Sunday, August 3, 2008

Go! Be poly, they said...

Ok, so no one ever actually said that to me. It seems like the entirity of my youth was spent trying to fit into a box that never seemed big enough. From my background as the eldest daughter of an evangelical minister, where many of the impulses I had were labeled as dirty, perverse, misguided or just something to be hidden. Ironically, my current lovestyle as a polyamorous woman is FAR more honest and authentic than in my nuclear family, where honesty was a value held dear as long as it didn't make anyone think too much or face uncomfortable truths, but I digress.

As a teenager, I dated secretly more than one person at a time. It was par for the course. I tried to pretend that 2 or 3 people who had some good qualities, but didn't make great partners, could combine to create one satisfactory boyfriend! When I met my husband, polygestalt, I discovered a person who was totally sufficient in and of himself. He also has a great knack for not trying to change others around him, or to force them to conform to his views. In short, he was open to growing with me. We wed when I was a mere stripling of 19, and I've never regretted that stabilizing force in my life.

So here we are, we're married, happy, in love, poking along in our journey through life, then the idea comes into play of opening things up. Since I was about 6 months pregnant at the time, we opted to research and check things out for a while. Then dove in with both feet! For me, this looked like flying off to Vegas to meet this guy I'd grown close to purely online. Crazy, but it worked. He was my long distance lover for 6 years, and the first time I truly realized that I was very capable of loving and supporting more than one person at a time emotionally. Pivotal!

Polygestalt (hubby) started a significant relationship with G a couple years ago. That has been a very important influence for him, and our first experiences with mixing up families, kids, and local partners. They are sort of shifting things around in their bond currently, so that is something that is working through. Sort of a downsizing? I dunno, but it feels different.

Fast forward to the day that I looked over at the longtime friend of our family, s1m0n, and decided to act on the attraction and flirtation we'd had going for 13 years. "I would so totally do you, if I didn't think it would totally mess you up." or some such variant. He did this blinking thing, deer in the headlights, then got up and kissed me goofy. We've been pretty much inseparable ever since, and the three of us decided to capitalize on the slumping housing market and buy a home together, big enough to accomodate two businesses, our poly triad of three adults, and the two kids we have between us. Move-in is less than a month off, and there is a lot of change in the air. We've tried to anticipate as much as possible in advance, but there are some things that aren't likely to occur to us until we are fully combined.

Want to watch and see what happens? This could get interesting...

PF

1 comment:

Shhh.... said...

This is a fascinating idea for a blog. I'm starting at the beginning, so it may take me a while to catch up. :)