It's alive...

My life, she has changed pretty incredibly drastically in the past year.

It hasn't even been a year since I was at Brenna's, and it seems like a lifetime. Not quite eleven months ago, I was wrapping up a two-week vacation in which I had gone away and thought for five days in the wilds of Backbone, met both Andy and Mike for the first time, and spent the last weekend I would spend with Tim. I remember telling Brenna that I didn't think my relationship with Mike would go anywhere... but Andy? I thought there was real potential for a relationship with Andy, because he and I were of like minds. Mike, however, was bucking and kicking against being one of my loves. He didn't then (nor does he now) understand polyamory. He couldn't understand it and he didn't want to.

I was feeling trapped in my job... trapped both by my lack of education (or, more to the point, my lack of degree... I'm quite well-educated, thank you) and by my marriage. Paul had made it clear he had no intention of following me around the country if I decided to go elsewhere to go to school or find my Community; he was putting his foot down. He wanted to stay HERE, in Iowa, and preferably closer back "home" in Eastern Iowa. Eastern Iowa isn't home for me. It hasn't been for a very long time. Iowa isn't home for me. I haven't HAD a home for a very long time, frankly. At least I haven't felt like it.

Not even a year later, holy.

Michael and I have moved in together into a rental house that is probably about a hundred years old, and which is more or less my dream house. We've been working on various things around the house (ok, he's been doing most of the work... I pitch in here and there and he teaches me things, which I love). Hell, we'll be working on this house until we move out, I'm quite sure. Regardless of its status as a rental, we really love this house.

We just... we FIT. Things are far from perfect; but somehow it doesn't matter in the least. I am, dare I say it again, HAPPY. Content. I don't remember the last time I felt that way.

I've changed jobs... taken a rather massive step upwards, frankly, into a job I have NO idea if I'm fit for. I'm going to be forming and stabilizing a national coalition of programs that serve Deaf domestic and sexual violence victims. I'm terrified. It's beyond challenging.

I'm still polyamorous... I can't get away from that, it's who I am. I can and do love more than one person at a time. I am, however, leading a totally monogamous life. And not regretting it in the least.

I'm starting to relax into our relationship, really learn his rhythms. He's so different from anyone else I've known, and there are some things about him that, in a different person, would be dealbreakers. But they fit within him, and he fits against me. It amazes me over and over again.

I have a new coffee mug that is one of those sappy things... it has four sappy sayings on it.

*I'm a little bit more in love with you each morning when I wake up
*I'm a little bit more in love with you every time you say my name
*I'm a little bit more in love with you every time you walk into the room
*I'm a little bit more in love with you every day

Sappy, but...

When I wake up next to him in the morning (most mornings... nothing is universal), I look over at him and smile.

When he says "My Gretchen Marie" I still melt.

When he walks into a room, I still look up and smile.

We haven't even KNOWN each other a year, but we both feel like we've been together forever. The honeymoon phase was over months ago; he's made me cry a few times, and I've pissed him off a few times. We're just... right.

I'm hopeful.

We'll be in Cedar Falls for a few more years, until his kids are out of high school. Then... we're off. We don't know to where, just yet. Somewhere with lots of people, a Community for me, and easy access to trees and mountains and rivers.

For the record, that's nowhere in Iowa.