Patience and Perspective

Since the beginning of the year, I've had to focus a lot of my spare cycles into work. I've probably taken on too much - work requires my attention almost daily; I'm working somewhere between 70 and 80 and sometimes 90 hours a week. At times, my commitments have taken me away from the home over weeknights and weekends. I'm blessed to have such good friends in PG and PF who help and support my efforts. Meanwhile, I'm also left with a couple of nagging thoughts... Thoughts about patience and polyamory.

Right now, you my be like me. Self-described poly-person with little time and important commitments. You may be otherwise embroiled in a primary relationship that presently requires your full attention. You might also be waiting - waiting to be asked out, waiting for the right girl, waiting for the right moment. You might be interested in poly, curious, but not foolhardy, and waiting before diving in. You may be between partners, exploring monogamy, divorcing, or in the midst of a battle for your health. You're not in multiple, loving relationships. Maybe you're in one, or two, or none at all. You are waiting. And you are struggling with the moment. You may be impatient: where is my time? Where may I find my other partner(s)? When will she arrive? Where is he? When can I move on? When will he understand? When can I turn the page? When can I have what she has? Further, the waiting moment is an agonizing metric - a feeling that time, opportunity, perfection, and happiness are slowly slipping away from you - and that may reinforce feelings of separation, isolation, confusion, and disenfranchisement.

Careful: we are in a rush to nowhere, and in that rush, you may be tempted to diminish yourself. Let it go; this is wrong, and, it's a lie.

Myself, I am learning to accept the moment.

Really, when you can do nothing, what can you do? You can struggle, mope, brood, lash out, and if we do so, it affects nothing and unsettles everything around us; our response is based on an illusion - a fantasy that exists purely in your mind about what you might have, could touch, possibly find, or will experience. We must accept the moment.

We must also appreciate the moment because this moment, right now, provides absolute clarity into who we are, what we like, what we don't, what we want, where we wish to be, how we wish to be. We get the cool opportunity to explore ourselves. Being in this moment is healthy - it qualifies us for the times when we're in relationships and might question, "Is this really what I want?" Being here, in this moment, gives you perspective. You will know the difference.

I have poly friends who seem to be in a rush. They want whatever they want now and are disappointed that they don't have "it" now. Meanwhile, I have poly friends who're in life transitions and are cautious about their first steps. I have met several people who I'd like to chat up and maybe get to know them, and I have poly friends who're dating, having sex, immersed in fun and exciting polyness - it's hard to dismiss that.

I would love to date more, snuggle more, be in secondary and tertiary relationships, and be deeply involved with my polypeeps. Right now, though, I can't.

Zen has a principle: the best of all possible outcomes is happening to you at this very moment; it's an optimistic view that helps shape the perspective that - no matter what your choices or hardships might be - this is the most perfect outcome the universe has prepared for you. If every event is the best outcome (instead of being the "worst" of possible things that could happen to you), you tend to spend time thinking about how fortunate you are instead of how miserable you're becoming.

So, right now, breathe, relax, wait. It's okay to be poly-single; poly-mono; poly-hopeful; poly-cautious; poly-skeptical; even poly-anxious. Learn from it. Say, "Thank you, Universe: I'm gaining perspective... to know what it's like when I'm otherwise preoccupied versus deeply in love, lust, or some serious like! I'm taking advantage of the moment to learn about myself and be better in the next moment."

s1m0n