Discernment

I wonder if I can really do this.

Navigate all these new pieces all at once.

Can I really hold tenderness and vulnerability within casualness and boundaries?

Can I be a friend… with benefits?

Can I hold my husband’s sweet sensitive heart and still keep growing in this way?

I’m really not sure yet.

Whether I truly have capacity for all of this growth happening inside me.

One of my connections shared a book with me, and I’ve been reading it.

The Ethical Slut.

When it arrived in the mail I opened it to the middle.

It was the first page of a chapter titled Abundance.

It talked about starvation economies, and how we’ve been taught to believe that love is finite.

As though there’s only so much to go around and we need to hold onto it with a white knuckled grip.

That there is a scarcity mindset wrapped up in the monogamous framework we’re all cultured in.

I didn’t read the whole chapter, but far enough to realize how deeply embedded these concepts are in me.

The notion that my heart is limited in how it can hold love, and I have to share it as though it will run out at some point.

I’m slowly untangling these beliefs inside myself, but they’re woven rather tightly into how I’ve always seen love and relationships and my own identity.

I’m still really discerning whether I can feel safe and comfortable having physical intimacy with someone without deep, devoted emotional intimacy.

Even if it’s not dependent on a monogamous covenant, I still find myself preferring to know and care for someone’s heart in a deep way and feel that reciprocated.

I wonder if I can securely hold that depth in myself, even when it’s not met by a connection I’m sharing my body with.

I wonder if I even want to.

So far I’ve only crossed that threshold once with someone new, but as I continue to connect with others I find myself conflicted in my heart’s capacity and true desires.

Such a part of this journey for me comes from my huge heart and yearning to share my abundance of love with more people.

I’m just not sure yet if physical love alone is enough for me, when it means I have to withhold or restrain my emotions in tandem.

I’ve always felt I needed both.

Now I’m opening to curiosity, and maybe am needing to try it all out just to see.

How will I really know my truth if I don’t inquire and experience all the different languages it can speak?

How will I learn where I am if not through examining and discovering where I am not?

Yet I know I need to tread carefully and slowly on this path.

I know it might mean hurt feelings and missteps and trepidation.

I know this heart of mine is tender in its nature, and as its guardian I need to explore without abandoning its protection.

I know this is a calling of reverence and grace and above all…

I must lead with love, for others yes, but first and foremost myself.