Tag: change Page 5 of 8

What A Year

On March 12, 2010

In a Love: Marla, Introspection, Polyamory, Sexuality

One year ago I wrote an introduction to Marla. We had already been talking for a few weeks previous to that. In so many ways it doesn’t seem like it has been a year, but in others it seems like it should have been far longer. Everything happened so quickly, she was living with us less than six months after I first introduced her, and then everything split apart just a few months later.

She once asked me if I planned on writing a post to commemorate our anniversary. This isn’t what either of us had in mind.

In some ways it makes me extremely excited for what the next year will bring. Where will I be in March of 2011? What will be happening and what will I be thinking? How will my identities and thoughts and passions have changed and grown and evolved?

In some ways it makes me sad that I have not posted as much this past year as I wanted to or wish I had, but I also know that was a product of the situation. I just couldn’t write about what I was thinking and feeling, for various reasons. I was highly distracted. I know I write about her quite often, but it’s difficult not to write about someone who had such an extreme impact on every aspect of my life as she did.

I will be moving back to Seattle in five short days, hoping that the situation I am coming back to will encourage me to write rather than the opposite, though I also hope to be far more busy so I may have to finally learn how to prioritize (and judging by the half-dozen drafts I have open while writing this that may take a bit to do). I am a different person now than I was a year ago, in so many ways. I’m looking forward to what the next year will bring.

My life is a series of changes, a series of hits and misses, ghosts and corpses. I’ve lost a lot and gained what I’ve taken. This time next year I won’t be this girl anymore, I’ll be something new. I’ll be a new image, a new collage in the making. But no matter who I become next I will always remember the people I’ve been and all the pieces I’ve kept. – We the Living Photography [image]

Civil War

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On February 5, 2010

In Gender Galaxy, Identity: Queer Intellisexual, Identity: Submissive, Identity: Top

I feel as though I have warring factions within me, aching for battle and unsure of what to do, trying to figure out who comes out on top, but there is no “on top” to come out onto, not that I would have it if there were. In a world of innumerable options I can see them all and wish to partake in all of them, and not just one by one.

It is an ever-constant ever-changing process to become the me I wish to be, and so often I have no idea how to do it. I look at the past to help inform my present, to see what worked and what not to do, but I can only do so much without the freedom to explore beyond the limited space I am in now. I am made up of not just one but many dichotomies that are constantly at war and trying to figure out how to live together harmoniously.

As much as I don’t believe in binary systems for most things because these ideas are so solid in their construction it does often feel like I am being pulled in two directions. I must be one or the other at any given time as both cannot exist in the same moment or in the same space. It’s okay to have different aspects in yourself but for them to be existing at the same time seems to be something that is not believable.

I’m tired of rigid lines separating me from myself. I feel constantly torn, constantly at war with the sides I am told are opposites. They do not feel like opposites. I never am not one while presenting as the other, so how do I adequately express myself?

So I am exploring and learning, growing, changing, as much as possible but it never feels enough. I don’t know how to become who I will be, I only know how to be the me I am right now. The trick is to be okay with that and only that in the moment while striving for better.

Death, Rebirth, and Submission

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 22, 2010

In a Love: Onyx, Identity: Submissive, Introspection, Polyamory

Clutched by notoca

When the triad first started we talked a lot about how it would change my relationship with Onyx. We had to get rid of the monogamous-type relationship we had developed over the years and move into an open polyamorous one and then also to incorporating Marla into the mix. I talked about it somewhat when it was happening, but not as much as we all were talking about it.

In Opening Up by Tristan Taormino she talks about this transition and needing to mourn the loss of the previous relationship. In some ways I think we did too good of a job of this. We destroyed our past relationship through everything that happened, and in many ways never rebuilt it while the triad was going on. In some ways I’m glad, as that has enabled us to come together now and be that much stronger after time apart and time to miss each other.

While talking about some of our pre-triad relationship failings Onyx said today: “that relationship is dead, and the two people involved live on only in the memories of two stronger, wiser, and more self-aware beings with the same names.” In so many ways it is so overwhelmingly true. This new second chance that we have been given has only been able to happen because we have already mourned the relationship we used to have, and we both have grown so incredibly much over the last year. We both knew that getting out of Utah would allow us to grow in new ways, but I never expected this.

It’s as if we are two different people than we were five years ago when we met. Some things are the same, of course, we’re still amazingly compatible and have rediscovered the love and lust that brought us together in the first place. We are both much more open than we were, we have fewer walls between us, and now we are able to give ourselves to the other without nearly as many reservations. Our love just continues to grow and it’s amazing.

Gone is the hesitation I felt in the past and my need for him to somehow prove his dominance over me in an unreasonable way. Now I just have this overwhelming desire to submit to him. To be completely honest it took me off guard. When he came up to Juneau I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a farewell trip or if we were going to reconnect, but I didn’t expect it to be so hard-hitting. I want to support and encourage him, to give myself to him in ways that I wasn’t prepared to before, to be completely open to him and do anything he desires.

We have been talking endlessly about everything, our communication has never been better, and the more we communicate the more I desire him and the more I desire to submit to him. It is amazing to feel this passion in our relationship again, though in some ways it is a completely new relationship as I mentioned above.

We have both come to express our desire for more firm D/s roles and have settled quite easily and surprisingly back into our Owner/cuntpet dynamic. Obviously the situation is quite different than it was before by nature of being so far away, but because we know each other so well it is also very easy to let our imagination combine with past experiences to bring our long distance interactions close to reality.

I’m having a lot of fun exploring my submissive side again, especially now that it is flowing so much easier than it once did. I love feeling confidence in our interactions and being able to let go of the expectations I once held so tightly on to, making our dynamic that much better. I am really surprised at how much more natural it feels this time around, how neither of us are struggling or straining, and how perfect it feels. He is my Owner again, and it is wonderful.

Reflections and Refractions

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 18, 2010

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Introspection

Of all the pain and disaster of everything that has happened there have at least been some good things.

I have learned a lot, both about myself and about what I desire in another person. When forced to make a choice between Marla and Onyx I chose neither, and through that choice learned who was truly supportive of me.

I needed time if I was going to be with either of them again, and Marla would not give that to me. The little time that we were still in contact after I broke us up or paused us or whatever she basically constantly brought up her and I being together and how she could not understand how I had not chosen her automatically. She didn’t seem to understand the bond between Onyx and I, and maybe that was my fault for being so unsteady in my relationship with him and confiding in her my questions and unsureness. It seemed that we could not have a conversation without her saying something passive-aggressive or bringing up our possible future.

However, I am not saying she is wholly to blame. I am definitely not without blame. We both needed support at the time, but we needed the opposite of what the other needed. She needed me even more after the triad disbanded, and I needed time to figure things out. I needed her to be happy without me, and she needed me to need her.

Finally things between us got to the breaking point and I knew we could no longer be in contact. I was content still being loosely in contact through social networks and such, just not direct contact, until her mother posted on my Facebook page essentially telling me to remove anyone she was related to and not be in contact with them again. I followed her instructions and took that beyond Facebook to every social media network Marla and I had contact on. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary for us both, I think.

This was before Onyx visited. During and ever since he and I have been in more and more contact. I have been hesitant to say we are in a relationship again, but he has proven time and time again that he is supportive of me and my needs. He had questions after everything that happened too, but was willing to give me the time I needed without pressing the issue or getting in arguments with me.

It has been two months as of today since the triad broke, and twenty one days since I broke all contact with Marla. While I mourn the loss of what we were trying to do and of Marla as a friend and lover I also think everything has turned out for the best. From what I hear she is doing well and is happy, and I am extremely glad for that, she deserves all the happiness in the world.

As for Onyx and myself, it has come to the point where I cannot deny that we are in a relationship again. It feels very much like a new relationship, however, a new and improved version of us, a fresh start in some ways. The experiences of the past year as well as being apart have combined to rekindle the passion between us, and it is simply amazing.

The positive side of me focusing on my own failures is that it has become easier for me to heal long-held emotional wounds. I have a tendency to hang on to them for as long as possible, and some I was holding on to were a huge hindrance in my relationship with Onyx. I can’t say I have abandoned them one hundred percent, but I have as much as possible and I’m working on releasing the rest.

Essentially we have a second chance for us, something we have been talking about needing for quite some time.

I’m actually quite amazed at the desire we have recovered, and I think having gone through everything we have in the five years that we have been together all will contribute to us being smarter about things in the many more years to come. We hope to avoid the pitfalls we fell into the last time around.

We both have grown a lot since and because of everything that has happened and have talked a lot about what we will and will not do next time we find someone we are interested in either separately or as a couple. We are both, in many ways, different people than we were before and ready to try things again which failed in the past, including rediscovering our D/s roles together.

I’m still staying up in Juneau, and he’s still in Seattle, so we will have time apart for a while to figure out our respective lives before being able to be with each other in the same way we once were, and I think the time apart will help us both immensely.

Protected: More Honesty

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 18, 2010

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Introspection, Polyamory

Familiar Footsteps

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On December 22, 2009

In Introspection

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.

Home Sweet Heartache

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On December 14, 2009

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Introspection

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.

Rights and Responsibilities

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On December 11, 2009

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Introspection, Polyamory

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.

In the Middle

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 22, 2009

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Introspection, Polyamory

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.

Body Hair

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 14, 2009

In Discourse, Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with body hair, I think that’s pretty common.

I’ve had periods of time where I can’t stand any of it, shaving my pits, pubes, and legs once they show even a slight bit of stubble, plucking my eye brows often freakishly goth-thin so that they are barely there (ah, teenagerhood). I’ve shaved my arms as well, though only once and never again since I thought it felt funny when it was growing in. I have tried shaving, waxing, plucking, rubbing, all to see what works best and what feels the best.

Then there have been periods of time where I love it in one form or another, not getting rid of it anywhere, or just shaving one part or another. At one point I was shaving nowhere but my pubic hair, which was kind of amusing. For a long time I shaved everywhere completely, though I’ve played around with different styles “down there” like a “landing strip” or a vee shape (though I haven’t tried using a stencil) and so on.

Recently I’d gotten lax about shaving, it was simply seeming like too much work, so I decided to stop completely. At some point Onyx remarked that this is the hairiest he’s ever seen me, and that’s true. For the majority of our relationship I’ve been pretty dedicated to shaving. One time when I was scratching my head, arm raised, Marla remarked that she thought my tuft of armpit hair was sexy, and I agree.

I suppose a lot of people associate body hair with masculinity, especially considering a “male” hormone is responsible for the growth of it (it is called androgenic hair after all), and growing more comfortable with an “other” gender expression has definitely been a catalyst for my choice to stop shaving. I’m not exactly interested in passing in one gender or another, and a masculine appearance was not my intention in stopping either, it is more about feeling comfortable in my body.

It’s also quite possible that I may change my mind tomorrow or the day after that or the month after that, I may grow tired of having a thick forest underneath my arms or a dark collection of hairs on my legs and take a razor to them. This is just one fluctuating part of that gender equation.

In addition to the rest of my body hair I have been letting the hair on my chin grow as well, instead of plucking it as usual. I have two little tufts to either side of my chin which are excellent for stroking when desiring to appear deep in thought.