There are some things that Mistress does that simply... annoys me. Annoys me, or makes me anxious in some cases, and makes me downright furious in some. It's patterns of hers, things I've been griping about more or less since our first kiss, and when she does them, I nowadays don't behave very well.
One of them appeared just now, two minutes ago when I had gotten little S ready for bed, and it was Mistress' turn to take her in to the bedroom for books and bottle. She failed to appear at her place in our well rehearsed dance of herding two-year-old, because she had to change pants first, and she needed to do that because she had vacuumed instead of doing it earlier.
And I got superannoyed, because I guessed that she had done that prioritising because we said we should try to start bedtime rituals a little earlier, and so I was fifteen minutes or so before our usual time - in the same room as her, it's not as if she didn't know when it was time to take over, or as if she hadn't encouraged me and approved of the time change.
But that's the thing. She had probably (I'm guessing here, but this is the interpretation that annoys me) decided before that she wanted to vacuum, and when the time got shorter, she simply tried to do it faster, or do more things at once, and in the end, kept me waiting. And the thing is of course not whether I can wait a minute while she changes pants, but if the "I'm not going to bed and I'll never sleep!!!" hyper two-year-old can.
But no, that's not the thing either. Even if her actions had (very unlikely) led to some sort of kidrelated disaster, making the putting to bed-procedure stretch on endlessly into the night, that's still not what's bothering me. The thing that bothers me is a trait she has, that I'm thinking now that I have to learn to accept. I mean, I'm either hers or I'm not. If I am, then I better accept that she is who she is, with the skills, traits and habits that she has, and that me running straight into walls in my effort to change her is futile and harmful to us.
When she has planned something, she is loathe to change it. She makes optimistics plans, timewise, and then, when the time runs out, she is very reluctant to let anything go, to rearrange things or skip them. Her first choice is usually to simply press on, trying to do things faster, or simply being late for other things. When I get pressed for time, I quickly reorders things, decide which things wont get done, and live with those choices. I loathe being late, and I don't want to hurry. These strategies doesn't match very well.
So now, for instance, when I'm thinking that she's followed her usual MO, and that's why she isn't ready to take the halfnaked little elf and put pyjamas on her when I hand her over, it stirs up memories of all the other gazillion times our respective strategies has crashed in to eachother, and I've been forced to be late, to hurry, to stand frustrated and helplessly by while she's stressed out and running around in the last minute, angry about not finding her stuff, and the feeling of shame and helplessness that accompanies those memories. I feel like that again, then, humiliated, angry and helpless, and what comes out is annoyance.
And yeah. This isn't working. It takes our energy, it makes us argue, and it makes me miserable with myself because I behave in ways I don't want to, and honestly, I think she's rather sick of me behaving like this too.
Because really. If she wants to vacuum the kitchen floor, no matter the time or the circumstances, that's her damn prerogative. I have no business telling her how to do thing, or how to prioritise, whether I like it or not. It's not even that her way isn't in any way less effective than mine (becuase in many other ways, I'm absolutely lousy at time management), even if it was my choice isn't between her way or my way, my choice is between belonging to her or not. And if I choose to belong, that have to include decisions I may not have made. In otherwise, what would the point.
When Mistress comes out from the bedroom, I'm going to apologise to her, not for doing anything wrong, necessarily, but for thinking it. And most probably, projecting it with eyes and stance and the curving of my eyebrows... And next time, I'll try to do better, and remember that I don't have to like the way she does things - but I do have to behave and submit, if I want to belong to her.
(And I do. I really, really do. Even if it means being late, or hurrying, or the floor being vacuumed at times that to me seems odd.)
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