A break from kitten news

[balivatn]

So other than trying to get in touch with someone at Pierce, thinking about what to say to my former graduate program, looking for work, wondering about Bulgaria, and handling cats, I spend a lot of time thinking. In fact, that may be why I was so amenable to another cat - it gives me more to do and different problems to think about. Plus he's very cute.

So after a lot of internal back and forth, I created a new profile on OKCupid. I'm sort of having mixed feelings about this. In some ways, it'd be good, because it'd help me have other relationships other than the one with my fiance, and would give me less time to fret about his other relationships. In other ways, I'm really hesitant. And there's the fact that while I want to meet other people, my relationship with my fiance is a little rough, and, to be blunt, I'd still rather spend the time trying to build a bridge to the people I've cared about before. I don't mention much about my last relationship on my profile, but I do say I'm in kind of a hesitant space right now, and that's probably affecting the responses - I've tried to reach out a few times, but rarely hear anything. Which is fine, and like I said, is probably good because of focusing on relationship with fiance.

But I do miss the other ones. And I know that there will be some people who will roll their eyes at that - I guess I can't blame them, since most of the time, I write in this thing when I'm having emotional turmoil. Which rarely puts anyone, including me, in a good light. But despite the past, I still feel very connected to the other two. And maybe that's not good, but it is what it is. And I don't think it's undeserved. I mean I don't think me caring about them is undeserved, despite some of the things that happened.

Let's start with my fiance - he and I have been together about 12 years. He moved across the country to be with me, and has done a lot to make it possible to get me this far through school. I'm pretty much living off of his generosity, due to being unemployed. He does have a good tendency to give me a backrub or bring me tea - which is appreciated after the weeks of not hearing back from job applications or after working on writing papers. The last stretch of Pittsburgh was a lot worse without him actually there. He's had his own issues from time to time with a multiple-pronged relationship, and has always let me take the lead in these things and tried to not stand in the way of my happiness. I mean, the man moved across country and lived with my other boyfriend partially to make things easier on me (I mean, they were also friends, so it wasn't just because of me, but that was a consideration). He's normally very calm when I'm emotional, laid back when I'm stressed. That is one of the reasons we got together, and part of the reason we've been together this long, I think. He knows a lot about me, and it didn't really scare him off. And hey, he knew enough to propose to me without a diamond, even if he didn't get to do quite what he wanted. So despite the recent issues, there's still a lot of history and resonance there. That's kind of why I want to work out the issues, even if I'm not entirely sure how to do so.

Then there's my ex-boyfriend. He's a bit trickier for me to talk about - when things were falling apart, I was very concerned with his actions or lack of actions, and that often translated into acting obsessed and crazy. So part of me is nervous that talking about my feelings for him will fall into that. Which I'm trying to avoid. We met when Fiance and I were seeing another woman - amusingly enough, a woman that Exboyfriend wound up dating for quite some time after we stopped seeing each other. I was hurt by the end of the relationship, but not because of him. I actually have a very good memory of talking to him in the moonlight, and just feeling very peaceful, with an odd current of attraction and nerves. That mix has been there pretty much since that night, but I didn't really pursue it until I was living in Rhode Island and they were more or less not together (not dating, still friendly). I remember the first time he kissed me, and the night he said he was falling in love with me. I remember how I felt the first time he said he wanted to live with me. It was a balancing act, that really had a lot working against it - mainly school and distance, and then other stuff. It was also a pretty new situation for him - if I remember right, he sort of began thinking about polyamory and the like when he was dating the girlfriend that had left fiance and I (they started dating while the three of us were together). But he hadn't really been in a polyamorous relationship, and there were some things that should have been talked about earlier, or at least differently, that might have made some things easier. Not so much a question of fault, really, just a thing that looking back I can see. And I know he's always been more likely to pull into himself when he gets stressed. And I can't really blame him for that - I know that the emotional boil I was on was mostly negative, and wouldn't have been appealing to anyone, especially someone who had just met the woman they hope to marry and started that relationship.

But I still remember him being lovingly geeky over things like yo-yo's and Rubik's cubes and Go and learning how to use a straight razor. I know that his style is less to hate than to simply detach, and yet I hope that there's some small connection still - it might be tarnished or buried, but I hope it's there. There's five, almost six, years of history there, and I hope that somehow we can at least brush off the connection, even if it has to be changed.

And finally, simply because I'm going more or less in order of appearance into my life, there's Exboyfriend's fiancee. A huge blowout occurred the day we met in person, which took a lot out of the connection that we had been trying to forge via IM and phones. She also had a lot on her own plate - some of which I knew, some of which I might have known if things had gone differently. Some of which I should have guessed, probably - but again, it's not always easy to see from the inside. But despite that, it has been her that has actually met with me in the past month. The connection she and I may have had is the most recent. We have a lot in common, but we are not the same, and sometimes it's the people you have the most in common with that are the hardest to sync up to. Because of my memories of things, because of hers - for whatever reasons - I can understand her perspective the best, even if it doesn't always line up with mine. But that... resonance, or those just close enough sort of tastes and tendencies, are what led me to fall in love with her as well. I don't think she objected, exactly - and I think she did, and does, care for me as well. I think the balance got lost - again, not so much a question of fault, as a really bad conjunction of timing, emotions, lack of balance, etc. Things I've talked about and apologized for my part in before. But still - the woman at least tried (and in some ways succeeded) to open her heart to a person she knew mainly through others, that she didn't see very often, that was in love with her boyfriend now fiance.

All of them have great strengths - and despite my treacherous brain chemistry and my generally pessimistic tendencies, I remember those strengths, and those good qualities. That's what I miss. I hope somewhere in the people I love, the parts of me they cared for and loved might be remembered, eventually. Enough to at least bring us to talk.