Chasing the Story

Sometimes the path is mine alone. Sometimes it’s ours together. Either way, I keep wandering.

When people ask how long Caleb and I have been polyamorous, I always hesitate.

We weren’t always fully polyamorous, but we were never what most people would call monogamous either. From the beginning, there was an understanding—sometimes spoken, sometimes just implied—that our relationship wouldn’t follow the standard script.

When we first started dating, I was still resisting anything that smelled like long-term commitment. I told myself it was a fear of commitment, but looking back, it was more of a refusal to surrender the life I’d built on my own terms. I still had an on-again, off-again connection with Rick, the architect, that I wasn’t ready to let go of.

By our third date, we were already talking deal-breakers.

Mine came out rapid-fire, like a list I’d been rehearsing for years:I can’t be with anyone who’s jealous. I’m a flirt—always have been, always will be—and I need a partner who’s comfortable with that. I keep friendships with old boyfriends. I need freedom, and I won’t apologize for it.

Caleb didn’t flinch. He told me he’d been in an open relationship before—more than that, his last serious partnership had been a full polyamorous household, a whole polycule living under one roof. The arrangement had imploded, in part because his primary partner had used her other relationships like weapons, dating people specifically to provoke his jealousy. He wanted nothing to do with that kind of dynamic again.

So while he was fine—more than fine—with my flirtations and my friendships, he drew one early line: no dating people in our own town.

He never used the term, but what he was asking for was social monogamy. Out in the world, we’d look like every other couple. What happened outside our zip code was another story.

Caleb had plenty of close female friends of his own. He was a rock climber, often spending weekends on trips with climbing partners. I never wanted to be the kind of partner who clipped someone’s wings, even when a particular climbing buddy stirred a flicker of insecurity in me. Early on, we’d trade stories of past flings and wild adventures. There was never any threat in those stories, only curiosity. I liked hearing about the women who had lit up his life for a weekend or a summer, and he liked hearing about the men who had done the same for me.

As a journalist, Caleb understood the power of the story—the way even the smallest details could shift the way it landed. He didn’t just collect stories for print; he collected them for life. That was part of what drew us together: a shared reverence for the human moments that don’t make the headlines but change us all the same.

Somewhere in that first year, we stumbled into an unspoken pact. If you’re out of town and the story finds you, chase it. Whether you bring it home or keep it to yourself is your choice. After all, we both believed in mutual autonomy. Neither of us owed the other an explanation. If we had an adventure, it was ours to keep or ours to share.

Some of our agreements were serious; others were stitched together with a wink. One of our favorites was the “time zone rule”: anything that happens in another time zone doesn’t count. We’d sometimes toss it out casually before one of us left for a longer trip, like a blessing and a dare all at once.

Those early agreements became the scaffolding for everything that came after—expressions of trust, freedom, and curiosity. The kind of foundation that let us breathe easy in each other’s presence.

When the world shut down years later, we found ourselves in a new house, navigating a new version of life. Small sparks began to flicker—a lingering blush from one of Caleb’s climbing friends, a growing flirtation of my own with a sailboat racer I’d met online. The old agreements were still there, but they had room to stretch, making space for whatever might come next.

By honoring our mutual autonomy, we’ve always allowed each other to grow and evolve as people. We’ve never stood in the way of one another’s personal growth—and we’ve been fortunate enough to grow together as much as we’ve grown separately. Caleb is my travel partner in life. Even when we’re not on the same trip, we’re on the same map.

Not all who wander are lost. We’ve simply agreed to wander together, for as long as we can.