Getting back into the groove of things

Is very difficult when suddenly you're ill and don't feel like doing anything.

Seriously. Way fucking difficult. All I want to do is sleep or read instead of doing things I need to do, and as a result my schedule is completely out of whack and I'm all freaking nocturnal now. Not to mention I am on my stinkin' period on top of all that.

Anyway; things are progressing somewhat. We've had a bump in the road to normalcy, one that goes by the name of Kira.

Kira's an old friend and pet and more-than-friend of mine (it's Complicated with a capital "c") who sort of disappeared from our lives around nine or ten months ago. Now, in the long run, this was a good thing because it meant that I was suddenly truly giving up on us being anything more than close friends and soul sisters, and as a result focused a lot more on kitten. That meant that kitten and I grew closer and closer than we already were, and developed into the strong relationship we have now.

But suddenly a few weeks ago Kira appeared back in our lives and everything got turned upside down. I almost lost kitten, and I'm sure that if it hadn't been for me adamantly assuring her that there was no way in hell I was letting Kira replace her, she would have tried really hard to return to second place like she thought she had been before Kira left.

One small problem with that though, and that is that she wasn't second place by the time Kira left.

Maxiekitten was already taking place in the hole Kira left behind even before Kira left, and it turned out Kira saw that (it wasn't like I was actively hiding it or anything, I was being very open about the changes going on and she was being very supportive of those changes for various reasons) and thought that things would progress better if she wasn't around. That isn't to say she left on purpose, but things went to shit in her life and she lost contact and once contact was gone she didn't try too hard to get it back for a while, because of that.

Reading over it this all sounds very confusing and in dire need of clarification. Kira is an ex-girlfriend of mine who is only recently (within the past year and a half) an "ex". She's been my best friend for around nine or ten years now, and we have been everything from soul-sibs to lovers to Mistress/pet. She came to me for healing the second time she entered my life, she was in an unhealthy marriage and being mistreated by her husband in many ways, even though he never hit her. He was always first in her life, and I knew that we weren't really meant to be more than soul-sibs in the long run but I fell in love with her all over again (I had been in love with her the first time I knew her but we were both in the closet) despite knowing this and ended up with a lapful of heartache for my efforts. It wasn't that she didn't love me, but her husband, no matter how much he mistreated her, always came first. (Just so you know, no cheating was going on, he knew about me and didn't give a damn because he knew she'd never leave him for me.)

Eventually their relationship hit rock bottom and they split up and she leaned on me even more but I was still never first place. There was always someone else, or the hope for someone else. She was always looking for a replacement for him, until shortly before she left when suddenly she started to grow more independent and I realised that she didn't need me to support her any more, as well as that I would probably never really be first in her heart. She had a little bit of difficulty coming to the realisation that she didn't need me how she thought she did though, even after re-entering my life for a second time, but since I was second-place in her life for almost the entire time I knew her, she is happy now that I finally have someone I am willing to put first in my heart that isn't her.

I think she's still struggling a little bit with the change because unlike kitten and I she didn't have anyone else to take my place when she left us behind, but she's taking the changes well and like I said, actively encouraged us to grow closer in the past. She has someone to take my place now as her Dominant though, so kitten doesn't have to share me with her as a Mistress, which is for the best really. I think kitten would have shared me even though she didn't want to, and would have ended up resenting us both for it.

I don't know that for sure though. That's just my thinking. In either case, she doesn't have to share me in that way, Kira is accepting me as a sister instead of a lover or girlfriend or Mistress, even if she's having to fight old habits somewhat to do so.

So anyways, yeah, we're finally starting to settle into somewhat of a routine but it's taking forever because things keep getting in the way; first Kira came back, now I'm sick, and I'm also on my cycle. I can only hope that nothing else decides it would be fun to get in the way of kitten and I trying to get back to how things were, but this illness seems damn determined to get in our way enough as it is.

Then again, I think the whole mess with Kira is a good thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that if Kira hadn't come back, kitten would always wonder if she was really first in my heart and would always wonder if Kira might come back and take her place. But now she knows for sure that it won't happen because Kira came back and kitten is still first in my heart. <3

Polyamory?

So I just finished reading this entry on Pygar's blog. Before anyone reads this I suggest they go read that post and the article linked to in it.

I started writing a comment but it grew long-winded since polyamory is a subject very close to my heart, being that I am poly myself.

In direct answer to the questions asked I would say this: Yes, I have had failed poly relationships, mostly because of self-centrism (I'll talk about that in this blog post); I think the article is interesting and should be read by more people, because it smacks of truth and from a biological standpoint it is highly accurate; I believe polyamory is most natural but being repressed; and finally, in my experience gender is not as much of an issue as sexuality. Most heterosexual people I have met have been the least open to polyamorous relationships, with bisexual and pansexual people being the most open.

Being pansexual myself probably lends itself to partly of why I am so polyamorous.

Let me explain that. For those who don't know, pansexuality is basically saying fuckitall to gender. That isn't saying pansexuals can't have a preference (mine runs towards femininity, be it male, female, trans, queer, or whatever), but gender is like hair colour to us. I don't care if you're a brunette or a redhead or have vividly purple hair, in fact in the latter case I'd probably just ask where you got it done. The same goes with gender. I personally feel like limiting myself to a specific set of genders is limiting who I can love. And loving someone is the most wonderful feeling on earth, so why on earth would I place a limit on who I can love?

The same goes with my polyamory. I love to love. I feel like I have so much love to give to other people that it seems unfair to both myself and anyone who cares for me to limit myself. Some people would say it's selfishness but I say it's the opposite - there is no double standard here. I have three people I romantically love aside from my kitten and they are all more tied to other people than myself. Good for them. I want their happiness with whomever they choose, even or especially if it isn't me.

If my kitten ever found a playmate she wanted, found someone she loved and wanted to get into a relationship with, I would encourage it. (In fact I have done this before.) I want her to be happy and if limiting herself to only me means she is less happy then I refuse to do that to her. Maxiekitten is my biggest love and the most important to me, but all of my others are very, very important to me as well and I love them all equally. The only reason I love them less is because they in turn love me less than who they are also with. It levels and equals out.

Now, the part of my post that is more in line with Pygar's question of whether monogamy or polyamory was more natural. I think it sort of differs. Certainly among animals monogamy is less natural. But humans have slowly developed a culture where monogamy is prevalent.

But it wasn't always so. Monogamy is a pretty recent thing, historically speaking, and if you want to disagree just read the damn bible of all things. Polygamy's everywhere in the old testament, and was widely accepted as how things were done. I think the world's culture moving to being more self-centric (everything is all about "me", "me", "me" - "my" wants, "my" needs, "my" desires, making sure "I" get fulfilled firstly and more importantly to anything else) is what makes polyamory harder.

It's becoming about not wanting to share. I am poly. I am also in a somewhat monogamous relationship because my love is not poly, not completely so anyways. There are people in my life that I have had for longer than her, and she is perfectly accepting of them and understanding, so long as I don't shove it in her face. She is also open to the idea of having a playmate, but scared of fully sharing me. I am not looking for anyone else, firstly because I respect her fears and second because, honestly, I am the luckiest person on earth to have so much love in my life, it would be selfish to ask for even more and I am content with what I have.

It's like we feel that sharing leads to losing, somehow. Personally I think it's the opposite. As I stated before, I am polyamorous partly because I am a giving person. I have all this love inside of me, how could I be so selfish as to focus it on one person and one person alone? How could I be so selfish as to expect the people I love more than anything to selfishly focus only on me and not find more and more happiness? If my kitten ever found someone she loved and wanted me to share her with, I would gladly accept it, as I said before. I would encourage it. Because it is selfish of me to do otherwise.

And yes, by doing so I risk becoming less important to her, but you know what?

It's more important to me that she be as happy as she can possibly be, than it is that I be the most important person in her life. Because to me, that is what love is about. Wanting someone to be happy and to make them happy more than you want anything else.

And I think that monogamy stands in the way of that because of how we see it as a society as the be-all and end-all of relationships.  I do NOT think monogamy is wrong. I think monogamy is perfectly and exactly what some people need to be happy. I do however think that how society views it in general is detrimental to the happiness of every person who could possibly be poly and is being held back because it's "unacceptable".

The biggest hindrance to relationships of any kind is dishonesty, and I think that dishonesty to oneself is even worse than dishonesty to one's partner(s). And with how we view monogamy it is very hard for poly people to be honest with themselves about their leanings, which leads to cheating, lacking communication, and broken hearts.

Okay I should probably shut up now before I go on another rant, hahaha. Pygar, I want to thank you for such a great post and great questions to answer, it really inspired me.