Of the things I said I wanted to do in 2009 I didn’t do too badly, actually. Some of these things are the same, and some are different.

Get my body piercing license! – My biggest goal, which I hope I will be able to do in a year, but that will depend on when we can get the apprenticeship going and everything. I’ve been accepted, it will happen, but I have to wait until my teacher has the time to teach me and we have paperwork to figure out and all that good stuff. I hope to be done with my 1000 hours required to get the license by the end of the year, but we’ll see.

Get my driver’s license. – While we’re on the subject of licenses, this would also be a good one to get. It was part of my list of things I wanted to do in 2009 too and something I did not end up doing. Being here in Juneau, however, with access to cars may make this goal a little more attainable this year.

Write more. – The last half of 2009 wasn’t filled with as much writing as I think it should have been. Having time to myself up in Juneau is going to help with this, I think. This also means focusing more on this blog, maybe implementing another posting structure like I did a long while back where each day I have a topic I focus on posting about.

Comment more. – Commenting on other people’s posts is something I always mean to do but don’t always do. I know how much I love comments, even if they are just a few words or a couple sentences, so I like to spread the love around, but I don’t always have the time.

Figure out my job situation. – I would love to get a job with an online sex toy retailer which I could do from here while I pursue my apprenticeship and figure out my life. However, I know this is probably unrealistic, so I need to figure out what I can do in Juneau.

Get out of debt. – Or at very least reduce the amount of debt I have. Getting a job will greatly help with this, as will living with my Dad and not paying rent. School loans are the big thing here, unfortunately, but not the only.

Be more active. – This last year was not one of great activity, quite the contrary, and already in the last month since I’ve been here I’ve been out more and doing more things, or at least it feels that way. I want to be more active in general, socially as well as physically. I also want to get healthier, start going to the gym again, do more yoga, establish a routine, and lose weight. I’ll never be skinny, and I don’t want to be, but there’s healthy fat and unhealthy fat for my body and I’m in the latter phase right now.

Find a partner. – Specifically a female one, preferably here in Juneau, but I know that’s asking a lot. Who knows, though, it could happen.

And, last but not least…

Continue to learn and grow. – I think it’s nearly impossible not to do this one every year, but it’s something I am making a goal every year as I want to be consciously aware of it and work on it, not just have it happen to me.

The ever-so-popular year-in-review post, much like my In the Year 2008 last year. So, this is a little late, but I’m still posting it anyway! The new year is always a good time to reflect on the year before and look forward to the year to come, so here’s my reflecting.

In 2009…

• I moved to Seattle with Onyx.
• I went to NYC and D.C. for Sex 2.0 and met some wonderful people.
• I met Marla.
• I had my first threesome and had lots of wonderful sex.
• Marla moved in with Onyx and myself and we attempted a triad relationship.
• Marla and I celebrated six and then eight months together.
• Onyx and I celebrated four years together and three years living together.
• Marla, Onyx, and I split, rather suddenly though with warning.
• I moved back to Alaska for the foreseeable future and have been accepted into a body piercing apprenticeship, though that hasn’t started yet.
• I separated my sex toy reviews from my main blog (this one) and named it Wanton Lotus Reviews.
• I wrote and passed my 100th review!, I started doing porn DVD reviews, I started reviewing for a number of new companies.
• I did a lot of work on Pleasurists, including implementing new submission guidelines. It also passed the one year mark.

Were there any other significant events in my life in 2009? Definitely, though that doesn’t mean I remember them all. Was there anything that I mentioned on here that you think should be included in this list and isn’t? Do you have a favorite post of mine in 2009? What were your significant moments of 2009?

And, since someecards has sort of gotten me on the subject… in the last decade…

• I lived in Juneau, Alaska; Ashland, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Seattle, Washington. I then came full-circle back to Juneau.
• I graduated college, receiving a double Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology and Gender Studies from the University of Utah.
• I had lots of sex, some of it good, some of it bad. I learned a lot about sex in general.
• I met Onyx in the middle of it (five years ago, it was December/November time I believe, so just over five years).
• I grew into myself. My clothing style is much the same as it was in 2000 and I’m back in my hometown, but lots of other things are drastically different. I am still shy and social-avoidant, but I am more confident and self-assured.
• I cut my hair shorter than chin-length for the first time, and dyed it for the first time both in general and an unnatural color.
• I had at least four blogs (more if you count livejournal or diaryland) and a short-lived sex podcast under another pseudonym, this is the longest-running one of the bunch I believe.

Might add more as I think of them.

Now that I am somewhat outside of the relationships that have consumed me and took over my life for the last eight or so months I find myself getting more in touch with my needs. I am glad to have so much alone time and time to focus on me as me rather than me in a relationship. I’m thinking about this blog again much more than I have for the last few months, though I still have more drafts than posts.

I have so many different aspects of myself that I’m trying to appease all at once and am realizing there is no real way for me to do that. They are easily expressed by what appear to be binaries, but only because of the limitations of language and binaries being so ingrained in our way of thinking/expressing. There are multiple facets within each of the “binary” (appearing) identities, such as Top and bottom each having different aspects of power roles as well as sadomasochistic roles and kinks and fetishes of their own, and there is a multi-identity as well, such as switch. The same is true for my gender identities, though they can be broken down into femme and fagette there are multiple aspects within each and a multi-identity being genderfluid or multigendered.

I’m getting back in touch with the kink side of me, which is sad that somehow it got lost in the relationships I was having, but also understandable. The ability to have sexual intimacy was strained basically since July when Marla moved in with us, and before that it was strained as well for different reasons. This impacted a lot of things, but the little sex and sexual intimacy we were able to have was almost always short and usually fairly vanilla.

Specifically I miss bottoming. I haven’t done a lot of it in the last few months at all, though I have done some Topping. I actually miss more than bottoming, I miss submitting, and these days I often find myself desiring intense power play situations. I miss analyzing things on here as well, and having things to analyze beyond the triad. I realize I used to write a lot about power play, especially being a feminist submissive and all that can come along with that, back when my site was Fem(me)inist Fucktoy. I just miss power play in general, so much that I’ve actually gone on IRC and done some anonymously, though it’s no substitute for the real thing.

Onyx came up here for New Year’s and leaves tomorrow, which was good timing considering the desire for bottoming I’ve had. We’ve had a wonderful week so far and it has helped me remember how well we work together, how we used to work years ago before a lot of other things started getting in the way. I still don’t know what that means for us as partners, however. He’s been my lover, my friend, and my family for over four years and I hate that he spent both his birthday and the recent holidays alone, which was a big factor in my wanting him to come up here, but not the only factor. However, I still feel broken and damaged. I wonder when I will be able to trust anyone again, myself included. I still maintain that I need to be alone for a while, and he knows this and is willing to give me the time I need while still being able to be in touch and see each other.

Juneau is a good place for me to be for a while, to heal my wounds, to figure things out, to rediscover parts of myself I lost or forgot about. I’m not yet sure how to reconcile everything I feel inside, and often wonder if it is legitimate. I am still trying to figure out the underlying desires and drives which cause me to act how I do, but it’s a life-long task which may never be finished. In many ways I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m taking it one day at a time.

For a long time I was very similar to my sister, I followed in her footprints if you will. This wasn’t an intentional decision on my part to become more like her it just kind of happened that way. We have similar interests, and have for as long as I can remember. We have both been blogging for a long time and our current blog incarnations and online personae developed independently of each other but are also somewhat similar.

I have never consciously emulated her, but I think I do to a degree. Onyx has said he thinks this is because I see her as someone who has her life together, who has taken control, and that’s what I want to do. Maybe that’s true, or maybe I just want to emulate her in the way a younger sister looks up to her elder, or maybe it is something else entirely. I’m really not sure.

Now it seems like every major decision I make is one she has made in one way or another, and maybe these are things everyone has to go through, but it seems more specific than that. Even leaving my relationships and coming to Juneau for a while is something she did, though I didn’t know that until I was doing it and she mentioned she did the same thing.

To a point I don’t want to emulate her, I don’t want to find my life patterning similarly to how hers did ten years ago. While I don’t consciously make choices based on what she did I find myself over and over making similar choices. Is this simply because we are so similar, a fact which becomes more and more apparent to me, or is there something else at work here?

In the last few months to a year I have been thinking heavily about what it is I am wanting to do with my life, and the more I wonder the less I have any idea. I have all these ideas and interests and desires but haven’t had any direction or ability to figure out my path from point A (where I am) to point Z (where I want to be). The recent shaking up of my life and comfort has really made me think about everything anew, and I feel more on track now than I have before, which is really amazing.

For the longest time I could focus on school, it was all I knew, really, and my side focus was finding love because that was something I hadn’t really experienced. I found Onyx, I finished school, I found Marla, now those relationships are gone or changing and I’m back in my hometown, which is weird in and of itself. I love having time to think about me, and I’m glad I’m taking the time away from relationships to figure things out about past and future relationships to be sure not to make the same mistake.

Since I’ve been here the clouds of distraction are clearing and things are finally moving forward. I spoke with a piercer I’ve been coming to for around eight years about becoming her apprentice and she agreed! I’m overjoyed, though the apprenticeship will not begin immediately it will happen. This is an important step toward the rest of my life, I think. I have tentative future plans after the apprenticeship is over, though it will probably be a year or more. I am getting a grip on life and enjoying it.

I will be up in Juneau, Alaska for a while, though hopefully I’ll be able to go down south every once in a while as well, but I will be writing from Alaska until you hear otherwise. Staying in Juneau is not something my sister chose, and I’m wondering if this time focusing on myself outside of a relationship and the reawakening I am experiencing will jolt me out of the familiar patterns I was falling into.

This little meme has been circulating around and I thought I would give it a go too! The madness was started by Essin’ Em who also did it last year as I recall. Though I didn’t participate last year I did do something similar, my XXXmas Wishlist which was more outrageously fantastical stuff which I desired (and got one of) and this stuff is a mix of that and a little more attainable stuff.

Please do comment here if you create a list, or if you have one already and I don’t have it listed below and I will be sure to read it and attempt to help you out as much as I can. I’m broke, though, so I’m going to do as much as I can without spending monies. If you help me with anything from my list, I will do my best to reciprocate.

Just to clarify, I’m not expecting anything from this list, especially the things that cost money. The free stuff I would love to receive but the rest of it are closer to pipe dreams.

Steps (truncated)

• Make a post listing your wishes. If you wish for real possible things, make sure you include some sort of contact info.
• Visit the lists of others. If you see a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make someone’s wish come true.
• You needn’t spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn’t to put people out, it’s to provide everyone a chance to spread the joy. You can make your gift or give away something you have that someone wants. Gifts can be made anonymously given or not — it’s your call.

My Wishlist (in no particular order)

1. Comments, Links, Advice, etc. – Pretty simple and money-free! Comments on any of my posts, new and old, especially on reviews over at Wanton Lotus, my reviews don’t get much love. Links on your sidebar/links page/twitter/whathaveyou, again especially to Wanton Lotus would be lovely because this blog seems to be linked more often than that one and they are separate blogs. Advice on things you would like to see more of or things you would like me to include that I don’t or etc., either here or on WL. I have some ideas about things I want to do, unfortunately I’ve been a bit side-tracked by this thing called life for quite a while and haven’t yet gotten around to them, but I’m working on them now that I have more time!
2. Hook ups to or leads on awesome (sex positive) jobs – Especially those I could do remotely from where I am now. I need a job, and I would especially love to work in sexuality or with a sex toy company or any other wonderful thing. The trick may be my current location, but I know there are plenty of jobs that could be done remotely. If you know of someone looking or know of where I could look please pass on that information.
3. Parisian Style Floor Length Skirt from Hips ‘n’ Curves – I fell in love with this the moment I laid eyes on it. I must have it.
4. Corset Magic Boots from Pennangalan just like last year, I have wanted these boots for years and have never gotten around to actually getting them (could be because I’m broke). I love them, and I think they would be comfy too!
5. Anything on my BodyArtForms Wishlist, especially these Scarlet Lotus plugs (00g), how can I not want them when they have the same name as me?! Or these gorgeous Bone Hanging Lotuses (0g) they’re expensive but absolutely gorgeous! I’m stretching to 00g right now, but I would still be able to wear these even at 00g and would because they’re so absolutely lovely.
6. Courtney Trouble’s films which I do not own, the newest ones really. I need to get to reviewing the ones I have. Other than Nostalgia I have Speakeasy, 7 Minutes in Heaven, and Roulette which I haven’t reviewed yet, so I’m missing Roulette Dirty South, Roulette Berlin, and 7 Minutes in Heaven 2: Tender Hearted from the ones that are currently out.
7. While we’re on the subject of porn, also anything by Pink & White (except Champion), anything by/with Madison Young, anything wonderfully queer and good quality, anything by Tristan Taormino, anything with April Flores (except Glamazons and above) basically anything wonderful. Would be willing to do reviews in exchange for these, of course, and probably would do reviews regardless.
8. LELO Mona (in red) and Ina (in purple) – The two newest LELO products and the two⁰¹ I do not own. I lust after everything LELO and desperately want to try their newest creations!
9. Njoy Eleven, Pure Wand, Pure Plug (any size), or Pure Plug 2.0 – I have a couple Njoy toys, but not these, and I especially would love an Eleven!
10. Buy something through my Affiliate Links – Good for you, since you’re getting something fabulous, and good for me because I get a bit of whatever you spend. There’s lots of wonderful things you can get from sex toys to porn to books to kink gear, lingerie, etc.

I may add more as I think of them, but this is it for now.

Other Wonderful People with Lists!

• Alley
• Ashley
• Beautiful Dreamer
• Cleofaye
• Dangerous Lilly
• Domina Doll
• Epiphora
• Essin’ Em
• Garnet Joyce
• Juliettia
• Kathryn
• Kayla
• Rose
• Sara
• Sarahbear
• Saraid
• Toygirl
• Wilhelmina

1. besides the Luxe line and Billy [↩]

Taken by me winter of 2007

Everything is worse in the single digit hours when she should be sleeping but her brain won’t turn off. She instead reminds herself of how frost crystals can look like diamonds shining in streetlights and marvels at how many stars she can see when there are no lights. She watches as the sun rises in the crisp Alaskan mornings and the light floods the room that was never hers but she calls home for now.

Sometimes she wakes up sobbing, her pillow already damp from her tears, her body curling into itself. Sometimes she can only remember the good times and curses herself even though she knows she did everything she could. When you don’t have much to work with it’s difficult to hold on for long.

She wonders what the point of it all is if good love can turn so sour.

Her heart buckled from the force of being torn in two directions for too long and eventually shattered when she realized she wasn’t getting what she needed and probably never would. She hadn’t been getting what she needed for a long time. The weight of her decision makes the single digit hours drag on when all she really wants is to be held and told everything will be okay.

She wonders how she can live without being touched.

The chemical dependency she cultivated over the many months and years (respectively) has left her hollow and yearning. Unfortunately the only sources are hundreds and thousands of miles away. Her need translates itself easily into skin hunger, but she doesn’t have a way to sate it.

She doubts she will sate her skin hunger soon, but will go on as she did before in the town she couldn’t wait to escape from. She would be happy to turn everything into a distant memory, but her thoughts won’t allow her to do that. She doesn’t know when she will be able to let herself love or trust again as she works on picking up the bloody pieces of her heart, finding the self she locked away.

She wonders what the future will bring.

Life is less complicated here. It would be peaceful if she could sleep, but instead she fills her time with meaningless things to distract her from the emptyness she feels without them. The more she stares at the sky and mountains she is amazed at the beauty found where she grew up but never felt at home.

She looks forward to summer, rediscovering the trails of her youth and trying to learn to love the city she once knew. She hopes her despair will melt with winter and her new scenery and potential for a life here will grow and blossom in spring.

Unfortunately spring is still far away, and for now she has to wait for the single digit hours to tick on until she is tired enough to fall asleep. In the meantime she takes all she can from the beauty of winter, from the frost crystals and clean Alaskan air, from the darkness that envelops her and caresses her while she waits.

I’ve been gravitating toward a much more “masculine” gender expression lately, really since we moved to Seattle. I’ve been slowly making my way over, though it’s only selectively masculine, it’s my fagette persona, my feminine masculinity that I’ve been working on developing.

Like my transition from bottom to Top to switch I believe this gender exploration will bring me from femme to fagette to femme fagette. Just as I knew I would end up a switch I had to explore the individual parts of that identity expression before I was able to really claim switchness for my own.

I believe in order for me to truly embrace all that is my gender identity of femme fagette, my own gender phrase and identity, I will end up never staying still in one gender for too long or coming to rest, much like switch is it’s own identity along with being Top and bottom identities and various other aspects of power and sadomasochistic and any other sexuality aspects thrown in. I claim femme fagette in the same way I claim switch, as a identity in perpetual motion, forever morphing and changing to fit my current desires.

The fagette aspect of my gender identity is somewhat femme in and of itself, so the two really are tied up within each other no matter what I do. I have days where I want to pack, wear a binder, and walk with a swagger and other days when I feel like putting on a ruffled skirt, corset, and a wig, and those days might not coincide with the identity automatically assumed.

My gender definitely has to do with both masculine and feminine energies but also a purposeful queering of those energies as much as possible. I often feel the most feminine when wearing traditionally masculine clothing, and visa verse. For me it is less about the specific gender expression than it is about playing with gender and experiencing it in a way that jives with me, however that might be.

As I mentioned in my last post I’m a bit of a chameleon, which is why, I think, I cling to such transitory identities. I enjoy labels, as I’ve gone on about ad nauseum, but the labels I end up claiming tend to be ones that are fluid such as queer, switch, poly, and femme fagette/multigendered/gender fluid, each of these can mean different things depending on the day and my mood.

One thing I worry about with terming myself “femme fagette” is that damned gender binary.

I recently opened FetLife and Twitter accounts for a “masculine” persona, Quyn or Quyntin Ari St. Syr. It was somewhat of a spur of the moment thing and inspired by Mina Meow and her persona Aiden. Ever since I’ve been thinking about what that means to have the two accounts and I know I as a whole am not fully represented now by either Scarlet or Quyn, but I wonder if I’m even partially represented.

I don’t feel like I have split personalities, both Quyn and Scarlet are me but are aspects of me but not the end all and be all of me either. There’s something missing there, and maybe that’s the complexity of how the two personae interact and feed off each other and there may be another aspect of me not yet fully grasped. I occasionally toy with the idea of getting rid of the Scarlet persona and expanding the scope of Quyn, but Scarlet has been such a part of me for so long.

I worry, however, that splitting the personae up in to, basically, a “masculine” and a “feminine” persona isn’t doing justice to what I’m actually feeling and is just working to reinforce the gender binary, as if in order to express an “other” gender identity I have to break it down into accepted gender norms. Though it could have the opposite effect, I suppose, since although I am setting up these two personae I think what I do with them could be potentially gender explosive and bust through the confining ideas of binary gender. I guess it all depends on how it’s perceived and what I do with it more than anything.

I’m still exploring and getting used to my newly embraced identities and I’m excited to see how everything progresses. I have had a lot of time recently to think about myself and my genders are something that I am working on figuring out more.

I had never broken up with someone before, but now I’ve essentially had to do it twice in the span of a week or so. I feel like I don’t have the right to mourn or be sad because I was the one who said it’s over. In reality I know that is nonsense, I have just as much right as anyone to be sad about the ending of the relationships I worked hard on and put so much energy into the past months to years, but it’s difficult not to feel like I should not feel the way I do.

My heart aches for both of them every day. I have dreams about them and talk about them all the time. While I seem to be able to maintain a friendship with Onyx the possibility of that with Marla is extremely unlikely, next to impossible at this point really. I’m still somewhat in shock from everything that has happened, still very numb, still haven’t processed everything, and still don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I can stay here in Alaska or if I have another option at this point.

Their relationship wasn’t as deep as the ones I had with each of them. This is the longest Onyx and I have been away from each other in four years, and that alone would be enough to cripple me but that combined with being so far from Marla and knowing that I have and continue to hurt her just makes everything unbearable, to the point I have a hard time getting out of bed a lot of days. My motivation is shot and I’m just generally down.

While I was the one who called it quits, it wasn’t because I don’t want to be with either of them, if anything it’s because I want to be with both of them but had to make a choice. I love them both very much and will continue to love them, but the circumstances are such that I can’t be with either of them right now. I have high hopes for the future, and I feel like I survived one of the worst poly situations possible (not the only bad one, of course, and probably not the worst) so that’s something at least.

One of the biggest lessons that I learned from everything that has happened is I cannot be responsible for the emotions or emotional well being of others. It is something I have always done and probably will continue to do, but it is something I am working on. While this doesn’t mean I don’t care about the emotions of others or that I would stop empathizing or anything it does mean that I need to accept I cannot change their emotions or even help if they will not let me and that it is not responsibility to hold back my own feelings for the sake of someone elses (I’m still working on that last part).

I guess it’s self-explanatory to an extent, but for as long as I can remember I’ve taken on the responsibility of making sure everyone around me is happy, often to the detriment of my own happiness and well-being. I can’t say this will stop, but at least I’m going to be more aware of it. I also don’t think that wanting the people you love to be happy is a bad thing, but there is a point where it can be taken too far, especially if those around you are not willing or not wanting to change.

I am responsible, however, to my reactions to new relationship energy (NRE). I love NRE. I love the feeling of a new relationship, the excitement, the passion, the discovery, everything. This is dangerous, and something I want to go into more depth in another post, and I think this is the reason why we moved so quickly into everything.

It is easy for me to get caught up in a new relationship, I have discovered, and I also have a tendency to be a bit of a chameleon, changing myself to fit my partner’s desires without any conscious intent or effort on my part. This doesn’t work well when multiple partners with vastly different desires come into play.

So, I’m working on discovering myself outside of relationships, focusing on what I want and what I need both here and now and in the future. I have been so aimless since I graduated that I have lost sight of a lot of things, and it’s time to get that back.

I started the draft of this post with this title months ago and had the intention to write about the juxtaposition of how wonderful it was to lay between the two of them and how horrible it was to be between them when something was going wrong. Of course the title takes on even more meaning now that they have severed all ties to each other but they both still want to be with me.

I was constantly in the middle when we were all living together, not just physically. At first I would play messenger between them when things weren’t going well, they wouldn’t talk to each other like they would to me. Some point after I stopped playing messenger our communication simply got worse, we all felt trapped and simply shut down. We all agreed something needed to change, but didn’t have the means or the drive to change it.

I can see both sides now. I still love them both very much and I still want to be with them both, just as they both want to be with me. I do not do well with making decisions when I have to choose between two things I want. Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer “all” to “one.” I’m torn and do not know how to make a choice like this.

My entire life is crumbling around me and the two people who have been central to my life are at odds and I am unable to confide in either of them fully or find the support in them that I am used to. This is difficult on all of us for different reasons, and it seems we each think we have it the worst when in reality there is no “worse” in this situation.

I have been asked many times why can’t I just continue to be with both of them, why must I make a choice. While I was told by one of them that me being with both of them might be okay as long as I don’t live with the other person I was told by the other that due to everything that happened it would be extremely difficult. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice: thinking I can have both of them and having that end with none of us happy or getting what we need.

This evening Marla mentioned fearing that no matter who I chose I would end up resenting them for making me choose. I am trying to prevent this by taking the time to figure out what I need above all else. I love them both, I want them both, I don’t know how to choose but I know that rushing into a decision will end up with me and/or everyone unhappy.

At the same time I know that taking too long or indecision is a decision all in and of itself. I’m trying to find the balance there, but maybe I’ve already taken too long. By trying to avoid hurting one of them I will probably end up hurting both of them.

The other option, of course, is to choose neither. One of the things I fear the most is hurting someone that I love, and in this situation I would be hurting both of the people who I desperately want to spend my life with, this seems like the worst solution because of that. This isn’t to say this option isn’t tempting, it bypasses me having to favor one over the other, but it guarantees that we all will be hurting more than we already are. On the flip side, if I make a choice two of us will be hurting over a choice and the other will still be hurting over the rest of the situation.

All I can do is try to figure out what is best for me, and that’s what I’m trying to encourage them both to do as well. I am not used to putting myself first in any situation, but I am working on how to do that. I’m trying not to take too long as to drive both of them away but to take long enough that I know I am making the right decision, or at least as much as I am able to know that.

As of two days ago the triad we have been working so hard on the last six months or so ended. The state of my individual relationships within the triad is unknown at this point but we are all certain that Marla and Onyx’s relationship is no more.

If you follow me on twitter you already know this.

Two days ago Onyx went to work and shortly after Marla and I woke up to text messages from him telling us that Marla had to be out of the apartment by the time he got back. This was at 6am and he would be back around 7pm. This came as an extreme shock to us as things had actually been going better for a while, at least I thought they had. He told me that our relationship was over and that I might want to find a relative or someone to stay with.

This sounds extreme, and it really was. Marla and I talked with our families and ended up getting tickets to head home to where we grew up, I’m currently writing this from Juneau, Alaska.

We were not able to get flights until the next day, so (like the wonderfully sweet and amazing person she is) Coy Pink and her husband put us up at their place for the night, she even drove us to the airport the next day and everything, I’m still blown away by her willingness to help us, especially after having not seen me in months and never having met Marla.

Back to the beginning, though. The reason why everything changed so quickly was because Onyx snooped and read Marla’s private journal and discovered horrible things written there about him, bad enough that he never wants to see her again. I have not read what she wrote and I’m not sure I would want to even if given the chance.

I can understand him needing to read it and him wanting her out based on what she’s told me, though I also understand that what she wrote is not what she feels all the time and that it was an outpouring of raw emotion which was never to be read by anyone, especially not the person it was mostly about. I’m in Juneau figuring out what the next step for me is, what I need, who I can be with. I still love them both very much, and I’m pretty much guaranteed to break one or both of their hearts at this point.

Onyx has since said that he never intended to kick me out. He was delirious with anger and sadness and he assumed I wouldn’t want to stay with him if he kicked Marla out. He also assumed at first that I knew more about what she had written down than I did. Although twelve hours to pack up and leave is rather unreasonable he became more lenient once he started thinking rationally. We did leave before he got home, taking as much as we could, and he agreed to send the rest as we requested.

This is extremely hard on all of us, and I don’t really blame either of them for what has happened, although maybe I should. I can see both sides and knowing that they both still want a relationship with me in a way makes it all that much more difficult. I am no good at making decisions, especially when a situation changes from an “and” to an “either/or” and so that’s what I’m working on doing up here in Alaska.

How long I’ll stay is up in the air right now, all my stuff is still in Seattle along with my kitties but I don’t really have a job tying me there. I’m allowing myself time to sort through everything and figure out what’s best for me.