Let's try this again,

So here is the updated of who I am/identify as, and the such... using otters. I do love otters.

Now here's me. I write novels and short stories and I'm working on a web comic. I enjoy snuggles, movies, riddles and adventures. I'm a gamer and and I like curling up with a good book. I work with a five year old autistic child in play therapy for a job. And by the way I'm about as straight as a fruit loop.

So let's hop on that loop and work things out now shall we?

So for starters I'm a Lesbian as you probably know by know. I'm poly, but I'm starting to think not in the same way I was before. Oh yeah, and bi romantic. Ta-Da!

Lesbian:

It's pretty straight forward. I like women. I'm gay. I can't really comprehend a long term, living together, romantic, physical relationship with a man. I kiss girls and I like it. I am currently with a woman as you are also well aware. Ali is truly and angel and a remarkable woman. There are days I look at her and wonder how I could ever be so lucky. We fit together like puzzle pieces when we snuggle. She just feels so right in my arms or when I kiss her. One might call her my significant otter.

I do day dream of that wedding kiss and plan it out and giggel. I do brows rings that I can't yet aford. I am most incredibly in love with a girl.

Swinger:

I still am Poly. Juuust after much deep thought, I realized I'm not the same level of poly as my Angel Love. The best word I can give you is swinger. I have my one person, Ali, and no matter who else comes in and out Ali will always be my priority. I am okay with having...flings I guess you could call them. Things that I and other persons do in full knowledge that it's not long tearm. This may or may not be sex. Not sure yet. These could last just one night or a few months. Dates, snuggles, talks. All the fun stuff. Just understood that it's not leading to anything remotely like a wedding bell.

As for Ali we sat and had a good talk and it is cleared up that I am okay with her still going out and finding as many loves as she wants, and that she can do what she wants with them. I know that I have a special spot in her heart and no one else can take my spot because no one else is shaped like me to fit my spot. I am just to be kept in the loop and lines of communication are to be open. Should I ever feel jealous or mer I am to go talk to her about it. Should she ever feel jealous or mer of what I do she is to come talk to me about it. If for what ever resin we don't like the other person we are to talk about it. Other person is to know of us before they agree to any commitment.

Talks can be had during snuggles.

There is just really a lot of talking.

(This blog post was brought to you by communication. Try it today!)

Bi Romantic:

I am a lesbian. Yes. Hold on to that. Gay. Got it? Good. Okay so I think I might be bi romantic.

Again this is very much like the swinger part because these won't go any where, especially with guys...buuut dates are fun. They make people feel good and warm and fuzzy. As long as Ali says she's okay with person B and person B's significant otter or lack of one is okay with it, B and I can go have a grand old time. There will probably be a check in with B's person to make sure I'm not just being used to cheat. Poly is cool, cheating is not.

The Bi Romantic part and the Swinger part of me are very close together, but you know what, talked with Ali, and should I date a guy again for x resin she is okay with it. I just need to stay safe and keep her in the loop. Again Ali knows that she can not be replaced, just as I know I can not.

Sooo Stuff:

The wonderful thing about this all is, I might have to do another one of these. Identities can change. I am a lesbian. I know that. I really don't see that ever changing but I might find out later that you know what I'm not Polly. I might find out I'm not bi romantic. I might find out that I like brussle sprouts again and think they're yummy. It's really that much not a big deal. Sometimes it feels like we're all rushed to label ourselves and I admit the labels make things easier to talk about, and think about when you are a confused little teenager, but those labels don't have to be permanit.

Life threw me this red cup that is 'hay you might like guys' I tried it out, tried to make it work, and nope. So I stopped saying I was pan. Ta-Da. The world didn't end. Next please.

It's really okay to change your mind, change your identity, because in all actuality it doesn't really change who you are. I am still me, and you will still be you.

Swings anyone?

So in the wonderful journey that is self exploration I've learned a lot of new things about myself. Starting with but not limited to I'm a Lesbian, I'm a Swinger, I might be claustrophobic in certen situations (thank you disney), and other things.

So now onto the other part of my identity...reform I guess you could call it.

I still fall under the Polly spectrum of loves. I still am okay with loving more than one, I have found how ever that I am not the same as Ali on this. Ali is what I would call the classic. She can carry on multiple relationships of varying degrees and love everyone all the same and bee cool with it.

I'm more of a swinger. I have my one person that I love above all else (Ali) and am okay with fun dates, cuddels, and small kisses with some one else as long as it is understood that this is a fun thing that won't go anywhere at all and may end or be put on hold at any time, depending on the people involved.

So that's that. Not much a back story on that. Just a lot of me flopped on my bed listening to music and thinking.

Ta-Da?

Dreams

I keep having dreams of my mom confronting me. About Hollins. About Feminism. About my identity. About having both Lee and Ali. About Ali.

I always react differently.

 One I just sat there and cried and then she walked away after banning me from all future familyness. I started looking for Ali but I couldn't find her anywhere and all I could hear was her crying. I couldn't ever get to her in time before it stoped. And it stopped too suddenly.
I couldn't ever save her.

Other times I'm pleading. Begging for even a little tuition aid. Begging to still be loved. Begging to be welcome in the house. Begging to not be erased from the memory of my siblings. Begging for her to attend my graduation, my wedding.

Most of the time I react with rage. Its the only time I remember the words. "I found people who love me for me! I pay for my own fucking school because you fucking cut me off. I will live with who ever the hell I want!"
"Try not to fuck up the others like you did me, bitch"
"Get the fuck out of my apparently damned life"
"You will never see me again."

The last one I was just tiered.
"No. I'm not coming back. Sorry but I'm not. I'll be by after graduation to collect my things and then I'll be gone."

I really hope this isn't foreshadowing.

The hearts over the parts

Sexuality is like a bunch of Skittle Chickens. Each one is beautiful and unique down to the very chicken that's colored. What I define as my sexuality I've already been told by many that it doesn't exist.  That I'm really just bi and should stop trying to be sepecal or that I'm really straight, and have been fooled in to thinking I could possibly like girls. Pan isn't a real sexuality and you can't be one thing leaning another, so the fact that I say I'm leaning Demi is absoulty propostours.

But you see even if you group all of the little pan blue chicks together and all of the little yellow straight chicks together and all of the little purple asexual chicks together, and the little green gay chicks and the little orange bi chicks and the pink chicks who are forever confused like my friend Juliette you haven't grouped together a bunch of identical chicks. Yes they are all the same cute fluffy color but that dosn't meen that bi chick named Bill won't mostly go for girls or that the straight chick named Patty isn't open to maybe trying something out with another girl chick. There again there's Pam who will only date, love and have sex with boy chicks thank you. All are acceptable. 

Okay, here are the nitty gritty definitions of my three love search bars I suppose you could call them? Pansexual, Dimisexual, and Polyamory. 

How they work to me is as fallows, with adorable pictures for each:

Pansexual/Dimisexual:

Gender doesn't matter. Looks don't mean anything on how attracted I am to you. So it really doesn't matter if your male, female, gender queer, male and female, nothing at all, transgender. It truly doesn't matter to me. The soiatal standers of beauty are screwy anyway. If I love you you are the most beautiful/handsome person I have ever seen.
This works on the flip-side as well. Ali has stretch marks, and I always thought they were some of the coolest things ever and called them tiger stripes...because well they look like white tiger stripes. They're beautiful.

I saw someone else with stretch marks that I just down right despised and I clearly remember thinking that it looked like a parasite was festering and breading inside him causing him to rot away.

I have to be atracted to you as a person before your body will do anything for me at all. Look at it this way. Apparently many people find Tony Stark attractive. I'm sorry. No matter how much he grew as a person in the Avengers, Iron Man and Iron Man II really just killed any chance I would ever find him good looking. To much of an ass.


Now I've heard that some Dimi's just don't get anything at all from looking at a body, even if it is someone they are attracted to emotionally that inhabits said body; also from what I gather Pan usawaly or at least in many cases means you can also be atracted to a person's body.  I'm in that little place in the middle.

Thus why I say Pan with a Dimi leaning.

Gender doesn't matter, and it truly is what's on the inside that counts for me. Even people like Thor, Hawkeye, Aragorn, Syrena, Charlie's Angels, Or any of these other people that I don't know the names of. I can see that, yes, they are attractive, but I am not attracted to them. I don't know them. As odd as it sounds I just don't like them. Not even crush. Or fantisize. I don't know them...so I just don't.

Once I am attracted to you...good golly you can be one of the most attractive people I have ever seen. Ali and Lee both can just...I don't know how, but just look so...so...thought stopingly fantastic, and sexy, and amazing and beautiful, and handsome all at once.

Also sometimes I just get turned on by how they look.

Let me tell you they can look veeerrryyy good.

Like "Oh...hello there..." good.

So their bodies do something for me, believe me they do, but only because I already love them.

Am I making sense? 

Now for Polyamory:

It's not about sex, or not getting enough of XYZ from ether Ali or Lee, because they are both more amazing than I could have ever dreamed. It's more like there isn't a little love bottle that has the sole amount of love that I can ever give.

This bottle, as cute as it is, dose not exist for me. The way I see it is that I can love multiple people at the same time and it doesn't mean that I love any of my wonderful loves any less. There's a beautiful amount of vulnerability and trust and open honestly that comes with a poly relationship. It, for me, is about love and not getting more sex or dates or XYZ.

Yes I have sex, but as of now only with Ali. Lee and I aren't that far along, and we just may not be engaging in the sexy times. That is something Lee and I will work out, and should we decide to engage in the sexy times, Ali will be aware. We've already discussed it me and her and she is okay with me doing what ever I am okay with from hand holding to handcuffs and all in-between, just keep her in the loop. Not a play by play, I just don't do that, and that's me. But something like "Hay, last night Lee and I made love and it was really nice." or "Last night/whenever, we did **activity**"

Lee is aware that Ali and I are active and is okay with that. There's no hiding anything. 

Yes I may get more dates than the average 20something woman but, that's just a nice side effect. 

Also just because I'm polly, dose not mean that I am out to just date about. Lee has already told me that he's not sure he is okay with multiple males and would rather I didn't date another man. This isn't any controlling, block or anything. This is comunication. Lee isn't okay with multiple men and me loving multiple men, so I won't date multiple men. 

(Also Lee is just fantastic, I don't think I'd even meet another man that could even come in spitting distance.)

Ali doesn't mind multiple woman and neither dose Lee, and just because they date me doesn't meen they date each other. It's different for every polly couple or group or person. Even in our lovely trio. 

As for how it works well:

Ali is polly = "JR you may date as many as you wish so long as you are happy/healthy and I still have quality time with you. I love you, keep me posted." 

I (JR) am polly = "Ali and Lee, you may go date and find love where and how you wish. Keep me posted, and ask first how I feel about them too please, but over all, go have fun."

Lee is = "I love you, I don't know if I'm polly, but I shall be opened minded. Please don't date other men."

That's the short hand at least.

If you're still confused here is another way I can explain it: 

Ali is the hamster clinging to the plant, I am the one with the flower, Lee is the one on the log. Ali is happy for me when I find other people I love, as am I for her. (She dated a very lovely woman for a while and was very happy.) Ali encourages I go out and after people I find attractive, sometimes to the point of walking up and telling them that I have a crush on them like she did once before. 

Lee has just been monogamous, to my knowledge, up to this point. He is happy I have Ali, "Why would I be upset that other people find you as wonderful as I do," and we both are incredibly happy we have each other. He is keeping an open mind, and there are people out there who are okay with dating someone who is polly but are not polly themselves and that's okay. He may be polly. It's up to him.

I am in the middle. Very happy with my two wonderful loves and okay if they find other loves, and okay if things stay the way they are.

Am I clear? Sometimes explaining these things can be difficult. If not feel free to ask questions and I will gladly answer them. 

also none of these photos, as cute as they are belong to me.

Today's the day!

It's national coming out day....and depression screening day....and girl day...soooo


I am a girl!
I'm not depressed!
and I'm Pan leaning Demi and Polly in love with two amazing fantastic people!

Red pandas even aprove!

Mother Dear, and little pollywog me

Something I have noticed is that the stress in my life doesn't come from where most people would expect. Or rather where my mother and her churchy friends would expect. 

It's not because I'm Pansexual. 

It's not because I'm Poly and currently dating two people.

It's not because I'm oh so far away from home.

It's not because I've lost my faith.

It's not because of a lot of things.

I'm very sure of my sexuality. I am in the very least Pan, possibly leading towards Demi. I'll let you know after I do more research. But this doesn't stress me out at all. I'm very happy with my sexuality. It's not stressing me out or anything. The way I see it, I have more chances to find the ones I love and I just couldn't be happier with who I have found. 

Which brings us to point two. Surprise surprise, dating two people is not stressful. That is not to say it doesn't have it's stress, every relationship dose. But there's no real drama in my life from them. I am currently dating an absolutely wonderful man, A king among men I would say, Lee, and Ali, an amazing woman who is an angel. Both of them are fully aware of each other and have seen each other over skype and it's all good. It's not stressful because there is a pletharla of communication. Amazingly when everyone is honest and checks in frequently there is a dearth of drama.

Now point three. I don't get homesick. I felt really bad about it freshman year but I don't. I've only gotten homesick and that was over the summer wanting to go back to Hollins. You see Hollins is more than a school it's a home. Your friends become family and it's amazing. I do miss my family that I have blood ties to, really I do, but I don't miss living with them. I miss seeing the little ones grow up and being there for them and all that but I don't miss being used as free baby-sitting at the drop of a hat. I don't miss having them still try and control my bed time and my life when I go home for school holidays. I miss them. I just don't ever want to live with them for years and years or even months at a time again. 

I have not lost my faith. God is a really nice guy and Jesus is cool and I'm actually doing more in depth research about the Bible and more firm in my belief now that I have lost my love for religion. It's put rather nicely here. See I would go to church and slowly begin to realize...I'm not getting anything out of it. I feel more in touch with the holy three when I'm just wandering about have causal conversations with them in my head. I saw the most preachy 'divout' people act hypocritically and very rarely practice what they preach. So rather than fallow them I just metaphorically stood up and walked out. 

What's stressful is that my Mom doesn't know any of this. 

Mom and I used to be incredibly close. We would share secrets and laugh and be completely open with each other. That changed when I went away for my first year. I didn't realize it at first. I thought we were still very tight and snuggly. I would reassure Ali that should the shit just hit to many fans with her family we could run away to mine. 

Because my Mom was going to accept us when we came out. 

I didn' realize it till after my brother came out to her as gay that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to speak up and snuggle close. He's still around and loved in the house but there is this sadness Mom gets for him. This absolute sorrow that he will go to hell should he ever act on that feeling of love he might develop. She made it clear that he was not to tell anyone else in our family and that he was not welcome to bring friends over unless they were women. 

I was at this time slowly poking around and contemplating that I may not be straight. I had always known I could be attracted to guys and that was what seemed to be approved so I had stopped there in high school and not gone...soul searching? But Mom's very clear brimstone view stopped my plans to talk with her and get another look at it. 

So I backed away a step or two there. 

Now the next year she came to family weekend. Met Ali. Spent maybe at most 4 hours with her around, and that's being generous. She then came to me months later and confessed that she vary nearly packed my bags and brought me back home, because Ali was obviously "grooming" me to be her love interest and was going to molest and rape me.

Uhm. No. 

She didn't even know we were/are dating. Ali never takes advantage of me, and should I ever be even the slightest bit uncomfortable, she stops. Just stops and we talk and then maybe try again if I feel better or we do something else. And not a "Come on just relax and go with it" but a "What is wrong? It's okay you're safe. Why did you feel that way? What do you feel okay doing now?" kinda talk. And I do the same for her. 

Not a rapist. 

At this time Ali and I decide that being poly is something that makes sense to us. The idea that love is not a limited amount and by loving two people, one dose not love ether any more or any less. We gave it a try with a friend. It didn't work out for various reasons. This was the friends first time in a relationship so it was hard for her to give us any clear "This is what I want and where I want to go and how fast/slow" as well as other things. So it didn't work out but she is still one of my closest friends Ali and I have. 

This year I, along with my friend Juliette make the realization that as much as we love the Church...we don't quite fit anymore. Mom also starts getting more churchy back home. 

This past summer was very tense at the house. I was trying my plan of "Convince my mom that my school is not liberal heathen brainwashing" so I had to stay quite about my self and tried to put on the conservative, husband-seeking, church loving face she wanted. 

I actively lied to my mom. Actively. To her face. 

This was something that I would have never dreamed of doing before, but if she knew dear Lord...I would be shipped off to a cloistered nunnery. Or if I was allowed to go anywhere for school again it would have to be a coed campus, close to home, and not ever two inches outside of the state. 

I lucked out and got a job working a BSA camp as a Range Master. 

Exit me from house for two solid months. 

Enter Lee. 

The story of Lee, Ali, and Me is a post in it's self, but in short hand, I fell fast and hard. Checked with Ali about every night when I called her to see how she was and she was okay with it ("Go kiss him already!") And by the end of it we were dating. (this really is a post on it's own)

Mom simultaneously aproves and disapproves when I come back and she meets him, and we go out for the last month I'm in the state. 

Positives

• He has man parts=daughter not a dyke!
• makes daughter happy
• brought cookies
• is very much the gentle man

Negatives

• Has ear piercing
• is not in collage
• hair is dyed

It's like Mom watched to much Disney and expects that to be exactly what I walk through the door with, fluffy animals and songs included. Well Lee is better than Disney, so there. 

She is aware I'm in love with and dating Lee, but not Ali.

And it's not even so much her disapproval that stresses me out but how she will act on it. Pull me out of school, never let me leave the house, never let me leave the state. I am very much protected by those that love me and by the fact that I am across the country at school but I am also very, very venerable to anything that happens back home.

It's just scary sometimes that the one you used to trust most is the one you're most afraid to turn to.