“…to be brave.”

I’m writing words none of you will read.

 

I’m phrasing an inner monologue I don’t want anyone to hear.

 

I’m voicing fears I do not want to face and, in bad moments? Resent having to share at all.

 

I’m editing a document that is supposed to facilitate one of the more critical conversations I’ll have in my lifetime.

 

I’m trying to capture the smell of anxiety, the taste of uncertainty, the sound of desire, the sight of longing.

 

I fluctuate between cold determination and confidence and breathless, choking anxiety.

 

A few days ago I was sweating my pores out in a small musty room at the Dark Odyssey camp. I had suddenly jumped into hamsterbrain mode about my upcoming visit to spend time…quite a bit of time…with The Dominant Guy and his wife, and what that would be like. More worrisome was my fretting about how to even begin to approach what seemed, to me, a Sisyphean task. This involved my being prepared to sit down, all three of us, and talk. About expectations and protocols and the day-to-day reality of my spending several weeks with them. And Other Important Things. And Stuff.

 

This makes my brain sweat and my stomach submit a request to evacuate.

 

I’ve never negotiated like this. I mean, in well over fifteen years, I’ve never had this serious a negotiation about a power-exchange relationship. Have I given endless amounts of thought to the topic? Yes, for certain. But negotiation of a relationship with someone who was married…and poly? Pfft. Fuck, up until last September I’d assumed being in a situation where having to negotiate poly as a monogamous-hearted person would NEVER happen. But here I am. With all of my anxiety, with all of my deep fears of being “less than” or “not enough” or “expendable” and, paradoxically,  all of my wide-eyed foolhardy optimism fighting it out, cage-match style, in Technicolor.

 

Well, or in HD. Might as well get with the modern times.

 

I tried to wrap my head around how to talk about what I needed without fearing the consequences if I learned I couldn’t get what I needed. I tried to accept that it was OK for me to be forthcoming about what I wanted. I tried to think of politic ways to approach it. To think of polite yet straightforward, diplomatic yet scrupulously honest ways to say some shit that was just sounding harsh to me, and hiccuping with anxiety about never even having the balls to actually do this. I emoed some random shit on Twitter and wondered, for the thousandth time that hour, if I was losing my fucking mind.

 

Then my phone rang.

 

One guess who it was. 

I was just glad to hear The Dominant Guy’s voice and the perky “How was your day? What are you up to?” quotidian banter and bullshit lifted my spirits a bit.

 

“So…”

There is a particular tone, cadence and pause cycle to this one syllable that sets me up a bit for some degree of anticipatory breath-holding.

 

“…so how are you coming along with your notes?”

 

Deep breath.

 

“I don’t know. OK I guess. I mean, I know what I want to say I think? But it is complicated.”

 

“Really. Why?”

ForTheLoveOfFuckingGaneshaAreYouFuckingKiddingMe?!?

 

“Um. Why?”

I said something about this being a bazillion levels of difficulty, that I had no idea what to expect, that I felt at a severe disadvantage as the neophyte at the table with regard to this type of discussion, that the layers of complexity and the unknown quality of EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SITUATION shoved me into not knowing what to do, feeling like an idiot, and not even knowing how to say what I need to say…and…and…and…

 

I went on like that for a bit, evincing empathetic sounds from the other end of the line.

 

Finally I ran out of steam. I sat as my vision blurred and tears slowly made their way down my sweaty cheeks. I took a constricted deep breath.

 

He explained, once again, and patiently, that I really needed to put everything out there. That the only way for everyone to get on the same page was for everyone to speak their truth.

 

 

 

 

Good fucking luck.

 

My Personal Demon sunk her teeth in out of nowhere and I wondered again why I’d allowed myself into this situation. I reached for my inhaler.

 

You speak your truth? They’ll bounce you for sure. You’re too demanding, too needy, and too much of a loser to even manage to find a monogamous person to get all gooey over. Nice job, idiot. Go ahead and tell them why you’re scared and uncertain and see where it gets you. Go right ahead and settle for second-best adjunct plaything status. It really is the best you can do, isn’t it? Stupid. Holy shit you are so. Fucking. Stupid.

 

Speak the truth.

 

The truth is awkward and lumpy and…well, it is personal, dammit. I’m afraid…I thought about how I would even begin to explain to him that I had so much fear about saying “The Wrong Thing.”

 

“I need for you to be brave. You need to share all of that, to be transparent. You have to be fearless.”

 

Brave? Haven’t I been fucking brave enough already?! Galloping Ganesha…

 

And yet the hateful cyclotron of doubt had reflexively started winding down immediately upon my hearing him say “I need…”

 

For love, money and the threat of imminent insanity at the teeth of The Demon, I can’t unfuck myself when this thought process escalates to the point it had just then.

 

However. He needed me to be brave.

 

OK.

 

Yeah.

 

Despite the technicalities of negotiation, a part of me already sits up and starts plotting compliance immediately upon hearing that he needs something. If what he needed was for me to be brave and honest, even if it feels sickly, needy and weak, I had to do it. Damn the torpedoes and the washing machine belly.

 

Despite the fact that I didn’t get what I desired :  blanket reassurances that Every Little Thing Was Gonna Be Allright, I did get what I needed. And what I need is to know that he is listening, and understanding, and more importantly that he has entirely fucking reasonable and disgustingly goddamn rational thought processes around much of the shit that makes my hamsterbrain hop on the wheel and start…hamstering.

 

Somehow, even my occasionally Very Very nasty inner Demon will grudgingly STFU in reaction to The Dominant Guy’s admonitions. Maybe it is because of that time he said he thought she was cute. Maybe its because she’s just as scared as I am.

 

But scared or no, I have to be brave again, and I think I can do that for him. Maybe not for myself, not yet, but I’m learning.