in this world it's hard to get it right
trying to make your heart fit like a glove
what it needs is love, love, love
everybody, everybody wants to love
everybody, everybody wants to be loved
happy is the heart that still feels pain
darkness drains and light will come again
swing open up your chest and let it in
just let the love, love, love begin
everybody knows the love
everybody holds the love
everybody folds for love
everybody feels the love
everybody steals the love
everybody heals with love
-- Everybody - written by Ingrid Michaelson
"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.”
- Gary Zukav
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(stripped down from the song lyrics)
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"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.”
- Gary Zukav
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“She's got a smile that heals me
I don't know why it is
But I have to laugh when she reveals me.”
- Billy Joel
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“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”
- Novalis
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Sometimes relationships hurt. Relationships where there are more than two people involved are no different in that they can hurt, they can leave scars, they can be really, really difficult to manage.
Sometimes in a polyamorous configuration one relationship ends, and the fallout, the pain, the scars and the aftermath of that breaking apart process can hurt more than just that one relationship. Sometimes wounds go deep, and translate into pain and insecurity that continues to spread out beyond the original source.
I have always written honestly on this blog, because this is my journey, and writing the truth helps me find the road, and make sense of the map. I have been silent though, about many things, out of respect. Things that were too painful to write about. Things that came out of hurts caused by others in my love-life and my extended-love-life. The past year has been so very messy for me. Truth be told, messy is nothing new, but this messy has been a painful, frightening, overwhelming kind of messy that has caused everyone involved - at one time or another - to consider what it would be like to either lose everything or walk away.
I don't know if I've been completely clear here about my family structure, though there are bits and pieces. I won't draw the whole 'white-board' diagram, and I certainly won't include all the pieces, but for the sake of this post, there are three central players and one secondary one who I might never mention again after this post. When I met Shepherd, he was the primary partner of Sheperdess. A year after he and I met and began a secondary relationship, he began a secondary relationship with Dragonfly Girl. Today, Sheperdess is no longer part of our lives. In the midst of all this turmoil, we've fought for each other, and battled our own scars and insecurities.
For me, one of the hardest things about it all has been feeling disconnected. I am a whole state away from everyone else in this family. Much of the communication on my end is brief -- text messages, emails, second-hand conversations. This is just a product of the distance, and the limits when it comes to time and nearness, or the lack thereof. It also comes from the fact that we are all still learning. We have weaknesses, personal challenges, we are scarred and wounded, in our own ways. Making space for others to fail and be human, to need forgiveness and patience... this is something I want so badly for us, and something I find sometimes very hard to do. I get hurt. I get emotional. I cry and feel insecure, and too intense, like I'm asking for too much, or expressing too much raw feeling. Shepherd calls it my poet heart. To me it's a blessing and a curse.
Over the past several weeks, and especially the week that led to our most recent weekend together, that communication issue led to some words and tears and frustration. -- It turns out that that weekend became a shared one between the three of us. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, and we let our guard down, it was a great opportunity to hang out and enjoy family, to get to know each other better, and plan for the future. We met at a local bed and breakfast in my hometown -- a lovely turn of the century home, with a spacious room that had two beds. We talked, and planned and laughed and cried. We filled that room with love, and healing.
I know that my own jealousy is rooted in insecurity. I am a poly girl. I have loved many. I do love many, I will love many. It's how my heart is made. But my insecurity is. It just is. I am growing, learning, becoming less insecure... and yet, I still feel it sometimes. There has never been a time when I saw Shepherd being affectionate with another woman -- particularly those with whom he shares or has shared a committed relationship -- when I did not feel a twinge in my core, a feeling of anxiety and discomfort. I have always chosen my response. I've reminded myself that I love Shepherd, and that I particularly love his capacity to love others. I have chosen to be happy that others are there, in his life, committed to love him in a way or time or place that I cannot. I have chosen to celebrate his loves, to support them, to encourage them, and to work to foster a feeling of trust and safety, of family and respect among his loves. I think it's very common that poly people feel this twinge, and choose how to handle it. Perhaps compersion is just a happy feeling that some people feel naturally... but for me, compersion is a choice.
I stated moments ago that I have never not felt that twinge when seeing Shepherd share affection with another. It is true. It was true. Until our most recent weekend. Surrounded by such intense love, acceptance and affection, I kissed Dragonfly girl. It was unexpected. It wasn't spur of the moment. I chose, after thinking through what it might mean and what it might lead to. I felt safe, comfortable, eager to express affection and yes, curiosity. I kissed her, and she kissed me. And it was amazing. We did fill that room with love and healing. We shared a love that didn't belong to any one, or two of us. We shared something that up to this point had been separate parts of a whole. The lines blurred, and love flooded me, flooded us.
Some of the most amazing moments came when tangled up in the same bed I could lean in and kiss Dragonfly girl tenderly, and then gaze into her eyes with wonder and just over her shoulder see Shepherd's smile, the same wonder and joy in his eyes. When he would reach for me, and touch me tenderly, then lean in and kiss her softly I felt it every time. The kiss, the touch, the love. There was no sense of someone else receiving affection and me being left out... I don't think anyone felt left out, except maybe Shepherd once in a while. Writing that sentence makes me smile, because though Dragonfly girl and I both worried about him feeling a little disconnected from our exploration and discovery of each other, every time I looked at him he was grinning like a Cheshire. Every time I looked at her, her smile lit up the room like a beacon. I felt like I was fairly glowing with love and wonder. It was something so amazing, so wonderful and so very unexpected that I am not sure I'll ever find the right words to describe what it was like.
I do know this...
I want to do it again, and again, and again. Everybody heals with love. Shepherd, Dragonfly Girl, me. What we shared in that beautiful room this weekend was life-changing, and the healing still flows as we email, telephone and text each other in the days since. There are no labels for it, no expectations, only love.Pure and simple, and incredible... for everybody.
(And I can't stop humming Katy Perry)
I stated moments ago that I have never not felt that twinge when seeing Shepherd share affection with another. It is true. It was true. Until our most recent weekend. Surrounded by such intense love, acceptance and affection, I kissed Dragonfly girl. It was unexpected. It wasn't spur of the moment. I chose, after thinking through what it might mean and what it might lead to. I felt safe, comfortable, eager to express affection and yes, curiosity. I kissed her, and she kissed me. And it was amazing. We did fill that room with love and healing. We shared a love that didn't belong to any one, or two of us. We shared something that up to this point had been separate parts of a whole. The lines blurred, and love flooded me, flooded us.
Some of the most amazing moments came when tangled up in the same bed I could lean in and kiss Dragonfly girl tenderly, and then gaze into her eyes with wonder and just over her shoulder see Shepherd's smile, the same wonder and joy in his eyes. When he would reach for me, and touch me tenderly, then lean in and kiss her softly I felt it every time. The kiss, the touch, the love. There was no sense of someone else receiving affection and me being left out... I don't think anyone felt left out, except maybe Shepherd once in a while. Writing that sentence makes me smile, because though Dragonfly girl and I both worried about him feeling a little disconnected from our exploration and discovery of each other, every time I looked at him he was grinning like a Cheshire. Every time I looked at her, her smile lit up the room like a beacon. I felt like I was fairly glowing with love and wonder. It was something so amazing, so wonderful and so very unexpected that I am not sure I'll ever find the right words to describe what it was like.
I do know this...
I want to do it again, and again, and again. Everybody heals with love. Shepherd, Dragonfly Girl, me. What we shared in that beautiful room this weekend was life-changing, and the healing still flows as we email, telephone and text each other in the days since. There are no labels for it, no expectations, only love.Pure and simple, and incredible... for everybody.
(And I can't stop humming Katy Perry)
Follow your feet, and your hearts, travelers...
