Ep 149: Fox Tales: Two Relationships, Two Homes, One Big Change with Jacqueline Misla

artwork by the talented @alvarocastrodesign

How do you break out from societal norms? What does it take to design a relationship that you can thrive in? What happens when you open your mind to all the possibilities? 

In this week’s episode, we bring you another installment of Fox Tales: stories of people who are living, loving and connecting in unique ways. Jacqueline balances a life with her daughter, her wife, and her partner living between two homes. Jacqueline tells the story of how she went from a hetero-mono-normative marriage, to this very unique parallel poly vee relationship. 

To find out more about Jacqueline
Jacqueline Misla is a queer, Latine, mother, polyamorous partner, writer, podcaster, and change strategist. She works with companies and individuals to create pathways towards audacious and impactful change. Jacqueline holds a Master's Degree in Social Work, and is certified in Complex Change Theory and Strategic Visioning.

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Curious Fox @wearecuriousfoxes
Effy Blue @coacheffyblue
Jacqueline Misla @jacquelinemisla

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TRANSCRIPT:

Effy

Welcome to the Curious Fox podcast, for those challenging the status quo in love, sex and relationships. My name is Effy Blue. This week, we're coming to you with another installment of foxtails where we bring you stories of people who are living, loving and connecting in unique ways. No, Jacqueline, again, I hear you ask. Actually, quite the contrary. This week, Jacqueline and her unique relationship constellation is the subject of our foxtails. Jacqueline and I met when she was seeking support for her relationship with her wife. They wanted a coach to help them navigate the infidelity. You can hear all about this on episode 63 and 65. Highly recommended. And they wanted to figure out a non monogamous relationship structure they can thrive in. I coach on this idea of relationship by design, as opposed to relationship by default, which is unfortunately where most of us end up. Relationship by design is about consciously and dynamically designing relationships in a way we can thrive consciously, because we want our relationships to be aligned with our own needs and values. Not society's not our mom's not Hollywood's but ours dynamically. Because we want to be active in the way we make choices in about relationships, and the way we resolve conflict and be fully engaged in the process. We need to have skills and tools and know how to be able to do that. And we design, we design for our thriving state, whatever that looks like for us. Figuring out our thriving state requires a ton of self inquiry, a ton of unlearning and dismantling, and a lot of reflection, and truly designing a relationship for thriving, not for surviving, takes a ton of courage. When Jackie and I started working together, Jackie really embraced this way of looking at relationships and she went to work. She shed all the influences that clouded her judgment and disconnected her from her desires. She pushed past the discomforts and opened her mind to possibility. What she has designed for herself is by no means for everyone. But it is truly inspiring, and demonstrates the boundless ways we can love, live and connect. Enjoy this latest installment of foxtails.

Jacqueline

My name is Jacqueline Misla, and I'm 41 years old. I was born and raised in New York City. I am a chain strategist, a consultant, a podcaster, and a mom to a magnificent 12 year old girl. I am married, and I've been with my wife for almost 10 years. And I have a partner who I've been with for four years, I split my time between the two of them moving from one home to the other every other week. If you want to get fancy about it, we have a parallel Polly Lee relationship, which basically means that I'm in relationship with both of them. And they are not in relationship with each other or currently anybody else. balancing these two relationships has been both the wildest and the most natural thing that I have ever done. And I had no idea that this was possible. My life certainly did not always look like this. I was the epitome of hetero mono normativity I was married to a great guy, we had a big home, a gorgeous daughter a good job, a hybrid car, and the esteem of friends and family. I had a wonderful life. But it wasn't mine. It was a life that I created based on what I thought I should have, based on the formula that society says is going to lead to happiness and frankly, based on how I wanted others to perceive me. My philosophy was that if I was going to do anything I should be great at and so if you gave me a list of expectations, I was going to exceed them. It was my way of trying to exert some control in a world where I felt like I was either too much or not enough. Now I played a role for a long time. Worse yet, I don't even think that I realized that I was playing a role. I thought that that discomfort that I felt inside was Shame, shame for desiring more. But it wasn't shame. It was fury. The control that I use to fit the mold actually masked my indignation, but I was paying so much attention to exceeding everyone else's expectations that I didn't realize that in my attempt to play by their rules to win the game of life, I was actually just losing myself. That was a lesson hard earned. But I learned it. And I would love to tell you how I got there. I met my husband when I was 21. We were in college poetry class. And while I was exploring my trauma and pain via verse, he was creating rhymes about Garbage Pail Kids. I was focused and ambitious and organized. And he was spontaneous and athletic, and funny. We fell in love. We got jobs, we went on adventures, we lived abroad, we settled into life together. And after five years, we got married. And three years later, we had a baby. I was probably a little after my daughter turned two, when everything changed, and everything fell apart. In addition to the stress of being new parents, the different ways that we saw and showed up in the world began to take its toll. After 10 years of being together, the things that once drew us together, were now pushing us apart. That structure, that ambition that I brought to the marriage eventually started to feel like nagging. And that lightness and play that he brought eventually started to feel like laziness. I wanted him to work harder, harder for our life harder for our relationship, particularly now that we had a kid and he wanted me to chill out and to stop pushing him so much. And we were both right. We were barely in our 30s. At that point, we still had a lot to learn, you know, looking back 10 years later, I understand the situation with much more humility and empathy. And I'm very sure that I would have done things different now. But that was the best we could do at the time. Neither of us were wrong. And yet, it did not feel right. It also felt super cliche. I was the nagging wife, he was the lazy husband, there was a crying baby, we never had sex anymore. Like it was just so predictable. And I did not want to live a predictable life. So that compounded my overall state of frustration and disappointment. Now, the one thing that was not predictable about me is that I was an am queer and non monogamous. Now I didn't have that language at the time, those were not words or ideas that were accessible to everyone, then I just knew that I wanted to have multiple connections and that I never wanted to feel limited. I talked to my ex husband about this before we got married about how I wanted to be able to explore other opportunities and how important it was for me to be open to possibility. And he agreed, I think kind of generally and philosophically, he was like, Yes, sure. Because at that point, I don't think that it felt like it was a threat to our relationship. And throughout our marriage, I kept alluding to it, we would both mentioned the hot girl by the pool and the thong bikini, you know, we would play with the idea in our minds, but it wasn't real for him, I think. And so the towards the end of my relationship with my ex husband, I started to build a friendship and an emotional connection with my then colleague, and now spoiler alert, my now wife, our connection felt like it was feeding me in a way that my marriage was not. And I think I started to close myself off to him. He saw the signs of the building connection and but I just kept brushing it off. And so after a while of trying to work on my relationship with him and make sense of my feelings for her, I finally dug deep and I had a conversation with him to say officially that I wanted to open up. He did not want to open up and he was hurt that I developed feelings for somebody else, particularly because I had been gaslighting him and myself by saying that it was all nothing. He was angry. He felt like I was trying to change the dynamics of our marriage. I felt like I was acting within our agreement to be open to possibility and opportunity. And neither of us were wrong. But yet, he admitted that he had also not been happy in our relationship but that he had been willing to stick it out before because it was the right thing to do. But now this request to open up felt like permission to let go of a relationship that was already struggling. We were heartbroken. We separated and my daughter and I moved to Manhattan. We started the divorce paperwork. And then I began dating my wife. My wife is a force of nature. You can probably hear her laughing from a block away. She is charismatic and has a presence that can fill the room. She can be both larger than life and deeply intimate at the same time. She could be speaking to 500 people, but it feels like she's talking just to you. And if you want something done, well, you go to her. She's the only person that I have ever met, who could outwork me. We both wanted to change the world. And we were going to do that with the help of whiteboards and flip chart paper and Excel spreadsheets. I thought that she represented all of the things that I felt like I was missing in my first marriage, and she was also non monogamous. Now, I introduced the idea of non monogamy to her but it resonated immediately, she had a long string of relationships before me that ended when she would develop feelings for someone else. And so the idea of being in a relationship that left room for her to have feelings for someone else, was revolutionary to her. And she was in immediately. We dated, we moved in with each other and we got married after five years, all of which was pretty hard for my family. They struggled with me getting divorced, they struggled with me falling in love with a woman, they just, they just struggled. It took a number of years to work through that. And now of course, like everyone else who comes in contact with her, my family loves her too. So here I am. I am deeply in love for the second time and ready to live happily ever after. But of course, things really go that smoothly. A month before we got married, I found out that she was in love with another woman.

It turns out that several months earlier, a friendship turned into flirtatiousness, which turned into feelings and eventually into love. But all of this happened in secret. And that is certainly not how I thought that my marriage would open up. That is not what I thought that monogamy would look like infidelity aside, which took two years for me to heal from by the way, I realized that we had very different ideas of what non monogamy meant. When I thought about non monogamy, I assumed that there would be hierarchy, that there would be the main relationship, and there would be the side connections. Of course, that's not my perspective now. But that was my vision. Then I pictured traveling to Greece, to meet some tan and gorgeous person and have a magical two weeks of engaging in all of the Earthly Delights. She, on the other hand, pictured being in a committed relationship with someone else and expanding her life and her heart to make room for them. We did not go into this level of detail when we talked about opening up. Instead, the conversation probably went something like this, I want to be open to you want to be open, you do great. Let's go to dinner and celebrate. And then we had a glorious couple of years of ignorant bliss, where we were just so wrapped up in each other and building a life together that neither of us explored anything with anyone else. And everything was great. Until it wasn't eventually her old patterns took over. And I think that this is true with a lot of folks, you start flirting with someone one day and you say, Well, I'm not going to tell my partner about it, because it's gonna bother them. And it's not that serious and, and then you sort of feelings and you're like, oh, I don't know if I should tell my partner about this because they might feel jealous and, and there's a reason to be, I'll be careful, there's nothing to worry about. And then it starts to become more serious and more intense. And you know, at that point, you feel like it's too late. And of course, I knew this story all too well, in a grand gesture of cosmic karma. I had found myself on the other side of this story, this time, their connection was building, she brushed it off. And then one day, she realized that they were deeply in love. And remember, this is a month before we are supposed to get married. So at this point, I don't have a very good track record with non monogamy in high school and college and no one that I dated want it to be in an open relationship and frankly I was made to feel like a freak for wanting to explore it. And then when I was married once again, I tried to explore non monogamy and it was the catalyst to our separation and then our divorce. And now when I was finally in a non monogamous relationship, the first experience in either one of us had the opening up, started with my wife having a secret love affair. I had been fighting for this thing my whole life. And it just felt like I kept getting knocked down. And that's how I think that you know that something is a deeply part of who you are, when it makes no sense to do it, when it causes you discomfort if you do it when your life is gonna get harder if you do it. But then something deep inside of you, you just know that you have to keep doing it. I knew that I was not monogamous. I knew that I was a very sexual person, I knew that I did not want what everyone else had. But it was something that was shamed out of me as a kid, by my parents, by religion by culture. And so I pushed it down, and I followed all the rules. And I got the husband and the kid and the House and the job and all of the things and everything. They said that would bring me happiness, but I was not happy. And finally, when the unhappiness overpowered how I wanted people to see me, I deconstructed everything, and rebuilt my life in order to be happy. So instead of pushing myself down, I pushed other people's rules aside, I quit my job and were to consult, I started to embrace my sexuality, I married a woman, I had a non monogamous relationship, I put forth the effort to live other people's vision for me. And so I decided that I was going to continue to put the effort into manifesting the vision for myself for my relationship with my wife. And it took effort, because not only was there emotional infidelity, but she had every intention of continuing her relationship with this other person. Imagine that, generally, when there is an affair, one person finds out and confronts their cheating partner, and the affair ends in order to focus on and repair the marriage or the primary relationship. But because we were open, that was not what she wanted. Essentially, she said, I realized that I hurt you. And I am sorry about that. And I want to work to rebuild our relationship. But we are open, and I don't want to ruin my relationship with her. Now, it was like a punch in the stomach. You know, the first time with my ex husband, I initiated the change. But the second time around with my wife, the change came from me. And it took me a minute to regain my balance. But you know, just like the overachievers that we are, we stayed, we work to heal what we had broken. And it took a lot of work, to get back to a place of trust and to make room in my life for this woman that she loved. Because at the end of the day, philosophically, I did want to be open. That structure, the dynamic, that freedom, that autonomy, it did speak to me. But the whole thing, working on healing this working on building trust, it consumed two years of my life. It was two years before I was able to rebuild an emotional safe relationship with my wife, and redirect my attention to my life outside of my marriage. Two years before something started to shift inside of me, I finally realized that the more full my life was, the more I was focused on my job and my pleasure. And frankly, the busier that I was, the less I was paying attention to what my wife was doing. I started running, I went out with friends, I would go on solo dates to museums and restaurants. I took boudoir photos for my birthday, I caught up on movies that my wife never wanted to watch. I went on adventures with my daughter. And there were days I would just wake up and say to myself, what is it that you want to do today, which is not something that I remember ever asking myself before. And then I would go and do that thing. And that's when I was finally able to sign up for dating apps and go to Open love NYC events and curious Fox events. And finally just start dating Qatar New Year's Eve 2018. I am on OkCupid. And I see this profile of this a hot woman with this. You can't define me non binary energy. And her profile was clever and was sweet. And so I swipe right and it is a match, sir texting each other. And I jump straight into it because at this point, I've been on apps for a while I've been on a number of dates, and I refined my language about me, my open relationship and what someone could expect of me. By then I had realized that despite my vision for this wild and free tryst on the beaches of Greece, that after being in relationship since I was 16 years old, I actually knew only how to be a girlfriend or a wife. And this became embarrassingly obvious to me when this guy that I was really into, broke it off after a few great dates because I was unknowingly girlfriend being him. I had been texting him good mornings and good nights. I called him after doctor's appointments to see how it went. And essentially, to no one's surprise, I was not being chill. And so after that, I drafted a few paragraphs that described exactly what someone could expect of me. And I told my new OKCupid match all about my girlfriend and tendencies and my non monogamous relationship. And she was still interested. So we met up at Berkeley poly event, and it was like a movie. It was actually one of the only times in my life when the fantasy in my head took place in real life. Everyone disappeared, and we just kind of floated towards each other in the middle of the room, and kissed. She has a warmth, and an energy that makes you feel like you've known her forever. She is incredibly thoughtful and caring, she is a fantastic cook. And

she can make me feel weak, with just the raise of her eyebrow. And now it's been four years and we are still together. And I should stop and say that yes, I am very aware of the fact that I said that this is exactly not what I wanted out of non monogamy that there was no trip to Greece and no sex on the sand. But when it came time to listen to my inner compass, they pointed to her. She brought the lightness and playfulness and fun and freedom that had been missing since my marriage with my ex husband ended. And so finding her felt like finding the missing piece of a puzzle. It was the balance that I didn't realize that I needed, because my partner and my wife are very different. I will give you an example, the last vacation that I went on with my wife before COVID, we went to Whole bunch Mexico, it's probably took us eight hours to get there because going a whole bunch requires a plane, a bus, a ferry and a car. But the hustle was worth it because it is core Jess, it is this beautiful little place with art on almost every wall and beaches that just restore your soul and the most incredible sunsets that I have ever seen. Whereas with my partner, we've actually never gone on vacation together, we've opted instead for staycation activities, one of which included turning our living room into an indoor campout complete with the tent made out of bed sheets, and a roaring fire on the TV and twinkle lights for stars and s'mores on the stove tap. And it was one of the most magical nights of my life. My relationship with my wife is filled with big dreams and deep conversations, a drive to change the world and a work ethic that is able to manifest all of it. And my relationship with my partner is filled with spontaneity and ease and play and the desire to enjoy the deliciousness of simple things I need and I want both. I think that too much of one or the other would not be good for me. It's the balance that has helped me feel fully seen. And I've also learned not to just rely on them to feel fed. It actually is a lesson that I learned from my first marriage that it is not the responsibility of one person or even to people in my case to fill every need. My romantic partnerships cannot be my everything. It takes a village to love a Jackie. I need friends, colleagues, family flirt buddies, and all of the people in my beautiful complicated world to tap into all of the parts of me that want to feel fully expressed. And that also includes plenty of time on my own, which is actually a beautiful transition to some of the hard things about being in this relationship construct. It would not be fair for me to highlight all of the lovely parts and leave out the parts that suck. First of which is it is really hard for me to find time for myself. When my wife and my partner both have a week on their own to do their own thing. I am always living with someone. So this is how it works. Every other week my daughter switches between my house and her dad's house. He lives a few blocks away and he and I are still friends and we're great co parents and so each Wednesday she switches from one house to the other and when she saw Choose Soto i. So on the weeks that she's with me, where are home with my wife, and the weeks that she's with her dad, I go home to my partner. And just as a side note, for those who are blown away when they say that I move back and forth each week, because I love to people, that is exactly what millions of divorce children do, back and forth from one parent to the other, for good or bad. And it has become normalized. So just saying, maybe my situation is not that abnormal. And going from partner to partner means that I am rarely alone, it has forced me to learn how to pay attention to my needs, and to name them when I need some space on my own or with friends. And both my wife and my partner are incredibly supportive of this. But it's still hard. I feel guilty, because I know that they are already getting only a part of my time, and that my time on my own carves into that even further. And I want each of them to feel loved and prioritized and connected. Which leads me to another difficult aspect of this structure, is it everyone is always missing someone, every time I say goodbye to either of them, it is hard. And I thought this feeling would go away in time. But it's been four years, and it is still hard and awkward. I know that it's mostly in my head. But even after all this time, it feels strange to say goodbye to one person, knowing that they know that I am going to see the other person. They have a great deal of respect for each other, and they have a good relationship with each other. But they're not friends, I would say that they're friendly. We quarantined together for a few weeks at the start of COVID, which is a story unto itself. And they hang out during events like our annual Halloween party, but honestly, that's about it. Our lives and my time with each person is very separate. I know that in some poly relationships, everyone hangs out with each other regularly and they have brunch or they go on vacation. But that is not the case with us. So because everything is so separate, I have to make it a point to reach out to me via text or phone or video with whomever I'm away from so that we can still feel connected. And sometimes that's just sending a heart emoji back and forth. Whenever we're thinking about the other person. Sometimes it's scheduling a call or video chat with them. Sometimes it's leaving little messages on post, it's around the house that they can find when I'm away to remind them that I love them. Which of course is also difficult too, because I try really hard to be present wherever I am. And so it's a challenge to balance both being present with the person that I'm with staying connected to the person that I am not with and making time for myself, while not taking on anyone's disappointment. The only way through it that we have found is with love and trust and communication. We have created space where each person can be honest and share when their cup is not feeling full. And then we can work together to figure out what to do to pour into that connection. So for example, at some point a year or two ago, my wife shared that she wanted more alone time together. Because the way that we had structured things, I was only home with her when my daughter was home. And while she loves my daughter and having family time with the three of us, she also wanted child free time with me. So we chose some weekday nights than and I would stay with her when my daughter was with her dad and decided that of the two child free weekends that I had a month that I would spend one with my wife and one with my partner. And of course then that was hard for my partner because even though she understood and she was supportive, I'm mindful of the fact that due to the nature of my marriage, and the number of years that I've been with my wife, my partner can sometimes feel like she gets the short end of the stick. There are holidays and summers that are very hard because my wife and I both have big families. So there are holiday parties and summer vacations. And apart from it being a scheduling nightmare trying to move all the dates around on the calendar so that no one feels shortchanged. I know that it's just a reminder that it can feel like I am a full time partner on the part time basis. And so while my wife is envious of the child free couple focus time that I have with my partner. My partner is envious of the fact that my wife is my wife. My partner and I are not able to get married, and I know that it's hard for her. We had a ceremony with each other and we exchanged rings and we share a home and bills and health proxies and still I understand that It is not the same as being married. There are many emotional minefields to navigate in a polyamorous relationship, especially when it comes to jealousy. From the beginning, there was tension around physical intimacy in my relationship, because, frankly, neither person was thrilled about the idea of me even sleeping next to someone. And it was hard for me to get used to the idea of being with somebody else. I remember the first time that I slept over my partner's house, it just it felt so weird. I kept wondering how my wife was feeling and was processing my own feelings around it. And then, of course, when I left, I was thinking about how my partner was feeling. And I was processing my feelings around that. So with things like this, in this instance, time has been the only thing that has made things less awkward. Sometimes, you just have to sit with the discomfort of at all and just give it space, give space to feelings, and, and to communicate concerns and desires and needs. And no one has ever asked what happens on the other side, and I'm not going to force them to talk about it. I've simply focused on making sure that both my wife and my partner feel seen and loved and sexy. And I work really hard not to fix it. And instead just to let people feel their feelings, including me, in another area where it feels sometimes like a mind field is money. Money can be another source of tension. My wife and I, we share bank account and mortgage and retirement plan and life insurance. And we have detailed plans for how we would like to invest in our home and in our future. And my partner and I, we split the expenses and our Brooklyn apartment. And we have a joint Debit Card to pay all the household bills and we buy each other gifts and spend money in activities and discuss what we want our life to look like in five years and how we're going to fund it. And when I started to transition from just sleeping over my partner's house occasionally to officially moving in and splitting the cost. It resulted in a lot of difficult conversations with my wife about money. It was one thing to spend money on dates or gifts, but another thing to make a financial commitment to another home, particularly because I was splitting the expenses, but only they are part of the time. And so we had long conversations about our feelings around money, our shared values and commitments and how to design a system that prevented resentment, we created financial tears. First, our income would go to our shared financial commitments like our home and health insurance and car and retirement etc. Then we would put money towards our shared goals, including household renovations and vacations or family activities. And then we would each have personal commitment free money that we could do with what we pleased. And so when my wife was in a partnership with somebody else, she used that money for dates and gifts, and now they're no longer together. So she uses the money for excursions with her friends or new clothes or gadgets. And then I use my personal money towards my life with my partner. On the other side, my partner and I have created our own agreements around money and budgeting and financial commitments. We are both on the lease for our apartment, we have savings together and we're working towards our goals around traveling and real estate and retirement. And a pay for all of this stuff. I have had to work a lot. While my wife is workaholic. For a long time my partner did not like how much I worked. She was annoyed with my late nights and my weekend projects. And I was annoyed that she was annoyed because I felt like I needed to take on any work that I could because I felt the pressure and the guilt about contributing to to households. And so since I have made changes to my business, I have stopped undervaluing my work. And now I can afford to have a healthy work schedule. But it can still feel hard to shake the money and the worry of stress about paying bills in two places. Non monogamy at least the way that we are practicing it takes privilege. And I want to name that privilege, multiple bills, multiple birthday and holiday gifts and so many groceries. I know that I couldn't afford to do this if we were worried about our next paycheck or if we were in debt because of health care costs. I grew up in a home where we worried a lot about money. I remember my dad staying up late into the night and he had his notebook and his calculator. And he was just trying to figure out how to make all the numbers work and my mom saying that she wasn't hungry and only buying food for myself and my siblings to eat and because of their sacrifice Is and their focus on me getting a good education and starting work young, I probably make more money in a year than my parents made combined in two or three. And even though I work like hell to be able to get to a place to make decent money, sometimes I still feel like that 10 year old kid who's digging through the couch cushions looking for coins in order to get a snack at the corner store. It was only a year ago that I stopped carrying a suitcase back and forth because I had refused to buy two sets of things. And thus, I would cart my makeup and my skincare and my running shoes and my office supplies on my podcast equipment just back and forth. And it was my wife and my partner who had to sit me down and tell me how ridiculous that was. And who finally encouraged me to buy two sets of the things that I needed for each home. And all of this is helping me not only heal the wounds around scarcity and scarcity of of time of money of sex of love. It's helped me role model different behaviors and mindsets for my daughter. She has bore witness to the evolution of my life and my relationships and she is paying attention. And she has watched as I've learned how to take care of myself as much as I take care of others, and how I make budgets and work towards financial goals and how I communicate with my wife and my partner and work through conflict with love and respect. She's watched her mom who by all accounts looks completely normal on the outside build this life that is currently anything but

and I am grateful for the love and support that my relationship design has brought to her. And the relationship between my partners and my daughter is equal parts love and sarcasm. She she doesn't see them as parental figures. They're just important adults in her life. My wife plans adventures for the three of us around the city and brings flowers to every dance recital in school play and role models partnership and love in the way that she cares for me. And my partner and my daughter obsess over dogs and they laugh at ridiculous jokes. And they delight and commiserate in their ADHD brains, which is incredibly helpful for me as a neurotypical person obsessed with task lists and organization and schedules. Our family, as well as a number of birthday and Christmas gifts has grown because of my open relationships, all of which makes her very happy. And so we come full circle, I had followed society's formula for happiness, and it left me feeling like a stranger in my own life. So I allowed myself to deviate from the path and build a life that I had no idea was even possible. And it is the first time in my life where my outsides match my insides. It is the first time when all of the things that I wanted, but were too afraid or ashamed to ask for the things that I wanted from my life and for my relationship that I would write in my journal, and then scratch it out because it felt too audacious to even dream of it is the first time when those secret things do not have to be a secret anymore. I listened to my inner compass, had a lot of uncomfortable conversations, messed up and tried again, and started to live a life in possibility. And the evolution of my life has allowed me to trust and embrace the freedom of not knowing what's going to happen next. And it is scary as hell. But what feels scarier is ending my life without having fully lived it. And so I think that all the logistics, and the complications and the disappointments and the conversations, it is all hard. But the life that I was living before was hard. Suppressing parts of myself to fit in and appease others was hard. Watching my life happen without living it was hard. And so frankly, it is going to be hard either way. I would rather it be hard and have peace of mind and have a sense of freedom, then it'd be hard and feeling unseen and unfulfilled.

Effy

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