Volume 31, Chapter 1
As I go through another phase of puberty, or rather what feels like it, I'm faced with the fact of fear ruling my current reality. It feels like everything is in the air and I can't get control of anything. I'm aware that's not how things in life work but wouldn't it great if it did?
Health
What I know for certain is I can say my nerves are bad. The sentence black elders have said before landed on me and I have to say, I finally understand what they mean. All of the stressors we face in the world builds in our bodies. All the times I shoved my feelings down, waited to cry where prying eyes couldn't reach me or made myself numb, caught up to me. I'm experiencing high blood pressure and anxiety at levels I've never gotten used to before. Don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to feeling my heart beat faster or a panic attack. I just thought everyone had them from time to time. Typing that highlights how misguided that thought process is. But how would I know how to take care of myself when no one else around me during my formative years showed me? We pushed, went to work, and broke down later. I underestimated the diminishing returns on that system. Maybe I was arrogant enough to think genetics would skip me. The pride I felt in pushing my body to the edge is gone. All I can feel is sadness for the versions of myself that just knew this was sustainable. It’s not that I thought age wouldn’t catch up to me. If you knew me as a kid, getting older is what I always asked for. Being a kid wasn’t fun and I wanted to skip to the good parts when I could be free. I didn’t know childhood was supposed to have been that time. Now that I think about it, I used to joke about being surprised I didn’t have an ulcer like other kids I heard about.
How funny is it that poor health habits did finally touch me? I knew I wasn’t invincible but I definitely didn’t plan for the inevitable. Good habits are the foundation to everything and sometimes I’m pissed that I wasn’t taught how to take care of myself. Time has taught me, there was no way that was going to happen. No one around me knew how to do that, so how could they show me? Being a generational curse breaker is much more dificult than I anticipated. That is youth at work, right there.
Polyamory
I'm good at experiencing emotions and acting like everything is fine. I'm used to struggling alone, even as a 10 year practicing polyamourous individual. It's not my partners' faults I don't take the support they offer. They mean well, but they forget how excellent I am at cloaking the truth sometimes. They believe me when I say I'm fine because I tell the truth about everything outside of myself. It's when it comes to me that things become less clear, and that's of my own design. Sometimes I don't ask them until I'm at my limit already, which isn't fair to anyone involved. It shouldn't have to be an emergency to release a spoken request for anything. It’s taken me so much time to realize it’s not them majority of the time. If it were, why would I cry everytime anyone acknowledges my hard work? Alternative lifestyle or not, that’s not normal or healthy. What’s the point of having all of these amazing people in my life if I still find myself feeling alone? I used to wonder if polyamory was the reason why I put everyone’s needs before mine. Unsurpringly they’re not linked. If anything, polyamory gave me the space to voice my needs and concerns for any and everything. My preference for the sexually free has forced me to face buried and unconscious insecurities.
Are they better at making you laugh than me?
Do they fuck you in a way I don’t?
Will you love them more than me?
Will you forget me?
Are they more important?
Did you ever really care at all?
Were you lying to me the whole time?
I put them through the ringer to ease my fears of being left behind. Each question I asked felt familar and I hated it. My daddy issues jumped out every time a change happened, even the ones I agreed to. Sometimes I would change their names in my phone when I was upset, knowing it wouldn’t stay that way for long. I thought they would hurt me like my father so I controlled as much as I could, even if that meant cutting off nearly all forms of intimacy. It felt safer than being vulnerable with them. Bless their hearts (genuinely) and their resolves. Former metamours activated my distrust of femmes that, again, I tried to bury. I was most buillied by the girls and women in my younger life and as a complex femme growing up, I didn’t know what to do with the rift that formed. I wanted sisterhood so badly that I allowed clear violations of friendship slide, over and over again. When my former metamours rode the waves of fear and change, I gave them grace for longer than I should have. There was one reason why, every time: hope. I felt like a little kid, wishing I could belong but being rejected and embarassed instead. Using the skill I refined in therapy, once my thoughts were on the table I got up and left. It felt relieving to leave it all out in the open. This is why I love kitchen table polyamory. Everyone sees so much more than they thought and the opportunities to connect on any level are greater. The ones who were on the same wave, stayed and collaborate to this day. Others fell by the wayside. Now I’m open to what comes my way but I have ✨discernment✨.
The Catalyst Moment
I’m finally tired of pretending. Reaching 31 years of life is something I’m grateful for but when I look at my future, I’m not certain of anything. Feeling out of control of everything is as unnerving as it is liberating. This is a chance to create a future I’ve never thought was possible before. Everything is falling away to make room for my new life and I’ll be damned if fear overpowers me again. Someone special called me something I hadn’t heard in a long while after recapping some of the alternative lifestyle actions we engage in. My being brings about chain reactions without even trying. It hasn’t always been received well but at this point, oh well. People get exposed just when I log online and I’m no longer invested in caring about how others feel about it. Leaning into the light I reveal seems like a better plan than bulldozing through life. So I made this to help keep me on track.
Being a visualizer but not the best drawing artist, this is what I could come up with. It’s actually nice to not have it be perfect or exceptional. Taking the pressure off myself is the whole point of this time in my life. The time for building is now and I’d rather chronicle it here than anywhere else. This corner of the internet is mine since I pay for this domain and it fufills a section of the board. I am and have always been an artist, a creative. While swimming in the waters of nostalgia, I noticed so many ways I tried to make something out of little to nothing. Creativity is where I practiced my resiliency so I can’t abandon it now. Holding it in only adds to the pressure I’ve felt my entire life. I want to let go of what I don’t need, let my body run the show and follow my own light to where I need to be. It’s day 3 of changing my habits and I already feel the difference. My phone isn’t by my side as often, clutched in my hands. Physical pain is reducing and joy is starting to come back. Tears fall more frequently but I like it better that way. They’re an ode to my natual sensitivity, something I’m no longer ashamed of. Understanding healing is never really over until my subscription to life is, and even after who truly knows, brings me a sense of peace.
Pieces of what’s to come next are being illuminated each day that passes. Maybe this is how butterflies feel before they introduce themelves to the world.
