A Personal Story Inspired by Monogamy and Polyamory

I originally wrote this on August 28, 2014 and posted it on my Facebook account.

This is a great article that talks about monogamy and polyamory, and that certain aspects of it hit rather close to home for me. When I read this article, there was a prolonged emotional release I experienced while sitting at this air conditioned coffee & doughnut shop using their free WiFi. It hits home because there is a story I have been keeping to myself for a long time now, and have only told to one person, but not really knowing how I wanted to tell the final and highest version of the story. The article blessed me with it tonight, and I can finally share it.

When I was finishing up high school, and through a couple of years of college, my mother was seeing a married man. She used to work for a electronics company working at the assembly line; and the man was one of the executives or within the middle management - I am not sure as I was never told clearly; my mother did not entirely understand the American corporate structure; and I can only read the man's energetics; or any combination of the three. She was sexually harassed by this man and a few others in their cadre at work for a couple of years prior; which resulted in her attempting to run one of them over with her car; her then-husband asking me during my junior high school years if he should leave her (and I answered yes for his ultimate happiness); my mother started to be slowly consumed by fear over the course of several years; and her quest to find a suitable man to raise me together with her to create a new family unit.

Her quest ended at having feelings for this man, one of the very same men that sexually harassed her. At the time, she told me, without my ever asking, that she desired to finish raising me as part of a whole family unit, and that a strong American man can most meet these needs. She didn't need to justify. I felt it. That mix of maternal and societal need as a culmination of her traditional vietnamese upbringing; and of what she observed of American culture. It was intense, a mix of everything, including the sexual. It created tension, it created other things that I struggled with for years to come.

My mother and biological father separated, rather forcefully swaddled in the iron tight grip of physical and emotional abuse - the kind of anger that I then used a few years later to guard myself, for what was to become many years of growing up. An anger that slowly morphed into an iron maiden.

Then another separation between my mother and my stepfather. This man did not have much love for me, as I was not of his blood. I mirrored this love back at him, because it was all I knew to do. I did not understand this, I did not need to understand this. He was overall a good guy that simply adored my mother - he would have held on, endured, done anything to stay with her - but even that fear, anger, confusion, talk of conspiracy, culture clashes tore at him. He asked me what to do. I told him an answer I could not comprehend for years to come, except that it was an evolved answer. One day, there was a nice wristwatch on the doorstep with my name on it, but no trace of my stepfather. Yet another secret to keep. Two - I learned later he got himself into a lot of trouble in a nearby town and landed himself in jail. A suffering man, creating more suffering for himself. I could only imagine the hurt, the rending of his heart.

Mirrored by my mother's intense fear, a monster she created that tears at the most torturous way imaginable - it nibbles at your heart, your mind, the mind only responds with increasingly intensity, increasing fear, increasing ego to survive, to grow dark flesh where the monster has eaten away. Then she got into tarot cards that she consulted with constantly, every 15 minutes, and turning the answers into whatever her fear allowed her to rationalize, what her intellect simply gave her. Did you know that in statistics, you can make ANY numbers say ANYTHING you want? So it was with those tarot cards, in the form of regular playing cards.

I wanted to get away from that monster, I wanted to get away from the woman who created that monster, the one who fed it, and allowed it to grow, and grow. I could survive in the streets for two years, survive all sorts of inclement weather, become invisible - I did all this to find this very same woman 6 years prior to all this - yet I was not equipped to fight, eliminate, or otherwise best this beast. No desperate survival skill, or animalistic killing instincts could affect it. It was its domain and it was the master. Even if I could, it will grow back like grass, because of its creator. What could I do except get away? At one point, the beast and its creator almost resulted in an homicide of our apartment's pregnant landlord during my senior year of high school.

... ... ... This is a tangent that only gives background to this story.

So my mother started seeing this man she referred to as "The Blue Man". Liaisons were secret, there was a thin wooden partition separating her half and my half of the studio apartment. Each of their liaisons were of making love. But of course - she needed her fix, she has a high libido. I understood this, I also had a high libido, and a lifelong fascination with sexuality. I've watched and witnessed my share of pornography, and rejected most of the society at large's beliefs of sexuality, of pornography, of love, of sin. That sinful part they presented was nothing but hypocrisy it seemed like.

My mother got her fix on a regular basis. That beast goes away for a few days afterward, she is in bliss, joy, love - this repels that beast completely. I get a reprieve and was also happy. She does not get on my case during those times, but she still consults with those damnable tarot cards, but keeps quiet. I do not care about any morality of the situation, because I witness the results, and all is happy. Yay, seriously, yay. The man always smelled of Listerine mint mouthwash, before and afterwards. He tries to be friendly to me, and I always respond in kind, but never really saying anything more than a "hi". I never knew how I wanted to act around him, as I struggled with how he felt as a man seeing two women.

One day, she is sad, and vaguely mentions that I almost had a sister, another piece of her complete family. She continues to see this man.

This does not diminish my desire to get away from her, looking forward to going to college hours away, to live my own life, to make my own mistakes, to have fun, or be super serious, who cares - living some sort of life in liberty. I learned one thing - I'm not that all sold on monogamous relationships or of lifelong marriages myself. I know witnessing all these things has had an impact on me.

So for now I shall end this story, as it is the crux of what was released when I read the article that I will soon provide a link to. What is it that I want to express the highest version of how I view monogamous and polygamous relationships? That it is okay to do either one, and no need to feel shame, guilt, or be like a sinner when being in relationships. We can be in any number of relationships because we are all here to help each other evolve, grow, advance towards a higher level of consciousness, or if not, to be in unconditional love more often, if not constantly. I witness attempts at control, at ownership, and although for many years I could not really understand it, tonight, I see that ownership, is truly an illusion, and only limits us to co-dependency.

I have much more to say, of the things not written in the article, of what is written between the lines, but for tonight, the point of this story is complete, and I forgive myself, my mother, The Blue Man, my stepfather, the other men, for everything.

Thanks for reading this. Please enjoy the article: http://www.collective-evolution.com/…/are-we-really-meant-…/