Metheus Mirror
He wrote me for the first time on August 4th 2016, opening with, "I have a couple balls in the air, but was reading your profile and got quite excited. It is nothing big for me to be natural or for those around me to be, neud is pretty par for people with me and it is not an accent, merely being. That said, this applies to nearly all aspects of my life. I talk share, communicate, learn, listen, play, goof, help, and all sorts of things moving from within myself and sharing what it is to be."
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I frowned at this opening paragraph. Who opens a letter with "I have a couple balls in the air" but the most pompous of people? But his letter was long, and at least had punctuation. I would, of course, read it before dismissing it. I visited his OKCupid profile before I got much further.
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I analyzed what I saw there:
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Match rating: 89%
Photos: Looks a bit like Ocimum. Fit. Overly large chin, but nothing I couldn't grow to live with, especially if he grows a beard on it (which he does in some of the photos).
Age: 32
Location: Four or five hours to my east. Same direction as Rooster and Oryx, and the polyamory gatherings.
Description: Talks a lot about exploration, humor and he enjoys dancing. Claims to need nothing. Egotistical.
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I returned to his letter and tried to dig through the writing. I found gems in the morass of twisting sentences:
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"I'd be interested to learn of your experiences with consciousness alchemy. I spend most of my life unveiling life for myself and others, so far as they desire. I am always excited to see the ways people discover to tap into their self, and the means to relate to the perspectives and ideas of each individual."
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And, "Love then to me is innate a connection between each of us, and us is not just humans. It is more the experience and appreciation of this sharing and entanglement that I speak to."
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He asked me questions that got me thinking:
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"[When doing consciousness alchemy,] what is it you find in the first memory of your emotions?"
"What do you find in this reinvention and redefining [of yourself]?"
"Are you defining polyamory as the image you had in your profile, or more as your own? If so, what does it mean to and for you, how did you come by it?"
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He signed his letter Metheus. I felt intrigued, despite trepidations. His writing style reminded me creepily of Nelum, who I did come crashing into the arms of in February.
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Meeting Nelum had been a pleasant experience. His spiritual mannerisms and depth of feeling was profound. I wanted to know him more deeply. But spiders warned me of how difficult my visit to Sunnyland to spend time with Nelum would turn out to be. Still, it was a worthwhile journey. I learned a lot from it.
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If he is as overbearingly know-it-all as Nelum, yet as insecure and ready to explode as Nelum, I probably don't want to travel down this road, I thought.
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His looks and the vibration I got from his writing also reminded me Ocimum. My first impressions of Ocimum had excited me, and I had begun to feel like I was falling in love with him within the first couple weeks of our communications. But when I had met Ocimum in person, his atheism, his stark attachments to being "logical," and his surreal attempts to connect with me all combined to make me feel like I really didn't want a relationship with him.
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Two men I had begun to fall for and get involved with, but fell out with rather quickly when spending time together in person. Still, reminding me of someone else didn't necessitate that my exchange with Metheus would go the same route.
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I wrote Metheus for the first time on August 11th 2016:
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Hi Metheus,
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Knowing myself is the ultimate bliss that I seek in all relationships. Through my reflections seen in others, I can come to see myself better. It is often painful, and often I grieve for who I am, who I've been, what I've lost, and what I've gained - but it is all incredibly worth it.
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I tend to get addicted to people who are really good at mirroring me. I fall in love with them, become their everything as much as I can, and then am disappointed when the illusion of perfection is shattered by my desiring them more than they desire me. This leads me back to OKCupid today. Two husbands, but one is working (Hibiscus) and the other is sleeping (Paladin) and I feel like I can never get enough.
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Never enough time [from Hibiscus], never enough sex [from Paladin], never enough introspection. Never enough nights spent talking, cuddling, and revealing the secrets of consciousness. Never enough touch.
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Yet, simultaneously, it is all very sweet. The hungry feeling - lust, passion, anger - is beautiful. The loneliness, the craving more. The resignation. The slow path toward finding my own inner harmony again. And then the peace and creativity that flows forth. I start writing again, drawing again, dancing again, and laughing more often. I'm found in my garden, in my happy places within myself.
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And then it happens again - that profound connection. Sometimes through touch. Often through talking. Sometimes through sex. Sometimes through sheer time, attention, and presence with one another. And it is such a high bliss that I chase after it long after it is time to let it go.
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I think you'd enjoy me. Until I got too needy. Ha.
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I'm in a mood. Normally I never write opening letters like this. Maybe it's a good sign?
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I'm in a two-year long process now of surrendering to myself. Letting the images, the desires, the irrational emotions take over. Too long I lived cold and separate from myself, convincing myself that happiness meant denying that I had feelings besides happiness. Ha.
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I find that in reinventing and redefining myself I find all the old selves I was rebuilt into more and more satisfying versions of myself. There is always grief for the deaths of all the old identities that I clung to. But grief is good. It washes me clean and leaves me revitalized and ready for the next experience.
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I find that reading your writing reminds me of my dad. He always words things like his sentence structure is a puzzle. Being able to understand what he's saying at all is the first hoop you have to jump through to be close to him. Being brave enough to call him out on being cryptic (and calling him out in general) is the next hoop. Being willing to be vulnerable is another hoop. Making him feel safe to be vulnerable is probably the next hoop, but because he's my dad, I'm not sure how to do it, so we only get so close. That makes me sad, but I'm working on my "daddy issues" pretty aptly in my relationships.
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I find that emotional processing is all there really is to do. More satisfying than sex sometimes. And besides, sex is best when it is some sort of emotional release or process in and of itself. It isn't the lust itself that is exciting - it is the emotions that come with it, whether they be love, fear, anger or jealousy. The best seems to always be a delicious mix. This isn't what the Buddhists teach is highest, most evolved or closest to nirvana, but it is where my own internal compass leads me.
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Figuring myself out through another person, and better yet, feeling myself out through genuinely feeling another person . . . is the most gratifying part of life for me. I sometimes describe myself as a "relationship junkie." I quit sucking my thumb as a toddler because my mother told me it would make my teeth crooked and then I wouldn't find a good husband. That stopped me in my tracks and I never sucked my thumb again (unless I had a paper cut {grins sardonically}).
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Pain is a great teacher. I was just thinking a few hours ago about how I prefer to never subdue pain. I don't use pain-killers. I use methods of going deep into the center of the pain. Massage, breathing techniques, mental focus, energy work, emotional processing, meditation, movement and/or some other means. Whatever is needed to find what the real source of the pain is. Often the pain is just a result of my own negligence. If I'm not present with myself and my emotions then I'm liable to end up with a bellyache, headache or fatigue.
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When I go into my emotions deeply, particularly when doing so in partnership with someone, I can sleep four hours a night, barely eat, and have boundless energy. I love these periods of my life.
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I think my definitions of polyamory are all dramatically skewed by own experience of it. The story of how I came by it is easily twice as long as this letter is already, but in summary, in 2012 I met a girl ( Mermaid) with two boyfriends who showed my husband (Paladin) and I the ropes. We decided within 24 hours of meeting her that we had always been polyamorous and just hadn't known what the word was, or that people actually did that. In 2015 I met the man who has become my second husband (Hibiscus) as of May 2016. I live with both of them, and just hosted a poly meet-and-greet last week here at our home.
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Blessings,
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Nuria
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. . .
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August 12th (the very next day) I had another long letter from him, although I didn't see it right away. His words, tangled as they were, contained gems that sparked my interest:
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"If knowing yourself is something you value so, then I've no doubt we will get along quite well."
"There is a part of me that worries my esotericness and ardentness in my path will reflect for people their selves, but that no-one truly wants that; as I eluded to I believe."
"All this is me interpreting the feelings I get from the writing, not you. I just reverberate them back to see what you feel, how you relate to them, and what you think about them, as I would rather voice them than hide them."
"I learn a lot from the wanting or missing sensations. That is part of how I learned how to love myself, learned the feelings that make up the wholeness in me. ... But yes, I treasure that feeling of connection, with me and others."
"I can't imagine sex without emotional release and growth, it is like trying to pass soda pop as a health food."
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Yes. I was definitely interested in this guy. The day before my one-year anniversary with Hibiscus, September 8th, I logged into OKCupid and saw Metheus's series of long messages and composed a reply. A halved version of my letter is below (yes, this is half the original length):
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Hi Metheus.
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I woke at 7:30am this morning. Folded laundry, took a probiotic, watered my indoor potted plants, closed all the windows (as it is supposed to get up to 89ºF today), and then changed into jeans and a work-shirt. I helped Hibiscus a little with moving some boards for the attached greenhouse we're building. I spent most of my outdoor time on moving rocks for the stone planter I'm building. The one I built earlier this summer is overflowing with very happy plants.
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I came inside around 10:30am. I've been organizing photos I've taken, responding to e-mails and facebook messages, and also I wrote a little for the novel I'm writing about my life. I had a memory of when I as ten-years-old spontaneously pop into my head, so I typed it up in Scrivener. I decided at 11:20am that I'd answer one OKCupid letter today, and yours is the one.
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So here are some quotes and responses:
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"Is the pain and grief in seeing your self better because of the change and loss of self, or missed opportunities, or something else still?"
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It is better to feel authentically then it is to repress and push things into the subconscious. It is revealing to actually feel pain and grief. It opens up many doors of self-realization. When I grieve for an aspect of myself that I've lost, I am opened to what it really means to me. This opens me up to new ideas about how I can honor that core value better in my present-day self.
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"What are your opening letters like, if not like that?"
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Probably varying dramatically. This question got me curious, so I looked up my first letter with a guy I met off of OKCupid a while back. He (Ocimum) and I turned out to not have chemistry, but we remain friends in a distant way. Anyway, just for contrast, here is the majority of my first letter to him, from November 29th 2014:
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"You're right - eggs that come from a local, organic farm that ethically raises its chickens would be far more ecologically sound than imported cashews! I totally agree with that. ... I'm open to other ideas besides cob. So far, it seems like the best thing I've learned about yet. ... cob is still the best option I know of for warmth, cost effectiveness, ecology ...
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"You seem smart and attractive enough that I wouldn't write any possibilities off, but I've learned not to assume that I'd want (or not want) to date someone off the bat. In other words, I've learned that all good things stem from friendship, so it is a good place to start. ... My summer was very active with gardening and social activities including organizing hikes, blueberry picking trips, potlucks, board game gatherings, picnics, etc.
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"In October we took a trip east to visit some friends, one of whom is a mentor (Oryx) of mine ... In November my mentor and apprentice (Hare) visited me and taught an alternative-wellness seminar at my house. Now my garden covered in snow, my visitors gone, and my work mostly caught up on, I am checking my OKCupid messages again!"
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As you can see, the above letter is short and fairly devoid of actual emotional content. It's just a bunch of facts without any feelings about those facts at all. I feel sad about that, in retrospect. I've spent much of my life closed-down to myself, and giving the false impression of being unshakable, and totally without need for friends.
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"What do you mean by becoming someone's everything?"
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Putting myself at the center of their world. It is really what I enjoy most about falling in love. Integrating myself into every aspect of their life. I was just beginning that process with Hibiscus this time last year. Tomorrow is our one-year anniversary. I had only known him for a few weeks at this time last year.
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If you're interested, here is my journal post from September 3rd last year.
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"In what way do you care for them, and in what way do they not care for you as such?"
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I tend to care a lot more about personal health and wellbeing than others in general, and that applies to my relationships as well. I tend to crave longer, deeper conversations and more emotional transparency.
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"Never enough, eh? When I first read that, it spoke to me not of enough as in sated. I heard enough as in parts of you were not touched ... parts still wanting ... echo to me of a coveting aspect, like a hunger or fear of it leaving. Do you have such? Do you know why?"
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I've explored it in detail. I tend to be attracted to people sexually who have this same hunger, because this hunger - when it is mutual - leads to great sex. But the more "hungry" person (usually me) tends to be left wanting. There are all sorts of surface-level reasons for this, which are valid, but do little to address the core of where this sense of "lacking" comes from.
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My parents were very emotionally shut down. I was sick a lot as a child. I think I kept getting sick (as a sub-conscious choice) because when I was sick I saw more compassion and love from them. When I was well, they were only concerned with how much I learned, how productive I was, how creative I was, how smart I was. It didn't matter what I felt. This led, I believe, to an endless craving. This became coupled with my mother telling me that men always want sex, and me developing the belief at a very young age (before I was nine) that I would only be able to have a loving husband (who would fill the void and make me feel complete) if I wanted a lot of sex too.
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This led to me becoming a nymphomaniac. Of course, I didn't know any of this at the time. I just thought I was crazily horny starting at the age of nine because that was what puberty was about. I was told "boys have it worse" so I thought that was true. By the time I was fifteen I knew that most people, male or female, never go through the level of insatiable arousal that I experienced in my preteens. At the time I didn't think it was remotely possible that it had to do with "looking for love in all the wrong places." I couldn't identify with that then. All I felt was hunger, need, craving, desire. Lust can be a heady drug, and from there it was hard to see how obvious it was that what I wanted was be to truly seen, heard and felt.
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Instead of compassion, I received constant rejection and punishment for my outlandish sexual behavior. I was told that child-protection services would take me away and put my dad in jail (who never did anything that could even be misconstrued as sexually inappropriate) if I kept talking about sex in school. I was forced to repress it, which, of course, made it worse. It just made the lust I felt even more uncontrollable whenever it was unleashed.
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I'm healed from some of that, but not all of it. I have huge portions of myself that have integrated and found peace and wholeness. But I still enjoy dropping into that hungry place and devouring a lover until I feel sated. The only trouble is that sometimes I still fall into that place and can't be sated. It isn't a problem with someone who has ten hours to spare, but it is hard with Hibiscus, because he has so many responsibilities. He can't just spend evening after evening with me.
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"I'd ask you of your mood, but I am unsure whether you can recall such or what inspired you. If you can, I'm naturally curious, but I am always that."
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Curiosity is good, contrary to what they say about the cat. ("Curiosity killed the cat." What a load of hogwash.)
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I think I was actually experiencing a fairly hungry mood when I wrote my letter to you. That sense of somebody-please-see-me. Sometimes I'm afraid my constant desire to be seen has got to be tiresome. It seems never-ending. Through art, writing, poetry, conversation, games, food - I'm always expressing myself. And that expression feels most complete when someone resonates with what I've expressed and reflects back to me what it feels like from where they stand. I've really gotten into this letter you've written me, because you're expressing a very interesting reflection, indeed.
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I resonate a lot with Lady Gaga's song Applause. - 'I live for the way you cheer and scream for me.' A clear innuendo comparing being on stage to sex, both of which I love. Public speaking makes me feel so incredibly alive. Dancing, too. 'Give me that thing that I love ... Put your hands up, make 'em touch.' Again, I interpret that as both applause and a reference to kinky sex, potentially putting your hands over your head to be tied up.
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"What daddy issues are you moving through?"
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Well, there is what I wrote about above, with my hunger for connection because of how emotionally shut down both my parents tend to be. Hibiscus is old enough to be my father - nineteen years older than me. I enjoy role-playing as his daughter. I feel taken care of emotionally in a way I never was by my actual father, which is very soothing to the young aspects of myself that were so sad they couldn't integrate with the rest of me as I matured.
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"When I chatted with my partner, she came up independently as I did that there is likely a conflict between your personal growth and your current situation."
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Astute. I am growing a bit more slowly here in Hibiscus's house than I was when I was traveling like crazy for the five years prior with Paladin. But it is really nice to have so much joy and simple pleasure between growth experiences. This is a more sustainable pace to live life at, I feel. That said, I am seeking more growth, indeed.
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"There was also a sense that you wait with baited breath for that sense of connection? Why, and what makes it seem rare or scarce?"
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Wow Metheus. Wow. This question makes my heart throb noticeably in my chest. (Or, more likely, makes the ball of nerves do a dance of sensations, but "heart" is the term we're all more familiar with.)
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I think because the connected feeling can come as such a heady rush. Like an all-consuming drug that makes life better-than-happy. A sense of bliss that is so complete that I feel invisible. I feel flexible, capable, and energetic with long-lasting stamina. That feeling is like being alive multiplied by four. Everything has more dimensions. Dreams are more vivid. Intuition is more fierce. Everything is sharper. My multi-faceted self comes into sharper focus - my full committee comes forward together. I become united in my obsession and passion for a person. Every thing they notice about me becomes a gift sweeter than the most rich dessert . . . yet, like dessert, it comes with a crash when the illusion of perfect unity is shattered.
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Still, eventually the highs and lows even out and what I'm left with is a deep, trusting relationship filled with respect, understanding and compassion. And the journey is worthwhile ride of introspection and outrospection. :)
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I've been at this for two-and-half-hours now and really need to turn to other things (like breakfast). I've really relished this exchange.
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- Nuria