Dear Friends,

So, I've had a massive disconnect with you lately. Somehow over the course of the past few months, we just don't talk so much any more. I've been concerned about this, what it means and why it has come to pass. I have very unique pasts with all of you, and there's been ups and downs and other nuances. Some of us were very close as recently as a few months ago, some of you I haven't seen regularly for years. But the fact is that I need you like any friend would need. And unfortunately there's been a very large wall lately, on top of any other baggage you and I may have, and that wall is Poly.

I have a current issue with my girlfriend right now. We've had them in the past, and we will have them in the future, it is the incidence of having a relationship for longer than a month. Problems happen.

Now, my larger issue is that as I sit here processing, sorting this out, I'm wondering to myself who I can call. Who I can really trust in this circumstance. And the conclusion is the thing that really troubles me....the only person I feel won't judge me is my girlfriend.

Friends, I need you, I've always needed you. And I need to speak with you, but I need it to be more than your chance to tell me you told me so, or an opportunity to make me feel guilty for my life choices. I haven't been articulate enough lately to outline why I'm making the choices I'm making. Part of the excitement and the growth is the newness, the rawness of it. But however inarticulate or unclear I am, it remains my choice, and I make no apology for it.

So, just to be clear, I am in a poly relationship, and I am remaining in it. I say that proudly and confidently.

But now is the time that I do need you. As in any relationship, there are imperfections and doubts and worries, and we support one another through these things. That's what I need from you now and ever after, as I would hope you can come to me for. I am asking you, sincerely, when I ask you for advice on this, you are sensitive to my choices, that you understand that this is a relationship like any other and to not fixate so much on how unorthodox it is. I am still me, and you know me.



With love,
Dig

Dear Alcohol,

We've been through a long and glorious time, you and I. I really can't claim to have an adult life without you, and you've been one of the most reliable friends. Always there, ready to slum it up with me at a dive, and graciously sapping up my pay stubs whenever my tastes began to escalate. Ever present, ever consistent, ever economically accommodating, it really should be no surprise that in my life you always manage to beat out your green brethren.

And the memories, however fuzzy, or inappropriately blacked out. How else would I pre-maturely and childishly out myself at Stevens? What would I have done there without that handful of undesired sexual attempts with cis-men and the latent intoxication that eased the clear discomfort and strangeness of it? What would I have been at Rutgers had I not wasted hours of daylight recovering from your glorious rituals? Would Mexico had been any more enlightening without the glaze of rum? The hot tub? The over-sleeping? The stomach problems? Brooklyn vanity? It's been good, you and I.

But I think we may be coming to the end of our road together. Not to say I won't visit or write, but the partnership just isn't giving me what it used to. Hope you can understand, as I'm sure you'll find plenty of others to keep you company in my stead.


It's been fun,
Dig

Coming out all over again, and again, and again...

I have a pretty large confession to make. I don't really understand what "Coming out" means any more. Not that I haven't gone through it: the realization, the telling, the many tellings, the personal demarcation. My issue with it is more the illusion of closure that "coming out" encourages. I don't buy it any more.

Sure, I've seen plenty of times the shades of the coming out experience based upon who one is informing: you come out to yourself, you come out to your friends, you come out to your mom, etc. These distinctions denote that this is a process and that it unfolds in a fashion that suits the individual's comfort levels and stage of personal acknowledgment. However, it always pre-supposes the following:

- There's only one core item to be communicated.
- The piece of information is exactly that, a discrete self-contained nugget of fact about the self that grows to a "mature" state in the mind before it is ready to be revealed to appropriate parties (i.e. the man behind the Wizard).
- There is the pre-coming out world and the post-coming out world. Those in your life may exist in both stages but they invariably view you/know you differently in the post-coming out world, generally with the assumption that they now have a greater, more accurate understanding of your person. They finally now know the "real you."

It isn't really my job (or more like I don't really have the personal energy, and rather focus on something else) to fully debunk each of these points. I do know though that they basically go against certain core tenets I've formed for myself (or continue to form...) and my understanding of the world and people:

- We are multi-faceted.
- Knowing differentiates from knowledge, and we use the convention of encapsulating knowledge in order to develop knowing within the confines of how our brains work.
- For the third point: The "realization" and process of informing others frames it as an undoing of a false sense of self, that all things previous to this realization are tainted with misconception and mis-information and that the new corrected version of the individual will reveal a larger and greater sense of truth and happiness.

I reject the third notion because it robs our past of its legitimacy, even though it has everything to do with who we are and continue to be. It eliminates the capacity for further growth, change and conscientious alteration. It also makes it seem like all the hard work is now done and life will have everything fall into place.

I don't honestly think most gay people actually believe this (and if they've lived as much as a week after being "done" coming out, know it to be so very false), but I would put money on the notion that plenty of straight people are convinced this is how it works, and that's largely due to how the conversation is framed:

It's such a huge obstacle to -tell-, to reveal to co-workers and parents and friends; that immediate consequences could crush you, you could lose your job, risk being kicked out of your house, public violence, and the other general tidings of ubiquitous oppression. But once you get past this "obstacle," embrace it, find a "welcoming" place of employment, and accepting friends and get your parents to a "tolerant" point, life is damn good.


Fucking bogus. And I'm not here claiming that my concern would be that life didn't turn out as easy as I would have liked. I'm ridiculously happy, and satisfied, and focused, and hungry for life and experience. But the notion that the moment I got over my happiness' largest obstacle when I told my parents and friends would deny the work I've done for myself since then. It would deprive the important moments when I was 15, and closeted, and sprawled out on my bed til 5 am listening to endless hours of records lost in messy, crucial thought. It would privilege my sexual self over my intellectual self. It would mask the long, drawn out, ongoing and multi-pronged experience that is understanding your desires. It would do an immense disservice to everything and anything Carl Jung's works consider.

And it has a lot to do with my shyness with labels. Narratives are useful models for understanding our experiences, but as people we don't have a single, poignant climax in the form of epiphany. So the establishment of the self as something, anything isn't your one blown chance to finally make that "turn" in your life (so relax). It goes on and on and on, and when it doesn't any more, you're dead.

I'm coming to a point where I'm realizing several things. One thing is that my love for her is so deep and genuine, it fills me with a light. I could go on about this, as I was feeling suepr gushy yesterday, but my mind's elsewhere right now. Another thing, though, is how much of a fool this can make me. I completely confound my own desires and reasons in her own desires and terms, and I can't do that any more. They have to be mine, and that has to be enough.

Her

You're my life, and that scares me so much.

Say what you mean

The Dig translator:

Why are my desires so much less important than yours? / I am not forward with mine, but I should have free reign to flip flop and arbitrarily change mine, and to vaguely reference them only to later equivocate or downplay them.

fuck my life

I -do not- want to talk about it, at all. So let's not. Instead the whole mess just makes me think about things, the sort of things I've had floating in my head. Changing careers, going back to school, leaving New York. A part of me feels that the latter may alleviate more than I realize. I'm a high strung nutjob, and this city doesn't help. All of the amazing things I focus on about how fantastic New York is, I barely take advantage of. All of the edginess and harshness and toughness has lost its appeal, I'm bored or overwhelmed by it. The perpetuation of the superficial, the constant fear of being alone, the nearness of strangers, the haunting 24/7 access to most anything terrible for the soul, just a subway stop away. I'm getting sick of it, I can tell. Watching the faces of others on the subway, instead of imagining all the interesting lives I was near, I see exhaustion. I see a beaten down people.

San Francisco was beautiful, and warm. It makes me want to see other places to determine if the glee in being there resides outside of just being "not New York." How much of this is me swallowing my pride? How much of this is a weird affection I've always felt for New York, as though my association with it is one of ther underpinnings of my own worth? How much of this is to show that I can "make it"?

Too much, I suspect.

7:03 PM to 7:36 PM, June 9, 2009

Dig: Oh my God, I can't believe it. This is leaving me, gasping for air, I just cannot handle what just happened.

Pip: What? Are you alright? Is everything ok?

Dig: No! It's not at all. I was going to go to this ALANON meeting, and then Myrtle canceled on me. It's horrible.

Pip: Wait, what?

D: Well, she actually canceled hours ago, which was fine.....but then decided last minute to go and I wasn't near my phone to get the message in time, and oh my God, I don't think I'm going to make it!

P: Hold up, this is over a meeting?

D: Yeah, I was looking forward to it really bad. Pip, what the hell am I going to do?

P: ....go home?

D: But, these were my plans! That is they were...and then they weren't but, if, if, if only I checked my phone sooner! I could be there, right now! I, I, I gotta call Tompkin.

P: Huh?

D: If I can get in touch with her, then we can go out later.

P: And this remedies you missing the meeting how?

D: I mean, it doesn't, but it's, you know, a backup plan.

P: For what?!

D: This time interval, it's just...vacant, I need to....fill it!

--------

D: Fuck she's busy! What do I do? That's it, I'm gonna go to the meeting!

P: It already started you fucknut!

D: Oh my God, Myrtle stopped responding to me. I, I, I think I'm gonna choke. Someone....oh, I know, I'll text Marcy.

P: Huh?

D: If I text Marcy, she'll respond.

P: And then?

D: Well, and then I'll have her response...

P: Are you meeting up with her later?

D: Oh no no, she's on a date. My guess it will be late. I just need to hear from her.

P: Wait, backup.

D: Yes?

P: Your girlfriend is on a date...with someone else...and what you're fretting over isn't her, but is because your had a communication breakdown with Myrtle?

D: .........yes.

P: Now tell me if this is incorrect. Your girlfriend is potentially fucking someone else tonight, you're sleeping alone.....and the only thing making you a headcase right now is the FUCKING ALANON MEETING?!

D: ...is that weird?

P: I am ready to walk away from you right now.

D: No no, listen, it's fiiiiiine that she's on a date, because I made a decision to not rely upon her tonight.

P: Ok, sounds healthy so far....

D: BUT, I made -plaaaans- to go to this. Get me?

P: Wait, so are you mad at Myrtle?

D: Oh goodness, no, she's a doll, and I'm so grateful she'll even come with me to these meetings.

P: Then why the God damn panic attack?

D: ....

P: Do you even fucking know?

D: Of course I do! I mean, what am I supposed to do now? There's this vacancy now, my distracting friends are checked out, my girl is occupied, and this project, this prospect is a complete fail. I know I could go next week but what do I do now Pip, what now? The moment is upon me, and I'm in subway limbo!

P: You let go.

D: I....

P: It's that hard, isn't it, for you? Marcy, Myrtle, Tompkin, inaccessible, you can't let yourself float even for just a few hours, unreined, can you?

D: It's just, my lungs, felt like they were collapsing on me.

P: They weren't.

D: And where was I to go?

P: Your apartment.

D: And what happened if I didn't get to the meeting?

P: You'd wait another week and talk to Myrtle before even that.

D: Pip, I don't think you get it...the world, it pushes so hard on me.

P: No, it doesn't. You push on yourself.

D: Then why am I almost at the brink of tears, why won't something affirm itself to me?

P: Because the universe isn't at work to reconcile your schedule conflicts, or fix when your paycheck cashes too late after rent's due, and it doesn't shield your lover's eyes from seeing others as desirable, and it doesn't make everyone you encounter see your goodwill, and it doesn't compensate for your clumsy feet. It won't pad your life, it won't swallow you into itself and cushion every harsh edge and moment. That's on you.

D: That's cold Pip.

P: It's true. And you, you made the mistake. You used to be so upset when Marcy would go on dates.

D: But I'm fine now!

P: Sure, I see it, but didn't you just find another focus to put your energy? Didn't you just grab for another support? Life isn't about hopping from one crutch to another. You're always going to slip. You're going to step on the crack eventually. People get busy, get sick, change their mind, lose interest, get stuck on the train, get pulled into meetings, re-align their desires, reach new stages of life, new echelons, shift their paradigms, keep moving, and going, and thrive doing so. Where are you in this? Still dragging in the mud? A step behind, stuck in nostalgia, hyper-reflection, choked up on dry stagnance?

D: I just have to be careful.

P: Careful over what?

D: To test to see if the universe will be more....accommodating to me.

P: Is that really how you want to be....intent to test out, try on, prod, and pry and pick at everything just to validate it's bullet proof. That it will somehow make your life more stable? The only situations worth considering are those of tested harsh steel and an atomic clock? Will you really hold everything accountable this way? Do you hold yourself in such a way?

D: Well, this isn't really about me.

P: The only thing this is about is you. Your swirling, black hole of an epicenter, drawing things in with a horrible irreconcilable gravity. A vacant non-dimensional pinprick intent to pull it all so close without daring to actually let it touch you.

D: It's in my gut, if it were to have a location.

P: You even let it draw vitality away from your head, your heart, your eyes, your health.

D: It just feels like...

P: ...what?

Like the lost childhood I can sense when I hear 'Mayonaise" by the Pumpkins, and all I can do to re-capture it is if I can just play this song one more time, just hold on a moment longer, kiss your cheek for a final time, I swear, then again, and have you show me before you go that you'll be back despite what happens during this day apart, despite the other flesh you may know. It feels like how I just want some reassurance, all the time, that the sadness in my father's eyes isn't the inevitable crush of your life bearing down on you at long last, that all you can do is postpone; to be sure for even this sweet lunch hour that the weight of it all won't overtake for just a day more, if I can just hold on for but a moment longer before it all sweeps me away. It feels like the daunting gap my vacant chest cavity occupies between my tightened throat and spasmic intestines, threatening with its vacuous potential to collapse and consume nothing but itself.

If I can just fill it, this gap, and wrap it, and squeeze out any air before it can make any sort of demand on my gut, I'll have just another day to wake to. Then maybe the crippling realization that it's all held in some arcane, contrived, arbitrary balance that could break at any moment can be pushed off.

It feels that your flesh could maintain my breath, keep its pace and sure movement; that this distance can fold away at the beckoning of my need, my aching need. And I can let rest my eyes, and tired lids until we must do this dance, again.

Sleep, how much I'm trying to just get to sleep. Oh, it will come again, all of it, but the sweetness of sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

How, knowing so much that I do, do I end up here? The full, pulsing wonder of the world around you, begging to be touched, scratched at and witnessed. My existence bearing the demand of using my hands as is fit, inscribing my smiles and gestures upon those I love, holding with care, speaking with conviction, owning the self. But, how can we, how can I, not know the way we'll fall in this, so surely that we will fall? Inadequate to push off death, inadequate to remove the taint. How do I bear this sweet, trusted burden; how can the short, naive moments of the day ever, ever compare? Cruelty, it seems, is what robs us of the ignorance of death.

And I, playing the victim, still conjure up the otherwise subtle cruel memory of how it is to not fit. And I, playing the frantic wanderer, perpetuate my ignorance of life.

Trapped, stuck and clutching to the ever elusive sweetness of moments with another, I have forgotten the skill, the blessing, of knowing how to simply just be.