🌱 Out-takes and out-to-lunch 🪐

I’m so lucky to have my best friend Joie in my life. We vibrate on the same frequency. When we talk we ping-pong back and forth with verbal precision, noises and affirmations and secret short-hand references speed us through what takes most people all kinds of time to convey. It’s skillful.

We both live a sensory-based existence, we make giant mugs of tea and reheat them several times, we slip between French and english to highlight certain nuances, we like loud and bold and bright, we weave ancestral healing practices, neurology, and hip hop lyrics while we pass a spliff and strive for understanding. This is not how most people live.

Talking to her feels like being home. My own mother misses how she used to show up at our house and rummage through the fridge like she belonged there. Wasn’t long before she did belong there and the familiarity wasn’t a reach. Funny how we found each other on a dance floor downtown at 3 in the morning high as kites. I was 16, she was 18, it’s been more than half our lives since then.

Like for like, game recognizes game, we didn’t understand why we clicked so well that night but she was a chatterbox and I was a pixie and we skipped to the bass beat and laughed until the sun came up. It was her energy, her aura, that pulled me close. This is something we share too, appreciating the essence of a person. Not wanting to claim it or own it, just wanting to appreciate it, support it’s shine.

It’s an approach we have in common, some call it woo-woo, some call it demi-sexual, but we’re both driven by connection. As queer, switchy, ethically non-monogamous lovers we share this rainbow mosaic outlook that so few folks understand. Life is short and we both want to saturate ourselves with wonderful people and experiences.

And as I’m lying here stoned out of my tree on edibles and falling in love with a tik tok dancer, I’m wondering how in the fuck anyone would ever want to be strictly monogamous? There are so many devastatingly beautiful souls out there, people who can expand your vision, change your horizons, help you grow and experience this life in this body. It’s not a slight against any one of the 7 billion plus humans on the planet to admit that so many of them might be worth your time. It’s as silly as looking at a photo of the vastness of the universe, the endless galaxies, and thinking we’re the only ones here.

My girlfriend is monogamous. It’s been so strange gaining insight into things that are “normal” in monogamous culture. This sense of ownership and pre-set expectations is so hard to examine if you don’t have the tools to challenge the blue-print. Now that the world is opening back up, and some of my long-distance partners are considering travel soon, it’s probably going to be a hot fucking topic.

Max and I have always had our eyes wide open about our differences, and the pandemic mercifully gave us all kinds of time to build our own connection away from the pressures of other people and structural challenges, since we were on lockdown together anyway. I’m grateful for that, lovebirds just want to hideout in bed anyway. It’s been so nice.

If the pandemic hadn’t happened we would have crossed this bridge in April of 2020 at the slumber party that was cancelled when the quarantine started. Piper and Ember would have been there, maybe Elly too, we were already starting to talk about parameters and feelings about the things that might happen, and what felt okay. I was anxious about it. I wanted it to go well. But we were still so new as a couple, only dating a few months, and I was worried it would have scared her off.

Now here we are, about to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, and I haven’t kissed another person in almost that long. I’ve been devoted to my babe by public-health and by location. And I’ve loved it. I’ve loved not having to share her, and not having to divide my time. It’s been so good spending my long weekends off together in bed, no brunches or birthdays we have to drag ourselves to, no expectations or demands for our time. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

But now here we are, poised for the opening, and I wish we’d had some practice. Some training wheels. Some opportunities for me to flex my values and have her see that it’s okay. We’ve talked about it a lot, and we’re both keeping positive, but I’m nervous all over again that the challenges will come too quickly and they’ll overwhelm us. (“There there Chicken Little,” she’ll say.)

We’ll still take it slow, the scenarios she feels uncomfortable with aren’t scenarios I’m currently interested in anyway, that gives me some comfort. I know any of the wonderful women I’m connected to will be mindful of her (and of me) as we go forward. It’s a familiar feeling, I don’t want it to change, I don’t want it to end, but I don’t want to compromise on who I am in my heart.

We have time. And lots of conversation. And I’m heartened by spending nights with Joie, smoking on her balcony, feeling like I’m sitting at peace with myself. She reflects my quirks and versatilities back to me and I feel stronger for it. And Max and I will end up wherever we’re supposed to be. I’m a girl with a big heart and all kinds of patience. And that’s not such a bad thing.