I stood peering at myself in the mirror, wondering if I looked the same as I did the last time he saw me, three years ago.

Nah, I thought, I actually look better!

When I’d lived there in California I had been the quintessential party girl. He knew me as that free-spirited, unrestrained, kindafuckedup woman. Since then, getting sober has pulled me together – it helped me drop a considerable amount of weight, compelled me to stop smoking and allowed me the energy to get to the gym regularly. I am three years older, yes, but I definitely look better now than I did back then.

Plus, I’ve learned who I am which means that I am comfortable in my body. Grounded, rooted even, inside of it.

Well … usually, anyway.

He had seen me the day before. We’d had lunch and as he sat across the wide, black-laquered table from me, it was clear that he was appreciative of my appearance. But he hadn’t seen me unclothed, exposed, vulnerable, wanting. He had yet to unwrap the package of me, and relish gifts of comfort, diversion, satisfaction. And while we certainly had a past, what had once been between us had fallen, unnoticed, by the wayside; littered remnants of sweet but distant memories. The possibility that lie between us existed inside a quiet hotel room across town.

My phone lit up – Here, his text read.

I collected my purse and walked out the door towards his car. We made small talk on the way to the Hilton, about what I don’t remember, it is a bit of a blur. I do remember that the receptionist at the hotel didn’t blink when I asked for a day use room, maybe because I have reached a point in my life where the possibility that a hotel clerk might think I’m a slut has become wholly inconsequential to me, and so my confidence in asking for a room to fuck in for the day has reached its utmost peak.

Plus I was beyond horny.

Beyond.

We took our time getting to the room. Slowly we walked from the elevator down the hallway, he holding my hand behind his back in a gesture of temporary ownership. It is his style to go slow in the beginning, let the moments build upon each other in fevered anticipation of what might be next. It is also his style to lay temporary claim to me during the time that we are together, a practice to which I completely conform. Happily even. And it didn’t take long to recognize that we had come together completely empty-handed – no vibrators, no dildos, no booze, no weed, no ties, no blindfold, no lube. Condoms were our only accoutrement, and they, like sweet memories, went unnoticed.

Almost.

Inside that hotel room, the one across town, occurred a primal blur of bodies, steeped in longing so deep that it bordered upon compulsion.

You are absolutely perfect. With you I will fill my cup, he whisper-spit at me in one sweet breath, laden with greed, tinged white-hot with need. He took me then, made me his – in one motion flipped me violently onto my back and threw my legs with a grasp so tight my eyes stung, up towards the flat-white ceiling; thick, drenched tongue found my cunt after it ran primitively down the entire side of my body. My sigh, the sigh that wrote more than words could ever render, was audible. Palpable even.

I had returned.

The blur continued through to the afternoon. Cups were filled. Giving was taken, received, spit out like watermelon seeds seeking solace in the soil. And taking what was given? That was a given.

It was, after all was said and done, the most perfect afternoon – a splendid combination of worship and abuse.

What more could one ask for after a three year absence?

The fact is that I never did.

But I got exactly what I wanted anyway.

Our entire lives together, twenty-seven years and counting, has been, we realized, a series of events where we’ve come together and then parted our separate ways, so that we might find ourselves; and eventually, find each other once again. This marriage has been the longest stretch of togetherness thus far, and just as we arrive at the fated fifteen year mark, Scott and I are making the difficult but very important decision to continue along the lines of the pattern we’ve established…

And once again, part ways.

Will this be forever? Who knows. I certainly don’t. All I know is what I know – I have committed to releasing any expectations, any attachment to outcome, and all the anger that has been threatening, balefully, to accumulate as a result of these expectations and attachments; I will not blame. I will take responsibility for my part in it.

I am coming to understand implicitly that separating is the only possible solution for any growth and all shifts that must occur in order for us to both live lives that are fulfilling. Be that separately or together. And I have become very clear that the only person that I am permitted to insist live in integrity, live with a commitment to growth, and operate in honesty and with respect towards others… is me.

It’s up to me.

And so I leave for the desert tonight. For Black Rock city and possibility. And in the two weeks that I am gone, I will begin creating the life that I know is here, the one that is waiting, patiently, for me to become aware of its presence.

And I will allow this genesis to take me.

Completely.

The second most common question I get when I tell someone that I have an open marriage, after, How the hell does that work?  is, What about your daughter?

To which I reply, Well, She’s a very cool, smart and well-adjusted little girl, do you have a more specific question?

And this launches into a discussion about how my daughter now understands that Scott and I have an open marriage and is really okay with it. And that’s because we’ve educated her to the concept of alternative relationship styles and the possibility of people designing relationships that work for them, the ones involved in them, as opposed to creating relationships that look like other people’s relationships. She gets that we don’t always have to do things the way everyone else does.

She is, at her core, a little eleven year-old vanguard.

This is a movement, I think.

If it isn’t yet it will be, Designing Your Own Relationship(s) is the culture of our future. It is the way things will be done and accepted as being done before I die (assuming I live to be an old lady). It has to be. Why? Because, quite simply, things aren’t working the way they are now. Relationships are too often built under false pretenses and by closeted people and under the veil of a false commitment and with promises that can never be delivered because the people involved aren’t authentic about who they are at their very core – vanguards and traditionalists alike.

This is not to say that these concepts can’t play out in “alternative” relationships too. But I believe that if people had choice, a real, true choice, about who they decide to partner with – instead of succumbing to the status quo of who they should partner with (and for how long- because forever? That’s a long fucking time, people) – then a lot of the problems that lead to nasty divorces, breakups, and hurt people will diminish.

Not completely, likely not completely. But some. When we have a choice, and our choices are accepted instead of judged, we have power in the confidence of that choice.

So I am writing another book. A book about parenting within non-traditional relationships. So if you are interested in being involved in it, either credited or anonymously, send me an email. I will be spending the next few weeks interviewing parents in non-traditional relationships -married and living and parenting separately, unmarried and living next door to each other, polyamorous parenting, commune dwellers, swinging parents, queer parents, transgendered parents, kinky moms and dads, etc.

I’d also love to hear from children of parents in alternative relationships!

Let’s create this movement and report on how well it can work together, shall we? For ourselves, for each other, and for our children.

Oh the power we will have together…

I just hugged my mother.

Before she got in the car to drive back to Dallas and after she spent the weekend caring for my daughter while Scott and I took an intense class that is transforming our relationship and our lives, I hugged my mother. With absolute, total gratitude for who she is, I hugged my mother.

I learned this weekend how to be with someone, really be with someone. I learned to break through the crap I’ve carried with me, the stories, the thoughts, the feelings -the fears and justifications and explanations and the need to be validated- and accept them all for what they are, what they’ve meant to me, what they have kept me from achieving, how they’ve stood in my way of really making connections with people, and, ultimately, how I don’t wish them to stand in my way any fucking longer.

I learned to love. To accept. To allow. To create the space for possibility, to be open all the way, like, really all the way, to what can be.

By just letting it be.

So I hugged my mother. As I did I was, truly -for perhaps the very first time- with her. I saw her. And because I saw her, she saw me.

And it was….

No.

It is…. perfect.