Friends and Lovers

Sometimes life deals you an amazing twist of fate. Sometimes, the past that you thought was finally behind you spirals back around to be dealt with again, a second chance, a new solution, a different outcome. I've been dealt one of these conundrums lately, even talked to my sister, The General, about it. Her reply? A hearty laugh, and eyebrow raise, a shake of the head, and a prompt, "Yeah, well....talk to you later." LOL

The overwhelming response from my friends has been "Are you fucking serious?" "What kind of clusterfuck is that?" "And my favorite, from Len..."I want to ask, but should I just leave it alone?" LOLOL I've done a lot of laughing, I've done some crying, and I've done an immense amount of talking with two men who both have in past or at present meant the world to me. Malcolm is one. My ex is the other.

So where does this story begin? Wow, how to begin.....
Day One
Malcolm's mom has been very ill, mostly by her own hand since she won't take her meds. It was decided during her last hospital stay where her hold on life actually became tenuous that she was a danger to herself and was no longer able to live on her own. She currently resides in a rehab/nursing care facility awaiting an opening for permanent housing in an assisted living facility. People who don't take care of their parents or of sick loved ones can't understand the enormity of the stress involved in such an undertaking. Not only is there the worry and stress involved in the illness and overall decline of someone you love, but day to day is the necessity of dealing with someone who's quality of life is noticeably escaping them. They know it as well as you do, and they are angry....angry at their own bodies for failing them, angry at you for not being enough to fix everything, and angry with their health care providers for making their reality inescapable. I understand this because I am also taking care of an ailing parent. It was also something I had in common with my ex because his wife was in the hospital when I met him, just beginning the decline. So it's been the last few weeks that Malcolm has been dealing with his mother's illness, her placement, and worst of all....her anger and surliness. He also was dealing with the fact that since she's no longer living with him and helping out with the expenses that his quality of life is ebbing as well, and he was prepared to move to a smaller apartment. It made him incredibly ugly, simply because he didn't want to move, didn't want to pack, etc. Our conversations had become curt, short, and harried until one night he snapped at me. I knew something was way off because in more than a year of interacting with this man daily he's never ever snapped.

Day Two
I got an early text message the next day from my ex telling me he was leaving his Medusa...again. I've heard this five or six times, so I didn't actually place much credence in his words, kind of like hearing the Charlie Brown teacher wah wahhh wah wahhhhhh. LOLOL. But he called, not altogether upset, and told me that he was serious, and that she had asked him to move out. My first question? "What did you DO?" LOL, he didn't really have an answer, not that I expected him to have one, but he did kind of surprise me when he told me that he'd rented a U-Haul and was packing up all his shit and getting it out THAT DAY. Well, that was new, at least. All the other times he'd left he'd just walked out with a couple bags. So he told me in a hundred ways how he was serious this time. I won't lie and say I didn't roll my eyes, A LOT. LOL. I edited his accounts for him, since he called AND texted about that a few times, and then he called again to discuss what he was going to DO. Where was he going to go? He didn't have any clue, was prepared to sleep in his U-Haul until he figured it out.
Malcolm called a bit later to apologize for snapping at me, knowing I'd have been upset by it. He explained that he was singularly ovewhelmed by the task at hand, of having to sort thru his mother's effects and pack and move. I know he loves his apartment, and was loathe to move. And rightly so, it's a gorgeous place. It's incredibly spacious, and in a great neighborhood close to everything. I honestly don't know what made me say it, but I just vomited the words out at him. "If you had a roommate which made you NOT have to move, would you do it, no matter who it was?" He immediately said "YES", then retracted in fear that it was going to be me and I was going to make a rash decision to abandon my mom in favor of living with him. I assured him it wasn't me and he asked who, to which I replied "You know who it is." "Our boy?" he asked, and I confirmed it was indeed "our boy" LOL, and not Ian. My ex, lovingly named Mr in my other blogs but also known as Jachin has seemingly been a part of Malcolm's and my relationship since Malcolm and I first met. It was Malcolm that helped me get over the breakup, and let go of my anger and hostility towards him. He never made me have to get rid of him, trusting me to behave appropriately with a man who was once my lover, but became my friend. I never wanted to let Malcolm down, although it came close a couple of times. The point is I earned that trust, and continue to be "Trusted and Loved" by both men. As such, Malcolm and I have discussed Jachin a number of times, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with fatigue. But although Malcolm has questioned Jachin's judgement a whole bunch, he's never disparaged him. They became friends.
And Malcolm said Yes.
Last night they cemented the deal. I brought Jachin to the hospital to visit his wife, currently undergoing some serious procedures to attempt to stem some of the effects of her dementia. He also went to visit his new granddaughter, a happy occasion at least in all the mess. Concurrently, I left him there and went to pick up Malcolm so we could go visit his mom. It was a bad visit, she just being in a mood which set him off. Mothers have that unique ability to know all your hotspot buttons and just push them all until you lose your mind. It's kind of nice to know I'm not alone in that situation. So on our return from the nursing home, Malcolm driving, I let him know that Jachin had no place to stay until the apartment was ready for him. Malcolm knew it was going to take him about a week to clean everything out and be ready for Jachin to move in. "What are you asking me" he demanded as we drove along. "He wants to stay with me until you're ready for him, and I need to know if you are ok with that." Those were some of the hardest words I'd ever had to ask him. It's a huge thing I'm asking him for. I'm asking him to trust me in a living situation with a man who was my lover for 5 years. "He better not do anything stupid, you understand? Because if he tries shit with you behind my back, he sure as hell is gonna do something stupid when we ARE living together." And just like that he gave me his complete trust and love to do the right thing.

The two men talked for a long time last night, actually bonding just that fast. They are both looking forward to helping each other out, and I actually think that they will do well as roommates. Jachin is ridiculously easy to live with. In all the time we dated, the only thing that was ever an issue between us was his addictions. Addictions to the cell phone, to the PC, to booze, and to sex. We lived together for days on a number of occasions, and he never hassled me, nor I him. He's very amenable, and quite easy going. He's much more respectful to me now, he knows what my issues with him are, and Jachin has never stopped loving me. Thankfully, he loves me enough to not ruin my relationship. And he likes Malcolm, as does everyone that meets him. LOL, I predict a lil man crush, but Jachin insists it's not a man crush. LOLOL. They talked about biking, and hobbies, and video games, and women. There were a couple of EWW moments when they were getting crass. But Malcolm will never allow anyone to disrespect me, so I trust him to also do right by me. I may get a little jealous of their arrangement simply because I do love them both and I want to have fun with them too!! Kind of like when you have two separate friends that you enjoy spending time with, and then you introduce them to each other, and they figure out they like hanging out too. Hopefully, this new living arrangement doesn't cramp my sex life with Malcolm, cuz that would suck. I kinda feel like we can't really be open and sexual with each other in front of Jachin cuz it would hurt his feelings. But whatever, that's only gonna last so long. I'm not gonna stop how I express my love for Malcolm because Jachin's getting horned up in his own room. He'll have to deal, or he'll have to find one of his lil girlie girls to sate the need.

Jachin woke me up this morning by poking me in the butt with my morning coffee. I was so impressed with him last night. He didn't make a big deal of it, let me go to bed, and after we got Jujubear off to school this morning (who by the way is THRILLED to DEATH that her "DaddyJachin" is around, for a lil bit) he arranged for some booty and took off. I'm so happy that he found his respect for Malcolm and is abiding by his promise to behave around me. He's a good man in his heart, I've always known that. On the flip side, Malcolm is happier than I've heard him in a while...noticeably relaxed, and even excited about his new adventure. Let's hope everything goes well. Certainly hard economic times make for strange bedfellows. LOLOL