One of my metamours, M, lives about five hours away. A and I both go to visit her a few times a year, and over the years I’ve developed a few amazing, close friends in her city. I’m on my way home from a visit, feeling loved-up, lucky and in awe of the abundance in my life.
I wrote recently about what I called a “web of enough.” There, I spoke specifically of my partners, but I want to elaborate a bit on this web, because it’s both broader and deeper than that. It’s not just what I have, but what I have had, and the possibilities always surrounding me of what I might have. It doesn’t include only my existing partners; it includes the past lovers who have blessed me with love, pleasure, wonder and new experiences. My future lovers: those I already know and with whom I feel little seeds may be stirring, whether or not they grow into intimacy, and those I’ve yet to meet, but with whose lives I know my own life will intersect someday. The many flirtations and little crushes, and the admiring looks I get when I dance. My friends, from the ones with whom I’ve nurtured relationships for decades to the ones I meet on a plane or ferry ride, connect with briefly and never see again. My professional connections, especially the network of amazing, brilliant and brave entrepreneurial women I’m so fortunate to have become embedded in recently. My blood family, and the network of commitment I know runs so deep I need never be really afraid of being materially or emotionally unsupported.
I feel sometimes I can almost see this beautiful web of enough, a network of silver threads that surrounds me and extends all over the world. I’m only beginning to understand its strength and how much I can trust it. And trusting it is really the key, because if I don’t, if I start to panic and struggle and hold on too tight to any part of it, that’s when I damage parts of it, or individual threads. I mentioned relaxing and extending out into it, and of course, that also means feeding back into it as much as I can.
I don’t want to imply that any of my relationships mean any less to me because of all this. I care deeply about people, particularly my partners and close friends. There are some people, in particular, I expend considerable effort to stay connected to. If I were to lose any of them, it would affect me profoundly, and I absolutely would grieve. I feel things very deeply, including loss. But understanding my place in this network does help me let go of attachment, fear and the need to control. I can enjoy people without hanging onto them. (This is a very new skill for me, one that only fully works sometimes, and one I know I need to practise a lot, and forever.)
I’m in awe of the blessings and beauty in my life. The strange thing is, it was always there, but it’s only been recently that I’ve been able to see it, appreciate it and, most of all, rely on it. All it took for me to have everything I needed was to open my eyes to the fact that I already had it.
