I do and don't like about it.

I think that, before, I just defaulted to drinking whenever there was a social situation—kind of a social crutch to open me up and make me more personable rather than shy and reserved. But sometimes I would let it get the better of me and make me blind to the situation I was in, which would make me less personable. I think I have witnessed this state in other people since choosing to remain sober, and it has been varying levels of annoying depending on who it was and what they were saying or doing.

I've also been monitoring my own cravings. If alcohol is not necessarily a part of every day, or most days, when would I most likely choose for it to be a part of my life? So far, I have noticed that when I am sick, I would like to have a bourbon hot toddy. They are something that I am accustomed to, and I like the warm throat and the fuzzy feeling that helps banish some of the discomfort. I've noticed that occasionally I will have a craving for a particular flavor—like a neat scotch on the odd evening, or a margarita on the odd afternoon, or a nice glass of wine with dinner if I am out someplace. I might want to order a beer or a cocktail if I am at a social event at an alcohol-only brewery or bar. It stands to reason that these things should not necessarily be verboten, if they can be just a special treat when a craving comes, like how I will occasionally make a midnight run to a late-night diner for a slice of pie, but I'd never eat pie every day, or eat many slices in one sitting.

I've found that flavored sparkling water is often perfectly satisfying for those "just want to sip something flavorful" moments, like while playing music or watching sports. And I've found that it's really useful to NOT be drinking while out, because then I don't have to do the math to figure out whether or not I should be driving—it's a no-brainer and I just get in the car and go.

I've also really liked the lack of empty calories and the state of my bank account balance when I am not plunking down $10 for a four-pack of toffee-flavored beer and then drinking three of them in one night. Not that I did that EVERY night, but even once a week adds up. I am losing weight, slowly, and I have less of that puffy appearance about my belly and cheeks/chin that I seemed to get when I was drinking frequently. When Oona saw the pictures that Rider posted on FB from our recent visit to Sam's, she commented that I look noticeably thinner than I did in the pics from the last visit, which I think was in August sometime. Since I haven't had time to add much in in the way of exercise, I really can only give credit to the lack of drinking.

So I think that what I am going to do is to keep all of these things in mind and work out some sort of plan of moderation for myself, based on that saying: "All things in moderation, including moderation." This plan will default to not drinking, but if there is the rare particular occasion when I have a craving for something specific, or if I will be going out to an alcohol-centric social event, I can have one or two—not enough to make me sloppy and lose self-awareness, or gain back puffiness, or make my bank account sad, but to enjoy a luxury as I might enjoy a slice of pie. And once in a blue moon, when I am with only Rider and/or Oona, etc.—my closest friends who understand me—I might choose to overindulge for the fun of it.

I still think I am going to wait until after the move, though. I've considered allowing myself one last day here in town to hit up my favorite watering holes, and the idea just makes me feel kind of bleh and uninterested. I have great memories of all of those places already, and I don't need to add one more just for the sake of saying goodbye. Rider might could change my mind, if it's important to him. But probably not.

All that said, I still have five weeks until lift-off, and I guess it's possible that my attitudes could change in that time. Goodness knows, I have been changing my mind lately about an awful lot of stuff, sometimes on a dime.
 
Still sick. Actually somewhat worse than yesterday. :(

I was able to muster the energy to give Rider fun sexytimes last night, though. I put a full face of makeup on both of us, and dressed us both up in lingerie, including the cute new pink plaid garter skirt I bought him. I tied his arms to the bed and used a variety of toys on him, including our newest strapon. He loved it, and I was really turned on too, by the end.

But today I woke up feeling shittier again, so I am sitting out of tonight's activities. Rider is going to meet Reina and Ramsey and a bunch of their other old friends, mostly the married-with-kids set who live in the suburbs to the north, at a brewery up there for an early evening get-together. Rider's car has been acting up, so I told him just to take mine.

We confirmed Friday's plans with Allie, and she said she'd bring me a bottle of my favorite beer from the brewery where she works. I told her I am not currently drinking, but that I'd save it for later, and she said that was cool. That was a convenient way to get the "I'm not drinking Friday" info out of the way ahead of time, without anything being awkward in the moment. I told her I am currently still sick, but that I hope to be better by Friday, and she said that she is loading up on vitamins just in case.

Rider and I spent a chunk of today discussing financial things. He has transferred a bunch of his debt over to an introductory 0% card so that his payments will be lower in case he doesn't end up getting the job transfer or finding work right away. I looked into some lower-interest loans that I am eligible for transferring mine to. There are options.

To some degree, I feel like I am still digging myself out of the hole I jumped into when I left The Ex. I'd only lived alone once before, in a much cheaper city (and never while paying student loans back), and so when he and I broke up and I had to move into my own place, I relied more heavily on credit than I probably should have just to maintain some semblance of what my standard of living had been while partnered. Now I am reversing that trend and paying everything off again.

It's crazy how expensive life is. On the face of it, we do not live an extravagant lifestyle. We both drive small cars that are 18–25 years old and full of rust spots. We always live in small apartments in modest neighborhoods (though in expensive cities). I eat mostly vegetarian, especially at home. My laptop is five years old and when things break on it, I get it repaired instead of replaced. Rider uses an ancient desktop that still runs Windows XP. I currently don't have a commute, so I don't spend a lot on gas during the week, and Rider hunts down the cheapest gas station for his 30-minute commute. We cut and dye our own hair (sometimes to my chagrin). We shop for clothing rarely, and mainly at thrift stores or Target (and mainly in the clearance section, at that). Nearly all of our furniture is the lowest-end IKEA stuff possible or hand-me-downs. We pirate or Netflix most of our entertainment. Rider usually drinks PBR, the most tolerable cheapo beer. Yes, I have a smartphone, but I cracked the screen and am not running out to replace it right away, since it still works, until it fits into my budget. And still, somehow, I spend too much money a lot of the time and we are often just scraping by.

Part of it is going out to eat (which we have been doing less of lately). Part of it, up until September, was booze—it's incredibly easy to run up a $30 bar tab in an evening, or to buy a $20 bottle of liquor and have a few friends over and it's gone. Part of it is that our thirst for adventure takes us on road trips that cost money for gas and tolls and then food on the way. This year, especially, it's been a lot of plane fares, first to see Jake, and then to deal with my sister's baby stuff. And I will admit to being an extravagant gift-giver to those closest to me (mostly Oona and Rider).

But even given those admitted luxuries, honestly, I don't know how other people even do it! I look around me, and other people seem to not only do the same sorts of things we do, luxury-wise, but they also have car payments and children to feed and bigger places with nicer furniture and stay in real hotels instead of motels or hostel private rooms when they go on vacation. They shop in mall stores and wear precious jewelry and get mani/pedis and have salon hairdos. Seriously, these people must be spending three or four times what I spend each month! I don't even wish I were them, I'm just confused as to how it is possible when I know that the median household income isn't that much different than when you combine mine and Rider's. And we feel pretty poor, to be honest. Technically, we are middle class, I guess, but definitely on the low end.

Whatever it is, it is my goal that we figure out the trick. First step, I know, is getting out of debt (although, excepting my hefty student loan debt that I rely on IBR to keep my payments reasonable, I don't think our debt is that much out of the ordinary). I'm getting Rider onto Mint, which I have been using on and off for years. The thing it mainly yells at me about is restaurants. I'm curious to see what it yells at Rider about, and then very curious to see if we can make a plan together so that it never yells at us about anything. If/when I do figure out what "the trick" is, I will not even spend it on the sorts of things listed above. I want to save for a house and for travel, and to maybe get a little splurgy from time to time on sex toys. :)
 
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I am mostly feeling better today except for some ongoing sinus hassles. I was having a pretty bad sinus headache for a while, but some combination of decongestant, neti pot, Advil, 5-Hour Energy (in lieu of coffee, since I am out of soy milk), and water seems to have knocked it out for now.

Last night, Rider came home from his outing with his friends pretty late, and I was still working. He had a lot of fun. I felt bad that I had to stay home, because when I looked at the pictures on FB, it was basically three couples plus him. But I could not in good conscience bring my sick self around the parents of small children, and I had work to get done anyway. It's an extra shame because Reina said her parents guilted her into going over there tonight instead of coming over here, so I won't see them again this visit. Oh, well.

Rider fell asleep as soon as he wriggled out of his clothes, and I watched him sleep for a while. I always find something bewitchingly innocent about his snoozing profile—all freckles and pale eyelashes and upturned nose...somehow even with the orange beard, he looks child-like, fresh. When I brushed a sheaf of hair out of his eyes, he squirmed deeper into the pillow and flashed a toothy grin, still sleeping. My heart was so full.

I worked for a long while, doing mindless tasks while listening to back episodes of the Savage Lovecast now that I re-upped my subscription. Eventually, nearing 4:30, I finished up and went to sleep.

At some point, while it was still dark, Rider woke and placed my hand on his thigh, on the soft part near where it meets his underwear. This roused me, and I couldn't resist petting his super-softness. This eventually segued into extremely passionate in-the-dark no-longer-anywhere-near-half-asleep sex. I guess I still had a lot of desire pent up from the previous night. We eventually fell back to sleep. I woke feeling a lot better than I had in previous days.

Rider got to come home from work early today, and he took an adorable nap with the cat. I have been completely brimming over with love (and, yes, lust) for him. At one point, I caught him staring at me, and I turned and met his eyes and stared back for a long time, until we were both grinning. It was a flood of love, tingling through my entire body, feeling like an electric charge, feeling almost like NRE.

"How is it still like this?" I asked, breathless.

"I don't know," he replied. "But it's wonderful, isn't it?"

I was squeeing at getting to spend the better part of the next four days with him. He has to work a short day on Friday, but otherwise, he'll be home. I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and having this sweet, gentle, sexy man in my life is definitely near the top of my list. <3

Soon we're headed out to the store to get stuff so that I can make a pie to take to Ada's mom's tomorrow. Ada requested rhubarb, which I have never even tasted, but I will try my best to make it anyway. I always buy the store-bought crusts, since I know that perfecting a pie crust is an art, and I don't have a lot of time to practice at this point in my life. Maybe when I am retired...
 
Rider was being cute and sleepy again, and when he woke up, he told me I could post a picture of it. For a limited time only, this is what I have been squeeing about. Hehehe.

Right now I have dye sitting in my hair because I never did get around to doing it last weekend since I got sick. Rider is sleeping again. So is my cat. I think I'll finally sort through all my OKC messages while I wait for this dye to set. :)
 
Rider and I had a good time at Ada's mom's. My rhubarb pie was a hit, even if it was a bit...soupier...than it ought to have been. I followed the recipe, but I think if I were to make it again, I'd add in more thickener. Either more flour, or maybe some cornstarch.

Ada's mom made Ada do all the cooking, while she stood behind and supervised. This was because, apparently, Ada had been insisting that she wanted to learn. Ada complained so much! She's always quite the drama queen. I've cooked Thanksgiving several times before, so I know how much work it is, but I have always felt joy and pride in knowing that I was feeding a crew of loved ones. Her grousing amused me. I offered to throw a hand in to help when I got there, as many things were still in-process, but she turned me down.

I adore Ada's mom. She's a fun, wry meditation instructor who discovered that she was a lesbian later in life and now lives in the gayborhood with her mean cat and the two most adorable little dogs in the world and has paintings of naked women all over her walls. I wish she was my mom! She's still very good friends with her ex-husband (not Ada's bio dad, but her stepdad), and he was present at Thanksgiving as well. Ada and her whole family except for her mom are all Brits, and there were a great many Brit friends at the meal, both local and visiting. I got a lesson on what exactly a crumpet is.

We'd done Thanksgiving there last year, too, as Rider has apparently done since back when he used to date Ada. They dated from 2004–2007 and are now much more like siblings than exes.

When Rider and I got home, I was reflecting on how Thanksgiving has historically been a momentous occasion for us. It was Thanksgiving weekend in 2013 when he and I moved from being mere acquainances to instant best friends.

...flashback sequence to 2013...

I'd met Rider at Ada's birthday party in June of that year when I was brand new in town. By Thanksgiving week, we had established a tentative acquaintance bordering on friendship. We'd had conversations at parties. I'd been to a few of his musical performances in a group of friends. At Ada's arm-twisting, since we needed additional characters, he'd come to my mystery game birthday party. And I was friends with a girl he was casually seeing and had picked her up from his apartment a couple of times.

I was intensely curious about him. At the time, I didn't recognize it as attraction. I just knew that I wanted to know him better. He wasn't my physical "type" back then. I had a very specific type—super skinny, dark curly or wavy hair, prominent nose, brightly colored eyes. And I was in a mono relationship with someone who WAS my ideal "type." The relationship had been struggling (for a lot of reasons, one being that I'd broached opening and he didn't want to), but I still considered myself very much in love. Knowing my history of having trouble remaining faithful, and also my history of people who aren't my "type" growing on me, I was skittish about Rider even as I was curious about him. I wanted to become his friend, but I also made sure that we never be left alone together. I didn't want the connection to become too intimate. I felt like I owed it to my mono relationship not to get too attached to anyone else.

The day before Thanksgiving, I'd been corresponding with an old friend who is a musician, and I had this cassette tape of his work that he didn't have a copy of, himself. I told him that I'd find a way to make a copy of it and send it to him, and I put a call out on Facebook to see if anyone had one of those old two-cassette tape players where one can record. Ada tagged Rider, and Rider said he didn't have one but that he could convert a tape to digital. He told me to bring the tape by any time. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, I roped Ada into coming with me, so that I wouldn't be going to his house alone.

(continued...)
 
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(...continued from previous)

It was pouring rain, and my windshield wiper broke on the way there while I was on the freeway. I made it to the exit and had pulled off to mess with the wiper when I got a text from Ada saying that she couldn't make it after all. She'd forgotten that she'd promised her stepdad that she'd help him reheat all the Thanksgiving leftovers and host his AA group's "second Thanksgiving." She apologized and said I was welcome to come by and eat after I got the tape copied, if I still wanted to hang out with her.

So I went to Rider's alone. As it had been the couple of times I'd picked my friend up from there, his place was a post-apocalyptic pig-sty. Everything was flithy and there was so much STUFF everywhere that there was barely a path to walk through the living the room. He was in holey pajamas, hung over, hair sticking up everywhere. He offered me coffee. This wasn't so bad. There was no danger in my hanging out with this person. He was an utter disaster, and obviously had no intentions of trying to impress or seduce me.

While we waited for the tape to copy, we got to talking. Coffee turned to beer. Somehow it came out that I have always written songs, but I have no music to go with them. Emboldened by the beer, I sang him one. He immediately looked excited and grabbed his guitar. He strummed a few times, then came out with the PERFECT chords to go with it. While we were doing that, the tape had finished copying. He asked me if I wouldn't mind recording a little demo with him. So we did.

I was shaking with excitement at having found the music for my song. Between the coffee, the beer, and the exhilaration of creation, I was walking on air. I looked at the time and was like "Oh, crap, I have to get to Ada's! She invited me over to eat when I was done here." He told me she'd invited him, too, so he'd see me there. I walked outside and started to drive to Ada's, and there was a huge rainbow over Rider's house. My spirits couldn't have been higher.

When I got to Ada's, she and I sat out back drinking mimosas for a bit. Eventually, Rider texted me that he'd gotten a flat tire, but he'd be there soon. Ada remarked that it was odd that he'd texted me and not her. I explained how we'd just written a song together, and that we seemed to be forging a real friendship. When Rider arrived, he stayed by my side the whole time. When I ate, he ate to the right of me. When I went on a beer run, he came along. We discussed '90s music and he was impressed that I still had old cassettes in my '90s car, like no time had ever passed.

When the stepdad's friends left and Ada and I were going to watch shows in her room, Rider decided to stay and watch with us. Ada watched from her bed, and Rider sat next to me on the couch. I could feel an energy buzzing between us, but I didn't think it was sex. There was no way I could actually be interested in this guy—this completely disheveled and disorganized goofball of a giant man. And, anyway, I was with The Ex.

Over the months that followed, Rider and I were instant best friends. We set up an ongoing weekly music night. We wrote a bunch more songs. We became drinking buddies and occasionally he'd invite me out with his other friends. We played old-school video games together. He started fostering bunnies through the rescue I volunteered for, and we would play with them together. I found out that he dabbled in yoga sometimes, just like I did, so we started adding in the occasional second day a week to do yoga and then just hang out. I introduced him to psychedelics. He introduced me to a wider social circle. We introduced each other to a bunch of new music. It was like when I'd become instant best friends with Oona—I just felt like he had always belonged in my life, and like he always would be. I wanted to be with him all the time.

I started to feel a sexual tension with him, but I never crossed a line, or even came close. I didn't mention it. I purposely steered conversations away from risqué topics if we accidentally ended up there, like close friends sometimes do. I started having dreams where something bad would happen to him and I'd sacrifice myself to save his life. Occasionally, we would be lying there listening to music while high, and our shoulders, both clad in t-shirts, would be touching very slightly, and all the heat in the universe flowed there, like we were wearing lava instead of cotton. And one night three months after I had messaged him about copying a tape for me, I sat up, head fuzzy from drugs but crystal clear with realization, and I said, "I have to break up with him...because I am in love with you."

...flash forward a year...

This time last year, directly post-Thanksgiving, I'd just gotten done having a spectacular weekend with him. Somehow, things had aligned so that I got to spend five days straight with him, which was super rare in those days of splitting time with Claire. There had been some kind of a misunderstanding. Claire was angry. Rider had put off for too long telling her what his plans were for the Thanksgiving meal, and she had taken a few days to cool down.

He was meeting with her to make up or break up. He had confided in me over the weekend that he wasn't sure things were working out between them. She was upset a lot. She would get angry when he would do something nice for me, once giving him hell because she found a packet of flower food in his kitchen and deduced that it meant he'd bought me flowers, when he'd never done that for her. She had a lot of unspoken expectations that he'd accidentally run afoul of. She wanted to know nothing, but when she'd accidentally see some sign of something she didn't know, she'd blow up at him. It was a dark time, and getting more stressful every day, it seemed.

When he messaged with me the next day, he dropped the bomb that to keep his relationship with her afloat, he'd cut out his Christmas plans with me. Originally, we'd been scheduled to do Christmas 50/50. He'd talked me out of buying tickets to fly home and see my family, saying that he'd love to see me over the holiday. I wasn't too attached to the idea of going home, since I'd been out of the habit of it for several years—I'd started visiting them in the summer and fall instead—but that year I'd been considering it because of lack of anything else to do. Rider had talked it up, saying that we could start new traditions. And by the time he canceled on me, it was too late for me to buy tickets—they'd gotten too expensive. Claire expressed schadenfreude that he had hurt me and screwed me over; she was smug and satisfied by the notion that he was willing to ruin things for me to please her.

This was a turning point in our relationship. We'd been together for nine months, and over the course of the previous six weeks, he'd hooked up with Kelly after telling me he wasn't going to, he'd tried to cancel our Halloween plans because Claire was afraid of running into us, and now he ruined my Christmas in an effort to mend things with Claire. I became deeply distrustful of his actions surrounding other partners. The seeds he sowed over that time period became the two biggest issues in our relationship: 1) my eventual ever-persisting PTSD around anything to do with Kelly and 2) my skittish gun-shyness about him and Claire, having seen that both of them would wound me without provocation, simply to protect what they had if they deemed it necessary. It was the beginning of a six-month period of hellishness and rethinking on my part. Several times, I almost walked away.

... flash forward to this year ...

Now, things are different. I know Rider has my back no matter what. In five weeks, he's leaving everything he knows to come along on what is, at its core, MY path. MY sure thing. But it's OUR adventure and OUR future. It's all a gamble for him, but he thinks that I'm worth it.

As we lay hand in hand on the futon, post-dinner, post-party, post-Mad-Men, post-amazing-sex (seriously, it was some of the best we've ever had), it became my happiest Thanksgiving ever. We opened up about a million things. We planned for the future. We dissected the past. We tossed around song parodies and giggled and cuddled and squirmed. And finally, we got up and went to bed—our bed, which had once been mine alone. In our room, which had once been his alone. In our apartment, now clean and organized, which had once been the squalid disaster zone that lulled me into complacency that "this could never be a thing" when I walked through the door in 2013. Life is funny.

Allie canceled on us for tonight, so it looks like it'll be just the two of us again. I'm a little disappointed, but I understand what work eating your life is like, and that's where I'm at right now. Rider is a lot disappointed.

I think we're moving the "drug test" up to tonight. I just have to finish some work and get a few chores done. I am not nervous. Rider says maybe if I'm doing all right, he'll take me to the beach. If things go smoothly—which I think they will—we all get to have the fun together when Sam comes to visit next weekend. Only five weekends left here. We will make the best of them!
 
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