Bitter Tea

Life has been settling into some new type of normal I guess. So far 2009 has been a Great Upheaval. I finished my final class, and persevered through comps. And we managed to pull off a painful move from a place we loved and had been in nearly ten years. We shed a lot of stuff that needed to go, and are learning to live in this smaller very different space. I have new windows with views that are starting to become familiar. The new place is surprisingly good, and I can now see that the move was actually a healthy thing. Change can feel like a new start.

I am tired though and have become pretty reclusive. I want to stay home and get through the remainder of the boxes...and I will need to throw myself into the capstone project which is due November 15th if I want to graduate in December. I just don't seem to have a lot of energy or interest in blogging right now. Facebook is better...I can manage 140 characters or less...blogging takes so much energy and thought.

So anyhow...I will take a stab at an update here, but I am rusty. And the topic that begs exploration is poly since there has been activity there.

Okay...so back in April a turn of the wheel brought me back in touch with someone who used to be a major crush...The guy was totally my type...tall, dark, intellectual, funny, and prone to despair. I don't know why I am attracted to these types...but there it is. This guy has been my personal Heathcliff for many years...We have had some history at play, where at parties we have wound up in a hot tub in the wee hours of the morning (with my partner too)...and we had an interaction once which turned out "not so good". Heathcliff knew we were poly, but I made an assumption about his status. The right questions were not asked in the heat of the moment, and it caused a major bump in the road for his relationship. I backed away, and years passed. He went out of and into a different long term relationship with someone else, and my feelings settled into safe comfortable friendship.

Until April. He had ended his relationship and was now free...and lonely. We started an email corrospondence that grew to several a day. The emails were those I love--witty, weird, intellectual, and suggestive. A door had opened, and I was happily planning to go through it. We even had a date planned. We would have dinner, drink red wine, and watch a movie. Then who knows? I might have gone home, but we would have become closer. Or I might have spent the night. My mind began playing delicious scenarios. I was happy...and I found feelings and sensations rise to the surface that I had not felt in years...My partner was delighted with the change in me. I was alive, and he benefited from the sexual tension that this other person had unlocked within me. My partner was encouraging and sweet. I know he wanted this for me as well.

All was moving in a good direction...but...remember. This is Heathcliff, and Heathcliff must have tragedy. And this is me. Poly things just rarely work out for me. And thus, the wheel turned again and, all was lost. Heathcliff got fired the week before we were to get together. Verily, Heathcliff flung himself off an emotional cliff and is currently on a motorcycle trip that is to last the summer. So, he is on a journey to sort out his life, and I am still wondering why the Universe thought all that was necessary. I really really could do without the tease, thank you very much.

He will return in the Fall, and we will see where things are...but my hopes have been incinerated, and it seems pointless to poke in the dust and ashes to restir any embers.

It's funny...of course it wasn't going to work out. It's sad...of course it wasn't going to work out. Oh well.

For my partner though, things are looking up. He has rekindled an old flame with a lover from years gone by, who is now trying to divorce her slacker of a husband. And my nemesis Potential Paramour (PP) is back in the picture...and she and my partner had sex two weeks ago. There is a lot to the PP story, but it's not really mine to tell. I can write about my feelings on the matter, but there are some weird dynamics and I don't think it appropriate that I blog about it just yet. Let's just say...I am not happy about this status change. I have never liked this person, and recent developments have not changed my opinion of her. My partner is not sure either...he is stalling things for now...but I am sure it will work out in a way that I will hate but tolerate. I evidently have veto power, but I am not going to use it. If he wants to explore things with her, I am not going to stop him, but there are issues that are particularly repugnant to me about the whole thing, and he does risk a shut down towards him on my part. There were no tears or fighting over it, but I asked he sleep in his own room for a couple of nights. That might have gone on longer, but his son came to stay with us, and that room was needed as a guest room. My main concern was the suddenness of the event, and I was worried he had been lying to me about their status. But I do believe him on how it played out. This woman is a serious flake and would be the type to not have contact with someone for a couple of months, and then after 11 years of not being sexual suddenly decide to have sex. Okay...whatever.

So he is quite happy. And we are going to a festival in two weeks in which he will get together with yet another lover. There is a guy there who is interested in me, but I am not interested in him in that way (the story of my life). I can see how being a sunny extrovert (like my partner) might bring more lovers into your life than being a stick in the mud introvert (like me). In the meantime, I will carry on, and drink my bitter tea while I try to find a way to adjust to all this.

It seems unfair, but no one promised that life was fair. And I have a doctoral project to write. That should keep me quite busy for the foreseeable future...which might stop me from analyzing everything to death. But probably not...remember, this is me.