Inner Turmoil, Take Two  I dreamed that her name was Julie, and she was half draped on me for some platonic reason, but her breathing was driving platonic thoughts very far from my mind.  Her skin was the rich color of peaches, moist with perspiration, she was so very hot beneath her skin, and very cool outside it.  Some of her pageboy-cut light brown hair was in my face, her gold barrette keeping some of it behind her head.  Her breaths came faster, but she remained very still.  I could almost feel some kind of indecision in her, some confusion, as my own breathing accelerated.      "Julie, uhm, the way you are breathing, well..."  My arms were beginning to encircle her, my legs move just a bit, and she was moving also...      I might be coming out of my funk now, it feels a bit better, no longer the urge for tequila.  Someone who reads my journal asked me what the hell was going on, it was pretty confusing.  I can understand that, looking back.  And most of what I have been feeling defies words at all.  Maybe one more go at trying to explain.      Two separate but related things are going on in my life right now.  The first is the ongoing polyamory issue with Brooklynguy.  We are two different species of bird, he and I.  He is naturally monogamous, a serial monogamist, actually.  Loving more than one person at once is completely incomprehensible to him.  Whereas I am polyamorous.  I cannot help but love more than one person at a given time.  It's not about sex, though sex is definitely a component of any romantic relationship.      Up to now we have just made do the best we could with that inconsistency, but a couple nights ago I got dreadfully lonely, downright needy, and the thought of the loss of my loves was a great pain to me, a deep, deep hurt.  And it dredged up an amazing amount of self-loathing, that I am not "normal" enough for him, that my "freakishness" stands in the way of happiness.  In other words, I (through conditioned response, I am sure) automatically absorbed all the blame for all the friction that our differences cause us.  I made myself feel like a freak, like an unworthy person, and undeserving of such a  good partner.  I did this to me.  Only today have I begun to realize it.      I was this way when he met me.  I was this me, and to change would be to become less me.  If I tried to sculpt myself into a paragon of monogamy, it would take years of therapy just to get to the point where I like myself again.  I only just had gotten there, and now to have to do it again??!!  To deny my own personality in order to make someone else, however beloved, to feel more secure?  What kind of wretch would I be at the end of that?  How could he love the result?      He will have to deal.  I will have to deal.  I refuse to try and change who I am, though I can watch out for my behaviors, and keep them in the realm of the non-injurious.  I will be there, am not going anywhere, but I will still love whomever I love.      The other issue is my marriage.  It's been my opinion for some years that it died a nasty death a long time ago, and the corpse hadn't gotten buried yet.  As a token gesture, I went to marriage counseling with the hubby Wednesday.  After evaluating what we were dissatisfied with in our marriage, the counselor looked me straight in the face and told me what I knew already:  the ball is in my court, I must decide whether we proceed to try and fix the marriage or jettison the whole thing.  Thing is, after all the harsh frankness, I looked at my husband's face and saw the most complete sincerity, saw the deepest commitment, and it went right into my core.  It was one of those movie moments, you know, when the significance is palpable.  And it really seemed like there was a chance.  It truly looked like if I could just melt, and let the barrier down, and bend a little, we might become friends again, we might even fall in love again.  In that instant I saw a man who has been missing for several years, a man I presumed dead.     And I was terrified.  The counselor knew it, and said so.  He also saw the glimmer of hope there, and milked it.     I came out of that meeting very, well hell, devastated.  Yeah, yeah, what went on doesn't seem so traumatic, but I've learned over the course of my life that the only one I can depend on is me.  I recanted that belief when I married him, and then was proven right after all.  I have grown very comfortable in my self-reliance, and now here I am again, shocked to the middle by the idea I can let my guard down and rely upon him again.     What was asked of me was to decide, and not to take too long about it because hesitation can cause more harm than picking a course and then going with it.  I spent the last couple days trying to decide.     I thought it was over.  I thought there were no more chances.  The agonizing and the getting drunk were all about the realization that there is a chance, and am I woman enough to step up to the plate and make it happen.  Apparently I am not.     I won't do it.  I cannot trust completely, it's not fair to make it look like I can.  It's not fair to make him do tricks to appease me when in the end I am leaving anyway.  It's not right.  And of course you gotta figure in Brooklynguy.  Can I hack having him just as a friend?     Sooooo, all this was raging about inside my head, making me feel like a complete shit, unworthy of oxygen, and certainly not fit for any kind of relationship outside base, unfeeling sex.  I'm still convinced that a being like me has no business mucking up other people's lives by having committed relationships with them.  But my course of action is clear, right or wrong.     I proceed with the move-out.     And I take life with Brooklynguy one day at a time.   -- Spring