The Interview Meme
Questions from 
tildequinn. It's taken me rather a while to answer, but here they are. If you'd like to be interviewed, leave a comment to say so, and I'll reply with my 5 questions for you.
1. Are you doing enough?
2. Are you doing too much?
How can anyone ever be doing enough? Of course I'm doing too much!
Hmmmm.
My sense of perspective on this frequently sucks.
The first answer I think of is to list off all the things I wish I were doing that I'm not: getting enough exercise, improving as a musician, finding something (anything) to do in response to the larger happenings of the world besides hiding my head in the sand, etc.
The second answer is a defensive one against the first, listing off all the things I AM doing and how stressed out I get about them all and how could I possibly do anything more?
I spend a lot of time cycling between those two. But somewhere in there, there is a balance. Bit by bit, I am managing to get to more of the things I want to do, and letting go of some other ones, and/or giving myself a break and letting them wait for some other time.
I am doing as much as I can while staying approximately sane, and that will have to do.
Next step: Drastic reprioritization due to baby. Yikes!!!
3. Is it safe?
No seriously. Do you feel safe these days? Does impending parenthood make
you feel more or less safe?
I don't spend much time worrying about safety. Perhaps I worry less than I should, I don't know. Worrying is unpleasant enough to me that I try to get rid of it ASAP. I make a determination about whether the level of risk in a situation is acceptable to me. If it is, I stop thinking about it. If it's not, and I can get rid of that risk, I do, ASAP. If it's not an acceptable risk but I can't do anything about it... well, I just have to accept it then. But I'm not going to spend time thinking about it, unless something changes so I can do something about it.
I haven't noticed much change in this with impending parenthood. There are a few risks that are no longer acceptable, like letting Mir breathe the dust in the room where we're scraping off the wallpaper. But I'm not feeling more hypervigilant. Yet, anyway.
4. Do you have any scars, tattoos, or identifying marks?
One pretty good scar on my right elbow from a tumble off a bike when I was a kid.
A mole on my right hand, between thumb and index fingers, that taught me right from left.
One tattoo, a band around my right upper arm, a set of circles representing the phases of the moon. When I got it in July 2003 I was about to move out of NYC back to my home upstate. NYC was where I hit the worst of my depression, and where I learned I was strong enough to get out of it. It was also where I was when leaned from pagan friends that I could take a lot of strength from connecting with cycles in nature. The tattoo is an acknowlegement of all the change I went through during that time in my life, and an acknowledgement that the whole cycle from light to dark and back again is a part of me.
5. What has being part of a triad taught you that you never would have
realized as part of a couple?
(It's interesting to separate this out from what I've learned from being more generally poly...)
-- I like sleeping by myself on a fairly regular basis.
-- I love seeing my 2 partners being sweet to each other.
-- They actually want me around. Both of them. It's not just that they couldn't find anybody else. (Yes, *most* of my head would have believed that anyway, but...)
-- I am capable of stretching a lot farther (sitting through discomfort / jealousy reactions / etc until I can get ok with a situation) when I have the support of another partner in addition to the one I'm reacting to.
-- I am more likely to have jealousy reactions than either of the other 2. I probably understand better than I otherwise would have, that their way of seeing things is at least as "normal" as mine.
-- I have thought to myself lots of times that monogamy would be easier. But there is just so much good in this life I've got that it's more than worth all the weird bits.
tildequinn. It's taken me rather a while to answer, but here they are. If you'd like to be interviewed, leave a comment to say so, and I'll reply with my 5 questions for you.
1. Are you doing enough?
2. Are you doing too much?
How can anyone ever be doing enough? Of course I'm doing too much!
Hmmmm.
My sense of perspective on this frequently sucks.
The first answer I think of is to list off all the things I wish I were doing that I'm not: getting enough exercise, improving as a musician, finding something (anything) to do in response to the larger happenings of the world besides hiding my head in the sand, etc.
The second answer is a defensive one against the first, listing off all the things I AM doing and how stressed out I get about them all and how could I possibly do anything more?
I spend a lot of time cycling between those two. But somewhere in there, there is a balance. Bit by bit, I am managing to get to more of the things I want to do, and letting go of some other ones, and/or giving myself a break and letting them wait for some other time.
I am doing as much as I can while staying approximately sane, and that will have to do.
Next step: Drastic reprioritization due to baby. Yikes!!!
3. Is it safe?
No seriously. Do you feel safe these days? Does impending parenthood make
you feel more or less safe?
I don't spend much time worrying about safety. Perhaps I worry less than I should, I don't know. Worrying is unpleasant enough to me that I try to get rid of it ASAP. I make a determination about whether the level of risk in a situation is acceptable to me. If it is, I stop thinking about it. If it's not, and I can get rid of that risk, I do, ASAP. If it's not an acceptable risk but I can't do anything about it... well, I just have to accept it then. But I'm not going to spend time thinking about it, unless something changes so I can do something about it.
I haven't noticed much change in this with impending parenthood. There are a few risks that are no longer acceptable, like letting Mir breathe the dust in the room where we're scraping off the wallpaper. But I'm not feeling more hypervigilant. Yet, anyway.
4. Do you have any scars, tattoos, or identifying marks?
One pretty good scar on my right elbow from a tumble off a bike when I was a kid.
A mole on my right hand, between thumb and index fingers, that taught me right from left.
One tattoo, a band around my right upper arm, a set of circles representing the phases of the moon. When I got it in July 2003 I was about to move out of NYC back to my home upstate. NYC was where I hit the worst of my depression, and where I learned I was strong enough to get out of it. It was also where I was when leaned from pagan friends that I could take a lot of strength from connecting with cycles in nature. The tattoo is an acknowlegement of all the change I went through during that time in my life, and an acknowledgement that the whole cycle from light to dark and back again is a part of me.
5. What has being part of a triad taught you that you never would have
realized as part of a couple?
(It's interesting to separate this out from what I've learned from being more generally poly...)
-- I like sleeping by myself on a fairly regular basis.
-- I love seeing my 2 partners being sweet to each other.
-- They actually want me around. Both of them. It's not just that they couldn't find anybody else. (Yes, *most* of my head would have believed that anyway, but...)
-- I am capable of stretching a lot farther (sitting through discomfort / jealousy reactions / etc until I can get ok with a situation) when I have the support of another partner in addition to the one I'm reacting to.
-- I am more likely to have jealousy reactions than either of the other 2. I probably understand better than I otherwise would have, that their way of seeing things is at least as "normal" as mine.
-- I have thought to myself lots of times that monogamy would be easier. But there is just so much good in this life I've got that it's more than worth all the weird bits.