What I Want, Part A Million

 

Like what Lorelai Gilmore eventually got, but with fewer hats.

Stars, hide your fires,
these here are my desires,
and I won’t give them up to you
this time around.

And so, I’ll be found,
with my stake stuck in this ground
marking the territory of this
newly impassioned soul.

--Mumford and Sons, “Roll Away Your Stone”

Festive Easter Mumford and Sons are waaaayyy more assured than I am, of course. It’s not that I think new love’s not possible, it usually-to-sometimes feels possible. But I sort of have no idea what kind of person will capture my imagination next—love surprises me and vexes me every time.

At the same time, I want to rid myself of the idea that I have to adapt to any given situation that comes along, as if it’s somehow…undemocratic? to have preferences, as if I’m not entitled to want perfectly ordinary things. Specific things. It’s necessarily a kind of bitter don’t-make-mistakes-again list, but I’m sure time and attraction will soften the edges soon enough.

(OMG someone in my self-compassion group just said that oxytocin is physically addictive and takes around 90 days to…un-addict? I have no idea if that’s true but it makes me happy to retroactively curse every sweet ex with 90 days of jonesing.)

Anyway! The list so far:

1.     I’m a get-in-all-your-business person. I’m a family person. No matter what someone’s situation, I want to know their entire gestalt. I loved the way that The Shy One had begun folding into my family and chosen family, and it would have been so fulfilling if that folding-in could have been mutual.

 

Yesterday one of my neighbors told me she was trying to win over her boyfriend’s kid, and I felt so full of joy for her. Her perfectly ordinary trajectory gave me the hope that those kinds of steps might happen for me AND that I might have the courage to admit I want them. Doesn’t have to be kids, could be family, chosen family, neighborhood bonding. I know it takes time and trust, but I want to be in the next guy’s world.

2.     No closets. There are plenty of reasons to be compassionate toward closeted folks, to support them and listen to them and root for them exactly where they are at. But if I date them, I’ll end up being treated as a threat to their happiness, their safety, their social capitol, their parents’ approval, whatever. That is an AWFUL position to be in, and SO TRIGGERING given my life as my own family’s scapegoat.

So here’s the rule: I have to be able to tag a guy on my main-feed, un-anonymous Instagram and be like “OMG look at my boyfriend’s whole face he’s sooooooo dreamy.”

I feel like a lot of the stuff on this list is what straight (and straight-sized) women feel entitled to as a matter of course. So I’m gonna try to learn that good entitlement.

I want to remember that shame that’s understandable is still shame. It still gets on me and in me, and the world (and past traumas) will provide me with enough shame without me voluntarily signing up for more. Discreet boys can stick with discreet ladies. Maybe the shame makes it hotter?

3.     I’m going to scream the next time someone calls me “Solo Poly.” I think it’s a totally valid thing to be but for me, it feels like I’m expected to be on the margins of someone’s “real life.” That’s really sad and triggering for me, and it’s possible I assign it to myself as punishment.

Or maybe I’ve been afraid to say what I want—I want a guy’s undivided attention. He can be poly, I think, but he has to have the capacity to be ALL IN, to give me his whole heart. I can give my whole heart to lots of people, flowers, clouds, sunsets, etc, there HAS to be some dude who can do the same.

And he should please definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY stay over and make pancakes in the morning. Maybe linger around all day and snooze.

That’s enough for now, I think!