The Hard Part
BY MICHAELA
What I had with my girlfriend is real. I know that.
But the thing about exploring is that you may find something you don't like or understand. Revelations so far this year have felt like freedom, like healing. This revelation feels like a crack. And I don’t know how far it will spread or how much pressure it can withstand before there is a break.
My girl is polyamorous. She didn’t know for a long time, neither of us had even really heard of it until one afternoon in November.
She has more than one love. More than me.
The idea is so gut-wrenching because there was no insecurity or fear that prepared me for this.
I never saw this coming. Sure, you know I’ve written about her ex-girlfriend having “female” on her birth certificate, where I do not.
A fact that has haunted me. Has made me feel like some kind of fraud no one will ever see as “real”.
I’ve talked about her confidence and whether or not I would be able to keep up with her.
All the reasons that if they came to be I could shout, “I knew it! I saw this coming!” The surprise has made it twice as painful: the idea that I am not enough.
Turns out my sorrow is an ambush predator too.
I am sad, but not heartbroken, and somehow that feels like it could be worse?
No. We didn’t break up or anything. No one has left me.
But I feel like she could leave me. At any moment.
Like polyamory is a veil over her realization that I am not what or who she wants.
And that makes me feel like a hypocrite.
It makes me feel sick. Here she has come to me with something about her that sets her apart, that makes her other, and I am ashamed to say it bothers me.
How different am I from my parents if I decide to cast her out?
But then, there’s that crack, there’s that chance it could turn into a break.
I’ve been pouring over page after book after book, trying to find guidance or a solution from those who came before me, but I can find none.
Everything I have learned so far addresses gender or sexual expression.
But nothing so far on romantic expression.
None of my favorite reads offer anything except how to process change and how to make sense of why it could have happened.
And maybe it's because all of us others are just figuring stuff out on our own and sharing what we know so far. So many things I didn’t know.
It’s not like when we were kids someone trustworthy sat us down to talk to us about our identities and how we have to navigate relationships with them.
It’s not like there is a romance film that shows what happens when the two lesbians get together but one of them also yearns for a former lover.
So, I don’t know where that leaves us. I asked for space and winter break provided it.
I don’t want to lose this love, but now it feels like it was never mine to lose.
I am scared though, and I know my girlfriend will always face my fears with me.
She has accepted every reservation, every tear, every moment of dysphoria.
So what does that make me if I can’t do the same?