#actually polyfag

[galacticquiltsystem]

I guess we have a BMO fictive who’s like a translator for headmates who don’t speak or don’t speak English.

[galacticquiltsystem]

We’re rapid switching and blurry so we aren’t sure who is who in the following. So everyone is just “me”

THE TALE OF MOVING HOUSE: PART BATHROOM

Way Past Me: I will gather all the bathroom items in a handful of bags so it will be easier to get that room functional again quickly.

Past Me: I need more bags than I thought. I’ll need to empty a few. Good thing the bathroom stuff is all together! I’m going to dump it all INTO the bathtub so that I can’t avoid putting stuff away in here when I want to bathe.

Slightly Past Me: CURSE YOU, PAST ME. I JUST WANT TO BATHE BUT I HAVE TO PUT ALL THE BATHROOM STUFF AWAY FIRST.

Current Me: (in the bath, having plowed through everything in about a half hour) …Okay, Past Me. You win. That was smart.

[galacticquiltsystem]

Talking to one of our dogs while we’re having a bath triggered some memories of pre-system discovery things that make so much more sense now.

Let me explain.

Valor very much enjoys stealing my towel while I’m bathing. He’ll dig around in it to make himself a little nest and then nap in the towel while I bathe.

So today I’m getting ready for a bath and I say “Oh boy, Valor! It’s time for your Favorite Thing!” referring to stealing my towel. But I know this is not actually his Favorite Thing. It is probably not even in his Top 5 Favorite Things. But because it’s something he definitely enjoys, I call it his Favorite Thing.

But that’s not what “favorite” means. A favorite implies a single thing that is liked more than all other things. People have favorite colors and movies and books and meals. And this struck me today. Examining my use of the word, I realized that I have always treated “favorite” in this way - as a way to describe something I “really really like” not necessarily more than all others. I’ve always had “multiple favorites” in just about every area of life. And I’ve always just written it off as an inability to be decisive or a quirk. Other people, at their worst, have described it as me being weak-willed, wishy-washy, or conviction-less.

But it’s none of those things.

It’s the fact that I’m plural. Of COURSE we’ve had multiple favorite movies for as long as we can remember. “The Care Bears Movie” has always been Madison’s favorite movie. That didn’t make Howl’s Moving Castle any less Aina’s favorite movie. Nor did Leigh developing an obsession with Frozen 2 make Aina’s favorite movie and less her favorite movie. But before we knew we were plural, it seemed and felt like we had multiple favorite movies. Or multiple favorite songs. Etc.

Now I’ve got thirty years of using “favorite” inaccurately to undo in myself. 🤣

[galacticquiltsystem]

A poetry anthology but the poems are written by different headmates in a DID System. Is that anything?

[galacticquiltsystem]

It’s our birthday today. We turn 35. (Well, the body does. The majority of our headmates don’t really age right now. I don’t know if that will ever change.)

Birthdays are kind of complicated for us. We’re smooshed right up against Mother’s Day. That meant for a lot of our childhood, we were placed in situations with one of our major abusers. And as we have transitioned into adulthood, our inability to be a mother (parent in general) continues to be extremely painful for us. So it’s hard to feel celebratory on the day right after we have had so many conflicted emotions about celebrating and honoring our own mother and mourning the fact that we won’t ever be one ourselves.

But we’re going to try really hard to move past the weird feelings and celebrate ourselves this week. This WHOLE week. My planner is full of ways we can celebrate ourselves this week. And why it’s worth celebrating.

We’re gonna keep working on healing.

Because we deserve that.