Making Noise
“Do you prefer Jewel or Jules?”
It’s my familial nickname, used by closest friends and family. It causes a warm sensation with every use, usually residing somewhere in my chest. For the last eleven years it’s been rare to hear. So rare it may have been down to a handful of times after it was near common place. It suggests a closeness I miss. It implies kindness, care and closeness.
I haven’t felt close enough to many to allow it. Usually people try and I speak up, asking them not to. It can make me feel far too personal, far too intimate, preferring my much more common nickname of Jewel. My legal name is only for when I’m in trouble or for clarity’s sake.
The first real moment I recall hearing it down here was from a cousin of his. Perhaps it had happened sooner but this was the first moment I recalled hearing it and not wanting to correct it. His young cousin passed me in the kitchen at a baby shower and as casual as if we were related said “Hi Jules.” I stared at the back of her head for a long moment. So then, here it is. Here is the starting point of my old and near forgotten name.
It only felt warm and familiar.
He calls me Jules. It never fails to feel like gold when he says it. Like all the warmth of the sun poured into a whisper.
They have begun to call me Jules. His wife, Matt’s girlfriend, the children. Metamours. It further solidifies that I have found my home.
And now here I am, in a crowded and noisy stadium, the music blaring and practically shaking the stands, and Dan is looking at me just barely able to ask the question above the din. What do I say? The honest is answer is that both of them are nicknames, but that seems to broad. And I want to dig down and entrench. “Jewel is professional, Jules is more informal. We’ve played D&D together now, so you can call me Jules.”
He nods his head and chuckles a little without any realization of what it meant, and I’m fine if he never knows. This was for me. These people who are a part of their tribe are now a part of mine. They’re the kind of people for whom I keep it corrected when it’s not used with permission. And so the joourney continues and deepens, and these select few are welcomed.
***
It’s been a hell of a busy weekend. One polyam meeting about finances ripped open my entire perspective. I had gone expecting explanations of DOW indexes and came out with my mind spinning hard.
Since I met him, since this whole explosion of energy began, I’ve tried to pay attention. I shared my dreams and I gave as honest a view into my raw and unpolished core as I could give. I shared that I want to end up in a large house much like a commune, with kids and partners and a multitude of “stuff” going on. But I never knew how to get there.
I walked out of that meeting realizing that the door to that may have just been opened. That the way to reach it and turn all of this from wishes and hopes into solid reality may have fallen into my lap on these stapled sheets.
In the car on the way to meet friends my brain frantically tried to grasp on to the implications, each of them sliding like smoke from my fingers before I could focus until all at once they came to a screeching halt when I looked at him.
A year ago I didn’t know he existed. I had made my peace with the way things were and would have to be for the foreseeable future. And then I had looked for signs that this wouldn’t work with him. A bump, a hitch, a problem. And none came. And now here was the first major opening to lead not to a break up but to a union. I was suddenly looking at my future as though it was playing out before my like a highlight reel and in everything there was him.
Methodically I brought myself back to my head, back to earth. ‘Look for the signs’ I told myself. ‘Look for the markers that this is where you are meant to go and listen to your heart.’
And so we went to the restaurant where these people were waiting. Dan and Elsa and the children who called out to me and reached for me. I saw their beckoning arms and felt the tug on my heart, taking my place among them. Z hugged me tightly, his yellow hood with it’s ears brushing my cheek. He’s grown exceptionally affectionate and while his father insists it’s a crush I think perhaps he’s just a warm child who has accepted me into this life. I found what he responds to and so I have become someone he’s genuinely happy just to see. But I still keep a bead, marking how he hugs me, what he says, how he moves or does in case I’m wrong.
But it’s R’s actions that surprise me tonight. He crawls into my lap and stays there for quite a long while, by his standards. He’s talking and chattering and dancing and singing, but then suddenly he dives in and curls against me and his little fingers rest on my arm where he moves then slowly as if feeling the material or petting a small animal. I know what this is, it’s affection. R’s real affection.
I had been expecting to wait days to see a sign or to feel the pull of this massive future, but it was barely an hour. And here it was, sitting in my lap and curled up at my side. This is my family. Maybe not all of them, but this is my family and this is where I belong.
He’s affectionate again at the hockey game, as is Z, but now it’s K’s turn. Without prompt or words, she comes to hug me, laying her head on my shoulder. The moment I squeeze her in close she relaxes against me, content to stay as long as I’ll hold her. When we’re ushered outside I figure that she’s had her fill but she returns again and I tell her she’s so pretty and her hair is so soft and she giggles and hugs me tighter.
Ok, universe. I hear you.
Even later when I lay in bed and try to explain why I have struggled in the end, I’m met only with warmth and soothing hands. I am home, and all the pieces of me are safe here to find their places in joy and healing.
I am home.
It’s my familial nickname, used by closest friends and family. It causes a warm sensation with every use, usually residing somewhere in my chest. For the last eleven years it’s been rare to hear. So rare it may have been down to a handful of times after it was near common place. It suggests a closeness I miss. It implies kindness, care and closeness.
I haven’t felt close enough to many to allow it. Usually people try and I speak up, asking them not to. It can make me feel far too personal, far too intimate, preferring my much more common nickname of Jewel. My legal name is only for when I’m in trouble or for clarity’s sake.
The first real moment I recall hearing it down here was from a cousin of his. Perhaps it had happened sooner but this was the first moment I recalled hearing it and not wanting to correct it. His young cousin passed me in the kitchen at a baby shower and as casual as if we were related said “Hi Jules.” I stared at the back of her head for a long moment. So then, here it is. Here is the starting point of my old and near forgotten name.
It only felt warm and familiar.
He calls me Jules. It never fails to feel like gold when he says it. Like all the warmth of the sun poured into a whisper.
They have begun to call me Jules. His wife, Matt’s girlfriend, the children. Metamours. It further solidifies that I have found my home.
And now here I am, in a crowded and noisy stadium, the music blaring and practically shaking the stands, and Dan is looking at me just barely able to ask the question above the din. What do I say? The honest is answer is that both of them are nicknames, but that seems to broad. And I want to dig down and entrench. “Jewel is professional, Jules is more informal. We’ve played D&D together now, so you can call me Jules.”
He nods his head and chuckles a little without any realization of what it meant, and I’m fine if he never knows. This was for me. These people who are a part of their tribe are now a part of mine. They’re the kind of people for whom I keep it corrected when it’s not used with permission. And so the joourney continues and deepens, and these select few are welcomed.
***
It’s been a hell of a busy weekend. One polyam meeting about finances ripped open my entire perspective. I had gone expecting explanations of DOW indexes and came out with my mind spinning hard.
Since I met him, since this whole explosion of energy began, I’ve tried to pay attention. I shared my dreams and I gave as honest a view into my raw and unpolished core as I could give. I shared that I want to end up in a large house much like a commune, with kids and partners and a multitude of “stuff” going on. But I never knew how to get there.
I walked out of that meeting realizing that the door to that may have just been opened. That the way to reach it and turn all of this from wishes and hopes into solid reality may have fallen into my lap on these stapled sheets.
In the car on the way to meet friends my brain frantically tried to grasp on to the implications, each of them sliding like smoke from my fingers before I could focus until all at once they came to a screeching halt when I looked at him.
A year ago I didn’t know he existed. I had made my peace with the way things were and would have to be for the foreseeable future. And then I had looked for signs that this wouldn’t work with him. A bump, a hitch, a problem. And none came. And now here was the first major opening to lead not to a break up but to a union. I was suddenly looking at my future as though it was playing out before my like a highlight reel and in everything there was him.
Methodically I brought myself back to my head, back to earth. ‘Look for the signs’ I told myself. ‘Look for the markers that this is where you are meant to go and listen to your heart.’
And so we went to the restaurant where these people were waiting. Dan and Elsa and the children who called out to me and reached for me. I saw their beckoning arms and felt the tug on my heart, taking my place among them. Z hugged me tightly, his yellow hood with it’s ears brushing my cheek. He’s grown exceptionally affectionate and while his father insists it’s a crush I think perhaps he’s just a warm child who has accepted me into this life. I found what he responds to and so I have become someone he’s genuinely happy just to see. But I still keep a bead, marking how he hugs me, what he says, how he moves or does in case I’m wrong.
But it’s R’s actions that surprise me tonight. He crawls into my lap and stays there for quite a long while, by his standards. He’s talking and chattering and dancing and singing, but then suddenly he dives in and curls against me and his little fingers rest on my arm where he moves then slowly as if feeling the material or petting a small animal. I know what this is, it’s affection. R’s real affection.
I had been expecting to wait days to see a sign or to feel the pull of this massive future, but it was barely an hour. And here it was, sitting in my lap and curled up at my side. This is my family. Maybe not all of them, but this is my family and this is where I belong.
He’s affectionate again at the hockey game, as is Z, but now it’s K’s turn. Without prompt or words, she comes to hug me, laying her head on my shoulder. The moment I squeeze her in close she relaxes against me, content to stay as long as I’ll hold her. When we’re ushered outside I figure that she’s had her fill but she returns again and I tell her she’s so pretty and her hair is so soft and she giggles and hugs me tighter.
Ok, universe. I hear you.
Even later when I lay in bed and try to explain why I have struggled in the end, I’m met only with warmth and soothing hands. I am home, and all the pieces of me are safe here to find their places in joy and healing.
I am home.
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