Anxious

After a silly bout of social anxiety, and once my flimsy excuse for staying in was no longer valid, Ark and I went out to a local meet to see some friends. I won't lie about it, not to myself or anyone else: it is really hard for me to get out of the house to do anything. I will say, “I'm going to go out to this event,” or “I'm going to so-and-so's house to hang,” but at the last moment I'll have some excuse not to go. It isn't that I don't want to go, but for some reason, I panic. I don't like people. I may like these people, but I don't like people as a group. I often don't have the mental/emotional capacity to deal with them, and I get claustrophobic if there are a lot of people around. If I'm feeling particularly shy, I will hang around Ark and let him do the talking, choosing instead to observe and listen. Alternatively, if I'm feeling manic, I will chat up the nearest person, me with a shaky voice and twiddling fingers and bouncing legs.

Regardless of the social events, if I do too much at once, I will be drained for days and require recoup time. Pushing myself out the door takes energy, and being with people takes energy, and coming home and winding down takes energy. (Yes, I said winding down takes energy.) Sometimes, after an event, I'll come home feeling super charged with energy, and I won't be able to sit still.

I had been working on it, getting better at mastering my anxiety and managing to get out for events sometimes two or three times a week. But it's been getting harder. Actually, doing everything is getting harder.

I had to admit to myself that something is probably wrong with me on a chemical level after having a second anxiety attack at work. It's not something my coworkers need to see or be around, and I don't like feeling this way. When asked recently what was wrong, all I could come up with was, “I'm just sad. All the time.”

I wrote about being afraid of admitting that I have depression before. I'm still afraid of it, but I think I'm coming to grips with it. I need to see a doctor and I'm hoping that will help me make some sense of it all. I know now that this is more than just my normal winter blues, and I have to take action if I want to get through it.

Blogging helps. I know this isn't poly-related, but this is also kind of a personal blog, and nothing has been going on poly-wise worth talking about (I know! Happy poly! Who knew?!), so I thought I'd drop this update while I had the time and energy to put it out.

A lot of changes will be happening 2012. I can feel it.

Pierced

I watched my cousin get her tongue pierced at the beach a few years ago. I leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, watching with mild interest. I don't like needles, and I don't like piercings. The only piercings I had were my earlobes, which were done when I was too young to have a valid opinion about the whole thing.

The piercer told her calmly about the procedure. He clamped her tongue, pulled out the long, hollow needle, and stuck it through her tongue. Blood welled up instantly from the wound, and I saw tears appear in my cousin's eyes.

Suddenly, the room spun. I had to sit down—I was going to pass out. I didn't watch the rest of the procedure but I knew I would never, ever, get another piercing.

What can I say? This is where stubbornness gets me. As I sit here, typing, I'm playing with the barbell that's been in my tongue for just over a week. So, what changed my mind?

Every once in a while, I get to thinkin' about something. I admired tongue rings in other girls' mouths, and I loved the variety of barbells available. I don't have the stomach (literally) for a belly ring, and I don't have the stomach (figuratively) for nipple or genital piercings. I didn't see the *challenge* in getting another ear piercing. When I thought about getting my tongue pierced, I felt excitement, and I felt fear, and I felt the urge to conquer that fear. (Not to mention, the **other** benefits of having a tongue piercing... *wink wink*)

As soon as I get in this state of mind, that I am **absolutely going to do something**, there is really no deterring me. I did some research, talked to my lovers about it, and finally went in and made the appointment.

I went in straight. No painkillers, no liquor. I held the vodka, and the ibuprofen, before I left, but I put them down. Like getting a tattoo, I didn't want the piercing to be affected adversely by something I put into my body prior. I sat down on the edge of the table in the piercing room. It looked like I was in a hospital—this really did nothing to settle my nerves. My heart was thudding in my chest.

Mouthwash. Pincers. Needle. *Owwwwowowowowowowow!* Barbell.

I made it. I did it! I have a tongue piercing!

Success feels like not kissing for 2-4 weeks.

prose

That moment when you know you're falling for someone.

The cute little quirks you develop between the two of you; things that are funny, or stupid, or so cute that you're giving everyone around you within a 10-mile radius cavities.

The anticipation.

The wet dreams. The first awkward kiss, the learning of how to move your lips to match the ones you're devouring. The first fumbling at belt buckles, at buttons and zippers. The waiting, or the moving.

The falling into a steady rhythm.

The falling into bed.

The falling in lust. The falling in love.

The otherwise creepy things one does when they are in love. The staring at them while they sleep. The constant texting. The stalker-like refreshing of social networking sites, of e-mails; checking phones for messages.

Then the slow, steady pull into a comfortable lull.

The knowing what they will say, even before they say it. Knowing their pizza order, knowing their favorite drink. The keeping of designated sides of a bed. Fighting over the covers. Nudging the snorer.

The way two lives come together easily, almost gently, even after such a tumultuous start. The resembling of two great waves in the sea crashing against each other, to then settle into the ocean around them.

The getting comfortable.

The picking of fights. The resolution.

The dwindling, but never the death, of the wildfire that was your beginning.

my dog is an awesome dog

Have I told you lately that I love my husband?

I wrote an article for Life on the Swingset where I talked about how lucky we are. We, the non-monogamous, the swingers, the polys, the pans. We have so much love in our lives, so many people around us, so much life. I'm always a little excited when meeting someone else who is “like me,” who is open-minded and curious and accepting of all the craziness in the world.

I love my husband, and once upon a time, he was just as open and accepting as I was. I sometimes find his narrow-mindedness to be plastic, fake, something to hide behind. As I said in a previous entry, Ark is afraid to be interested in taboo subjects because he is such a people person and he doesn't want them to think strange things about him. I am almost completely his opposite socially. I'm quiet, an observer; I listen, soak up information, and if I'm around a lot of people I don't know, I gauge what I say depending on how they speak and act. But, unlike Ark, I am not afraid to tell people that I'm not funny ha-ha, I'm funny queer, mm-hmm.

This isn't to say that I'll just blurt out, “Hey, I'm Blue and I'm a polyamorous pansexual. Also, I don't believe in God, and I'd walk around barefoot all day if I could, and today my pubic hair looks like this...”

No, I do have a little more tact. Tact is something Ark lacks, which is maybe why he's afraid to be involved with these strange things—because he knows that, at some point, it'll just tumble out of his mouth whether he wants it to, or not. No matter how friendly or close I am with people, I know that some of them will not ever want to know things about me and I just keep it to myself, unless of course, they ask a question, and I will answer them honestly.

People ask us all the time why we got married, if we're not going to be exclusive. This is probably the question we get asked most often. For both of us, the answer is that we know we want to spend the rest of our lives with each other, regardless of who (or what) else comes up in the interim.

Ark is my home. Growing up, I never had a very strong bond with anyone except for my mother, and when she died, I felt lost in the world. I felt like there was no one left who knew me and loved everything about me. She was the only one I talked to. I'm not going to go into it here.

Ark is my home, and I say that to the full extent of the meaning. When people think of “home,” what do they think of? Ark says it's “a safe place, or the place where I can feel the safest. It's where I live.” Some might think of a house, or their pets, or the things that surround them that make their house a “home.” I wander. Things come and go and I know this. People also come and go, and I think that, seriously and honestly, if Ark went, I'd go too. If something came up and he could get an amazing job on the west coast, I'd start packing. Thinking about his absence fills me with cold fear, close to panic. Any time something is amiss, my first worry is, 'will this be it?'

My husband is amazing. He is the best husband a girl could ask for, I think. He rarely complains. If I ask him to do a chore, he does it. If I don't say I'm making dinner, he makes it without question. Regardless of the day that came before it, at the end of the night when we're on the couch together, I get foot rubs. He will do anything for me, a fact I likely take for granted from time to time. He's a great daddy to the girls (cats, people, not human babies... get with the program!). And he is super understanding and patient with me.

So, when we come to a little bump (lately the majority of little bumps have been due to the polyamory of it all), naturally I'm ready and willing to sit down and talk about it. I want him to be happy. I want him to feel as awesome in our relationship as I feel, and sometimes it's hard for me to realize that he is. I know that if he didn't love me and if he wasn't happy with me, he'd make it clear and he would leave. Ark wants to be with me as much as I want him to be with me.

This goes along with what I said before; that, just because I was the catalyst for this type of relationship and just because I appear cool on the outside about most things most of the time, it doesn't mean I don't feel jealous. Or afraid or sad or worried or apprehensive. I do feel these things. And I have to sit there and remind myself that... Ark is still here. He still treats me like a princess. Sometimes, he is less than princely himself, but at the end of the night, it's me he snuggles and it's me he kisses and it's me he declares his love to. We're tied together by paper, by law, but it's our hearts that really hold us to one another.

So, why did we get married? I married Ark because I can't imagine going through a single day without his love. Life is so comfortable and perfect with him loving me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Also, health insurance.