 |
| (art's a Rumi quote) Time for me to take a little rest in the praise ocean. |
My desire to love and be loved by them, whether it was the platonic love that I was just beginning to feel for her or someday being able to be loved by both of them, was so powerful as to be unmanageable. It was so big I couldn’t even see it until I’d started to let it go. I knew (Or was afraid I knew, it amounts to the same in the end) that it was too big a want, too feral a need to fit into their lives as they’re constructed. I was so scared of that big desire. It felt like Kaiju want, Godzilla love. If I was a movie, you’d have to pretend the buildings had been evacuated before they got smashed. This is a terrible way to see myself, I’d like to change it.
Maybe Mrs. Shy One felt that fear too, because when I,
last Friday, the day after all the texting joy, asked her permission to blog
about her, she decided I needed to check with her every time I thought of
writing about her. From potential friend and metamour to editor, just like
that. For the sake of “healthy boundaries,” for “honesty and transparency.” (LADY.
You pretend your girlfriend is just a friend on your socials. Your husband
asked me to do the same. Come ON.)
Mrs. Shy One reaching out to grab my writing process was,
to me, the exact opposite of healthy boundaries. To put it in Downton speak,
she was putting her oar in. It was clear to me that the only boundary she/they
cared about was the one around me.
The bottom dropped out from the whole plan then, and I
saw the situation for what it was, for what I was. To keep playing with The Shy
One, I needed to be controlled. Managed. Shrunk or at least stunted. Even, my
now-panicking brain added, snuffed.
The box I’d agreed to, their affable and
understandable closet, was not going to stop shrinking around me.
The part that was absolutely NOT her fault is that I
felt completely submissive about the two of them. I knew that they probably
didn’t mean to try and control me, but I felt helpless, without a voice to
negotiate. I did have a voice. The so-big-I-couldn’t-even-see-it desire
combined with the submissiveness I couldn’t talk through without crying, made
it feel impossible to listen to them or advocate for myself. It shouldn’t have
been impossible, I know. My body was telling me that the options were to fall
at her feet or flee.
So I fled. More accurately, I blocked both of their
numbers so I could stop crying long enough to get through my workday and get at
least a little bit of the story into paragraphs.
The next day, seeing where the paragraphs were going
and not wanting to break things off via blog post, I asked The Shy One to come
over or call. He couldn’t do either, he said, so we broke up by text. I told
him the closet feels bad, that I want them to be exactly them and exactly where
they are, but that I just didn’t fit.
He was just as kind. He told me I deserve to love
without guardrails or artificial limits. That made me feel appreciated for who
I am, and not Godzillalike at all.
I know there’ll always be guardrails and limits
because humans are involved and nobody needs to be falling off a cliff.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about him, and I
know I’ve got lots of Unicorn Stuff to paragraph out, but for now I’m just sad,
grateful and quiet. I don’t think it’s kind or helpful to compare myself to
Godzilla, but for now I’m happy to be back in the sea, at rest.