Feedom to go – and to return

As we kick off Pride Month, I am personally proud for two reasons. First, because I’m a lesbian. Second, because I am living an authentic life, something I wasn’t always sure I could have — both because I am a lesbian and because, as much as I love being in a couple, I also love having my time alone. I knew I had found true love when I met someone who understood that keeping me forever and happily attached is all about my feeling free.

Someone told me once that when you put children in playpens, they spend all of their time trying to escape and get into trouble. But if you just set children in the room with you — without any open flames or other obvious and immediate dangers, of course — they will likely play right nearby.

Maybe it’s more metaphor than reality, but I am that child. If you fence me in, I will spend all of my time trying to break free. But if I feel free to roam at will, I will not only spend most of my time close to home, I will also spend that time happily exploring those surroundings.

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit my best friend from high school for a week. I know my wife would have preferred that I either stayed home with her or that she come along. But the truth is she had to work, and my friend had just lost his mom, and it made more sense for me to fly solo. Upon my return, even before I touched back down in Texas, I was excitedly meal planning to spoil her and looking forward to seeing my wife and enjoying Memorial Day weekend together.

Being away does not make me long to be away more; it makes me appreciate the life I have at home more. And I have a wonderful life.

But even when you have a partner and a house and work you love, it can be easy to stop truly seeing it. It can be easy to become complacent. It can be easy to no longer want to participate fully in your own life.

For me, time away makes me want to take in every moment when I’m home. It makes me want to cook wonderful meals and go for sunset golf cart rides and host friends in our home and embark on long, meandering boat rides along the shores of the lake.

I volunteer as a bone marrow courier for Be The Match, picking up from donors across the U.S. and delivering to recipients wherever they might be. My wife travels for work. She, of course, would prefer that I travel when she does.

But it doesn’t always work out that way. I go when I’m needed.

I know it’s a pain for my wife to have the two dogs at home all day while she’s trying to work and field a zillion calls.

But her supporting me taking those trips fills me up. I feel like I’m making a difference. I get to see new cities. I venture out of our tiny lake town and remind myself of the world that lies just outside my personal slice of heaven.

I need those trips — the personal ones, the professional ones, the volunteer ones. And I am forever grateful to my wife for understanding that. I am a better version of me when I am not only actually traveling but also living with the awareness that I can hit the road any time I like, because she knows how much I need that.

I need to be out in it, and I also need time on my own. I love to be alone in a hotel room and order in local fare and watch bad TV of my choosing and stay up too late and write — or not. It makes me happy. It makes me love my wife more. It makes me want my life more. It makes me want to be present every minute when I am home.

I know it can be difficult sometimes for my wife to not take personally my desire to be alone and to be away. But her giving me that time makes me love her more, not less. I want that for myself so I can be my best self both for her and for me.

I don’t do caged or over-managed well. I know that 100 percent from experience.

None of this has anything to do with sex. When it comes to that, my wife is all I want and need. Chosen monogamy is my happy place.

But it does have everything to do with self-care. And if I can’t take care of me, I can’t take care of her — or anyone else for that matter.

Two things to keep in mind: One, just because you don’t need time away or alone doesn’t mean that’s true for your partner, and two, just because if you wanted to be alone or away it would mean you wanted to be with someone else or have another life doesn’t mean that’s true for your partner, either.

It’s imperative to never assign our feelings to our partner’s actions.

Having someone on a leash does not mean that they are yours. It’s when they don’t need a tether to draw them home that they truly are yours. My wife never clips my wings, and that it why I will always fly home to her.