day97 - 'mine'
dear luci,
I saw someone say recently, “I'm not poly in a gotta catch ‘em all way— I'm poly in the way that I never want to deny a genuine connection”. This resonated deeply for me. I don't consider myself inherently poly. I don't even really think of it as a part of my identity. It's just a type of relationship I am comfortable having, as far as my experience suggests. It's like coriander (minus the genetic predisposition). Some people can't imagine ever liking coriander. Some people, like me, enjoy it. I don't need to eat coriander for every single meal, but if it's in something, that's cool, I dig it.
I have always had conflicting feelings about possessiveness, symbolic or otherwise, in relationships. Call me a freak (you'd be right to do so) but part of me wants to be owned so bad1. to be someone's.
“mine". “yours”.
to desire such a thing feels so weirdly antithetical to a relationship structure wherein you should probably be chill with your partner dating other folks. like, isn't ownership, possession absolute? isn't it a little toxic?
on the contrary, I do not like the “ugly” side of possessiveness. the controlling side. the side that makes you feel like a bad person for staying out an extra hour when you said you'd be home by 10. the kind that, when distrustful, can make you feel like your every move, word, action is being scrutinised in the worst possible light. I do not like the idea of surrendering my individuality to become a unit. I have been asked to do this too many times in my young life.
how do you reconcile this? you kinda don't. you indulge in the aesthetics insofar as the person you're with likes it.
“yours”
“mine”
whilst knowing full-well that this person has, beyond yourself, one or more sets of responsibilities, commitments, desires, entanglements. So at that point, are you just borrowing from fractions? No. I don't believe that love is a finite resource.
unfortunately, the only finite resource in this scenario is time. i know from experience that it can be so fucking hard to balance responsibilities, priorities, the practicality of loving more than one person, but loving them both with an equal yet entirely unique intensity. if only there were two of you…then everybody would be happy. it's hard to balance people's needs and expectations whilst still remaining sane.
it's almost ironic how I've ended up in a situation quite similar to one I unwittingly put a very lovely girl in semi recently. I am reluctant to shuffle up to someone with my palms upturned and ask for time, time they have already divided so finely. time that they would give me without hesitation. “I know you have so much on your plate,” I say, “but how about I add some more.” but some deity or higher power has blessed me with something I find to be quite useful. the ability to be a little selfish. a calculated amount of selfishness. I like you, I like the way you fit into my arms, the way you HATE how I arrange my bedding so you un-tuck my sheets by kicking them because you like sticking your feet out the end of the bed when you get too warm, and if I make you happy I'm not going to leave just because I know I…might cause problems, later on.
this isn't a competitor sport, a contest where players are eliminated. it's not a taxi that will take me from A-B when I want it to. it's a magical mystery tour. I don't know where B is, or if I'm heading to the same destination as this person. But our paths are crossing, so we will huddle for warmth, comfort, understanding.
I won't lie and say I'm not a bit anxious to find out whether this service is going the direction I'm “supposed to go”. I try to just enjoy it. not overthink things.
sweet dreams Luci 💜
NOT in a nasty wa—↩