On the Clock

So I have a job that is simultaneously one of the most educational, enjoyable experiences and one of the most frustrating and draining experiences.

I work with a family and their five year old autistic child. I can't say to much on what exactly I do for confidentiality and the like but I can say a bit. 

The boy I work with is sweet, when he wants to be, he's also a five year old boy and five year old boys can be a turd when they want to be. He usawally means very well and just has a hard time relating or communicating what exactly he feels and/or wants. He really is a good kid. 

What's frustrating is my job is supposed to be helping to teach him and then on the weekend I work on his social skills with out academics. But lately he has been sleeping in over half the time my coworker and I have with him and then its a real row trying to get him dressed or out to the 'class room'. Or when he's out there we're having a hard time getting him to do things.

He's improved greatly from when I started working with him. He's better at talking, he's better imagining things, he's better copeing when things go wrong. 

He really is better.

And he's better at getting around what we want him to do. 

It's a stressful joy. 

Irate twas I

So I have now reached the point that I can write more about the split with Lee and the things that went alright. And the things that made me bang my head against the wall. Mostly these are the things that make bang my head against a wall.

So this split didn't go as well as planed. Not the after the part, I had a few ideas of how it would go but...how sure can you bee things will turn out when you tell the boyfriend who dated you in full knowledge of you and your polly girl friend that your well...gay.

For starters, my web cam wasn't working so this was all done over Skype IM. Not preferable but I didn't feel comfortable waiting any longer. So I told him.
And waited.
And got the response of "Alright? Is that all?"

Several blinks later I replied with something along the lines of "As in lesbian...as in your a guy...as in I'm so sorry..." and that went on for a little while. Lee told me not to apologize for being who I was and that made it a little easier and we ended on the note of he needed a bit of time to take it all in, as he was still in shock. After talking about some other things, like his dad had stopped cemo but was still doing alright, his cat was still cute and fluffy, younger siblings were all doing good he said he probably wouldn't be able to talk until the next day or the day after, as he was still in shock. He also said that he wasn't going to out me to his family.

I was okay with this. I needed a bit of space too. So we said goodnight and sweet dreams, I wandered down the hall to Ali's room, told her I had done it and received snuggles of comfort.

So far all was going pretty okay. A bit better than I expected.

Went back to my room, got around for bed and looked back at Skype. Lee had left a message. I full sized my screen and still had to scroll three times. That in it's self was not frustrating. Hard to read as there were no paragraph brakes but the size wasn't frustrating.

What was frustrating was the context and the lack of two days. Context more than the lack.

Was it that I was still pan but not polly? Was it just the strain of a long distance relationship? Do I not feel the urge to get close because we are so far apart? Questions like that, that I had taken under very careful consideration before hand. Admittedly yes, the long distance was straining, and a lot of them were yet other resins to end a relationship.

And then he just didn't seem to get that we were done. That it was over. I was gay he was a guy. It wouldn't work. Not just because of the sex but that there wouldn't be an underlying drive to make it work. It would just sit and become increasingly more uncomphtraul. He wanted us to talk in person about it before we called it off.

I understand wanting to talk...but it was done.

The way I see it is, it take two or more to make a relationship. One to end it. If the one person says it's done, then well it's done. He also seemed to hint at having wanted to date Ali as well, but I might have miss read that. Either way it wouldn't have worked out. Ali says that only one other person has as little chemistry between them and her, than Lee and she did.

I didn't know what to say so I just went to bed.

And woke up the next morning with a voice memo. In short it said that we should still get together...because he was also not completely straight.

And then the texts. They would all be one message but they would go up to 23-25 texts long, so my phone would just jingle for a minuet and a half. Again they were all things that I didn't really know how to respond to. So I didn't. It just kept sounding more and more that he ignored that I was done and texted Ali once as well.

According to her it went off a few times, and when it continued she had time to put her pants on come down the hall, open my door and hold the phone out to me. At that point I looked up at her and blinked "Yes?"
The text alert went off again. And again. And again.
"Oh, I'm sorry love."

She went through it a bit later came back and said, "It had nothing to do with me, also he doesn't seem to get that your gay."

And the texts came again. Some where incredibly guilt tripping. Most where in fact. It was getting to the point of putting a rift between Ali and I. She was tiered of hearing about it, as it wasn't her relationship. She didn't really get why she was pulled into it. She was there for me at first but after so much of "Lee's doing this" it got old. I don't blame her. It was stressing me out and in turn stressing my relationship with Ali and she hadn't even been dating the guy or even interested.

Finally I gave in and called him, like he wanted. He again tried to ask if we could just try going slower.

"Lee, I'm a lesbian, we can go as slow as you want and it still wont move."

The one thing that really got under my skin was that he felt betrayed and cheated on that I was not open and honest about being gay with him...but it was perfectly okay that his sexuality discoveries and pondering were not brought out at all until after we broke up, and only then it seemed as a way to try and get me back. Because "It didn't change the status quo of our relationship".

What. The. Fuck.

Nonononono. If one of us is betraying for an action we both did, then we both are betraying. You can't claim that I did some grate wrong by not telling you the second I thought I was a lesbian but it's okay for you. It dose not fucking work like that.

I also clearly said that I needed time and space about six times. I got that for most of a day.

And then he turned my personal blog into his personal therapy session. I was pissed. Very, very pissed. I recall words like 'asshole' and 'what the fuck' being hurled at my screen and I was seriously second guessing my stance of never tearing down comments. I got my roommate Skye to look up with how much I looked like I was trying to implode the internet with my mind. I stormed down the hall and screamed into Ali's pillow as she patted my back.

Luckily I am much more polite when I respond to things.

Lee and I have spoken a bit since then but I'm not running to rekindle a close friendship any more. I would like to remain friends because he was a really nice guy as we were dating but right now I am willing to just be aquantinces.

Ali and I are doing better. A few good snuggle talks will fix things up better than you'd expect. My friends at Hollins are still cautioning me to keep a good distance. Apparently his lack of spoken word made them all uncomfortable when he came up to see me...and his recent actions were not particularly charming to them.

So yes. That's the less cheerful, less fluffy part of my side of this whole thing. Ta-flippin-Da.

The stress of killing with those you love

So a wonderful friend of mine gave me, on a loan, all of the Assassin Creed games except the 3rd. She has it but in all honesty I don't think Ali and I could get to it by the end of the year anyway. I used to go over to her apartment and play every friday for about a month but then Ali got an Xbox 360 for Christmas and well, now we play in Ali's room.

The Assassin Creed games have to be my favorite series ever. I love many games, and consider myself to be a gamer, but nothing will beet the Assassin games.

Ali and I decided to play together, switching off who had the controller so that we could work through the story. I was excited, I get to share the game I love most with the woman I love most. Win Win right.

Well we had a kerfulf-ful you might say. I'm not even sure how it started but we started becoming defensive and snapping at each other...over a game...and something else but I honestly can't remember what.

We were both just being idiots. It took pausing the game, and maybe about a five minuet conversation on what the hell was up before we snuggled back down and worked out a system.

Ali prefers doing the quests and running away in the cities. She's also better at navigating the cities, so she handels that.

I am better when were out on a horse, navigating, getting away and all that So I handle the in between the city bits. And I'm better at the actual combat. I can get it done faster and with less damage to our Assassin.

After that we just snuggled up and playfully teased each other and all was well.

I know we're not perfict. Far from it. We're real. We get in fights. We have our hard times. By golly there's a few times I would have liked to strangle some since into her, and I would put money that she has felt the same in the past.

But you know what, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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.