The butterfly diaries

Getting back into work has been full on, so full on that the two weeks that it's been since Puck left has seemed a lot longer. We've been talking for hours and hours whenever we get the chance. I'm looking at going back there in my spring break (Sept/Oct) and almost straight after that, he's keen to bring Renee out for a visit with a view to moving here in 2026/7.

Today, I am largely resting. Work has started again and I have been throwing everything at it. I should honestly do some bits and pieces this afternoon, too, so I'm ready for tomorrow without even more stress, although I'm already biting off a lot first thing in the morning with my Seniors. I also said I'd have a go at Adam's CV, more fool me, even through I'm not great at the damn things either, I just know that right now it's appalling and that's after he'd paid a professional. But he really needs to move down here, our own town is eating away at him, he's lonely and jaded at work (despite being deeply loved by the community), and I just want him to be happy again.

My flatmate has been baking and I can smell it and it smells incredible which makes me tempted to go get a few more ingredients and do some of my own. I should dash and do that before Puck gets home from Selene's, has dinner with Renee, and then we get to chat again.
 
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Evie said:
Getting back into work has been full on, so full on that the two weeks that it's been since Puck left has seemed a lot longer. We've been talking for hours and hours whenever we get the chance. I'm looking at going back there in my spring break (Sept/Oct) and almost straight after that, he's keen to bring Renee out for a visit with a view to moving here in 2026/7.
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Oh wow, I didn't realize him moving to your country was in the cards!! Many people are fed up with the horrific politics in the US so I don't blame him. I hope that works out! :)
Evie said:
Adam really needs to move down here. Our own town is eating away at him. He's lonely and jaded at work (despite being deeply loved by the community), and I just want him to be happy again.
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Best wishes for that, as well! I know you're much happier in your new location, yourself.
 
The problem with letting people in your life know about this place is then being unable to write about the things that really matter 😞
 
Plead for a restricted members only section!
Or another feature where you can select Only Me, (designated) Members or Public?
 
Oh that feature would be lovely. But alas. And being anonymous, I wouldn't know if someone I know is a member or not. And restricted members...that just gets tricky without an actual friends list.

No, XenForo definitely has good things, but the extra nice to haves...not so much. That's okay, it's totally free including no ads. So yay. And I'll write about stuff in retrospect if it actually happens.
 
Today, I'm exhausted. It's Sunday and although I made it out to visit my parents, I came straight home after lunch and have dozed and doom scrolled the afternoon away. Mercifully, still being late summer, I have a few daylight hours remaining so I don't feel like a complete wash out. Although, tbh, there is most likely to be more relaxing yet. It's fairly impressive that it's taken me this many weeks of work to hit the wall this hard.

Some things have been shifting for me, spiritually and I'm flying a bit blind right now as to how this will continue to manifest. I'm embracing it, but I wish I had help.

But first things first, I wish I had enough oomph to get out of bed lol.
 
I had a lovely anniversary weekend with Adam. We met about half way between and it was really good to be on that neutral ground. At our house, we would have felt the weight of getting it ready for sale, and at my place we just wouldn't have had the room to enjoy ourselves.

We're both ready for the next chapter, selling the house and moving in together again. We looked at what type of places are available and I'd already done a budget for if we'll just be one income for a while. He's job hunting though, so fingers crossed. We'll sell the house no later than next spring.

So, ever forward. This is going to be an incredible year.
 
I'm honestly not sure who's going to get here first, Adam or Puck. They are both job hunting in my town; Adam has been for a while, and Puck will be lodging his CV with agents very soon. They're in very different careers and tax brackets, so I'm really not sure who will get a job offer first. So for a little while, I'm in the "hurry up and wait" stage - I can't help with looking for accommodation for either until we know more. Puck is aiming to get a job here soon, and that will secure him residency asap (about 3 months for the paperwork to be processed). Once he has that, Renée will join him as then she will also get spousal residency and be able to work. I'm excited for her to be able to explore other career options, the job she has now takes a huge physical toll on her. I am reasonably confident that she will like it here, there's so much more to do than where they live now and she's a sociable person so making friends should be easy enough.

Yes, the timeline has moved up.

No, I don't know how I'm going to go from having two long distance relationships and one local one, to three local ones. I won't have two evenings a week with Nevyn anymore, but then, his wife is likely to want more of him anyway since her other relationship is about to end.

Things have shifted for me in other respects, too, spiritually. I had a significant encounter with The (Triple) Goddess, and She's popped by again since then, too, to give Nevyn the heads up that he has choices to make. "Popped by" seems a little disrespectful, but I also don't want to go into too much detail here, this isn't really the place for it. I don't know where is, tbh, but if any woman who reads this knows Her, feel free to slide into my dms. That first...meeting...was with Puck and he understood very quickly when She intervened directly, which this is largely why he's so very ready to move to Aotearoa without undue delay. He was already smitten with the country from our travels around, but then She sealed the deal in a very direct way, and one does not defy Her. It's rather ironic, since I wasn't an actively practicing anything before She made her presence known so I'm feeling my way, a little blind, a little nervous, and a little confused. But I'm also confident She'll make her wishes even more known once Puck is here again.

In the meantime, I am throwing myself into work and really enjoying it. I'm doing extra tutoring and have signed up to go to Relay For Life to help with the work team. It's my first time doing it, and it's very much to honour Ayin.
 
Sometimes, I wish I could have a three day weekend. I could really, really use it. But instead, I need to be at work early tomorrow. I've been pulling long days all last week and I hit the wall so hard on both Wednesday and Friday nights. Nevyn picked up the pieces.

It's been a full group effort with Adam's last cover letter - we've been doing it today. I did a first edit, Puck thought it was fine, but Nevyn said - as a hiring manager in NZ - that he wouldn't have even read the whole thing. So I turned it mostly into bullet points and sent it back to Adam to hone. I think we're all happy enough now. Adam's just rounding up a couple of references and then off it goes. He may beat Puck here yet, but Puck is going to launch his CV to recruitment agencies this week and could get snapped up.

And even if Adam doesn't get this role, we've learned a lot about cover letters.

Things could get really busy here, really quickly. And I'm already swamped by work. I had a bit of a crisis on Friday night/Saturday regarding my own career trajectory, but I'm feeling a bit more hopeful about Adam getting a decent job now I've worked through one application process with him. And I've just discovered how strong his networks are...I suggested a reference of a guy he was tight with 12 years ago. He texted him and got an immediate reply. Locked and loaded. I've never had that gift; I may not always burn bridges, but I certainly don't maintain them.

Regarding Nevyn, he's become my utter confidant, and he is extremely supportive of both my realities and my fantasies.

Puck has company tonight, and in no way do begrudge him that, I just miss being able to say goodnight.

I recently cleared out my room of my pet projects that were getting out of hand. I have a lot of indoor plants and they were getting too big. Some are just on a sheltered table outside waiting for me to take them to work and give them away. I gave one to Nova earlier today. It was a cutting from one of her plants she gave me years ago, part of the whole catalyst for this comparatively brief addiction. So I gave it back to her in all its grown glory. Turns out I only like little baby plants that I can watch grow. I feel like I have space in my room again.

On another note, some of you grown ass adults may wonder why I condemn age gap relationships with teenagers so much. Honestly, even before 23/24 I don't think the age gap should be more than 10 years, and that's pushing it. Why? Well, in short, I was that teenager. 14, 15, 16, 17, and even 21. At least the age gaps have been narrowing over the years. So, I lived it, why do I now condemn it? Because if a (late) teen is seeking out a relationship with an older person, they were probably once an early teen being groomed to do so. If you are the adult thinking that a late teen is a suitable dating partner because "they are so mature for their age" - consider WHY you think they are so mature for their age. Sure, chalk it up to a bunch of other shit, but if you ask the right questions, you'll probably find an adult even earlier in their lives used that phrase, or similar. You're just adding to the problem. And there are power imbalances that the young person cannot recognise. Furthermore, you probably have higher (relationship) expectations of them than they are capable of meeting, even if these expectations are unexamined. Or you buy into them being your manic pixie dream person, because their youthful energy appears to offer your something you thought you'd never get again. Or you want to white knight them. Whatever the fuck it is, own your own shit and don't 👏 date👏 the👏 barely 👏 adult. Sure, have a fling, give them great sex, maybe a few life tips. Teach them a few tricks and send them on their way. Or stay friends, but don't expect them to stay the same, malleable, vulnerable person you met. Enjoy their growth - from afar - and celebrate their milestones - from afar. N.B. this is not a discussion.
 
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I’ve always been vaguely intrigued by the idea of a “Mrs Robinson” esque fling with a somewhat sheltered young guy, teach him to drink good cocktails and treat a woman well, but but then I feel guilty about it because of the current age gap… zeitgeist. But it would absolutely be a fling, following dan savage’s campsite rule, and hopefully we’d be friendly acquaintances after. 🤷🏻‍♀️

(That said? Tbh with a kid, I don’t have the mental energy for this and at the point at which I don’t have a stay at home kid, that’s gonna make it really weird to date even on a fling level someone’s who’s the right age for this scenario, so it’ll probably never happen.)
 
I went to my parents' this afternoon, made dinner. As I was start to get things out for serving up, Dad asked why I only got out three plates, not four. It was dinner for him, me and Mum. I'm an only child. There's never been four. I made sure to give him a hug when I left. It's not the usual thing we do. He's British.
 
Evie said:
I went to my parents' this afternoon, made dinner. As I was start to get things out for serving up, Dad asked why I only got out three plates, not four. It was dinner for him, me and Mum. I'm an only child. There's never been four. I made sure to give him a hug when I left. It's not the usual thing we do. He's British.
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Oh, sorry!
Are there other signs of dementia?
 
Tinwen said:
Oh, sorry!
Are there other signs of dementia?
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Since his stroke I'm honestly not sure what is that and what is something else.
 
Yeah, okay, I think it's dementia after another couple of incidents. But he's also still mostly lucid, so it's unlikely a medical professional will be able to diagnose for a while.

With a little luck, Puck might get a job here within a month. But right now, it's just too many unknowns. He vague booked about things the other day with enough words that he got a lot of support from a lot of people. I can't help but think that that support will turn into confusion and possibly even anger once the true intentions are publicised.

There's three weeks of term left and I'm extremely ready for it. I will go visit Adam and do a little home maintenance up there, not that I'm very good at that but I'll do what I can. At least he's starting packing up books. Between the two of us there are just so many books. Honestly, I'll never read most of mine again and I should just purge them.
 
I'm beginning to wonder...on a polyamory board, why are we so anti falling in love quickly? Why can't we accept that sometimes people simply *do* and there is such a thing as genuine love within the first short while? Sure, love can alter over time (deepen or fade), but why are we chalking everything in the early stages up to hormone based NRE? Sure, human being are animals, but there are several other very important differences between them that you should know about^ (😉).

The "science of falling in love" is troublesome in that all too frequently *only* the early stages are (mis)represented as being hormone driven. If one does a deeper dive into the science, there's evidence of different hormones at different stages. Why isn't the first stage being considered valid love? Why is it dismissed as "just hormones"?

I'm someone who will happily love someone quickly. I don't deliberately go chasing the next NRE hit, but I also don't censor myself, neither my feelings nor my language to describe them. I have "falling in love" stories where it was unmistakable that that is what was mutually happening in a very short period of time. And others where it was definitely something that we grew into. You know what? They didn't feel any different. Be it a day, a few months, or a year. The physical feeling was the same. The intellectual perception was the same. The energetic sensations were the same. If I *feel* in love, as far as I'm concerned, I *am* in love. Not just lust. Not just like-like. But love. No one can define or police that for me.

Furthermore, long term compatibility should not be conflated with love. Some people are only short term compatible but that doesn't mean that there isn't love in that short term. Why should only mid to long term compatibility be called love? Why do people need to get to phase two hormones for it to be called love? I don't support that idea.

So let's accept that falling in love quickly is just as natural as falling in love slowly. No one true poly-ing, no dismissing the experience, no false reassurance or assertion that it's not love "because science." Love is not quantifiable, even if we could test our hormone levels like blood glucose. Let's not chalk it all up to dopamine etc. but rather honour everyone's experiences as personal and meaningful.



^That's a play on lyrics in case any wants to come after the "should" - don't bother, just realise you don't know the Bloodhound Gang reference.
 
Are we? I thought the forum consensus was just about not acting on the flood recklessly. Let yourself fall as fast and hard as you want to, if you've got consent secured. Just don't move your lover in within the first few months.

It's true, however, that the term NRE, and especially the hormone talk, can feel minimizing or even outright dismissive. I believe that's a defense mechanism against two things--

First, the romantic cultural overinflation, where people talk of soulmates and think they have to marry (or destroy a marriage for) anyone who they feel this excitement for.

Second, it's for internal reasons, when people try to keep sane and function in their preexisting relationships and commitments by detaching from their experience somewhat.
 
I think you nailed it with the "minimizing or even outright dismissive" observation. And yes, there are irrational and potentially damaging behaviours that can accompany falling in love and these need to be examined and mitigated.

Adam and I fell in love quickly and intensely. We moved in nearly immediately because life circumstances allowed us to do so. But we also moved in with the caveat that we'd reassess in 6 months. And 12 years later, we continue to reassess and make conscious choices around cohabiting.
 
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