So today is my birthday. I hadn’t been looking forward to it the last couple months because a lot of stuff had been in flux and unsure. My partner and I had plans to move in together with his roommates into a new house. that whole plan turned into a hufe mess. his friends ended up not allowing us to live with them but wouldnt tell us why. I thought my partner would have no place to live since we’d had a bad experience with my community where i allowed my partner to use the property for a parole visit without consulting the community. it was a rash split second decision that was not fair to the community. but my partner was in such a shit situation and i believed he deserved better. the community was not too eager to get to know him after that, which is understandable, and i thought that the possibility of him joining had been lost. a couple of members had spoken with me and admitted some things that made me uncomfortable. about my judgement and decision making. i felt belittled. i wished sometimes people could trust that i dont just make horrible decisions all the time. but considering the abundance of partners i’d had and maybe i’d been unobservant to some things, maybe i deserved it? i don;t believe so. i wanted so badly for them to give my partner a second chance. i thought maybe if they could see what i could, that they too would understand what i did and why i love him.
it seemed a little hopeless. i’d been slowly spending lees days at the community and more with kevin, wherever he was. sleeping on floors and small couches. turns out most of my community noticed that after we talked about kevin, that i was not very present. i felt like my friends and even my partner were not welcome. after about a month and the after thinking i was going to make a quick move, one of the members approached me. we had a conversation about reasons why i wanted to leave. i confessed how i felt. i was surprised when she suggested i readdress kevin staying. she said she felt the last time we’d talked didn’t end quite on a good note. she wanted to try to get to know kevin a bit better and get the community to as well and see where things went. i was so happy that she brought it up and that it seemed she wanted me to stay enough to try something to appease me.
kevin came around and helped around the property. spent some days helping around the property and mingling with the community. he filled out and application, which just gave details about the person, and he was invited to our next meeting to hear the decision on his stay. i was really only worried about one particular person who seemed to be the only one not coming around. she has had a lot of unfortunate circumstances which she held against kevin because of some likenesses. i spoke to her before the meeting and she still held to her idea of refusing him.
so when the meeting came around i wasn’t very confident. i brought up her decision and she broke into a rage when people tried to understand why exactly she didnt want to. nothing she came up with really made sense. i wasn’t even asking for a permanent stay at first but maybe a month or two until we found another place. but one by one each other member of the community stood up for kevin and i and stated that they thought he deserved a trial here and that they all felt he could be forgiven for the rash decision that was made before. he’d explained why he was on parole and his past and i could see everyone but the one negative person smile in understanding and acceptance. the one girl just fumed in self anger over the evident over ruling. as the last person agreed to a trial i cried because what i really wanted was to stay with kevin in the community, but i didnt think it would happen. after everyone shared i asked the one person how she felt about maybe just a trial or doing only a month or two, since he had nowhere to go. and since we are a community, jsut because everyone else is in agreeance, doesnt mean that the decision is made. she asked for a few days to think about it. its been a week and she hasn’t said anything and she hasn’t spent a night on the property since.
despite that kevin has stayed here almost every night. we spent two days off the property to give her space but since she wasnt even here i asked if it would be ok with everyone who was present if he stayed and everyone was fine with it. now i have the other community members telling me that i don’t need to worry, that they are pretty sure she wont have a good reason not to let him stay temporarily if not longer. that shes not really much of a member with how absent she is anyway. and its rude that shes putting everyones lives on hold, because if we have to leave they have to find new roommates fast.
i was so happy when my community stood up for me. i felt like my presence was wanted. it was a delightful feeling.
its been wonderful having kevin in my community with me. at first we were hesitant to get comfortable, but slowly that has melted away. i feel so comfortable and happy with him. theres no pressure or rush. its nice to have someone to fall asleep next to and spend time with again.