My Polyamorous Life: A Long Overdue Update

It’s closing in on midnight here in Virginia. I’m at my parents home, in the bedroom I call mine, though I didn’t grow up in this house. In fact, they’ve only lived here for about seventeen years, as they bought it the year I had my son, the house my mother always called her dream house.

It still feels like home though.

Tonight the skies are rolling dark, with flashes of lightning flickering through my shades, the window wide open. My dad hates that. Every evening as I crawl into bed, I find that at some point in the day he’s come in to close it tight, as if too much fresh air may hurt me.

It’s so, so hot in here.

Downstairs, in the finished basement, my husband is falling asleep on the couch, his chosen respite. I can’t blame him. The basement is much cooler, and dark, a cozy place to ride out the night. He will miss the storm, but it really makes no difference: he sleeps through tornado and hurricane warnings as if they are nothing.

Not me.

I love a fantastical storm.

And while he’s curled up under the fuzzy blanket I left down there, despite my draw to him, it’s my boyfriend that I’m thinking of, likely fast asleep in his hotel room tonight.

He’s in the middle of nowhere Mexico, traveling for work, alone. Since early morning, he’s been messaging me, first from his Uber on the way to the airport, and then later, from his hotel. He’s been wonderfully sweet…