Well, it's day 6 of my yoga challenge. I have done yoga at least 15 minutes every day since last Thursday.

I actually realized I have done yoga every day since last Tuesday, so it's technically day 8, but it was Wednesday that I decided I would do it every day, and then did it the next day and have done it every day since.

Technicalities aside...

I'm feeling great. I'm still tired in the mornings, I still get to work and want to crawl back to bed, but maybe that has more to do with work than it does with being tired. Anyway, I feel like my muscles are getting more toned, my technique is getting stronger and better, and I think it is helping with self esteem and somewhat with the fatigue. Mentally I definitely feel better. I can wait for the physical to catch up.

(I wish I could do this)

I went to a meet and greet/discussion that is held once a month for poly women. I brought up the topic about how I don't know if I could determine I wanted to be polyamorous or monogamous with a person when I first start dating them, because you're not really exclusive at the beginning anyway (usually), you don't know how long you're going to date, and you don't know what kind of dynamic is going to develop if you do continue dating and form a relationship. I think some people might think that sounds crazy, that polyamory has to be a requirement from the beginning and you can't date someone who wouldn't want to be polyamorous. I see that to a certain extent - you would want to know that they would be open to talking about it, but I don't think I want to go into a situation being like "you must be polyamorous, or else!"

But that brings up the question...Do you mention it earlier in the relationship? Like, first date? Or after a little while of dating? We talked about that last night, too, and I think the responses to that question were mixed. Some people think it's better to say it right away, maybe to "weed out" the people who aren't going to be comfortable with that. Then you can know if someone is at least open to talking about it later. If they are not even open to the idea, then you know right away. But my therapist thought if you go into a dating situation, while you're still casual, you can get to know the person and what their personality is, what their thoughts about life in general are, what their morals and values are, and then know a) whether or not you think you want to take the next step, or b) whether or not they would be open to something like polyamory.

I don't know which one I agree with. I guess you have to feel out each situation.

I haven't had a whole lot of drama in my life lately, so I haven't had any really emotional posts. I like my quiet life, honestly. I sometimes get lonely, but I like having the freedom to do whatever I want (outside of work, I guess), see my friends when I want, stay home when I want, hang out with my cats when I want, go for walks when I want, do yoga first thing when I wake up if I want...I'm not trying to juggle another person in my life. While I do like the idea of dating and eventually being in a relationship again, I like my independence. The next time I start heading down the relationship road, I think I will have to just remember that and always stay true to that. The person I'm dating will just have to understand, I guess. Especially at first when you're not committed yet.

Someone yesterday said she had heard the phrase, "Be your own primary." I like that. I want to be my own primary.

My therapist gave me this "assignment" a while back for body acceptance. She said she read an article where a woman started with a body part and for days would stare at it in the mirror until she had accepted what it looked like, then she would move on to another part. My therapist said the point is not to love your body overnight, but to start hating it a little less.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my body. I mean, I get frustrated with it when it decides to be too tired for life. Or when it decides to start randomly hurting for seemingly no reason. And there are things I am not so fond of aesthetically. Sometimes it's my arms, sometimes it's my legs, sometimes my stomach (usually my stomach, actually), sometimes my nose. Other days, those things look totally fine to me (except my stomach, usually).

So today, I was just looking at my feet. I have times where I really don't like them. I feel like my big toenails are shaped funny (they also don't look the same), and my big toes have a gap between them and the rest when I stand, which I always thought was weird. I notice that my big toes curve up so the nails point up to the sky, whereas the rest of my toes curve towards the ground. And my second toe is shorter than my big toe, which I've actually never really minded because - no offense people with longer second toes - I always thought it was kind of strange to have a longer second toe. (My dad told me they're actually both Native American traits, that the big toe separating from the rest makes it easier to walk in sand...Who knew? My dad, being a doctor, finds this kind of thing fascinating.)

In any case, I was looking at my feet and realized they're not actually all that bad. Feet take a beating throughout our lifetimes. We walk on them, we stomp on them, we do things like squeeze them into high heels, which are narrow and unnaturally raise our heels; many of us when we were kids stood on them in ballet class while cursing ourselves for wanting to torture ourselves in that way (or cursing our parents for making us), and while I know that most people in North American culture don't move enough, we still have probably walked the equivalent of many, many miles in our lifetimes. At the very least, I should appreciate them for carrying me this long, even if I can't appreciate the way they look. If I didn't have feet, well, I'd probably be in a wheelchair, and I am very grateful that I am not. But, I can still strive to accept their shape, their texture, their colour, their uniqueness.

To sum this up...If we can't accept our bodies fully, if we can't love every inch of our bodies, maybe, just maybe, we can work on accepting them the way they are, and hating them just a little less.

But first...

Where I live, there are a lot of homeless people. A LOT. And I try to have compassion for them and I realize that they have it really hard, and I can't really imagine or understand what they're going through, so I'm not going to pretend I do. But...They stink. Some of them are better than others. But there is a particular hobo who has been hanging around on the main street outside my apartment building, in various places. And he is the worst smelling homeless person my nose has EVER had the un-previledge of sniffing. The poor guy obviously hasn't had a bath in possibly years, or at least months. His hair is totally matted, and his smell spreads to a six-foot radius around him, I swear. I have been almost a block away and been able to smell him. And my heart really goes out to him, but when my nose comes across something my brain doesn't like, I can't really argue with that. It's biological. We don't like the smell of rotten food because our bodies are telling us not to eat it, because it could be dangerous. Same with smelly homeless people. Your brain is telling you: Don't eat them.

I'm kidding of course. About the eating. But seriously...Don't.

Anyway, he came into the cafe where I am sitting, and I had to go to the bathroom because I just couldn't stand the stink. Why do I feel kind of bad about that?

In other news, I've been reading various books lately. Among them are "Discover the Power Within You" by Eric Butterworth (sounds totally corny, but it's really great, and it puts the Bible and Jesus in a totally different light than your average Christian texts - disclaimer: I am not Christian, but I feel a connection to Christ consciousness, just not based on what is normally taught about Jesus), "Mary, Called Magdalene" by Margaret George, "50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food" by Susan Albers, Psy.D.; and now "Sex at Dawn" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. That's a lot of books. My brain is a sponge, it loooooooves information. (I try to fill it with the "right kind," as in the kind that is well studied and what makes sense to me, and I think I'm a pretty rational person, not when it comes to all things - like my emotions - but for the most part.) I just picked up "Sex at Dawn" today, but it's been on my list for a while. Apparently it's a staple if you're interested in polyamory, so I'm giving it a try.

  

My therapist asked me recently what my attraction to polyamory is. And she asked if I was attracted to the idea of keeping my sexual options open, or if I like it because the person I'm dating potentially won't get bored and leave me because they have their options open, too. I'm not sure if I should feel offended by that question or not. I don't think she meant it in an offensive way at all, but maybe she doesn't really understand polyamory? She doesn't have a problem with it, she doesn't judge me for being interested in it...at least, if she is, I can't tell. I have a fear of people leaving me, and when someone breaks up with me, it's like I take it personally. So you would think being polyamorous would do the opposite to me, it would make me more freaked out that someone is going to leave me, because if I'm not stopping them from seeing other people, what's stopping them from leaving all together? (Then again, that is the case in any relationship, monogamous or not.)

With my recent boyfriend, I started freaking out when I realized that we didn't have a committed relationship like I thought we did. And I wasn't freaked out that he was going to leave me FOR the other girl he started dating, but I was comparing myself to her like crazy. But anyway, I wasn't actually scared that he would leave me for her. I guess the thought crossed my mind, but it had way more to do with ME than it did with HER (except the fact that I was comparing myself to her). And that's when I realized that my self esteem needed some major work. (OK, I knew it before, but this was the Janga piece that ended the game, I guess.)

If I have ever been attracted to it because of what my therapist suggested, it hasn't consciously crossed my mind. The reason I was interested in it in the first place was because I am attracted to girls, and it would be denying a part of me for someone to say "you're in a relationship only with me, and you cannot act on your attraction to women."

But it occurred to me...I don't need to be in a polyamorous relationship for this. There are lots of people out there who are basically monogamous but with bisexual people who are fine with their partners seeing someone of the same sex. Or at least, they're willing to try it. I'm sure it puts a strain on a relationship, and maybe the polyamory idea makes more sense to me because the person I am in the relationship with would "get it." Then, of course, I'd have to accept the possibility that they would start dating someone else as well, and that could be a real challenge for me, apparently.

I also thought about the idea of being in a committed relationship with someone before opening the relationship, and how that makes more sense to me because there's at least some stability in the commitment. I understand any relationship can end for any reason (death, falling out of love, whatever), but at least there's a commitment between the two people for the time being. I think it would reassure me when things get rough or when my jealousy comes up. And when my recent boyfriend started dating someone else, a polyamorous person I know asked me if I was getting what I needed out of the relationship. And I realized I wasn't, because I wanted that committed relationship, and he didn't. He started dating someone else before we had even had a chance to build that commitment, but he didn't even want to be committed to me, whereas I could have been with him.

At this point I'm just blabbering and getting my thoughts out. There's no real structure to this post, no conclusion, no offering of hope, no solutions, just...thoughts. If I come to any conclusions about all this, I will share it with you.

P.S. If you would like to get weird or interested or confused or intrigued looks, put a book called "Sex at Dawn" on the table next to you in a cafe.

"Thank you for calling Your Relationship, please hold..."

Tom, formerly known as my boyfriend, and I have decided to put our relationship "on hold." That basically means we are broken up until further notice. He was going through some issues, and I am going through some issues. He and I are on different pages in terms of what we want out of a relationship. He wants to date around, and I've gotten that out of my system. It's not that I don't want to date around, but I'd be ok with developing a more serious relationship with someone, and that's not where he is at this point on his life's path.

Maybe we'll get back together in the future. Maybe we won't. It could take him years to get to the point where he wants to be more serious with someone. By that time, I might not be even in the picture anymore. I may have found someone else, or there are a whole myriad of other things that could happen. (Though, I do have to say, if we did come to a point where we thought we could be in a relationship again...Thank the universe for polyamory, right? That is, if that's where I am at that time...) There may be no possibility of having that kind of relationship with each other.

And strangely, I'm at peace with that. Normally I would be freaking out, really depressed that this didn't work out, I would wonder what's wrong with me. I'm not doing that, not right now, at least.

We talked about still keeping in touch, because we do really care about each other and want to see the other get better. (Without giving away too many details, an event in his life triggered some emotional hardships and kind of shook him up; I am dealing with health problems of various sorts, depression, anxiety, and self esteem issues that go back really far and are very deep rooted). At this point, I think we could even get together in between and just be friends and check in with each other. That thought actually makes me happy.

I have to admit, though, there is a little bit of hope inside of me that this could work out someday. He said last night that he thinks hope always has an expectation. I don't actually agree. I think hope is leaning more towards the possible positive outcome, but knowing that there is an equal chance of it not happening that way. I mean, we say, "I hope I don't miss my bus," but we know there's an equal chance that we will. Or, "I hope we can get back together in the future," but there's an equal chance that we won't. Or maybe I'm just pessimistic and seeing this in a pessimistic way, but it makes sense to me.

Either way, it's time for me to focus on my life and the things I need to change and work on. It's time to see my friends, meet new friends, write (every day!), work on my crafts with a friend of mine, meet with my pagan group, get healthy, exercise, raise my self esteem (or at least learn to treat myself with esteem, as my therapist says), lose weight, and be in the friggin moment.

That's right. The friggin' moment. Booyah.