We're going on seven years together. Our four year anniversary is in two months. It still surprises me, how long we've been together. I think it might always. And it will always seem like there was no life before this. In some ways, there wasn't. My life can clearly be divided into not with Jesse, and with Jesse. We've been hanging out and kissing all these years and it feels just the same as it did all those years ago. I was 20 years old and didn't enter adulthood until he came along and we became each other's constants. The one we could hold on to and count on to never give up, never turn away. When we fight its half with anger and half with sickness at being angry with each other. I hate sleeping away from him. Even a nap.
When you can count on someone like that, the desperate love we were taught as teenagers turns into safety and peace. I don't worry about four years, seven years, twenty years from now. This is the way it will be.
And as I learn that safety, and as I learn more about myself, about the world, I see that human connection has more possibilities than limited scope society gives us. I recognize in myself that I have so much love to give, more than enough for my wonderful husband, my crazy dog, my family of choice. I want to connect with others. I've struggled for years. How much of that has to do with not allowing myself to love the way that I am made to love? I care about people. I want to see others happy, to hear about their lives and struggles. I want to laugh with them and make them laugh. But its not enough. I want to love deeper. I want to hold them when they cry. I want to be a part of their lives, I want to be someone they can count on.
I want to stroke their hair, hold their hand, lay my head in their lap. I want to love emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Because I don't think I was built to compartmentalize love.
Ironically, I think a lot of that has to do with growing up in a family that lacked physical affections. A family that also didn't love unconditionally, that spoke in secrets and emotional outbursts and alliances. So now, when I look for love, I look for the opposite of all those things. Maybe its a little crazy but its what feels the most honest to me.
So its possible that listening to society about monogamy has severely limited my ability to form genuine human connections.
I'm reading a book called "More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory". I'm talking to Jesse. I'm taking it one step at a time, not rushing into anything without knowing each of our thoughts and feelings. I don't know if anything will come of it soon or ever. We may decide its not right for us. But I'm not afraid that exploring it will damage us. We respect and care for each other too much to let that happen. And we respect and care for each other to deny experiences that may benefit our souls. We are lovers, partners, best friends, and we are also individuals. This is our one life on this earth. We both feel we have no reason to believe we will have another life. And so we will live, trying to be better, finding happiness where we can.
love,
lisapink
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