PQ 14.6 — Can the agreement be renegotiated?
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One of my favorite things to do in order to slow down, unwind, and gain some perspective is to star gaze. Sometimes it’s in the backyard fighting the light pollution of the city, but, more ideally, I find solace in the relative blackness of a dark sky park, located a good distance away from the competing city lights.
I’m awed by the stars. Sometimes it seems like everything moves blazingly fast. People are always on a rush to be somewhere. Weather can be capricious, damaging. A person’s social landscape can change overnight as loyalties shift and upset existing bonds.
But the stars, they just don’t care about any of it. The night sky that we’re looking at has changed very little in the time that’s passed since our earliest ancestors roamed the earth.
One must imagine that even then one of the most comforting sights at night were the fixed stars. Those heavenly bodies that appeared not to move: the stars other than Sol (our sun), stray nebulae and asterisms.
The planets appeared to wander across the sky, but the fixed stars stayed put.
There’s a comfort knowing that something doesn’t move, right?
Even a Fixed Star Moves #
And yet, it’s all an illusion. Fixed stars are not fixed. They do move. We just don’t see it. Because they’re moving relative to Earth and each other.
There’s an interesting lesson here — everything moves. Even if we’re not aware of it, we’re dynamic ourselves. And in order for things to stay the same, those external elements have to move relative to us.
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It’s very common as you have experiences as a polyamorous person and acclimate to consensual nonmonogamy to find that your former agreement isn’t making as much sense as it did when you first wrote it.
You’ve moved. And your agreement might need to move with you. Even a fixed star needs to readjust occasionally.
Here’s a post about renegotiating your relationship agreements.
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This post is part of a series in which I answer each of the chapter-end questions in More than Two with an essay. For the entire list of questions and answers, please see this indexed list.