A Story of a You | Lessons in Poly

You wondered where you were in my writings. You were hurt that you weren’t included in the aggregate story of the last calendar year. You articulated that you interpreted that as a point of fact that you didn’t matter to me. 

But what you didn’t understand, maybe what I didn’t understand either, is that I write to process. I write when things feel done and need an outlet for the ending. 

For stories, even short ones like this, moments in time in a lifetime of moments, need a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

And I didn’t want it to end. 

You wanted me to slow down back then. Me “ending” it all those months ago, asking (badly over a voicemail because I had a lack of communication skills and you set the boundary of no emotional texts, but I had a need to be heard before that trip), but asking for space, was so there didn’t have to be an end. 

“I’ll be your friend for the rest of our lives” was something I desperately wanted to be true. Hadn’t we both gone through enough loss in our lives? And then I wouldn’t have to lose you. 

But, as usual back then, I hadn’t yet learned to listen to my own body yet. 

I “moved on”. So did you. We found different things in different people. “But that’s poly?” I wondered. More likely disassociation, at least for me. Or maybe just human nature when one is actively seeking something in a world with 5 billion souls. You will find what you are looking for. 

But those other things ended. For both of us in ways, or at least evolved. And there was a moment, in the middle of this period of intense personal growth for both of us, where we came together again. And that gave me hope. 

We didn’t come together romantically, but as friends and community members working towards a shared goal. In mutual service for a greater good. And work we both did. And process we both did. (That sounds like a message from Yoda, both in words and feeling. 😂) Then, for a moment, we played. 

And back in your rope, in your arms, I finally was forced to realize what I hadn’t let myself feel all those months before. I had very real, very deep feelings for you that scared the shit out of me. 

So after our mutual moment of service and connection, I tried to communicate that to you. 

I heard “you didn’t write about me”, so I wrote an erotic story that felt like I could show you how I felt without needing an ending. You acknowledged it was a beautiful story. 

I tried to ask for your time. “You called this meeting. What do you want from me? I will give you time to think about that.” And I tried to articulate that again in writing, A writing to which you responded with a heart and nothing else. Perhaps your way of saying you didn’t feel the same and didn’t know how to say it. I understand how hard it is to say “no, thank you”. But I also understand why it’s so important to do so. Because in the ambiguity, there is hope, and in hope, there can be disappointment. 

I went into the hospital with emergency surgery. Years of not listening to my body finally catching up with me, in a way that hit on all of my core wounds. And, as I experienced that, I tried to show you your importance to me by putting you on the VIP part of that communication list. One of the best friends that I wanted you to be, that I told in real time what was going on as I waited, left along with my thoughts. 

And after, seeing between the lines on social media, that I had put a level of importance on you that perhaps you hadn’t asked for. Because there you were pursuing another human. Which was your right, but it was a cognitive dissonance from what I was hoping for. 

Fortunately, this lesson I HAD learned by then. I would not pursue you. I would give you full autonomy and let you go, or let you choose to stay as I desperately, but silently, hoped you would. 

So I quieted my soul. Forced to in some ways by health things, but able to recognize that I needed to do it to get to the next level of healing, of being. 

I let go. I stopped reading between the lines. I came off social media and listened for what was actually there. And all I heard was deafening silence. 

You experienced an unimaginable tragedy yourself. And I so badly wanted to be there, but I couldn’t do anything but wait for you to ask for help. I tried to express that I was here. But you never put me on the same VIP list I had put you. Perhaps you didn’t put anyone there, feeling you had to go through it alone. All I knew is that I had to accept where you were. 

As it happens in my life, we would connect a few more times, on days that were significant to you without me knowing they were important. The day of the burial. Your birthday. 

And then silence again.

I wanted to be friends. I wanted to be able to continue to experience our mutual space together, but apart. But I was so aware of you in every room we were in. And I watched you blossom into your own form of artistry. An art that requires a partner. Of which, now, you had no shortage. The others finally seeing what I had seen all along. 

And I swallowed my jealousy and sat back and observed in my way. Again, avoiding it all on passive methods of communication like social media. When I was ready to go back to dating, I tried a new dating app, and less than 24 hours after signing up, there you were. The algorithms sure we would be a match. 🤦‍♀️ I made the accidental swipe the “wrong” way to “like” you, wishing I didn’t have to choose either way, then texting you immediately to be fully honest and transparent, and went back to waiting and watching. 

For it feels that’s what you never understood about me. I’m always watching. Hypervigilent, waiting for danger. Trying to stay one step ahead. Acutely tuned to others because that was how I survived. Just like you. But the key difference between you and I is that somewhere along the line, I had learned (wrongly) that other - that ANother - could lift me out of just surviving and into “happiness”. And it felt that you learned the opposite. That others could only hurt, and only you could be relied on for consistency and comfort. 

So I had to learn how to lean out, to self-soothe, to recognize my own part in my resilience. My own strength. And you had to learn to lean in, to accept that others will help heal you, and not only be harmful. I had to learn to rely more on self and you had to learn to rely more on others. In that spectrum, in which we live(d) on opposite ends, we both had to learn to come towards the middle a little. 

Both of us dancing on the line between self and other that exists in all groups. Truly good people trying our best to find connection without losing autonomy in a crumbling world. Playing on the fringes of society and sexuality. Trying to do it differently because we were both intelligent enough to understand that the way it had been done for so long was so broken. For all of us.  

And that only by coming together as a cohesive group - whole, genderless, labelless - could we even begin to “fix” it. 

But that was on the macro level. And on the micro level, we were two humans who genuinely cared for each other, but we had triggered each other and hurt each other multiple times. 

So what’s next? 

I don’t know. Only that I am able to write this because it feels like an end. An end I don’t want, but one in which I must listen to my body. 

I can’t be just friends. I never could. 

I can’t be in the same room as you and watch you be with other people without trusting I mean something to you, and we have a safe way for each of us to communicate to each other and be heard by the other. I am poly, I am able to love more than one person at a time, but with boundaries. And my biggest one is:

That in the currency of time, some is carved out for you and me. 

Instead, I have to avoid. To find peace in my own solitude. That is my life lesson. Instead of clinging. I have to let go and let others be who they are without me trying to control the narrative. 

I have to listen to my body and choose me every time. 

Even when I see you, only you, in a room full of people - full of people I genuinely care about, but only as friends - even when I see you in a room, I have to choose me, to choose to walk out and return when you aren’t there. 

When your energy or whatever it is that I feel from other humans isn’t screaming at me on the side of my subconscious. Acutely aware of where you are, even (especially) when I close my eyes. 

“You shivered when I touched you.” You said to me after that first tying weekend. My body then knowing what I couldn’t even fathom in my brain. “I’m not ready for this!” I tried to communicate when you asked for my number, so excited to talk more after the intimate weekend we had gone through after starting as strangers. A sentiment it felt you took as rejection, “I wasn’t here to pick up a girl” you replied. 

But that wasn’t what I was saying. I was saying I wasn’t ready for you, and yet you were standing in front of me, and I was acutely aware of how short time is on this earth. And I was equally sure of my ability to fuck up relationships with people I really liked.  

I hadn’t learned the lessons I knew I needed to learn to accept care like this. 

The care that brought hot chocolate on the boat. That remembered details of what I liked. Anticipated what I needed, especially in rope. That showed me parts of a soul that I resonated with, but I didn’t know how to communicate that I resonated with it and heard it and wanted to hear more. 

But also, that I would need to communicate better. To tell you that my childish exuberance for suspension was not pressure, just excitement. Because I was so scared of it, but I didn’t want to be. And I had let being scared ruin too many things for me. 

I would later watch you duplicate that care on another person in another context. Another person who could perhaps communicate their needs better than I could. 

I would also watch you now understanding the sweet surrender suffering brought, and that it was ok that it brought you joy to do it. Pain and pleasure as equals in your mind and actions. Leaving no room for shame or guilt.

I understood because I feel the same way. 

I understood because I remember everything you’ve said, to me or others in our shared space, and I’ve seen you grow and evolve. But it felt you didn’t understand or remember me as well in the after. Didn’t see me evolve, taking responsibility for my actions. Just seeing that I had hurt you once, badly, exactly as you feared, and you would avoid letting me do that again. 

So here is your story, your writing. Probably locked only in these pages, not publishable, because I’ve learned that lesson too - when I release my words into the world, to let other people subject them to their interpretation, it often gets misconstrued, most often by the people I am trying to offer the words to. Trying to say “Here is a part of me, the part that cares for you, trying to understand why we can’t make it work. Hoping these words will solve it.” 

But they don’t often solve it. They often only trigger more miscommunication. That has been the biggest lesson - being ok that most people will misunderstand me. 

For it takes two to dance, always. 

And until/unless you are ready or willing to step forward and lead, there can be no dance. 

No matter how much I want it. 

So I look around, grateful for each moment. Even (especially) the solo ones. And we both accept the hands of new dance partners. Trusting, at least for me, that will both find our own happiness in our own ways. Happiness, or at least peace, built with boundaries and mutual consent and shared willingness to be fully present to do the work.