For once the title is relevant to the subject that I wish to write about. This weekend has been eventful, with many things occurring. The most central and important one occurred Friday night when Bonnie told me that she wanted for us to move to an open relationship.
Even now I am still amazed at the transformation that has occurred within me in only 48 hours. Without doubt I was gravely distraught for the first day, and yet there was one important and amazing thing that helped me; we talked, we talked, and we talked more.
I am not attempting to claim that accepting this decision was straightforward for me, or that there were not many tears and frustration, or that there shall not be further feelings of sadness and loss as time goes on. But after the loss has come the celebration, after the death has come the Irish wake.
In the time leading up to Friday evening, I naturally presumed that everything was well with our relationship. This was true, but in some ways, we had been going out for over a year and our relationship was on “autopilot”. We still cared intensely for each other, talking and emailing with all the sickening regularity of honeymooners. But I was not in California, and we didn't know when (if ever) I would be.
One of the other important factors (other than geographical) can be illustrated most effectively by an object lesson from my own personal experience. I spent my first year of graduate school (1997) adjusting to a new life in Canberra, making a new circle of friends and settling into my work schedule. After the first year I was suddenly struck by the incredible, seemingly unlimited, possibilities available to me. These avenues had not been available to me in the small agrarian town where I had received my undergraduate education. I was free from old friends and old expectations, and so experimented with different styles and experiences, new cliques and circles, and importantly new avenues of sexuality. This helped me to define who I was, and importantly, who I was not. For example, it became apparent early on that I was not gay in any traditional sense of the term. These transformative experiences that I had been free to partake of, reshaped my life for the better in so many ways. I could not have been able to do this honestly in a permanent relationship, and I could not put that imposition on someone so dear to me now.
Those of you who read this may or may not know Bonnie. If you do not, than I shall sing her praises. She is all the things I could possibly ever want in a woman, hardworking, incredible intelligent, with gentle humour, honesty, sincere humility, beauty, the ability to care and love. How could I not wish to hold onto her and treasure “my precious…”?
But at the same time I would rather lose her just as a lover, than to lose her as a friend and inspiration in my life. She is not perfect, and she would be the first to admit this, yet I admire and respect her and would continue to do so even as merely a friend.
Lest you thing I am caught in a reverie, I do not claim that things were always perfect. All couples have the arguments, their fights, and their stony silences. Yet, somehow we made it into something greater than we could have ever hoped for.
After our road trip last August from Montana to California, we broke up and ended our all to brief Summer of Love. Yet, later we decided to try and make things work, and after a fashion it did. That first year of grad school was very hard on Bonnie, and I tried to offer her what help and assistance I could. When I was in Thailand recuperating, she burned precious days coming to see me and then bring me home. I had my second chance at love over the last year, and now that I can stand and look back upon it, I do not regret a moment.