December 2018 – Page 2 – Speaking of Polygamy…

So you think you have sock problems? I promise they are nothing like ours.

You see, I buy socks for the husband, and I wear his socks too – because they’re good socks from Costco. So he wears the socks I get for him, but drops them off in the laundry at Charlotte’s house and they don’t come back to me for I don’t know how long because she also provides socks to him, but they’re not the socks I wear. So, I find that I rapidly run out of socks because they could be anywhere. Joshua’s drawer at my house, my laundry, Charlotte’s laundry, Joshua’s drawer at Charlotte’s house or maybe even Charlotte’s drawer, because she might be wearing them too – and I hope she is because they are good socks from Costco.

Plus I’m getting socks from Charlotte’s house that are not the socks I have purchased. And let’s not forget the multiple washing machines eating them, or the misplacement of clean socks into someone else’s drawer – because I have not announced that I’ve purchased new socks, and the child doing laundry has no idea where they came from or where they go. I believe there is a pair or two in a brother’s drawer.

I brought all of this up with other family members yesterday, and tonight Charlotte presented me with a pile of socks that she only has one of.

I know that at for least three of them, I have mates in my box of lonely socks. Likely, it’s both of our washers eating them, and we have enough to have more pairs of monogamous socks.

So anyway, there is a glimpse into the lives of polygamist sock drawers. And speaking of socks, I’m going to get some more of those socks. Crew, blue and gray. They are great!

I met Sophie* more than two years ago because of our shared interest in home birth.

I never told her my marital status.

It wasn’t relevant to a relationship.

She was interested in my head covering, so it was a point of conversation which led to sharing somewhat of my beliefs. I shared what we did with Biblical feasts and what, in the context of Mormonism, I have come to believe about them. Sophie was very interested in my points of view regarding religious and spiritual matters, and we had shared child birthing, feeding, and rearing points of view.

I wanted to go over to her home often, but life is just busy, and my plan to teach her how to make challah never got off the ground.

When our Chanukah party came up, and we had a Facebook invite list, I was mentally going through who I wanted to come to it and Sophie popped into my brain.

So, not really thinking about it beyond sharing our feast with her, I sent an invitation via Facebook and she responded positively.

I wasn’t really sure how to confront the polygamy issue, so I decided to wait until she was actually there and tell her face to face on my porch. I’m kind of in a place of just telling people when they are in circumstances that will lead them to find out anyway. It’s probably not the safest but it gives absolute clarity on where they stand, and I get to do it in a take-it-to-the-front format.

However, two hours before the party began, right in the middle of preparations, I got a phone call from my son who happened to be in town. I hadn’t seen him for 9 months. He is in the Army and been deployed to Afghanistan. I really, really want to maintain this relationship for many reasons, but it’s kind of been on sketchy, tenuous threads and definitely on his terms. So I opted to leave the party preparations, visit him, and get back as soon as I reasonably could.

Well, I didn’t give the heads up to Joshua and Charlotte because I thought I could get back early to take care of disclosure.

That didn’t work out.

I got a text from Sophie, asking for the address and I gave it to her.

As time ran later, I began to worry about getting back on time but there wasn’t a definitive point to leave and I finally just said that I needed to leave. I got in my car and checked my messages.

Imagine my absolute relief when the last text message appeared on my screen.

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