It’s been a year since Kyle came to visit. Five months since I saw them face to face up in Washington. Four weeks since I sent them something in the mail. Two days since I heard their voice on the phone. Three hours since we texted. Two hours since we messaged on Facebook, but if they weren’t out tonight, it wouldn’t have been nearly that long at all.
Eleven days since we had a very difficult conversation about changing us without really changing anything at all.
Pieces of reasons can be found here, and here, and even here. The short, stupid story is that I don’t know how to be intimate with more than one person at a time without my head exploding into lots of little globbly bits, and no one wants that. The long story would take 4 years to tell properly, and, even then, I’d need three voices to tell it.
To say that I cried is an understatement. I cried, I regretted, I panicked, I worried, I cried some more. In some ways, I’m the wicked witch who broke the fairy tale in two, in other ways I’m the little pig who couldn’t work out how to make their house strong enough to withstand those terrible winds.
In most ways, though, I’m the person who said we couldn’t do something that we haven’t done for a year anyway.
(It’s cold comfort, logic, and certainly not great at snuggling.)
Imagine some odd, incomprehensible world where you’re told you have to cut off one leg, and you’re asked whether it should be left or right, knowing you’ll die if you don’t…and so you choose, knowing you’ll never be the same, but at least you won’t die today.
My situation’s better than that – I get to talk to my missing leg all I want, and text it, and tell it how much I love you, Kyle. How sorry I am. How much I miss you today like I missed you yesterday, like I missed you 3 months ago, and 10 months before that.
I wish the world were different, but, not just any old different – different in the way I want it. That my brain were better at poly, or I lived closer, or I were smarter the way I want to be smarter, and brilliant at coming up with perfect answers to difficult questions.
But knowing all the ways the world could be different in ways I wouldn’t like…I’m glad we’re here, together, best friends and confidantes. Kyle’s been texting me pictures of the sky for a few days, which is so beautifully poetic. In a sky full of people…we managed to meet, and love, and laugh. I’m not leaving, and we’re not breaking anything. We just need a new word for the kind of friends who love and laugh and share and create.
Best friends.
Partners in crime.
Lovers, once and forever.
