A Queer Life

Love means never having to say, "Put down that meat cleaver!" Hello my pretties! Once upon a time I was married to a man named Tyler. I knew something was wrong with our relationship, but it was like he cast a deep, black magic spell, creating confusion and brain fog whenever I thought about our marriage. We stumbled onto polyamory as an answer.  There are books about polyamory. There are blog posts about polyamory. There are polyamorous people. There are polyamorous groups. I devoured all the information I found. How exactly did it work?  "It can be anything you want it to be," people responded.  "Right, but what about the details?" I asked.  "Communication is very important," they responded. "Most problems are resolved with communication." "Okay, but I mean what about other details?" "Like what specifically?" "Like what if your partner has a new partner and they are bouncing around with excitement and you are ...

  I suppose you could say it was a whirlwind romance. You could also say it was a long time coming. But since I don’t trust romance, whirlwind or otherwise, I’m pretty uncomfortable with all of it. There is a term for these giddy feelings: NRE- New Relationship Energy. New relationship energy frightens me. I have always run from it. But here I am, at the ripe old age of forty-three and I decided to give it a shot for the first time. Tyler was gone for work again. He had been gone for seven days so far and I needed some adult companionship. So I invited my friend, Ariel, over. I met Ariel over a year ago at the Pride parade. Ariel had a kid who liked our kids. She had two partners, a guy and a non-binary partner. Poly people in the house! Tyler and I became friends with her and her family. We didn’t see them a lot, because we lived an hour away, but they felt like family right away. I remember meeting Ariel’s husband, Charles, and how his voice and his energy felt like a warm hug. A...