Firefighting (1996)

As an adult, I've been around.

Professionally.

My professional experience has ranged from working as a Security Guard at a nursing home for the elderly (don't ask), to writing software and designing information systems for a global corporate audience.

It took some trial and error to find my niche, and some of my choices were perhaps not what I'd have preferred, but the fact of life is that when you're a young parent with a mortgage and mouthes to feed, then you take whatever work is available, even if it isn't your dream job.

I was not a good security guard, I might have been, had something actually ever been happening that required me to take any sort of affirmative action, but the truth of the security business is that 99.9% of the time, nothing happens. The rest of the time is spent staring into the abyss, or walking around the perimeter with some gadget which you used to scan labels in strategic locations, to prove that you did your rounds, every 2 hours.

Imagine that then, for 12-hour shifts, alternating between dayshifts of 08:00-20:00 and night shifts of 20:00-08:00, every 7 days, with a couple of days of free time between each cycle.

Which is hell on Earth for someone used to scanning the horizon for threats or danger.

Except this one time, when something did happen.

A fire alarm in one of the buildings close by! I leapt to my feet, instantly alert, and rushed into the building, ready to rescue anyone in distress or put out any fires.

The tenant lived on the 4th floor, I vaulted upstairs, there was smoke coming from under the doorway, not the black kind but still smoke.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

I rang the doorbell, anxiously, and waited for what felt like minutes.

Nobody answered.

Perhaps they're lying on the floor, unconscious, unable to respond.

I could picture them reaching out towards me, trying in vain to stand up as the smoke started choking them.

As a security guard, I had a master key that could unlock all doors in each apartment.

My logic was clear on this, if there was smoke and nobody was answering the door, then it had to mean danger. And danger required a response.

So I unlocked the door, pushed it open and rushed in.

I almost ended up killing the elderly woman that lived there, she'd been cooking some tasty bacon or similar, on their stove, and that had oozed to the point where the fire alarm triggered, which in turn triggered me.

She seemed close to a cardiac arrest from the shock of seeing me appear there suddenly, she didn't really seem to appreciate that I had been following protocol or that if this had been a real incident, then she would have needed actual help.

The protocol didn't include ignoring a fire alarm going off, or waiting patiently by the door until someone answered. Which logically, would have meant wating an infinite amount of time, if she had been unconscious.

Security isn't a thing for most people, when they say Security, it usually means they just want to think they are safe, without thinking about whether they actually are, or what a reasonable response to danger is.

I apologized to the matron, and backed out of the door, closing it behind me before I returned to my watchpost and the mundane. Nothing else happened.

The next day, I got summoned by my supervisor and his manager. The nice old lady had put in a complaint about the incident yesterday, saying I had barged into their apartment with no good reason.

Fortunately, they agreed with my assessment and response, once I explained what actually happened and why I'd gone in there.

It might have helped that the security logs showed that the fire alarm went off in that apartment at exactly that time, or maybe this wasn't the first time she'd set it off.

Either way, I realized this wasn't something I'd want to do for any extended period of time.

Not if I was alive, anyway.

Where There is Love

I am still married to Lilith.
We are still a family.

I live with Morgana in a different country.
She is also family.

This is not a contradiction.
It is a structure we built.

Lilith and Morgana are friends.

Lilith has learned to trust Morgana’s finely tuned asshole radar when navigating dating apps. No new boyfriend is accepted without passing inspection. No appeals process exists.

Morgana, in turn, relies on Lilith for everything involving structure, continuity, and practical reality. Morgana is chaos personified. Lilith is order incarnate.

Between them, balance emerges.

They bonded through shared experience:
dating narcissistic men, recovering from emotional wreckage, and—me.

Or perhaps I belong in that category as well, blissfully unaware.

Ignorance is bliss, they say.

But only for the ignorant.
For everyone else, it is exhausting.

Still.

When I see them in the same room—talking, laughing, trading stories and judgments and private jokes—something in my chest expands.

Not with relief.

With recognition.

Two strong women.
Both of whom I love.
Both of whom love me.
Existing in the same space.
Without competition.
Without resentment.
Without territorial fear.

Supporting each other.
Trusting each other.
Protecting each other.

Thriving.

For most of my life, love meant scarcity.
If someone gained, someone else lost.
If one bond strengthened, another weakened.

This is different.

This is abundance.

It is evidence that connection does not have to be transactional.
That care does not require hierarchy.
That intimacy does not demand exclusion.

It is proof that I did not have to repeat the old script.

That healing did not mean isolation.
That loyalty did not require erasure.
That family could be expanded rather than defended.

When I watch them together, I understand something simple and radical:

This is what breaking a pattern looks like.

Not perfection.

Presence.
Trust.
Mutual regard.

No fear-driven control.
No silent competition.
No emotional rationing.

Just respect.

Just care.

Just choice.

Every day.

If two women who have every social reason to resent each other instead choose solidarity—

If they can build something humane out of complexity—

Then maybe the world is not as broken as it sometimes appears.

Maybe repair is possible.

Maybe love can be sustainable.

Maybe safety can be shared.

Where there is love, there is hope.

And for the first time in my life,
that hope feels earned.

To Love More - Not Less

Sometime around 2014 or 2015, Lilith and I agreed to open our marriage.

It did not arrive as a crisis.
It did not come from betrayal.
It was not an escape.

It was an evolution.

By then, we had been together for over a decade. We were no longer two young explorers trying to reach the shores of some imagined future. We were two adults who had survived storms, raised children, buried people we loved, and rebuilt more than once.

We knew more.
We had lost more.
We were stronger.

Lilith was no longer the careful young woman learning how to exist in safety.
I was no longer the abandoned boy, mistaking attachment for love.

We had grown.

And growth changes shape.

Some marriages end at that point.

When you look across the table and realize the person opposite you is no longer the person you married.

Society expects that ending.

Serial monogamy.
Replacement instead of revision.
Exit instead of expansion.

It is a script with wide social approval.

We chose not to follow it.

---

Choosing Expansion

The suggestion came from her.

But it didn’t feel foreign to me.

It felt… named.

Like something we had both been circling without language.

I didn’t agree immediately.
I thought.
I read.
I listened to my fear.
I listened to my curiosity.

Then I said yes.

Not recklessly.
Consciously.

We didn’t open the marriage.

We reopened it.

We entered into a new relationship with each other under a different contract.

Not fewer commitments.

More explicit ones.

Our marriage became both less and more than it had been.

Less possession.
More honesty.

Less illusion.
More negotiation.

Less comfort in assumption.
More responsibility for clarity.

Different.

Yet the same.

---

The Harder Path

This was not the easy path.

The easy paths were familiar.

Divorce.
Affairs.
Secrets.
Parallel lives.

Society has templates for those.
There are scripts.
Support groups.
Sympathy cards.

There are none for what we chose.

Relatives tried to intervene.
Some thought it was a pathology.
Some thought it was exploitation.
Some thought it was denial.

They were wrong.

But they weren’t foolish.

They were speaking from fear.

We were not immune to pain.

We made mistakes.
We hurt each other.
We misunderstood.
We failed.

Sometimes badly.

But we never mistook failure for malice.

We learned forgiveness without erasure.
Accountability without annihilation.
Repair without humiliation.

We learned that love does not require perfection.

It requires courage.

---

Learning a New Language

This was an undiscovered country for me.

So I studied.

Obsessively.

Books.
Forums.
Essays.
Testimonies.

I discovered an entire world of people living thoughtful, ethical, complex lives outside the narrow corridor I had been shown.

We were not alone.

We were not broken.

We were not fleeing commitment.

We were redefining it.

I learned more about myself in those years than in all the decades before.

About jealousy.
About autonomy.
About fear.
About attachment.
About my reflex to disappear when things got complicated.
About my urge to over-function when things felt unstable.

I had to meet parts of myself I had avoided.

There was no hiding.

---

The Mirror

For the first time in my life, I stood in front of a mirror and asked my reflection a question:

“Would you do me the honor of going on a date with me?”

It sounds absurd.

It wasn’t.

It was radical.

The reflection looked back at me.

It hesitated.

Then it smiled.

Its eyes filled.

It was happy to be noticed.

To be chosen.

To be treated as someone worthy of care, curiosity, patience.

It told me:

You’re not crazy.
Neither is Lilith.
You’re allowed to want more than one story.
You’re allowed to grow without burning everything behind you.

It said:

The meaning is not to love less in order to feel safe.

It is to love more without disappearing.

It had been waiting for me.

All these years.

While I rescued others.
Stabilized systems.
Absorbed damage.
Managed crises.

It had waited.

For me to turn inward.

And choose myself, too.

---

Integration

Loving more did not mean loving carelessly.

It meant loving consciously.

With boundaries.
With communication.
With humility.
With responsibility.

It meant understanding that commitment is not measured by exclusivity.

It is measured by presence.

By truth.

By repair.

By staying when staying is difficult and leaving would be simpler.

This chapter was not about opening outward.

It was about opening inward.

For the first time, I stopped using relationships to prove my worth.

I began living them.

And I loved myself back.