Little Lifeboat

As I sit here in bed, the cat looking over my laptop and the doggo laying next to me on the floor, hopeful for long consumed chicken nuggets, I again send my lived experiences throughout the ether. Much has changed since I was last able to write.

There are still things I cannot discuss, such as mom’s estate due to prying eyes, so those topics will remain untold here.

About a month ago, my partner L invited K and myself to a discord for D&D with her two other partners. What unfolded felt like coming back into contact with old friends in a way. And it makes sense, the person you love’s other partners are more often than not going to be within the same thread as yourself. Not always, but sometimes.

Things have been unfolding most excellently with both M and E. M is so intelligent in the neurodivergent ways that I am and the most obscure topics, while E is someone whom I share previous trauma and struggles with and I want to love all of the little pieces within them that I find in myself. I find a high spiritual connection with all three.

And has L has described of any “usual D&D group”, there’s also space for things to be sex positive and fun, which has been a delight. We are all highly queer, I feel at home in the group and safe to express my own queerness.

I’ve noticed K coming out of her shell more as well, she’ll be flying out to CO to visit in person next weekend and I’m so very excited for her. I wish I was just a little further along in healing my agoraphobia to make the trip, it’s very tempting to just go – and I imagine if I just did, the anticipatory anxiety would be the scariest part. Also, it’s only a 2hr 49 minute flight.

Which speaking of, I do indeed feel much lighter when it comes to agoraphobia in the last year. I’m consistently driving to Kokomo, campgrounds, other places, and I have a sense by Spring I’ll be through this period of agoraphobia. It had started during the pandemic and after some intense loss, and it’s time to get back out there again and be free.

I also believe there’s deeper wounds I’ve been able to heal throughout the grief of the past year. Yes, I miss my mother and always will, but the loss has not crushed me. I don’t mean to cheapen the loss in any way by saying that, but I have a strange feeling that she’s always here with her hand over my heart.

Speaking of such topics, I had a FaceTime with L the other night. Now, for new readers L is someone both K and I met when we lived in Indianapolis and saw about once every two weeks. It started as a casual thing (K and me started our relationship open/ENM from the start, especially as she is bisexual and who am I to keep her from exploring that?), but feelings developed over the years. By the time she was preparing to move, I had connected with L individually and we became partners, and we both knew there was much deeper energy here that had been growing over the years.

L is someone that, by example, shown me that there are good people practicing polyamory, that there are people who have done the work, and that abundance, joy, all the things we set out as our ideals are possible. L saved me in a way from giving up on poly, and especially as an ordained priest in the Christian faith, helped heal some religious trauma from my youth.

I love her so much, and those strange things I have been feeling for a few years now and mostly kept to myself – how she is just always with me was reciprocated, confirmed on our last FaceTime. Not to be hokey in any way, either, it’s something I cannot explain and goes beyond the usual serotonin/dopamine NRE feels. We landed on, “My soul is at home with you.”

We also both settled on bi-weekly calls as it’s always been something we’ve been absent minded about, which I’m excited! It’s just kind of like we’ve never needed the logistical things and so much is said in silence, yet, much has always been talked about? But I don’t need to explain it. I do greatly miss her touch, however, and the passion, and that group dynamic, and going out for ice cream after. Rawr.

K and I are doing well. The last year of grief has been rough for sure, and the stress of the estate and lawsuit. I had been more absent as I was in survival mode most days, writing motions for the docket, collaborating with law enforcement and all of the lawyers. Mom’s death was a tragedy that lasted the year leading up to it and I just don’t want to give that any energy or dwell on it here. I love you, mom.

It’s been nice coming back into my energy and emotionally opening up again, being closer to the end of things on that front, and enough healing happening to be able to be present once more. I also attribute much of it to the polycule as dating and connections in Northern Indiana has been more than dead, and finding likeminded people has been a godsend.

And then I met B. A quieter girl in terms of the heart, for now as often some the deepest feelers are guarded, but also an excellent communicator whom I find myself falling into NRE with. I find myself blushing often and hanging off of every word that she says. I find her highly intelligent and caring, and so very attractive. I also find it funny that both of my other partners are INTJ/INFJ, and L has three ENFP partners, while K has me, and both K and L spend their time in sporadic contact mostly speaking of books they are reading, which I find to be so Lesbian coded.

And speaking of L and K, I’m very excited for her to stay with L and get that individual time/experience in with her. She’ll be meeting L’s other two partners and explore CO. Seeing K often go into what we describe as a “queer panic” has been so very cute ❤️

Back to B, the bee witch, I can’t sit here in vulnerability and say that I’m not falling for her something major. I made the decision to close off my dating apps this evening as I want to see how this develops and where things lead and honor the time and space for that. I take what she says as face value, she likes where this is headed, and she’s excited about it. I’ve also never been someone who has wanted a smattering of several loose connections, although there’s nothing wrong with that for others; but I seek and want to build intentional connections that go deep, people whom I want in my life for a long time, that show up for each other. Community, a chosen family.

People you call when your house burns down or your car breaks down, when you lose people you love and need someone to hold you safe at night. To support your dreams, and you theirs, in the most honest way, in the most loving way. To love someone without possessing them, and to love their love for others, and love for themselves, their projects, goals, and dreams.

But I don’t want to sit here and regurgitate the philosophy behind polyamory, many resources and books are out there on the topic.

And we can be logic driven about it on the flip side as well and dive into the pure cognition of things, although it’s not where my spirit guides/intuition has told me to invest an overly large amount of energy in, as I think she’s someone who I can help dream and get out of her head (as I’m told by people, especially who love me, that I am so very good at it), while she can ground me and snap to the logistics as needed, the finer details (which my partners are also good at).

I’m personally a line strider here, a past INFJ. But I think the balance will be me bringing in the emotional focus as otherwise I’m sure we could, and have, talked for hours, and I do love that, the cerebral with her – and I can’t imagine what it’ll be like once we are in each other’s energy in relation to projects, something I’m looking very forward to. But I also loved holding her hand, and feeling her breath, and I so very badly want to kiss her more.

I also don’t want to future focus or be prescriptive here, burdened by logistics/cognitive, and I’ll share why by doing this very thing, lightly, in the next paragraphs. There have been some daydreams and soft thoughts – we’ll both be leaving Indiana eventually, there is the possibility of doing so together. However, my heart does also call me to Colorado, and I’ve also loved the PNW when I visited. I’m also not sure about the altitude in CO, but I love someone dearly there also. B could find family and community in the polycule, or maybe there’s no interest in those connections (but I do not feel as such would be the latter, after all, we have a bomb ass D&D group and are a bunch of kind, intelligent, and loving nerds – I could see us all going LARPing very easily and there are many shared interests) – but no expectation.

Pause. Ground yourself. In fact, I think this is a part of what the cards were referring to, not being overly logical about things. It also doesn’t matter to be overly logical about things right now. B and I both have things keeping us here, likely for a longer time and if things did continue to develop and grow, there’s no glass ceiling on what we could choose to build together with intention and planning. Also, like duh, I’ll have a permanent home here, and an awesome camper van, who says I can’t go fuck off for a month or two in CO and come back to B? Or we could all come together and build the “cult”/commune as myself and B aren’t the only ones who play with this idea and we genuinely have the distributed skillsets – solar power, rainwater collection, gardening, construction, planning, and some good bakers to keep the work crews happy

But also, did I mention I was in NRE? But she did send me the October 2026 Brandywine Festival, and while on the face of it – yes, so very exciting, but what if it was a playful invitation in a way? There’s no doubt I’d go with her, especially in my super awesome camper van, and Harrodsburg, KY is only a four hour drive. It would be perfect, and far away enough in the future that I should have no problem with the drive. We could work on our costumes/cosplay over the seasons and get them perfect, share pinterest boards, go on drives and dates and be comfortable panicking in the car with her (which is a tummy ache and sometimes crying in reality, needing to pull over for a moment) – I continue doing the work also with a specific goal in mind. I’d love that. We can go to the gym, and encourage each other to stay physically healthy (I’ve been secretly considering gifting an Apple Watch Ultra 2 – which I already own, or buying a Fitbit for myself, but I want to actually commit before deciding) And I want to be there for the harder things that I’ve also been through and hold her safe through it when that time comes as I’ll heal some parts of myself being there for someone else through it, and everything else.

But also, did I mention that it isn’t just NRE? I have a feeling there’s something deeper here that I can’t quite put my finger on and maybe in four years we’d have that conversation too, but in the meantime I want to know what it feels like to hold each other, and to see her in her energy in her projects and all of the other things. I’ll be throughly enjoying all of it and every step along the way.