What are you good at?
I took the day off yesterday to be lost in my own little world of “happily ever after.” I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to make that moment less impactful by adding more words to it. I wanted to have some space from the emotional ups and downs of the past few days just to focus on joy, rest, and relaxation. The relationship with whatever her name is, expressed as Supergrover, has been an epic battle of the soul, and now it’s over. I don’t have to decide how to handle my feelings anymore, because she’s willing to listen and help me decide how I feel. Help me understand so that I don’t feel internal turmoil.
I really had to lay it out on the table with her, though, and after she had behaved badly enough that she was forced to admit I wasn’t the only problem. I was not “waiting for her to fuck up,” I just knew that she wouldn’t listen to me until she thought she was wrong about something. That I hadn’t been wrong for 10 years, either. That all of that anger was keeping her from listening, and things would make sense to her in retrospect as well.
For the past few years, we have not been talking as if we have had a relationship since 2013. I have, which has run up against her seeing every interaction as an isolated incident. When she realized she was doing it, and after she’d done wrong so she was more willing to concede she’d been wrong, anyway, she got real with me. The small-s Supergrover appeared, without the TM behind her name. My little girl. My sweet precious six year old kissed it and made it all better.
In effect, Dana’s words really hurt me, that I would spend the rest of my life trying to prove I was a good friend and SG would never see it. Ten years later, victory is mine because waiting her out was the right call. Showing her that I really do accept her for everything she is and I’m not just playing a game paid off. But the differences between the neurotypical and the neurodivergent brain are at fault for a lot of us not being able to see each other clearly. Having worked very, very hard on this conflict has proven it to me. Neither of us have ever stopped loving each other, just started communicating badly. Now, we see that love as worth fixing because we each know our communication is bad and we’re not pointing fingers.
I hope that this story brings comfort to a lot of people, because conflict is often not easy. Supergrover and I have had the same conflict that has presented itself in the same ways with different issues for 10 years, because it comes from how our first families fight, not from how we want to treat each other. We’re both working hard on ourselves and I hope that translates into working hard on each other, because the ways that she changes me are the ones I like the best:
“My blog makes me sound like a dick because I take on your attitude when I want to sound like a chef and not a line cook.”
I suppose the point is that if you really love someone, don’t give up. Keep talking. Eventually, one will hear the other. We are not far enough along in the “fixing” stage to see what Happily Ever After looks like, but we are humble enough to admit we want it to exist.
It wasn’t really a yellow string, until she talked about holding her end.
Having Zac, Michael, Dave, and Bryn in my life as well makes me the most rounded out. I don’t need more than one red string when I’ve got this much love around me. I haven’t even met Michael yet, so I don’t know what kind of relationship he wants with me, if ever. But what I know is that I have found a way to be immediately helpful to him as well. I am not about saying “SG is mine.” I’m about saying that we all get the pieces that fit us. But it’s not just integration one way. For as much as I want to meet her little dog, I want her to meet mine, too. It’s finally time to be able to have that little a dream. She’s just going to have to bring her own Jack and Diet Coke for pizza night, where we’ll be the ones eating and Dana and Aaron will be calling in metaphysically. Turnabout is fair play. Pizza night has never moved. It’s Friday between 6-7, depending on when Supergrover can get here. It has been a metaphysical exercise since I was 36. I’ll be 47 on September 10th. She has literally been coming to my house every Friday night metaphysically for 10 years, but this didn’t start as a fantasy. Supergrover travels more than the rest of us, so we decided (Dana, Aaron, and me) that we’d have a standing date at which Supergrover could join us (I got the idea from Amy and Rory always setting a place for The Doctor). That whether she was a “dame on a plane” or actually in Houston, her seat was secure. Or did we start this in Portland? I can’t remember, because I can’t remember if Dana and I started doing it in Portland and added Aaron, or if adding my girl became a new thing because of Aaron.
“Maybe Aaron can refrain from rolling his eyes.”
Now that it’s a decade later, I can tell you that my response was, “I love you. I will make him. If I wear cleavage I own his ass. He’s a dumb boy.”
Aaron and I aren’t attracted to each other, it was just a good stereotypical line for a guy when Aaron is the least typical guy I’ve ever met. I can honestly say that I was open to Zac because of him. He was already as free as I wanted to be, married and spiritual and settled but with the added bonus of a kid and a group of friends with which to do life.
Maybe I can make it make sense universally by using an example I hate, because JK Rowling can eat shit, but too many people have read the books for me not to be able to use it.
In the books, I always thought there was a spark between Harry and Hermione because they were on each other’s levels. She rejected a man who was on her level for an idiot like Ron, who basically bullied her and she chose the bad boy. This is not what happened with Supergrover and me, it’s an illustration. I am the classic Harry personality. She is the classic Hermione, and I fully believe that just like Hermione, Supergrover is head of the Ministry of Magic. Every day with her is a miracle.
What I’m talking about is Harry’s acceptance that he needed to move on and found Ginny. That does not mean that Harry and Hermione were wrong for each other and I was wrong to go there. JK Rowling admitted she made a mistake by having Harry and Hermione express those feelings to each other in a dance, ending with the realization that they’d always dive into each other and it could be close, but it wasn’t going to be the two greatest minds in the magical world as one….. The two greatest minds in which you see clearly how differently they work.
I am an interesting mix of Hogwarts houses, because when I used Pottermore, I had the same experience as Harry. The sorting hat argued with me between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, while I identify as a Hufflepuff due to my preacher’s kid upbringing. I choose to believe the sorting hat would have taken my childhood into account and also my personal choice.
In short, I am brave and smart, but more interested in the spiritual side of life. I choose to believe that my spiritual side feeds my bravery and my intelligence. With Supergrover at my side, I am capable of having more of it, because someone who is in a position to help me in a concrete way believes in me as a writer.
Writing is a lonely job, and having her as my muse makes it less so. I think she finally sees that’s true. That I can say all these brave things because her first reaction is “let me get my purse. That motherfucker.” This is what I mean by supporting my writing and also not being sure she actually likes the author.
Yesterday, without my flowery romantic language because we just roll differently, she told me just how much she loved me and just how much she’s woven into me as well and she needed to jump off the crazy train and see that I genuinely care.
This is not something I’ve ever heard from her. Ever.
I think that’s because I laid out my feelings that her self-esteem was hurting me because I love her. That it hurts me to hear her say that she’s not a good person in many ways, because I believe that she is and Im standing around watching her hurt. I want to get light to the things that are making her hurt, and help her find joy.
Here’s the moment I knew we had something special, and it will resonate with people all over the world. She respected my trauma bond because even if it’s not real to her (which I sincerely doubt given the enormous wall of bullshit we ran into that wasn’t pleasant), she did not blink when I said it. It was like, “duh. Of course you have that.” I told her that I feel like I literally can’t live without her at times, but it’s not because of some stupid fantasy. It’s because of the chemical reaction in your nerves that’s almost instantaneous when a trauma bond is created. Battle buddies, et cetera. Like, of course that’s real. I know because she’s felt it with other people, if not with me.
Because I did not see myself as abused when I met Dana, I did not take in the extent we were in the same boat. The difference is that Dana played down her trauma, so we were not trauma bonded in the way that Supergrover and I are. In effect, me realizing that I also had PTSD in the same way that she did rewired me to feel her anywhere in the world. As an INFJ with manhole cover in size mirror neurons, I do this easier than most. Like, if she was crossing a street and got hit by a bus on her travels, I’d feel it, and I have no doubt about that.
The best set of novels I’ve ever read about this is actually smut you’ll love it you want to check it out. It’s called “The Zodiac Academy,” and it’s two female authors who have created this entire world explaining the bonds of romance and friendship, how they are separate but equal. My emotional support partners have that equality more than most because I’m a more emotional and intellectual person than a romantic one. When both Dana and Supergrover had my brain at full capacity, I went ace. With Dana, almost four years. With Supergrover, over seven. I know this because when I was hanging out with them, I was hanging on their words rather than needing touch from them. I did eventually marry Dana, I’m talking about all the time we spent as best friends without realizing we were courting……………. For her. For me, it all made sense in retrospect the minute I moved to Houston and I had to start my day without her, knowing she wasn’t coming back right up until she did.
Because I met Supergrover, I don’t want it to seem like I fell out of love with Dana. If I had had the words for a murder board of polyamory, I could have cut off a lot of emotional turmoil at the pass. She just wouldn’t let us go parallel, when it was the best solution and what I was doing anyway without knowing I was doing it. Keep them apart. I was just a bad hinge. Polyamory fits me because I am allowed to have a 100% open and honest relationship with everyone I meet, and there is no limit to how deep they can go organically, because I will not allow jealousy. I have a hierarchy. Deal. I feel like you can deal with it a lot easier when you realize I view Supergrover as my Doctor and everyone else as my real family I have to keep grounded for. I am not asking for my relationship to get any deeper, just to respect that you’re Sean Noble and I’m The Doctor Donna. Beat that with a stick.
Oh, and because I feel such mother love for Supergrover and I’m queer, I’m actually more Rose Noble than Donna. But Donna and Rose share DNA, so I get to be both people.
I ultimately believe that Dana and I would have divorced eventually because there were just certain reactions to Supergrover that I didn’t want to let Dana see anymore. It gave her too much access to my privacy issues with Supergrover because she already had a damn good reason to be suspicious and not just accept that she was separate but equal. That there were times when I really needed time alone with Supergrover because of Supergrover’s privacy issues, not her petty jealousy. It wasn’t all about her and I am going to die mad about it, both her acceptance and my lack of being able to stand up to her.
It feels nice to love someone appropriately, and to have it go so incredibly deep that there’s almost 11 years of history behind it. For as much as I want to meet her dogs, I also want her to meet Jack.
I checked with David and it’s okay that I call Jack my step dog.
I think of Oliver, who is a dog, that way as well. That just because Zac owns him, that doesn’t mean I don’t take care of him, especially when Zac is away. Or, that used to be true. Zac has a roommate that takes care of him now.
Oliver and I just have a history together, and when he curls up with me, he tells me that the feeling is mutual. I love the number of times when he has been my companion in writing. He and Supergrover have both been feeding my creativity, it’s just that when Supergrover does it, she’s an idea and not a person. As in, I am not writing down her end of the conversation. That’s what makes Supergrover and Calliope? (Is that the muse for writing?) different people is that I interact with Cal and don’t with Supergrover. Her end of the story is not publishable unless it’s a direct interaction between her and me. I keep her relationships private, not mine. I view it very much like parallel polyamory and not ethical non-monogamy because I am not having an affair with someone else’s wife. I am being open and honest that I need a separate relationship with her than anyone else. In a lot of ways, I’m the only friend Michael shouldn’t be threatened by, because my ultimate goal is to join him in supporting her. It’s more love, not more jealousy. Plus, we’re the few people in the world that can have honest conversations right off the bat. He knows what it’s like to pine for her. He knows how much woman she is and that’s hard as a friend or a romantic interest, so our dynamic didn’t change. I was just as concerned a friend after she rejected me, because her life is bigger than just being interested in me….. Knowing that she is as a yellow string is the best news I’ve gotten in 10 years. To use my words in describing our connection went a very long way, because I saw that she got me.
Our happily ever after just got bigger, and yesterday was a day to celebrate, not give that energy to other people.
Stories That Are All True 