This feed contains the 10 most recent pages in the "mono" category.
I'm at a crossroad in life, one of those possible decisive key
moments.
Which path will I choose? In a way, the choice is already made, my
heart is pointing in one direction, clearly and with no hesitation
whatsoever. It's a life changing direction, and I welcome it with
all my heart if it happens.
Ulrika reminded me a few days ago how I had said at some point that I can't see myself living a mono life again in the foreseeable future.
Now, I'm considering it...
The small lesson to learn is never to say never.
I'm starting to get tired... or maybe it's just a momentary thing. I can't know that for sure, but that's how I feel for the moment.
I'm starting to get tired of relationships... or perhaps not of relationships in themselves, but how things have been going lately. They've been a bit quick, most of the relationships I've had of late, and I'm starting to tire of the game we play, hooking up, attaching, ending. Most of all, I'm tired of all the ends, they seem to tear me apart as of late. I seem to attach pretty strongly, to make strong ties within myself (and perhaps I'm not showing those ties well enough).
So I'm tired, I have no real desire to start anything new, or to maintain relationships where I don't feel a real drive.
I've told myself that maybe I'm just not cut for very long
relationships, that short moments may be what's in for me, that
maybe I should simply give in to how things are and work with that
flow. However, the tragic part is that if I keep that in mind, I
doubt that I would give myself fully, that I would get real close.
Anticipation of an end does that, it builds a distance, it builds a
thin wall. I really have no desire for that sort of life.
Sure, I can play, but does that fill me? Not really, not as far as
I can see for the moment.
This mood that I'm in is, of course, affected by how life has been lately. Not bitternes, rather a strong look at how my life has been, what felt meaningful and what did less so, and looking at what I might really desire.
It's time for a cleanup in my life. Take out the clutter, keep what has meaning, stay with what I desire, let the rest go. And wait, for what might come, for who might appear (again?), with all the love I can feel and show. No rush.
For a few days now, I've been trying to find what the essential quality of a committed relationship, being together, is to me.
I've often expressed how "being together" contains components like a willingness to spend time together more than you would otherwise, a willingness to share your lives with each others, a willingness to express and accept some expectations from each others, a hightened connection... and while these components are important, and while there is a need to talk about them in a new relationship, they don't really reach the depth of what being together really mean, to me. They don't explain the excruciating pain of a close and important relationship that comes to an end, this feeling of having parts of your guts ripped out of your body.
A friend and I talked earlier today, and while I can't quite remember how this came about, there's this one word that stuck to my mind. It's a word I know very well, I've heard it before... and yet, I've kept forgetting it, I've kept forgetting its existence.
Belonging
Belonging with someone(s), this quality that fills my heart and my body... and leaves a hole when the relationship ends.
Why has it taken all this time to accept this word (or has it, have I just forgotten?)? I can't really say for sure now, but... I've shied from expressions like "you're mine", "I'm yours" before, in fear of feeling caged in, in fear of having my oh so important freedom taken away from me. But really, this sense of belonging doesn't really say more than that. It doesn't automatically mean that you have to act according to certain standards. It doesn't inherently mean exclusivity, living in the same home, spending all evenings together. The choice of what we want to do together, with each others, is still a choice, something to express and agree upon.
I think I'm finally realising that expressing a sense of belonging doesn't take away my freedom. It doesn't change my actions, my reasoning, my emotions. It's simply a quality of how I feel when I'm with somebody.
I've heard so many discussions going like "monoamory is this while polyamory is that", and I'm getting increasingly tired of it.
I've heard things like "poly is about sex" followed by a definition of relationships where sex is seen as a glue that keeps it together. Well, d'uh, in that case, mono is about sex as well.
We keep tossing arguments at each other that are really
nonsensen, trying to make ourselves better than the other.
We get to see the 12
pillars of polyamory about all the virtues of polyamory, and
there's probably something similar about all the virtues of
monoamory...
And noone asks the question, the true question that underlies it all.
What is a relationship?
After all, that should be the basic thing to ask oneself. What
is a relationship to you? Ask yourself that, in depth.
When you're done, you can start asking yourself if that's something
you want to or are open to share with just one or with more than
one... That's what I believe answers the question if you want to
live mono or poly.
After all, it's not about sex. It's about relationships, which usually includes sex (not for asexuals, though), but isn't just about that, or rather, which is much more than just that.
Now, I'd so much love to see someone write "the NN pillars of relationships" and have that made in a neutral form that leaves the reader to choose between all available relationship forms, be it monoamory, polyamory, relationship anarchy or what not.
Let's stop this ridiculous battle and be truly open to each other's similarities and differences.
To see all of them, check the archive-mono.