I've been thinking a lot about my family dynamic and how it's different from what I'm used to. I talked about it briefly with Tara on the way home from our celebratory dinner at Harold's Famous Deli last night - celebrating my second anniversary of arriving in New Jersey. Harold's is where we went to celebrate the night I arrived - it's where we go any time there's something to celebrate. This is the first time I've ever been there without everyone in attendance, but Bee and Bug had their own anniversary to celebrate last night, which is fine. It was nice to have some date time with Tara anyway, even though we were both not feeling our best.
Perhaps it was this first visit to Harold's without everyone in attendance that got me thinking about this topic. It's a little difficult to explain here what the subject of my thoughts are about my family dynamic, so I'm not going to go into too much detail.
Basically, I have an idea of being in a poly family where everyone is interconnected with each other, and therefore, can all talk as a group about relationships as well as practical household matters. And really, up until a few weeks ago, I thought it possible that my family could be like that someday, but lately, I've been having doubts that it will ever get to that point. That's not to say there's something "wrong" with my family's style of communication - it has worked for the three of them for 10 years before I got here. I'm just not sure it will work with me, a relative outsider, being thrown into the mix - especially in a poly context that never existed before but does now.
As I said in a previous post, I am trying to focus on the present and enjoy what I have right now. I've come to recognize the futility of trying to direct and plan change when it comes to relationships. Last year, I saw the destructive effects of putting too much effort into making a relationship work that didn't evolve organically. So this year, I'm purposely being aware of not forcing myself or anyone else to put effort into creating relationships that aren't really that important to them, which is probably the most sensible thing to do.
However, what I find is that like the second law of thermodynamics when you don't put energy into a system (i.e. a relationship) eventually you get entropy. So even though my relationship with Tara is fine because we both put in the effort to sustain it, my relationships with Bug and especially Buffy are cordial, but mostly superficial. A big part of the reason for this from my viewpoint is that we are not able to talk about real things, like I do with my friends Lori and Agnieszka when I have time to see them. Bug is better with this than Buffy right now, but we just don't spend very much time with just the two of us (like, one night a month at most). And on the rare occasions that Buffy and I spend alone time together (as we did last week at the spa), we really don't talk about personal things. I think it's because we're just not comfortable enough with each other to do so, although I really don't know why that is with all we've been through together.
I find it somewhat discouraging to know two such wonderful people as Bee and Bug are, and to have had such lovely times together in the past and yet find that we are slowly drifting apart such that I feel more comfortable spending time with either of my aforementioned close girl friends than with either of them one on one. That's not to say we don't have wonderful times together as a group with Tara, because we do.
On the other hand, if that is the way it's supposed to be, then I will just accept that we will never be the poly family that I originally hoped to be back in January. Maybe we'll be something else, but whatever happens, I'll accept that it will be the right outcome for everyone concerned. I'm not saying my original idea can't happen - Tara pointed out last night that time is not an issue, and if it happens, it could happen quickly. I'm just saying it's not happening now and maybe we're all meant for something else.
Only time will tell.
