Are You Down
I love commitment. In fact, it may be the juiciest of things to me. My heart beats to it, my body quivers for it. When I love something or someone, I get that wry little side grin, like "This is about to be goooood." Let me dive in, do nice things inspired by you, dig deep into my recesses of truth to keep it real with you.
It is the first thing that shook me when my ex said she wanted a divorce. I thought "wait, we was ride or dyin this thang, right?" I tried living her polyamorous truth. Judged myself as old school when I could not. During the marriage unraveling, my friends were concerned that I was molding myself too much, working too hard to fit into what felt right for her. But as I was trying on what worked for me, I was pretty firmly planted in what runs beneath all my truth. I was staying committed. Trying to figure out how our relationship could continue to exist. How what we shared could still mean something, anything. It is this same desire that made our meeting in Boston two weeks ago especially painful. I was ready to hear her dreams and be on board with them. Offer my cheerleading and any connections with cool people I could offer. I can still see us on the same land farming in the future. Being big so the other can be bigger. Not because I want to get back together. But because I am forever committed to her as a person I love. My body and soul don't see the conflict and want to be in relation with folks who can flow in THIS way.
Commitment is fucking empowering to me. It is my safety space where I feel wild enough to explore my edges. It is what I have found I need to be polyamorous, a state of being I enjoy very much but not without knowing you are very into me and I am very into you. Even if those "verys" inevitably look very different. Before leaving for Boston a few weeks ago, me and a current lover had a talk about what resonated with us in relationship and what we were looking for in this. I said "I'm polyamorous too but I don't do casual. I love deep and expansive. And I would love for you to be in my sphere of love." Yesterday we reconnected. I told him I have the love feels for him, not really knowing what that meant but knowing I didn't have to. I added, "Non committal, you can take from that whatever you want." He met my insecurity, my fear of abandonment in being tender and feeling with "You can feel about me any way you want." This may be the most freeing thing a lover has said to me. He let me own these feelings without being left to have them on my own. He was not threatened, did not run away, did not seek to match them or do anything at all. He was rooted in his own experience, honoring mine, enjoying his. I don't even need to know what that is. I feel his commitment to presence in the juicy way I crave. My body likes being next to his. I feel welcome to share my love and truth and bask in hearing and seeing his.
In that moment, I was seen in my unclear truth without feeling stuck to it. I was freed of the fear of naming such a thing until there was certainty. Of letting it stew within me until it became something murky and scary. Because love ain't no thang to me. It is everything and no big deal at the same time. It comes easy. I breathe, speak and move it. I am committed to it. To the free expression of it. And I want to be witnessed in that ever-changing boldness. During my first visit back home with the divorce underway, my mama said, "I just want you to know that there is nothing wrong with being committed. There is nothing wrong with you." Amen mama, amen.