By Maria Padhila
It was an O. Henry holiday. Gift of the Magi, I mean. We all seemed to be offering each other things we hoped would please each other, at a cost of compromising what we most needed.
I had been looking forward to the season for at least a month. On the day after Christmas, Isaac was going to take our daughter to visit her grandparents. He has done this several times since she was born, and I luxuriate in the time alone — once I painted walls and made curtains and rearranged the furniture, once I did a seven-day ritual, often I’ll go to as much theater as I can stand and afford. Best of all is the freedom from the primary responsibility of making sure a small and very vulnerable being is always OK.
It’s something awesome in the old sense of the word, if you think about it, how frightening it is to care of a child. Mostly we all just do it and don’t think about how important it is, how much is riding on every move. It’s one of those denials that’s necessary for survival, much as denying one’s enjoyment of being free from it is. Issac was the one taking the hit for this trip, with hours in a minivan ahead of him. But one can learn to enjoy a week of child care and grandparents when you have a nice ocean view.
This time, Chris and I had made plans for a full menu of cheap and free things to do, fitting them around work we both had to get done. Most of all we were looking forward to being free of a schedule once in a while. The freedom to lie around and read together is terribly underrated. And it would mean we could spend an overnight or two together, something rare. It’s a very hard thing for Isaac to deal with, with good reasons. He doesn’t want to have to explain to Tobi where I am, for one. It’s a big part of our arrangement that no one uses each other as convenient babysitters. No one wants to be the one sitting at home wondering how much fun the other is having. We have dates on nights when the other one is busy with work or has something fun of their own to do, to try to avoid that.
But when it’s happening many many miles away — like when we’re at burner events or festivals — Isaac is OK with it. And an overnight, in a real bed, is something Chris wants very much. I can understand both of them — especially in this season of the long cold nights, sleeping alone is an unpleasant prospect. I love sleeping — in the literal sense, in this instance — with each of them. There’s something so tender and trusting about it when someone falls asleep with you near them.
Unless I’m truly panicked about a loved one or work, I can fall asleep anytime and anywhere. I could doze off on a cart to the gallows; ah, that gentle rocking of the horses and the security of the ropes. But I haven’t been sleeping much the past few weeks.
Two days before Christmas, Isaac’s father went into the hospital. It was extremely worrying and disturbing; he is a much-loved person and a larger-than-life personality. He is home now, with various bionic parts installed, and a long recovery ahead. We’ll probably go visit a few times over the next few months, in singles and as a family; Isaac is down there now. But at that point, a visit that meant a house full of children was out of the question.
So I found Tobi in tears on Christmas, because she loves her grandparents and the whole family scene. I admit I cried a little with her, out of disappointment and shame at my disappointment. Issac felt sad because I was disappointed, but also angry that he had to even worry about something like that. Chris stayed on the high road, with a listening ear and healing energies, but he had his disappointment as well. It was a sort of strata of sadness, with the most visible, thickest, and obvious layer being fear and worry about a loved one. More layers: Considering our own health and mortality; how we would take care of each other; what was ahead for us; how little time anyone gets in full health and energy.
I’ve been closing in on a state of depression for a few months. I always have it in me somewhere, but I keep it at bay largely through exercise and cognitive techniques. Doing any kind of creative work is both salvation and danger — you have to go deep into things and risk stirring up the Bad Thoughts. I’ve been getting flashes of feelings that ruled me for much of my early life. I’m deeply discouraged about the state of our country and fear for the future. In the past month, two extremely hurtful incidents took place with family members — one with my own family and one with Isaac’s — that eroded my trust, which was barely a veneer in any case, and made me doubt myself and everyone around me.
None of this had anything to do with my being poly — in one case, a family member got caught out talking trash about other family members, and it hurt one of the only people in my family I’m truly close to and honest with. In the other, some tactless conversations brought out the fact that Isaac and I aren’t on the same income level as some in his family, and it became obvious that this is going to create distance, just when I was beginning to feel a little comfortable that I was being valued for myself. I had to give up my other blog, where I write poetry and rant, because of a troll attack. And the work I do for pay becomes more compromising and spirit-breaking every day.
But we tried to give each other what we could. Issac tried to give me time with Chris; Chris tried to give us time alone; we all tried to give Tobi extra time, but we all seemed to be working at cross purposes. Between the phone calls and passing family kids around so that people could attend to the health emergency, Isaac and I spent some late nights watching rental movies. One we watched, at my request, was Melancholia, by Lars Von Trier, in which the main character is in a deep depression. I watched the actress, Kirstin Dunst in a masterful performance, literally unable to lift a finger for herself in her despair, and I remembered that feeling in my bones. I saw the frustration and anger of the people around her at her condition, and I felt that in my heart.
And in one long talk, Isaac said he didn’t know how long he could keep going with this arrangement. When we married, I was monogamous, he said. For years, he was “enough.” Why had I changed? As long as he’d known me, I was monogamous, yet in the past few years, I’d said that wasn’t really who I was. He wasn’t sure he bought that.
I began to look back over my life and wondered. What had I done, and who was I, really? In trying to explain something else, I remembered other times and places, and in talking about something completely unrelated, I remembered a manuscript in a drawer. My first novel manuscript, written when I was about 22. An old boyfriend had found it — I had made some revisions on his computer — and given it to me, and I hadn’t had the nerve to really look at it, thinking the writing would be so bad it would just bring me down.
I remembered that actually the writing had been good enough to earn me two months at a writer’s colony. On the strength of two chapters, they’d given me room and board. I’d taken the train, because I didn’t have a car, carrying my electric typewriter — only rich people had computers then. I wrote it there in two months, and an agent had looked at it, but I didn’t have the time or the ability to follow through. I didn’t believe it could be much good.
It was about a young woman, a punk and a stripper and sometimes prostitute, who manages to find a way to live with some integrity. And a large part of that involved living with and loving two men.
As I was sitting talking with Isaac and I remembered this, I could not catch my breath. I began to cry and choke. I felt like I had been punched. I had literally buried this knowledge.
The fact that I had forgotten this vital part of the story just made it more clear to me: This has always been part of who I am. I would like to think that my sexuality is fluid, that it all depends on the person, that with the right ‘one’ I would be able to settle down and live like most of the world. I had denied that for much of my life; I had multiple relationships running on sometimes parallel, sometimes switching, sometimes the same track. I had put all that in a drawer.
So if this is who I am, why did I bury it for so long? And how can I live with myself knowing that being who I am is hurting the people I love? Is saying that this is how I am enough? Who has that right? Shouldn’t I change, forget about it, leave it behind? People change. I asked Issac to change. Why shouldn’t I have to change who I am?
I have never wanted to assert that being polyamorous is an orientation. I’ve always wanted to leave myself an out, while at the same time I’ve always stood up for (politically and personally) the rights of my gay and genderqueer and non-cis (one whose body, gender assigned at birth, and personal gender identity do not match up) and fetish friends to be who they are. I just don’t believe I can claim the same things for myself. I have to apologize now to all of them. I might have held you when you cried about family cruelty, lived with you when you were thrown out by unaccepting parents, gone with you to get AIDS tests back in those horror days, fed you and tried to cheer you up through breakups, marched in Pride parades, and yet I never understood the reality of the difficulty of knowing who you are, much less being who you are. I don’t know if I do even now. But it leaves me unable to catch my breath.
Right now I’m dragging at my fingers to write. I’m thinking coffee, chocolate, maybe that will fire me up enough to get through this. Issac is reading the manuscript. I don’t know how the rest of the story will go.
At holiday time, Chris quotes a Steve Martin bit that’s a variation on Gift of the Magi. When the gift mixup is discovered, the woman exclaims: “Well, I’ll be hog-tied!”
‘“You will?” he said. And it was a merry Christmas after all.”
Here’s wishing you a happy ending.
The issue being discussed just now about challenge is homing in on ‘sources’. This is only in play because of the broader question of the relationship of authority to credentials and how that pans out in our society.
People implicitly accept certain bona fides. This is why psychopaths often go to such lengths to fake credentials – because people’s gullibility factor increases exponentially once faced with ‘experts’. If you have not secured such credentials then credibility is very much an issue of impact/charisma (sometimes bullshit) and whether folk take to you – then you are in the realm of ‘personalities’ – very murky waters.
Credentials prove only that you managed to secure them. But if you assert yourself without having them (in a publicly-ratified sense) you can be sure you will be unable to avoid questions of authoritative source, because you aren’t seen as an expert.
The frustration is that such ‘rules’ are not evenly applied across and within many communities – where a kind of double standard applies, wherein there is an implicit expertise invoked within the social hierarchy akin to “I’ve been here longest doing this kind of thing” – equally suspect to having no overt credentials and hugely galling.
There is no answer to this conundrum in terms of chasing it away, certainly no respite within the pain of lament. It’s just the world we live in. If you were never to be challenged it may seem that you are held in higher esteem and respect but it could just be that you are being admired by a bunch of conformist sheep!
We haven’t even considered misunderstandings and faulty communication styles in this but given the basics which is preferable; challenge or no challenge?
Ultimately, making one’s language a little more provisional can help. But that is difficult to do when you are very passionate about the subject matter, what you have discovered and what may be at stake.
In the end, little of it matters. We make small ripples in a huge ocean and that is seemingly quite sufficient, if you can make friends with the inescapable finitude of being human.. 😉
“I write things based on what I have read, learned or experienced”
“How is that any different to what others do when they write about their experiences or what they have learned?”
writing about your experiences, & what you’ve learned from them, is one thing. but i think when you expand to “what you’ve read,” it’s reasonable that others will want to know where you read it. of course you won’t remember every single source. no one does. but maybe keeping those two categories a little more distinct will help to mitigate a little of that sense of being attacked and make your writing clearer?
just thinking…
Amanda,
That’s a good idea and will work for any new info I come across. The problem lies with the older info because even trying to find the sources again (backtracking, using search engines, asking people) has not found them. Some were pretty obscure sources but still reputable. Some are from way back in the 80’s. I have no way to cite those.
My question is this; if I am imparting things I have experienced and learned, why is it necessary to cite anyone at all? I am not saying the information is “The Truth,” I am saying this is what I have read or learned or experienced…that’s it. I don’t expect anyone to swallow whole what I write; it is only imparted in case it is useful. I don’t expect it to be useful to everyone anyway.
How is that any different to what others do when they write about their experiences or what they have learned? I don’t see them citing resources as they write about their journey in life and the lessons they have learned. This is why I get fed up with others asking me to cite resources. I am not telling anyone what to believe or do; I am imparting my experiences and the information I have come across. It is up to the reader to decide the usefulness and veracity as it applies to them and if it is worth looking up resources about these.
hmm… carrie: maybe instead of hearing the request for citations as a challenge or rejection (regardless of whether it is intended that way or not) you could try framing it as the other person’s curiosity about your path, your influences, the wider context and available resources?
i say this only because it seems that if you can find a way around (or a way to work with) these responses, it will not only help you feel more confident about what you put forth, but also may garner you some new allies who get just as excited in rooting this stuff out.
obviously there are always going to be people who like to challenge for the sake of challenging, and skeptics, and whatnot. but why let them cause you pain when there might be a way to have fun with it all? or at least, use it to help you learn more and become a better writer?
i am constantly being told to keep a notebook with me at all times to jot down ideas; maybe you could keep a notebook with you at all times so you can document quotes, statistics, etc with their sources as soon as you run across them? and maybe on the computer, start a resources file of links/quotes/sources, sorted by category? then, even if you have to go searching for them, you have a smaller swath of forest to search through.
this has the added benefit of giving you a way by which you can follow these resources/authors/etc back to *their* sources. that way you can put together the picture of who is coming from which perspective/lineage of thought/etc.
just an idea…
“I too am a writer of sorts but not a published author. It’s almost as if writers have to ‘come out’ if they are not a published author. It’s like you MUST be an amateur a.k.a. not good enough, if you haven’t been picked up by a mainstream publisher.
This is core self-doubt manifested SO tangibly as rejection, not only of my work but the essential me. (Of course, we all know the bullshit criteria of publishers, market-driven celebrity stuff that the hordes will consume and excrete faster than an acute onset diarrhea). There is an existential pain here that we want to go away. It is a direct outgrowth of the root of false expectations thrust upon us by parents, caregivers, teachers, institutions etc from our earliest years on the planet.
If we merely wish we could make the pain ‘go away’ we will live in a perpetual haze called ‘liberation always around the next corner’ and fail to grasp that we are “attempting not to think about pink elephants”, thus perpetuating them and the pain of what has become our own self-rejection or alienation.”
Oh Alexander….I so needed to read that. I have felt the urge to write for so long and also have not felt like I have been “heard” by anyone of any consequence. Even people I have felt a close emotional and philosophical kinship with haven’t responded. Instead I keep getting messages about being a journalist and doing that kind of writing. That’s NOT what I am good at. I am good at expressing feelings no one else will and articulating things people have difficulty putting into words. I am good at extrapolating various disassociated things into a completely new picture and also I am good at seeing the things no one else seems to see in issues. Sure, some people have said I am good at those things but no one really says “hey I would love to see you write for my publication” so that feeling of self doubt is there.
After getting my son’s curriculum settled, I plan to begin writing in my blog again (the one my name takes you to). It is named after Cassandra because every time I write things based on what I have read, learned or experienced, someone always says “prove it” and because I cannot remember where I got the info from, I cannot. So I feel unbelieved; like Cassandra.
I have so much to offer, so many insights that when I talk to people about them, they always tell me to write them down because they are so helpful and insightful yet when I write them down, I am questioned. I feel like thew little girl on the movie Polar Express; the main boy in the movie keeps asking her “Are you sure?” which makes her hesitate and doubt herself.
I plan to stop doubting myself and just say what I have to say. This will be reeeaally hard for me but I believe it is essential to doing what I am feeling compelled to do. I have a feeling it would be better for me to turn off comments at first in order not to sabotage myself with the negative and questioning comments that will surely come.
Wish me luck with that and thanks again, Alexander for your insightful words.
Thank you all…and Achilles heal is one to remember! Oddly I was looking up that asteroid to see if it made an impact at certain points…it’s an interesting one–anyone have Achilles insights?
Forgot to say I went to see this movie last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AudQbaFN6jU
Seems that the themes you are speaking of are reflected in many ways in this movie. Finding your bliss is a journey. And with three people, that’s a lot of bliss to be found.
My nephew was only married a short time when his wife announced that she was poly and wanted to move her boyfriend in with them. My gut reaction at the time was sadness. I felt sad for my nephew that his experience with being a ‘one and only’ was so short. I remembered the time in my life when my husband was the sun who rose and set in my eyes, and I imagined that there would be no other. And while monogamy has still remained our choice, we have both come to know the attractions of the other. If he has had other lovers he will never tell me. But I do wonder sometimes what it would be like to have two sunrises and sunsets everyday in my life.
Maria, as always your words share an intimacy that allows for many of us to reach vunerable places within ourselves which aren’t so easily called forth but for writings such as yours.
Alexander De Witte, I find what you wrote to contain some of the most profoundest truths that are inviable keys for reclaiming those fragmented pieces of self. We’re dealing with fire either way but with the actions of the fire either consuming the self or it burning off the dross leaving the self far more pure and intact. This allows for us to be really clear , to really love ourself and then also to love another..
We can only change oursleves and unless that change is motivated by our own inner prompt the result won’t be integral , but chaos.
The problem is that we have been conditioned from birth to accomadate others expectations and deny parts of self to meet these expectations, being told that this defined what Love is.
This I believe is the furthest from the truth that any of our errouneous beliefs can be and the one that should be continually challenged until we find not a belief about love with its shaky foundation but instead a knowing which allows for an uncomprimised being. This is where the freedom starts .
Maria you are beautiful and I’m grateful for you
L
Thank you for the glimpse into your mind, Maria. Like those posting before, I am moved by the tenderness of your writing. I read and reread, savoring your insights. !
One of the gifts of linear time is using it to continue to learn and grow. Going back and forth from the past to the present, comparing what is known in the present to what we thought we knew in the past, gives us a chance to heal those hidden traits we push under subconsciously.
Poly or not, we love and we do hurt others. Like all life experiences, those who play have a role in the lesson. We are all keepers to the whole; wanting the best for those who show up, but we are only responsible for our own learning. No one can do that for someone else. That is where the pain resides. Knowing, seeing, witnessing pain ebb and flow, knowing all you can really do is be present. Sometimes, like you mention, it seems easier to be there for another’s pain even if we do not know the depth of their being. I have to think, though, that in doing so, the opening of the heart is what is most important. I don’t think when we all look back and review life from a higher perspective that the details will matter, only how we learned to love one another and ourselves.
Thank you for sharing your process, it is an excellent gift!
Oops! Now that’s a real shame = typo number two.
But I quite like typo number one = Achilles heal.
Yep!!! Achilles heal can now reliably replace Achilles heel in my dictionary of cultural reference. 😉
I thought quite a bit about the broad picture you paint here and let me jump in with a quoted extract:
—————-
I had to give up my other blog, where I write poetry and rant, because of a troll attack. And the work I do for pay becomes more compromising and spirit-breaking every day.
—————-
Your first novel manuscript, from being around 22, is a conspicuous presence also in this story arc. Does this have anything to do with polyamory? Well yes, in my book.
I too am a writer of sorts but not a published author. It’s almost as if writers have to ‘come out’ if they are not a published author. It’s like you MUST be an amateur a.k.a. not good enough, if you haven’t been picked up by a mainstream publisher.
This is core self-doubt manifested SO tangibly as rejection, not only of my work but the essential me. (Of course, we all know the bullshit criteria of publishers, market-driven celebrity stuff that the hordes will consume and excrete faster than an acute onset diarrhea). There is an existential pain here that we want to go away. It is a direct outgrowth of the root of false expectations thrust upon us by parents, caregivers, teachers, institutions etc from our earliest years on the planet.
If we merely wish we could make the pain ‘go away’ we will live in a perpetual haze called ‘liberation always around the next corner’ and fail to grasp that we are “attempting not to think about pink elephants”, thus perpetuating them and the pain of what has become our own self-rejection or alienation.
You speak of a blog about poetry and ranting – conspicuous combination!
You ARE a writer, Maria. I think we all see that each week here at planetwaves..
You are working your old manuscript again. A very interesting step. It could indicate the possible recycling of some essential nutrients long lost and a meeting with a lost-touch-with aspect of self. Still, beware a disempowering nostalgia, a possible onion layer, with an illusory quality to it.
Back to your ditched blog. The troll responds to the ranting quality as much as the poetic aspects maybe? (I’m guessing obviously). Is there a relationship between the rants and a lost ‘creative self’?
It feels to me like the old counsel of wisdom traditions could be valuable to you in your recycling efforts. They used to say see your enemy as your greatest friend – exposing the Achilles heal. Can you re-engage and even befriend your troll? Is part of your true self residing in asylum within them? Just a thought.
And maybe, just maybe, all crises of experience in arenas of sexual and living arrangement choices (as well as other major areas) are dramatizations of issues much closer to the core – and maybe they resolve at the appropriate level once you can have this face-to-face meeting with your locked away self and unify your essential core?
When we don’t have that unity, we have fragmentation – endemic within western cultures; so no crime it has to be said! Perhaps some expressions of polyamory are attempts to work around our existential pain and fragmentation by letting each of our disunited fragments have differing experiences or platforms of expression.
It is difficult in our world and current climate for many to think beyond bread on the table. But there is also a tyranny in that message. It kind of says “you’ll never be able to break free, you always be trapped”.
Not that’s a real shame..
Maybe our enemies are indeed our best friends, the 7th house in astrology would certainly seem to encapsulate such.
“And how can I live with myself knowing that being who I am is hurting the people I love? Is saying that this is how I am enough? Who has that right? Shouldn’t I change, forget about it, leave it behind? People change. I asked Issac to change. Why shouldn’t I have to change who I am?”
Only you (and Isaac and Chris) can answer those questions. I have always felt sad when I hear of relationships going through such upheavals. No one asks to feel the way they do and no one expects to change to that extent. It is what it is and it is a difficult position to be in for all concerned.
You have one good thing that you have not recognized; at least you SEE these things and realize them. So many people don’t so they just exist without mindfulness. That mindfulness may help more than you know.
Maria – I’m not sure what to write that does what you write justice – your words have moved me so. I want to echo the words of Lorin when she exhorts us to be gentle with ourselves. The pain and the joy – all of it is why we are here.
Second, I believe, for myself, that being poly-orientated is not choice but conditioning. This is something that has been on my mind a lot recently, and it is the only conclusion that I can come to that makes sense for me. When I look at my life in that light, how can I justify being anything but gentle?
Maria,
Thank you for your radical honesty. I think we all have that moment when we think and feel, “how could i have hidden this from myself, and my extension, all of those that i love?”
But we must be gentle with ourselves. Each moment we grow, change our minds, and we must, must, must have love and compassion for ourselves, and others, as we learn and grow. We don’t get mad at a flower for how it was before it bloomed – we just understand that it was part of the process.
Sending you love and kindness, and turning some in on myself, as well.
Bless,
Lorin