Life is process

I am a big believer in most things that require one to, in situations of conflict and difficulty, most situations really, but mostly those two, look at oneself and ones behaviour as opposed to automatically looking to blame another. Things like process and introspection. I came across this passage in Americanah…

“They did not fight again until the relationship ended, but in the time of Blaine’s stoniness, when Ifemelu burrowed into herself and ate whole chocolate bars, her feelings for him changed. She still admired him, his moral fibre, his life of clean lines, but now it was admiration for a person separate from her, a person far away.”

…and it struck me because it speaks precisely to process and introspection. After their break-up Blaine will probably never realise that his choice of ‘punishment’ for Ifemelu’s wrongdoing played a part in the breakdown of their relationship. He will probably think of this particular fight and credit it with causing the beginning of the end but he will place the blame on her (she lied about why she did not attend a protest he had planned - she attended a friend of a friends farewell party instead) but never think about how his reaction to that mistake also contributed to the breakdown of their relationship. And I guess we have all been guilty of this, placing the blame on our partner and completely neglecting the part we played…we are doing ourselves such an injustice.

2014 has been one hell of a year for me…filled with things I never saw coming. Some beautiful…some tragic. I have often described it as the toughest year of my life, but in a recent post about it in my diary…a reflection post of sorts…I called it my most successful year and that was so refreshing for me. Yes it was tough, but it was also extremely successful because I did so much growing this year. Because growth and success doesn’t usually come from the happy and chilled bits of life. But I believe growth comes, not only when we go through trying times, but when we are able to extract the lessons from them. And no, just living through it does not automatically mean you see and absorb the lesson.

It is very easy to see our partners’ faults and where they can change and do things better. But it’s extremely difficult to see our own shortcomings. One of the biggest lessons I have learned in the last couple of years is to constantly be aware of how my thoughts, actions and reactions are contributing to the growth or breakdown of my relationships. This is especially hard to do in rough patches. But process is process, in good or bad times. When someone who loves us hurts us it is very difficult to take a step back and think about how our own behaviour has contributed, or how, how we behave is going to contribute to making up or breaking up. Because a relationship is never a one sided affair, there is always a push and pull and your actions matter and play a role even if you are not necessarily the one in the wrong.

So what do I mean by being aware of process and your role in it? Here are a few examples:

• Your partner lies to you and instead of immediately placing blame you think “is there a way in which I am behaving that makes her feel like she can’t be honest with me?”
• Your partner starts acting like a crazy person and starts with the excessive where-are-yous; who-are-you-talking-to's. You think “have I done something in the past to lead her to believe that this type of behaviour is acceptable?”

At first glance it seems like I am saying blame yourself for your partners’ wrongdoings, but that is not what I am saying at all. You can ask yourself all these questions and not find anything in your behaviour that contributed to what they did wrong, and note I said ‘contribute’ not ‘caused’. But automatically blaming and refusing to think beyond that assumes that our partners are cruel people who intentionally hurt us, and yes, sociopaths do exist, but more often than not they are not our partners. Like in the case of Blaine and Ifemelu, he could not see past the fact that she lied long enough to sit down and ask her why. The fact that she lied is in itself an awful thing, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum, there was a long (or short) list of events that led up to it. And taking the time to map process does not acquit the other of wrong doing, it helps you to understand and then take appropriate action from there, whether that is to move forward together or apart. But either way you are going to move forward, not wallow in the past feeling bitter and holding grudges, because like some very wise person once said…As long as it’s always the other persons fault, u will always be disappointed. Life is process, process that u partake in. What's YOUR role? And ya vele…that someone was me J

Tomorrow will be different but today I don’t feel like sharing you.

Monogamy: One partner for one partner

Polygamy: One husband, all the wives he can count, sometimes afford

Polyamory: Without googling ‘polyamory’ I am finding it difficult to explain it from memory as easily as I explained monogamy and polygamy. Of course I know what it is but I want to explain it in a way where you won’t sit and think “Oh you mean an open relationship”. Because that isn’t what it is and that isn’t what I mean. But I guess the dynamics of a polyamorous relationship are similar to my difficulty in explaining, properly, what it means.

There has been research and chatter about whether or not human beings are naturally monogamous creatures. And the results of this research and these discussions has always been that no. We are not. And I guess this opinion is largely based on the high rates of infidelity, oh, everywhere in the world. In a recent discussion with a friend about polyamory she said something which I think about 99% of the world’s population might be able to relate to. She said “I don’t know if I could ever be in a polyamorous relationship. I would much rather be with one person and do my other dealings in secret. And I would rather my partner cheated on me and hid it than told me about their love/like/lust for someone else. That would be too painful”.

I have been in monogamous relationships all my life. But the ideas of relationship and our partners that monogamy demands we subscribe to are what put me off. And this is one of the reasons why I have stopped identifying as monogamous.

In my opinion monogamous relationships have their foundation solidly built on ideas of possession. And that is where the problem, for me anyway, starts…

But it’s romantic. God it’s so romantic to be someone’s one and only. To know that they love you and you alone and only you have the privilege of calling them your partner. And let’s face it. The world isn’t designed for polyamorous relationship. Families consist of one mom and one dad. Or in some parts of the world a dad and a dad or a mom and a mom. But many moms and many dads. That’s pretty much unheard of! Even in dating relationships. To try to explain that you and/or your partner have more than one partner and NO! No one is a side-chick. Or even better. You are polyamorous, you identify as polyamorous but neither you nor your partner are seeing anybody else at the moment. It’s maddening.

So for me. Polyamory is:

•          First and foremost, my partner is STILL a human being, regardless of the fact that I love them. They remain a human being who is prone to mistakes and faults.
•          Understanding that loving somebody does not automatically switch off yours, or their, ability to be attracted to someone else.
•         Being able to have a discussion when it happens that you do meet and want to get to know this someone else
•          Being able to understand that this does not mean that I love my partner any less or that they love me any less.
•          Being honest…all the time
•          NOT just going around dating and sleeping with whomever I please when I please
•          Not keeping secrets when you have fallen for someone else
•          Acknowledging that you were born in a heteronormative, patriarchal society, and that shit hides itself in places that you don’t automatically think of so sometimes you act in ways that represent this system. And it’s ok. But you need to constantly be aware and check yourself
•          Acknowledging your own humanness and human desires and good and bad and faults and awesomeness and sharing ALL of these with your person, with your peoples.
•          Accepting and understanding that I cannot, and should not wish to dictate, the ways in which my partner shows love, therefore…
•          Accepting that just because she does not necessarily show love in the ways that I would, it does not mean she does not love me

I recently had a discussion with my wonderful friend Lee-Anne. I was telling her about an incident with my father regarding my sexual orientation and life choices. And I told her something that rings more true to me every single day. I said to her “Lee Lee, reinventing the wheel is exhausting. The world is not only built for a specific kind of person, and a specific kind of relationship, it’s built against anyone and everyone who doesn’t conform”.

I am a very optimistic person, sometimes a bit naïve. I said to Debbie in therapy once that what concerned me most about my relationship, or possibility of a relationship, with Sky was not that she was a woman, but the fact that she was older than me. I had never dated someone that much older than me. Granted I had never dated a woman either, but maybe it seemed more PC to be worried about her age as opposed to her gender. And I was naïve!! So naïve!!! Naïve in believing my life wouldn’t really change. Naïve in believing I wouldn’t really change. Naïve in believing nobody would have a problem with my choice in partner. And again I was naïve in thinking being in a polyamorous relationship was not going to feel like I was literally having everything I thought I knew about love and relationships sliced out of me.

That’s the thing about consciousness, you can’t control which areas of your life it does or does not seep into. It gets into E.V.E.R.Y.thing, like a pair of black socks, mistakenly put in with the white laundry.

There are days when I am the person I aim to be. Where I am killing this polyamory thing (you can tell today is not one of those days because I have referred to it as ‘this polyamory thing’). Where I am confident, secure, where I love the fact that I have been able to shed the veil of heteronormativity and make my own decisions about love and relationships. And there are days where I am not. Days where I am filled with resentment. Where the indoctrination has given itself some sort of energy boost. And it’s hard, it’s extremely hard to fight off. And it feels like a ten ton elephant is sitting on my chest and what else is there to do but give in? Because, like I said to Lee-Anne, reinventing the wheel is exhausting. Unlearning everything you have learned…about pretty much everything is exhausting. Starting from scratch is exhausting. Developing your own strategies and opinions is exhausting. Being aware of when the opinions that you think are your own could very well belong to the heteronorms and patriarchs, is exhausting. Being this person, being in this relationship in a world that is designed, specifically, to extinguish people like you…is exhausting.

But nobody said it would be easy. And fact remains, I would never ever trade any of this life for ignorance and complacency.