Creating Space for Something Authentic

Owning What's Mine

I'm downsizing again, going through all the things I've acquired in the past four years. I'm getting rid of what's not needed and boxing up what is, taking several slow trips from Happy House—the place I shared with my nesting partner Steve in SE Portland—to the rented Mother-in-Law suite above my partner Lachlan's house in the Portsmouth neighborhood of N Portland. It's a place I'll share with my mom from time to time when she takes a break from her home in Amador County, CA.

I’m in the car with my kid telling him about the move and trips to Goodwill and figuring out what to keep, what to sell, and what to give away. Ethan says, “Yeah, mom, that’s your M.O. You keep re-committing to minimalism when you decide to move on.”

He’s right! He’s witnessed it multiple times over his 23 years on the planet with me. I make a move, adjust to my new environment, and acquire stuff that suits the version of me in that space when I settle in. Then I downsize again when I change my physical space. Each transition has been a starting over and has brought to the fore a different aspect of who I am and how I live this life—so many Mels over time.

---

Ethan and I are driving to the St. John’s Twin Cinemas to see a movie. These are our old stomping grounds. We moved to N Portland, St. John’s specifically, when E was four. His dad and I bought our first house here.

It was a funky little bungalow built in 1920 with a red door, lots of light, and a big backyard on a dead end street. St. John’s was growing—quite honestly being gentrified—in 2006. My little family was, unfortunately, part of that. It was the only area of town where we could afford to buy a house at the time. The neighborhood was scrappy and walkable. Lots of little local shops and restaurants, a Saturday Farmers Market in the spring and summer, and seasonal parades and get togethers in the tiny town square.

We met our neighbors almost instantly. Nextdoor there was an older couple, I can’t remember their names anymore. They took in foster kids and Ethan would play with the younger ones. The dad would buy fireworks every 4th of July. He’d sit back in his lawn chair smoking a cigarette while the rest of us would run down the street shooting them off and writing words in the sky with crackling sparklers.

Jinnet and Pat lived right at the start of our street next to the yellow Dead End sign. They had two kiddos right around Ethan’s age. Across the street was Amyl with her young daughter. Down the street almost to the end of the dead end looking out over an old industrial building was Sarah, her husband, and her two kids. Our street was full of feral children running around barefoot and free, picking blackberries, raising chickens, making art, playing D&D, and enjoying the world as if we actually lived in the country—even as we had a meth house just a few blocks away.

While E was not a part of the feral child experience—he was much more interested in reading, writing, analyzing movies, and devouring reference books—he was still a part of the crew. In fact, for his 9th birthday, he wrote an original script for a zombie movie called The Runining of the World. He cast the film with friends from the neighborhood and his school. The party was all about having fun shooting his film. Our corner of the world felt like a cocoon for our young families.

We called ourselves “The Dead End Gang” and we spent holidays together—Easter egg huts, trick-or-treating, and Christmas caroling. We had block parties in the summer. One year for Sarah’s birthday, my band played in the streets.

There was a lot of joy and creativity during that time. There was also a lot of struggle and pain. As the primary breadwinner of our family in a job that was becoming crushing, I felt like I was on a hamster wheel in service to those higher ups. I was also the primary housekeeper and cook at home. I was overworked and under-appreciated and I couldn't imagine continuing a life like that forever.

I was also out of alignment in my relationship orientation. Joel and I had been really good friends and creative collaborators for years—we'd run a theatre company together and written and produced original works both before Ethan was born and throughout our marriage. But we weren't in that collaborative space anymore. We were disconnecting from each other, and a lot of that came from my growing desires for relationships outside of our marriage as well as my need to shake things up in order to get out of the grind I was experiencing. The mismatch wasn't anyone's fault—we were evolving in different directions.

Joel handed me a copy of The Ethical Slut—the Bible for ethical non-monogamy¹—and I saw myself in that book. I wanted to explore alternative relationship structures as a workable option for me—a space where I could be honest about my wants, needs, and desires without cheating on my partner. Joel was monogamous and not interested in a huge dive into that world. We divorced, in part, so we could both live authentically and show Ethan what healthy relationships look like.

The journey was heart-breaking and hard for all three of us, but Joel and I became great co-parents and navigated our divorce without the “assistance” of lawyers. We focused on Ethan's wellbeing and treated each other with kindness throughout the process. We supported Ethan as a team and we remain friends today. Joel remarried to an amazing woman, Ethan inherited three step-siblings, and I dove into the world of non-monogamy.

When I think about that Mel—the wife, mother, and career woman—I know that’s me, but she also feels distant, sad, and a little lost.

It’s been fourteen years since our divorce. I spent many of those years navigating multiple relationship structures and moving partners into my space or moving in to new spaces with partners–each time I’d re-adjust and acquire new things that suited this version of me: hiking gear, loads of costumes, a commuter bike, travel supplies, bins full of onesies, stripper heels, sex toys, stacks of lingerie, DIY equipment for around the house, gardening tools, and more. As I moved on, some things stuck and others fell by the wayside.

The Mel in this moment still has a bin full of onesies, but the costumes and lingerie have been pared down to the essentials, and the stripper heels have been exchanged for Toms, Chuck Taylors, and knock off Doc Martens. The commuter bike has been replaced with an electric one and the hiking gear reduced to what’s needed on a day walk. I’ll garden or help work on the house if I have to, but you’ll have to bring your own tools. The travel supplies remain.

Behind all these material changes was deeper work happening. It took conscious effort to unlearn monogamous conditioning and discover through experimentation and reflection what actually resonated as true for me. I learned something new through each relationship².

• Matthew taught me that swinging was actually not my jam and that I had some work I needed to do around jealousy and insecurity;

• Martin taught me that I wasn’t as experienced as I thought I was just a few years into the process of de-conditioning and I needed to do a lot more internal work around how I show up in a relationship;

• Brandon taught me that it is perfectly alright to have sex for sex-sake and it can be fun and connective and we can still be friends;

• Grant taught me what loyalty looks like in the way he supports the important women in his life and I learned that it’s alright if I’m not one of them;

• Drew taught me that I deserve to be treated as valued and important even if I am one of several partners;

• My triad taught me that I do want to have a close, partnered relationship with someone where we are each others first place to go for support. I don’t always want to be the extra on the side.

For the past four years, my partners Steve and Lachlan have shown me in different ways that I am valued and fully loved and not the extra on the side. Lachlan and I have shifted our relationship into something that’s more like family than lovers. Steve and I have been living together, but that is changing now as I realize that even in a polyamorous relationship, my indoctrination regarding monogamy as the only way to have a relationship includes some very strong co-dependent tendencies. I give up too much of myself when I am living with a romantic partner. So, it’s time to work on that—and I can’t do that in a space where those routines are already set. My hope is that Steve and I will navigate my move out of Happy House and come out better, healthier, and more connected to ourselves and each other over time.

So here I am again, downsizing and moving, following that familiar pattern Ethan called out. But this time feels different—I'm creating space for something authentic. After fourteen years of learning what I don't want, I finally get to discover what I do. Maybe the real lesson isn't about finding the perfect relationship structure, but about knowing myself well enough to choose what actually serves me. At 60, I'm curious about what that might look like when I'm not trying to fit into anyone else's idea of how I should be living.

1. Ethical non-monogamy is an umbrella term for relationship structures where all people involved agree to have multiple emotional and/or sexual relationships simultaneously. Examples include swinging, open relationships, and polyamory. The Ethical Slut talks about how you can open up your relationship honestly and transparently.

2. I’ve changed the names in this list.