Monday, August 11, 2008

Poly vs. Mono - Round 1

It was a bit of an up and down weekend for me, and things with Tara continue to be challenging, although our love remains undiminished. It only seems to be the form that love takes which causes disagreement between us. Such is the conflict that seems inevitable when polyamorous and monogamistic mindsets collide.

Friday, I picked up Tara after work because she would be spending the night with me for the first time since the July 4 weekend, a drought mainly stemming from Bee's physical health problems this summer. We went to the mall to do some shopping, watched some baseball in the evening and had some nice snuggle time before bed. In the morning she made me pancakes and I made her bacon for breakfast, followed by more snugglebunnies. I dropped her off at home in the early afternoon and proceeded to run my weekend errands.

I had a mind to visit the Cloisters in the city since it was such a nice day on Saturday, and luckily Bee was able to get off work early so that we could all go together for a couple of hours and see the gardens in their late summer glory. I took some pictures, but I'll have to post them later. Saturday night I made a different version of my curry chicken and onions for myself (I omitted the limes and jalapenos this time, since I didn't have any on hand) and the usual fried tofu with hot bean sauce for Bug, and vegetable dumplings for Bee, plus some spinach sauteed in black bean and garlic sauce. We watched The Truman Show for our movie and called it an early night. That was probably the best 24 hours as a family we've had in a long time.

Sunday morning started with a surprise visit from Tara, who came over because she had some bad dreams and wanted to talk to me. She crept into my apartment and snuggled next to me while we talked. We resolved the dream issue, but we ended up extending the conversation to larger issues and it got a little agitated. We settled down enough to enjoy some quick canoodling before I took her to the diner for breakfast. Unfortunately our difficult conversation continued during our meal and on the ride home.

After we parted, I was emotionally exhausted and pretty much checked out mentally the rest of the afternoon and evening, watching baseball and the Olympics on TV and napping to stave off the crying spells between doing about four loads of laundry. Tara and I talked a couple times on the phone in the evening and eventually settled down, but our issues continue to be a ticking time bomb that we will have to deal with someday.

In all, I think we both agree that the positives outweigh the negatives over the last few days, and in our relationship in general. This weekend we let each other know where we stand on certain issues, and acknowledged our shortcomings to each other. Truthfully, if we just stopped thinking about what might happen in the future and just focused on the time we spend together in the present, I think we'd be fine. Despite our many incompatibilities, being with her is just about the only time when I'm truly happy and content.


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