I no longer look back at our time together and think of how far we’ve come.  Instead I am thankful for every day we have together and every experience we share.  I celebrate every day he is in my life and consider the presence of him in my life to be the greatest gift I’ve received from him.

Today, I know, he will be pondering his age again, as only this time of the year makes him do.  And I leave him this quote and hope he reads it and ponders its significance instead.

“Everyone is the age of their heart.”  ~Guatemalan Proverb

I love you, Jeffery. Happy birthday!

When I was in high school, I was continually amazed by my friends and their ability to declare undying love to one guy, then break up with him one day and be dating an entirely different guy the next day, who was of course their soul mate.  It was confusing to me how transient and transferable their love was depending on their mood or the day.  I never felt that way about anyone when I was a teenager.  Though I daydreamed about finding my one true love, I never found it while traversing the hallways of my high school.

So I’ve never understood love – what it means, how people fall in love and stay in love with only one person.  I’ve loved, don’t get me wrong.  I meant society’s definition of love – it’s always flummoxed me.

I got married way too young – I’ll be the first to admit it… now.  So right off the bat my first serious relationship was already seriously flawed because I gave in to impulse and said yes when I should’ve said no.  And then add on top of that my seriously flawed new husband (who is now an ex-husband) who saw nothing wrong with demanding loyalty and fidelity from me while philandering around with just about anyone who would give him the time of day.

At one point in our marriage, my ex asked me if I would ever consider swinging.  I’m sure the appropriate response would’ve been extreme horror.  But, of course, I was curious.  At this point, he was my first and only lover, I’d never explored my bisexual side and natural attraction to women, nor had I really looked at another man because, frankly, my ex was an extremely jealous man.  (It figures he was the jealous one when he was the only one screwing around at that point.)  I was intrigued at this idea of mate swapping.

Though I was relatively innocent when this topic was introduced, I admit I was quite familiar with the “deviant” side of sex.  I, after all, was raised during my teenage years by my brothers.  Porn was something I was familiar with, as well as the adult magazines.  I enjoyed reading erotica, especially if it had a less-than-normal slant to it.  I even admit to fantasizing about sexual experiences with multiple partners and my favorite porn scenes included girl on girl action.

Too much information?  Hee… Well, it’s out there now.  I’ve always been a sexually curious girly girl with a pretty impressive imagination.  So now I was being presented with the possibility of sharing with my “one true love” what had up until then merely been fantasies.  So yes, I was interested.  Alas it wasn’t meant to be.  My ex immediately shot down the idea and treated me poorly for admitting an interest.

What does all this have to do with the conversation with my cousin?  One time, Kiko and I were discussing the theory of Inner Child.  Or rather he was telling me about his research on the concept.  In turn, he wondered if the loss of my parents and my subsequent childhood played a part in my attraction to polyamory.  Was I looking to recreate the love I lost during that time, attempting to recreate it by having two partners who loved me?  Was my inner child begging for love in order to finally be healed?

What an interesting concept and not one I can readily dispute.  I think everything I’ve experienced and learned has shaped this fascinating woman whose words you now read.  Not just the loss of my parents but certainly the love they gave me before they died.  The lessons they taught me about honoring them, honoring elders in general, having respect for those outside myself – they all contribute.  As well as the experiences I had with my brothers, with my friends, at school, in life – they all played a part in my seeking out something like polyamory.

Even now, when I am beginning to understand that polyamory is just another concept like monogamy, with its own inherent flaws that go along with this beautiful idea of love and relating to and with others.  It is because of who I am and what I’ve experienced that I can take something like polyamory and learn even more about myself.

I’m still not really sure about people and relationships and what motivates people to behave as they do when in love.  But I’m even more certain of myself and how I choose to behave in relationships.  I’m sure I will continue to discover new and exciting things about myself as I continue on in my life’s journey.

I can’t believe another year is gone.  It has been 24 years since you died and so much has happened that you’ve missed.

Since you’ve been gone, four of your grandchildren were born and grew up.  Your oldest, Nicholas, is now married and lives in Avon, CO.  He is a responsible and disciplined boy, quiet and reserved but with the same sweet smile that used to bring you both such joy.  His brother, Matthew, was born just a few months after the accident.  How you both were so looking forward to his arrival.  He doesn’t let you down either.  Matthew has the biggest heart of all the Medinas and I”m pretty sure if you were here, he’d be mowing your lawn as we speak.  Your niece, Miranda, is next in age and what a beauty she turned out to be.  Every time I see her picture I see you, mommy.  The last one to come around is JJ and he was raised a Medina and you can tell, oh yes you can.

Since you’ve been gone, the family scattered a little but then recently has gotten closer again.  The family now meets once a month for breakfast, and I keep hoping more people will join each month.  I won’t give up! because I know, if you were both here, this family would be there come hell or high water.

Since you’ve been gone, your oldest son, Richard, passed away.  The many years before his passing were sad ones, and he was pretty much all alone because of the choices he made in his life.  But I can proudly report to you that he left this world at peace with the past and with the love and support of his brother and sister.  We all did right by him in the end and I think you’d be proud of our ability to mend old rifts.

Your other son, Joe, has divorced and is moving on with his life.  He’s a bit of a workaholic – the family doesn’t see him much.  He raised some fine children though.  His legacy will carry on.  Not only in their genes but also in the love these children have for their father.

Mom, your brothers and sisters remain close and think of you often.  All of them still live relatively close to each other.  They’ve kept the family home in Costilla.  Every year your brothers visit the home town and pay respect to you and dad on Memorial day.  Unlce Louie keeps your grave clean.

Their kids have also married and had children.  I keep close contact with Uncle Frank’s kids, since we are so close in age and grew up practically as brothers and sister.  Chris, or Kiko as we still call him, is married to a beautiful and firey red-head, Mandie, who is just perfect for him.   Together they have one girl, Madison, a lovely little girl.  Adam, Kiko’s brother, is all growed up and the college graduate of the family and a lawyer to boot.  Mom, dad if you know the trouble this boy caused as teenager!  And now he’s a lawyer.  He has two children of his own, Lauren and AJ.  And Keithy-boy, well he married the greatest woman ever (shout out to Hillary) and is the luckiest son of a gun for it.  Keith is also our heart of this family, though he is pretty quiet about it.

And then there is me.  I’m a good egg, mommy and daddy.  I work hard, pay my taxes, follow the rules (mostly) and I love as hard as I work.  I met a good man who makes an excellent partner, and we’ve carved out a life together that brings me such joy and happiness.  I love my family and friends and I’m truly happy.  Not all the time, but then who is… what I learned about life is you take the good with the bad, the hard times with the fun times.  It is what you make it and I intend to make it the best.  I miss you both so much but I’m blessed.  Know that much about me.

So much you’ve missed and so much we’ve missed without you.  I couldn’t let another year go by without letting you know.

With love and respect,

your daughter, Mon-Mon

I’ve never really talked about compersion here on this blog. Maybe I mentioned in passing that compersion is the term coined to explain that feeling of happiness one person gets when they see their lover, be it husband/wife or girlfriend/boyfriend, with another person sexually and/or romantically.  I say and/or romantically because polyamorists adopted the term compersion to try and get the world to understand you can have multiple relationships successfully and share in your lovers’ emotional and sexual satsifaction with another person without being involved necessarily.  Maybe I talked about it in that vague, unattached way without giving you any real life examples.

Mainly because when I experience compersion in my relationships, it’s generally mixed in with a great big dose of fear that sometimes looks a little like jealousy and, more often than not, envy.   I get the wonderful gift of feeling joy at watching J enjoy multiple relationships while at the same time worrying over every little detail like only another Virgo mind can really appreciate.  I can honestly say that, with the exception of our first experience with K, every relationship since has brought the same warring feelings into my life, heart and mind.

It wasn’t anything these ladies did so much as what their entrance to my life could mean.  I was worried about what might be -  because with K , I did no such thing.  With K, I threw caution to the wind and took a chance that my heart meant as much to her as hers and J’s meant to mine.  I thought our years of friendship, the time her and I had taken to know each other and care about one another, would be my safety net.  I also put a lot of stock into J’s other poly experiences and his talk of being able to love more than one person at a time without it causing damage to our relationship.  I took a lot at face value in that first poly relationship.

It’s not that I blame K (okay maybe I blame her) or that I blame J even… truth be told, we all were to blame.  Me for my blind faith, K in her lack of faith inability to share, and J for his unwillingness to accept that K was not who he thought she was, who she claimed to be.  It was all part of why we weren’t able to stay together as a triad.  It also plays a part in why it is almost impossible for me to experience just compersion in any current or future poly relationships I might become a part of later in life.  I can’t say it will always be this way; it’s just the way it is now.

So, while I was happy for J that he had a new friend with benefits, maybe potential love interest – I was all kinds of crazy scared of what that change meant for me.  J and I are funny that way…  one of the things J tells everyone about is his inherent selfishness.  And it’s true.  J wants what he wants and damned anyone who gets in his way.  Even me, at times.  But this is what gets  me… when people look at our relationship and hear that or experience it, they think of me as the martyr, the poor suffering girlfriend who lets her man get away with it.  But the truth is – I’m just as selfish as J.  I think that’s why we work so well.  He’s fighting for what he wants, I’m fighting for what I want but in between all that is this amazing love that refuses to let us break up without reaching a compromise between what he wants and what I want.

So it’s been several months since C entered our lives.  We had some really interesting times between J and me as we tried to navigate this new relationship.  J and C have settled into a really nice friendship and casual sexual relationship (that sometimes I get to enjoy as well).  C has learned a bunch of new terminology from this newly tried open relationship style that so far only encompasses one couple (that would be J and me, in case you weren’t following).  Of which, her favorite term would be compersion.  She’s even explained it to her ex-boyfriend and several other close friends.

When C learned about my initial worries regarding her, she was a little devastated and I think hurt.  I’d promised her total honesty when it came to whether or not she was “stepping on my toes.”  What she didn’t understand is that I didn’t consider my worries something she needed to do anything about… no, it was all on me.  It was my stuff to own.  I think I’ve worked on it quite well and C and I are fast friends.

It probably won’t be the last time I find myself working through the compersion/jealousy feelings.  I’m glad it worked out well this time.  I found myself a great friend… and sometimes bed partner, so to speak.

I found out about it last year for the first time.

It’s funny – because you know, I slept with my best friend’s husband when they were still married and kept it secret for five years – before telling her and eventually losing the dearest friend I ever had in my life.  So I had a unique perspective on the whole situation when I found about this friend and her indiscretion.  Plus, it helps that I’m not with my ex AND I don’t like him all that much.  His actions didn’t surprise me.

If I’m honest, my friend’s actions didn’t surprise me either.  Not because she is anything like my ex-husband – not at all.  I know she didn’t deliberately do this act out of malice, out of spite or anything like that at all.  She is a good person – warm-hearted, loving, a great mother and a good friend.

How can I say that when I now know what she did to her husband, and I guess in some way, to me?  Because I can see that she didn’t do this to me.  This wasn’t about me.  This wasn’t even about her husband.  This was about my friend and her circumstances at the time.  Sometimes people make bad decisions and end up living with the results for the rest of their lives.

I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I am her in some ways.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I know the pain and guilt she is living with every day.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because she did this to herself.

I know that now – from personal experience.

I found out last year but she and I just talked about it last night, at her insistence.  I was quite content to live with the knowledge, be her friend and let it go.  But she wanted to talk about it – no – she needed to talk about it.  She had to let me know she didn’t do it on purpose, didn’t do it to hurt me or even her husband (now an ex-husband, by the way).

I understand.

Sometimes you just need to talk it all out – to admit what you did to someone besides yourself.  I didn’t offer her forgiveness because there was nothing to forgive from my perspective.  But maybe she can finally forgive herself.  It might make it easier to live with.  If she figures out how to do that, I hope she shares her secret.

thirteen things

mon-mon

just doesn’t get

1. Why people who are turning right onto a multi-lane street must wait until there are no cars traveling in any lane in their direction before turning – even if they have a green arrow – and then they turn into the incorrect lane.

2. Why Niki the bird is so angry at me all the time.

3. Why people smoke… blech.

4. Mean people.

5. Why the more I exercise, the more I want to eat food that isn’t healthy for me.

6. Why women are so slow when the use public restrooms.

7. Why some people refuse to go the speed limit.

8. Anything in the kitchen (according to J)

9. Why my college believes giving an impossible amount of homework makes the class harder thus making the class worthy of a higher level designation.

10. Why inanimate objects are hell bent on pissing me off.

11. Why – no matter how much I run on a regular basis – it is still the hardest thing I do all day.

12. Why J doesn’t understand that birds are loud by their very nature.

13.Why I can never start the lawn mower on the first try.

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I also started spending more time in the swinging community – not as you would think (wink). But actually attending local meet and greets to get to know the people in “the lifestyle” as they like to call it. There are quite a few swinging groups in Colorado and most are active with parties at local clubs, bars, hotels and even at people’s homes. In particular, there is a local group where the women in “the lifestyle” get together monthly for a wine party – and their men attend a local men’s “support group” at the same time. The central theme to these parties isn’t to have sex, it’s to meet like minded folk who view sexuality and relationships differently than mainstream society.

What strikes me about these two groups is not just the similarity in their views on sex and relationship and how different it is from the “straight world,” but also how much they truly do not support each other in the alternative lifestyles they’ve chosen to live. When I’m in my polyamorists world, I spend a lot of time listening to the ways how poly is NOT like swinging. Some polyamorists will go, it seems to me, to any extent to proclaim how poly isn’t like swinging. They will even go so far as to talk about how many ways polyamory is so much better than swinging.

Then, I spend some time in the swinging world and listen to the other side disclaim polyamorists. While I’ve just gotten into talking to swingers about polyamory, most of what I hear is that dreaded “jealousy” word and how much folks who swing aren’t really into long term sharing. I’ve yet to hear anyone in the swinging world claim that their way is better than the poly way (the reserve that disdain for the straight world, sharing that view with the polyamorists). However, the sentiments surrounding sharing are a close second to that vein of thought in my book.

I guess it surprises me that either alternative lifestyle wouldn’t support the other given the fact that they are both alternative lifestyles. Both groups of folk seem to be seeking social and cultural acceptance from a society that holds marriage and monogamy as more important that individual wants and needs. It would seem to me that a united front would be a better way towards that goal than to hold each other with so little respect.

I shouldn’t be surprised though. I saw this in my life when I came out as bisexual back in the late 90′s. I experienced this from lesbian women who felt I was either pretending I still liked men because I couldn’t face wanting only women or who felt I was playing with lesbian’s minds because – in their eyes – I was either gay or straight. But I couldn’t be both. I saw this from gay men, whom I love and adore, who believe all men were gay and just pretending at being straight because of delusions or an inability to face who they were.

I don’t pretend to understand the human psyche and the need to prove one group better or more right than the other. It isn’t just a straight trait though. I feel and my experiences prove that this need is prevalent in all groups, in everyone – heck even in me at times (though my trait is a tendency to want to be right over anyone, which leads me to argue all sides of any argument – even to switch arguments in mid-stride if I feel I’m winning someone over to my side, go figure). I guess its ingrained in us to be the best, at any cost.

It’s sad though, that neither group can see that everyone loses in this situation.

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing (imagine that) with folks in the polyamory world about this “we’re better than swingers” mentality. I’ve talked about how, to me, polyamory and swinging have a lot in common – not necessarily in how they behave in relationships or how they love in relationships, or how they have sex in relationships – but in how we all are trying to live autonomously with integrity in ourselves and respect for our love partners. To me, that’s the central theme in both lifestyles. The path they each take to get there is different and yet their destination is eerily similar. I talk a good talk, but I rarely get anyone to listen. It’s too important to some folk that they not be viewed as polyamorists (or not be viewed as swingers) than to take a step back and honor the similarities instead of focusing on (and over-magnifying) the differences. Perhaps if we did so, we’d find a common ground to meet on and demonstrate how groups overcome silly, petty arguments.

Still I suppose I’ll keep trying. Just like I do on this blog with the straight world – I try to demonstrate that non-monogamists are not sex-crazed folks who refuse to grow up and take responsibility or refuse to form commitments. I try to show that, while polyamory is hard, it is possible and it is a viable alternative to the traditional views on relationships. Some would argue that traditional relationships don’t work any better than the alternative lifestyles; some might even say they fair worse. But that argument is not one I’m taking up here, and it’s not one I necessarily support.

Sometimes having the ability to see all sides and argue all sides isn’t all its cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s tiring. But I will keep fighting the good fight, even if it sometimes seems I do it only for the fact that I enjoy the debate.

As Jeff swung the car around to head back towards my niece’s house, we drove past a little shop called Suzy.  A big smile crossed my fact and I said to Jeff, “Hey look at that shop!  My mom went by the name Suzie at times.” 

The smile slowly faded from my face and my heart ached just a little as I thought of the names my mom used in her life.  And I thought of how I never got to use those name with her.  How much I missed out on because she died when I was so young. And I once again I thought of all she never got to know about my beautiful, grown-up, living-with-her-boyfriend niece. 

My eyes grew hot as unshed tears shined from behind them.  I was struck at how odd it was that something so inconsequential as the name of a tiny store in the border town of Calexico could bring home the reminder that my parents are gone forever.  How it could remind me so sharply of all that I lost and all that was lost to those in my family.

I also thought of how far I’d come in dealing with my grief and how none of that mattered when something like this happened.  How much I was still that little orphan girl who was left behind in the aftermath of a deadly accident.  I keep trying to leave that little orphan behind, to move on, to not hurt. But sometimes we just can’t turn our backs on our hurts.  Instead we have to turn around and embrace them.  Even for just a moment.

As we drive past the store called Suzy, I hug myself tightly and close my eyes.  In my mind, I am hugging my little orphan self.  And we drive back to my niece to say goodbye.

I don’t go out there looking for straight folk – especially not straight women – and yet I can’t help who I’m drawn towards or who returns my interest.  In fact, it is very rare for me to be drawn towards just anyone.  Even J, while finding many woman here in Denver attractive and funny, isn’t one to just fall in love with everyone. 

It is even true that neither one of us was looking for anyone in particular when we met N.  We just happened to both meet this funny, quirky, sexy lady camping this summer.  And they had a definite “spark” going on between them, and I wasn’t threatened by it.  I actually found her charming and attractive – and lo and behold she was intrigued by what she saw between Jeff and  me and wondered if maybe she could be a part of it too.

It is so rare to find not only a physical connection but also a deeper connection that could lead to an emotional bond that will grow into a long term relationship with one person, let alone two people.  So if it does happen, do you let it pass because one person isn’t familiar with a new relationship dynamic?

I certainly can see an argument for avoidance given the fact that my first triad bombed so tragically and horribly.  And central to its demise was the fact one person in the triad tried something completely new to her and couldn’t get passed her monogamous upbringing and open her heart to the possibilities polyamory offers.  She couldn’t even try honesty with herself, much less honesty with her partners, in order to be in a triad relationship.  And poly talks a lot of self-honesty in order to maneuver the bumps open and honest relationships sometimes cause.

I can’t control who I’m attracted to but I can control who I pursue.  Believe me, more than once I’ve stated out loud, “I’m done with ‘straight’ women who think they are attracted to girls – never mind what Katie Perry says” and “I’m only dating poly people.”  But in the end, the spark ignited, I followed my heart, and I found myself falling for just the type of girl I was trying to avoid.

What’s that road to hell paved with?  Oh yeah, good intentions.  Well, I guess I can take comfort in the fact I’ve remained true to my initial promise to myself. I’ve kept my heart open, I’ve let it lead me where it will, and hopefully my reward is the fact that I’ve been open and honest with myself and others. 

But thanks, Kiko, for worrying about me.  It’s always good to know I’m loved.