Being open and with friends

We had friends over this weekend, two whole families actually. Two couples with their kids came and stayed the night and it was really nice. Even more special since we're all doing BDSM. Not together, that is, there were no play and no overt dominance going on at all.

But there's something about hanging out with people I can be open with that matters a lot to me. It's not that I say or do anything in particular. It's just that I'm more comfortable, more myself. More in love with Mistress, too. Knowing that I don't have to hide makes a big difference, even if the hiding usually isn't all that taxing.

I guess it's like getting out of uncomfortable clothes. It's one thing to stand it when you have to wear them all the time, but when you can take them off for a while it feels really really good.

Trust (and crying and misunderstandings and a water crisis).

Yesterday when I was snot-crying into my pillow my mind was filled with very real thoughts about our relationship being over. I didn't see any way forward at that moment, and even though part of me knew I was being very much overly dramatic another part was very very sincere in the idea of "this is it - I can't go forward from here".

When we were arguing, or rather trying to solve things instead of arguing, I hugged Mistress, rested my head against her chest and asked "Can I trust you?". Meaning "I want to trust you, no matter what, I don't care what just happened, I don't care about our problems - if you say you'll be there, I'll believe you, and everything else will take care of itself. Just tell me I can trust you, and I will."

That's what I meant, and that's what I was expecting an answer to. That was, however, not how she interpreted the question, and she answered, calmly and with sincerity: "No".

So there. For me, that was kind of it. I tore lose, told her she made me panic and that I couldn't believe she just said that. She changed the subject and went to check on some practicality. I told her to go to Hell, ran upstairs, slammed the door, threw myself on the bed and cried.

For me, her answer was practically the same as thrusting a divorce paper under my nose. If she herself says I can't trust her - how can I? And if I can't trust her, if she doesn't even bother about trying to behave in a way that I can trust, if she just disregard that as something unimportant, how can I submit to her? And I know, by now, that any other type relationship will dry up and go stale very fast for me. But the thing is that I have absolutely nowhere to go.

It doesn't matter how mad or sad or frustrated or heartbroken she makes me. I can't imagine a life without her, either emotionally or in a practical sense. All my dreams, all my hopes and plans and ideas, are tied to her. Everything I want to do, I want to do together with her. The idea of doing anything without her felt lika a vast, black gulf opening before me.

But on the other hand there were those words: "Can I trust you?" "No."

Well, she followed me after a few minutes, laid herself literary atop of me, like a rather heavy duvet (heavy for a duvet, that is - she's not that heavy for a human). She hugged me and said she wanted to make things better, and that whatever I had heard or interpreted was wrong and that I could trust that she loved me and wanted me and would always do her best to take her of me. That made it kind of better.

And right around when I had stopped bawling my eyes out our time was up and little S was tired of waiting and came upstairs. Like any jealous and possessive six-year-old she did her very best to not only lay on top of us but also slide herself down between us, so that the mommy-hug became two mommies hugging her, instead of two adults hugging eachother. Ah well.

The crux of the matter is I guess what it was Mistress answered to. I asked a very broad question, concerning our whole relationship, my whole existance almost. She answered a very narrow specific question regarding the immediate situation.

When we came home the water was frozen. This is our first winter in this house, and it has so far been a very mild one. We've been gone for a week, and during this week it has suddenly gotten cold. There's a cable that needs to be plugged in so that the water in the pipes doesn't freeze, and we hadn't done that, and so their was no water in the house.

This was quite easily resolved by plugging in the cable and waiting a while, but before we figured it all out and solved it, Mistress got really tense. It had been bad winter weather on the drive home too, and she really doesn't like that either. In the end she had a fit, she talked to little S in an angry voice, hit herself in the head with her fist, and stormed off. I freaked out and got very angry (also pouty and moody) and it was when we tried to resolve this everything went from bad to worse.

So when I asked can I trust you, Mistress heard: "Can I trust you to never be stressed out over a crisis again? Can I trust you to never lose your temper, have a fit an storm off?". And she answered very truthfully: No. Because even she really tries, and even if she agress that it was unneccesary and wish she had kept her cool, she can't promise me it wont happen again. Honestly, it has happened on a regular basis since I've known her, so it's pretty much the other way around; no matter how hard she tries, she most probably will do it again.

The question, then, is; can I trust her? Can I trust her, even though she throws fits when she gets stresses, even though she hits herself in the head when she gets overwhelmed, even though she answers literarily to a loaded question in the middle of a relational crisis without regards to hwo that answer might be interpreted? Can I trust her, when this is who she is and how she will behave?

Yes, absolutely. Everyday, for the rest of my life. I don't care what idiotic things she says when she's lost her theory of mind due to stress. I trust her.

I belong to her, and I trust.

Resolution

In the middle of the fall I wrote about getting another baby. That's still on, but the timeline has shifted. Because that goal I made, about losing 10% body weight? Fail, utterly fail. I know enough about the body and weight loss to not be surprised. It is hard to change, and I didn't have the energy to work enough for it. Because I put that energy into other things, work mostly.

But that's not okay. This fall I've prioritised work and to some extent our kid over Mistress and our relationship and over my own health in a way that isn't okay. For a short time, yes, but not for life.

We've made a deal. Or rather, I've asked her for help. I want to lose weight. And for the first time in my life, I think, I'm not worried about eating disorder or becoming bulimic. I was, for a lot of years, and the ADHD hasn't helped either. But I'm not anymore.I don't get those feelings and thoughts I used to get, and I'm not scared anymore. I don't think I'll want to throw up or get notions about starving myself. It feels safe, finally, and there's a freedom in that.

The last week Mistress has put the food on my plate, and every day I go to work with a bag with my lunch in it, allowed only to eat what's in it. It makes everything ridicolously easy, to be honest. There was this big chocolate and whipped cream cake at work today, a colleague had brought left overs from some week end party. And it wasn't even hard not to eat it. I'm supposed to eat what Mistress sent with me, and therefore it wasn't even a question.

Knowing my usual pattern, this will start to get hard again real soon. And then easy for a while, and then difficult again. Because that is how it works. But right now, I'm just revelling in being Mistress' good girl and in feeling healthy and in tune with my life goals. Good things, all around.

Her touch

I'm amazed by the feelings I get when she touches me. Not just holding my hand or the cuddle on the sofa in front of the telly, but how it feels when I suddenly realise she wants me. The touch of her hands, the feeling of her mouth to mine, her body close to mine. It's always amazing.

I've been working to much this fall, at least that's how it feels. We've had the everyday life we were asking for, but there hasn't been enough time or energy left for us. We haven't done anything just the two of us, no movie theater or beer at the pub. Nothing, just putting kid to bed, watch Dr Who, go to sleep. That's nok okay. That's not enough.

She just fucked me, hard and lovingly, and now she's making sandwiches to eat in front of the telly. And she told me to go write something, anything, about the kinky side of our life. The silence on here has a direct connection to the all to little focus the power exchange between us, and the love and sex and connection between us, has gotten at the end of 2014. I think there's a good  chance that that will change in 2015.

Control

For a while now, we've been letting things slide. She hasn't controlled me, I haven't submitted all that much. The love is there, the respect and tenderness is there. But somethings been missing, and we've just recently figured it out.

I told her there wasn't enough money on my account to pay for something I wanted. She asked where the money had gone, and I had no idea. She asked me to change a plan regarding work a couple of weeks back, and I freaked because it messed with something super important job wise - that I'd never mentioned to her. I've bought and eaten sweets and not even considered "bothering" her with asking about it.

There's been no intentional disobedience about this, just a slippery slope of me assuming she doesn't care, and her assuming (I guess) that I resent her interfering. I haven't told, she hasn't asked, and we've both tried to accept the situation and hide our resentment, because it seemed necessary and good for the other one.

And there is the simple reason why we haven't had a meaningful sex life for a month or so. Because... because her knowing about my bank account, isn't very sexy in it self, but her knowing about my life most definitely is.

We'll fix this.

The important things

I'm still owned. Actually, being away from Mistress this much, having to make do on my own on a level I haven't experienced for quite a few years, have underscored how much I belong to her, more then anything else. I was afraid we would drift further and further apart, but we haven't.

I miss her knowing exactly what I do all the time every day. She knows in general now, in the same way I know about her days. She's seen my office at work, she's seen the room I sleep in at my friends house, she knows more or less what it is that I do. But it's not things she has ever done, and I sleep in a bed she has never slept in. She doesn't know what I have for lunch or dinner, she doesn't know what clothes I wear (though she knows exactly what clothes I have to choose from, of course), she doesn't know if I slept well or if I had nightmares.

Some of it I manage to tell her, we share as much as we can, but all those details aren't that interesting to talk about the precious moments we have on the phone each day. I'd rather tell her how I feel or what I think, than what I'm wearing or had for lunch, and she's more interested in hearing that too. But this separation, this dividing of our everyday life, it's strange. I'm still hers, but... it's on a really long leash.

I've been working since the 7th of April, so almost two months by now. The first week I left on Monday and came home Friday afternoon, but that's the only week I've been away four nights in a row. There's been a lot of red-letter-days, thankfully, and I've taken out vacation days for the rest. Last week I worked half day on Wednesday and came in an hour late on Thursday, so that I could take the train home and pick up little S from pre-school and sleep a night in my own bed. I can't go four nights without checking in on my baby. It hurts to much. It's like a low level stress, that intensifies as time goes on.

If you have kids, or ever babysat someone elses for that matter - you know that feeling when you're in a supermarket or similar place with a small child, and you look away for a second and then you can't see the kid anymore? You look around, feeling the panic rising, calling out in a low voice, walking around shelves and trying to see as much as possible around you, looking for that special little jacket or pixie cap or whatever it is that you remember the kid wearing? That worry, that rising panic, that focus on finding him or her and making sure everythings alright? You know that feeling?

That's how I feel after a few days when I haven't seen little S. Diluted, maybe like only a tenth of the supermarket-panic, but constant. When I haven't smelled her, touched her, made sure she's alright for a couple of days, I'm not okay anymore. I need my baby. I need to be with her, to be her mommy, to hug her and hold her hand, and talk to her and listen to her talk (incessantly...) to feel safe, to feel okay, to feel that I'm where I'm supposed to be in the world.

I don't need to be with her all day every day, quite the opposite actually. I like going to work, I'm happy that she's big enough to be at pre-school, I'm relieved that the days of constant guarding and catering to a small baby's every need 24/7 is behind us. I like that she falls asleep at seven in the evening and wakes up at 6.30 in the morning. But I need to see her twice a day, at least, or else I can't relax and enjoy my grown up life. And not only through Skype, or being told she's alright - I need to smell her. I'm thinking it's a mammal thing.

I miss Mistress as much, but in a different way. I'm more okay with not smelling her or touching her every day, but I really really miss the amount of time we used to have. Not enough time, never enough, but a lot more than now. We're back where we where a couple of years ago, getting just enough time to say the most important things, but never really spending hours and hours together.

Except for long weekends at her parents cabin, where we'll be going on Thursday, four days from now. I'm so looking forward to it.

At the end of June they're moving to me, we've fixed most of the things that needs fixing. Little S has a place at new pre-school, and we have a lease on an apartment. The current problem is that the apartment building hasn't got broadband, and we need to figure out a way to get good enough internet connection for Mistress to be able to work from home. She deals with a lot of big files and video conferences, and needs high speed connection. Ah well. We're going to fix that too.

My job is great, as far as the actual job goes. Several of the people at my job arn't as great, though. There's around 40 people at the workplace in totat, and out of those two or three annoys me no end. I guess it's called "working with other people". I take a lot of strength from being Mistress', from knowing my place in the world, from knowing I have a family and a home and an identity that has nothing to do with jerks at work, and every time I've been home I return to work feeling like myself again, feeling centered and ready for anything.

And soon soon soon that will be every afternoon. I can't wait.

Longing

Did you guys know that working full time means less time to write blog posts? Huh! Who'dhavethunk?

I'm very very much in two minds about the whole thing. I like the job. I love being a therapist. I hate being away from Mistress, and I feel all lost and alone and shaky because I don't have my family with me.

I'm still hers. Amazingly, that doesn't waiver. But oh my God it's hard to be separated.

A really low point

I guess from her perspective the whole thing looked different. But that's just it. When I'm ashamed and tired and sick and sad and feeling unappreciated, my ability to take someone elses perspective is almost gone. And so is my ability to formulate cohesive sentences, reflect over my feelings or say anything except answering straight questions.

I wanted to tell her how I was feeling and what I was thinking. I wanted that almost more than anything. But not more than I wanted her to actually want  to know those things. Since I was ashamed I couldn't stand the idea of telling her of my weakness and getting anger or rejection back. At the same time, I wanted her to know, and so I said that if she wanted to know something she could just ask me.

And, angrily and impatiently she growled "well, how do you feel about all this, then?". "It feels terrible, I feel sick and I'm really scared" I answered, filled with angst and shame and fear of rejection, a little relieved to finally get to say it, to share it, and deadly afraid I wouldn't be accepted, or loved anymore, when I couldn't live up to her demands.

And how did she react? She cursed in a loud voice, slammed the door she was holding, and stalked off, completely furious. I curled up on the sofa under a blanket, and cried. I was hyperaware of her every move, feeling like a mouse hiding in the grass, and trying to figure out what I would do if she would start yelling at me or hurt me. Nothing, I decided. There was nothing in me worth protecting anyway. There was nothing she could do that would make anything any worse.

Vulnerable and submissive

I've been thinking about vulnerability lately. About me and the fact that I'm extremely vulnerable, and how I've worked my whole adult life towards letting go of the shame over that. And about how I need Mistress to function and feel safe.

I'm raised in a culture that promotes individualism and self-reliance. Being dependent is a bad thing, even in families or children towards adults. There's no room for weakness or being less than a productive, self-motivated, self-reliant adult. Everybody is not only equal in worth, but equal in responsibility and agency.

In a lot of ways, that's great. It's result of a society with a long democratic tradition, without war or slavery, where people of all classes can have an education, a vote, and a voice. A society which strives toward equality, both between the sexes and regarding class and heritage. Everybody is a free agent, everybody should be able to act in society on equal terms, and everybody is expected to do that.

Only, I don't want to.

And that's a problem for me. There's no safe guards for a person who tends to bend over backwards to please, who wants to be led, who wants to follow orders and let go of responsibility. There's no role in the society I live in where that's okay.

Except, of course, this one; property of my partner. Not that it's accepted in society at large, but at least I've got it. We can make our own world, here in our family, where me and Mistress knows I'm hers and nothing else. No one around us will confirm that, even know it exists, but we will, and that's enough.

Or, not no one - there are people out there who knows and accepts and confirm. We don't see them as much as we'd like, but they exist and that makes a big difference.

Still. Vulnerability. I've protected myself for as long as I can remember. Being inclined to obey every person with a certain aura, a certain way of speaking and acting, is dangerous. Both insofar that if that person isn't a very good one, you might get hurt. But also simply because it's embarassing. It's out of the norm. It's interpreted as weakness by others, and even ridiculed. So I don't do it.

I've avoided that kind of person the best I've could, or rather been circling around them, going away and coming back, going away and coming back. I've developed a whole host of deflecting strategies, quipping jokes and always having a snappy reply. Never give in, never lose face, never let anyone see your weakness.

Yeah. It's a bother.

And then Mistress came along, and I don't have to do it anymore. I can submit and lose prestige and  be weak and malleable and submissive to my hearts content, 'cause no one can hurt me. No one is going to take advantage of me or lead me to something I don't want, because I'm hers. She'll protect me. I'll never betray her or disappoint her or leave her or break her trust, which mean no one will be able to make me do anything that would lead to that - and so I'm safe.

But no, I'm not okay without her. I'm not a fully functioning adult on my own. I'm only that because I'm hers. Not so much for what she does, but for what it means to me. With her, as hers, I'm safe. Without it, I'm not.

And I'm okay with that. 

Having my collar sawed off from my neck - a unique slave experience

And now, ironically, I'm not collared anymore.

Well, I'm "collared" in the sense of being just as owned as before, there's been no relationship drama. There has, however, been rather a lot of health drama, with me having allergic reactions and then most probably having reactions to the allergy medication, and well, I don't know, possibly also to the new mattress we got a couple of days ago.

The end result has been me having fatigue, dizzyness, nausea and also looking like a watermelon in the face, bright red and swollen. The  most annoying part for me, apart from the fatigue that has really wrecked our schedule, has been incessant hot flashes, were I've been simultanously been dripping with sweat and feeling like a pressure cooker while my feet are icicles, no matter what I do with them. Thoroughly unpleasant, the whole thing, and more than a little scary.

Yesterday when I'd been laying in bed more or less since 10 AM, trying to get up every now and then only to go back to miserable featal position, Mistress had enough and started a de-allergenprocess. I got out and stood in the snow storm for a while, and we hauled the new mattress out to storage so it could get rid of it's new-matterss-stink on it's own for a while. But the first thing she did was getting out the key to the collar and starting to unlock it.

She was very clear that it wasn't any kind of punishment, but since I had been swelling around the neck and getting red in the face on and off for more than a week by then, she wanted to be sure I wasn't somehow reacting to the collar. I haven't had it off for more than a few minutes since she put it on this spring, so if it was doing something to me, we wouldn't really know until she took it off and kept it off me for a while.

Well, it was a good plan, but the tiny tiny little screw in the locking mechanism wouldn't budge. Okay, so she went and got the extra key. And then she oiled the lock, and tried again. But no. It was stuck, and when she worked on it it only got worse. In the end, she gave up.

And went and got the saw.

So yeah. Yesterday I spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes with Mistress holding a hacksaw to my neck, and with a very firm grip on the collar sawing it off of me. Slowly and with great effort, I might say too, because it was a thick one and didn't much want to be sawed in two. It was bizarre, a little scary, a bit painful and a lot sad at the same time. I don't have my collar anymore. It's in the trash, and my neck is all bare.

Ah well. I'm still hers. We'll get another collar. Right now, my main focus is getting back on my feet and to stop looking like an overly ripe watermelon. 'Cause that look is so 90's.

"I like your collar"

We went to a party yesterday, a rather unusual event. Even more unusual, it was Mistress that declared she wanted to go, and even RSVPd and everything. My dad came and babysat, and we actually had a great night. It was a friends birthday party, and for me it had an eery feeling of deja vù - this is our old friends. The friends from ten, fifteen years ago, the once I've been afraid of losing since I got pregnant, and busy and tired and sick.

But they're still there, we still get the invites, we're still included and welcomed, and showing up made me feel both as if no time has passed since I was twenty and trying to move away from home and spending all my money on LARP-ing and commuting to my boyfriend out of town, living on oatmeal and spaghetti. And, on the other hand, my God how grown up we are now. A lot of the gang are married, mostly to each other as a matter of fact, those who wanted children are about to have their second go at it (and all the pregnant bellies makes me super-jealous) and most of them have a job instead of ever-on-going university-studies. I kind of like it.

I like the adults we've become. Myself included.

But as per usual, around ten PM I was getting drowsy and Mistress decided to herd me home. We did the good-bye rounds, and as I was hugging a guy I've barely had talked to during the night, I noticed he was eyeing what I thought was my blouse (a pretty blue silk one with a sequined hemline), then for a moment suspected was my cleavage until he said in a kind of low key voice "I like your collar." "Oh" I said, speechless for a moment, and then with a sheepish smile "yeah, I like it too".

Silence.

I had no idea how to continue that line of conversation. What do one say? Was he implying what I thought he was implying? Or was he just complimenting my jewelry? But no - complimenting jewelry you do in a crowd, when you meet, if it happens to be appropriate, you don't specifically wait for a quiet moment and point it out. Not if you don't know what it it is you're trying to say.

"Nice" he said.
"Yeah" I said.
More silence.
"Have you worn it for long?"
"About a year."
"Great!"
"Yeah, I think so too!".

By then the time for the usual quick "bye, nice to see you!"-hug had run out, the flow of people in the room was shifting, and also, I was embarrassed and blushing furiously and couldn't make coherent words anymore, so I just kind of backed off a little, and Mistress hugged her way around the good bye crowd while I was tying my shoe laces and waiting for my face to regain it's normal colour.

I was so outed, one might say. And I really really like it.

I don't want to be secretive, showing one face to the world and my friends and another to Mistress. I don't like this feeling of having a secret life, a secret agenda, being one on the outside and another on the inside.

When my kink-side started appearing I was five, fantasizing about spankings and masturbating without knowing what I was doing. But I always knew that I couldn't talk about it, that I was strange and odd and unnormal. Eventually, it grew in to sexuality, the adult, mature version, and I knew a little more, but it took about fifteen years from the first inklings until I got to see that I wasn't alone. Fifteen years of shame and confusion and knowing I was different.

Since then there's been another almost fifteen years, and I know very well by now that I'm certainly not alone. In fact, not all that few of the friends I tried to hide things from have turned up on the kinky side of the line during the years since then. I'm not ashamed, and I honestly don't think it's that much of a secret, anymore.

But it's still not talked about. It's not something that is reflected by people around me. It doesn't "exist", in the conversations, in the assumptions people make, in the mirrors that my friends eyes turn into when they look at me. 

So for my collar to be seen for what it really is, not just a pretty piece of chain around my neck but a significant symbol, as meaningful and telling about my life as my wedding ring, communicating something important about me and about my relationship to Mistress, that felt good. A little bit bewildering in the precise moment it happened, but good.

Also, now I'm deadly curious about my friend and his young wife and their story. Perhaps there's breadcrumbs laying around the 'net, now that I know what I'm looking for? *goes sniffing*

A cold, a sandwich and being good enough

I never feel less like a slave then when I'm sick. I get all grumpy and touchy and angsty. Being sick triggers bad memories and brings out a lot of tjhe dysfunctionals sides of me. I've been down with a bad cold this whole week, and Mistress' has been a saint about it. I still can't shake the grumpiness though.

And I feel like a failure because I don't do anything useful at home. And she doesn't find me sexy (for some reason snot and a fever is not a turn on it seems) nor does she want to hurt me or play with me. She just manouveurs around me, where I'm slumped in a corner of the couch surrounded by used tissue papers.

Or well, I have been doing some things this week too, ironically a lot more than I ever did the whole of last year. I've vacuumed some of the floors, I've left and picked up the kid at pre-school, and I've managed to get dinner on the table for her and the kid (okay, once that was arranged by me calling ahead to the local pizza-place and she picking the pizzas up on her way home from the bus stop, but still - I orchestrated the process).

And I've made ice-cream two days in a row, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count since I only made it for myself because well, I don't really think anyone should eat something I make right now unless they intentionally want the cold virus from hell, and I also ate it all  both days. But then again, it meant I ate something, points for that.

This morning Mistress had made her usual heroic morning routine and served me tea and sandwich in the living room. This isn't even a special "oh my poor baby is sick" kind of thing, it's our standard morning routine (I'll blog about our mornings one of these days...). Anyway. The sandwich today was for some reason white bread with cold meatballs and mayo.

As the first thing in the morning. When I have a sore throat and no sense of smell nor appetite. And don't even like meatballs in the first place, if they're not homemade, and never cold and never ever on a sandwich.

We haven't had time to discuss it, and I'm honestly afraid to ask, but I guess she had some kind of idea behind it. If she was inclined that way I would have guessed it to be some sort of sadistic, hard-ass test of my obedience. But she doesn't have a habit of doing those kinds of things, and my being grumpy sick and sniffling doesn't really bring forth the creative sadist in her. I think she just had meatballs left over, wanted them eaten, and had one herself and made one for me.

Anyway, I had no idea what to do. I mean, there's no really recommended way to say to your Owner "Hey, I don't like this sandwich, make me another one!". The obvious would of course be to discreetly go and make another one myself. But there's a reason I get served breakfast on the couch, and that reason is four years old and grumpy and clingy in the morning.

Everything goes much easier if I serve as kid-anchor and make sure she gets something inside her, and in the meantime Mistress gets to eat breakfast in peace in the kitchen and usually works at the same time. The whole point of feeding us in the living room is so that she can have some uninterrupted peace and quite with her breakfast and her computer. Me going out there making noise and either having the kid in tow or having her yelling loudly to me from across the apartment would kind of negate that. 

I could have just eaten it of course. But no, really, I couldn't. I'm sure Mistress could have made me eat it, no doubts about that, but of my own volition, just because it was laying there beside my cup of tea? No. No way.

In the end Mistress popped her head in to check on us presumably when she had finished her breakfast, looked at me, looked at the sandwich, looked at me again in a way that made my inside kind of cringe, and said "I'll just go make you another one, should I?" And she did, and I happily ate the cheese sandwich she brought and felt more than usually sheepish.

And no, I don't think I'm much of a slave when I'm sick, nor much of a housewife or for that matter not all that great as a wife either, on any scale. But the good thing is that that doesn't matter. Because no matter what, I'm still her property, and that I'm amazingly awesome as. Even when my nose is running and I'm a picky eater. 

Rectifying old mistakes

Three days ago, Friday last week, I took an exam that I once failed at. I took it once when I actually studied the course, screwed it up due to lack of studying combined with an excess of strenous weekend activities the days before, and then never got around to fixing it. Of course I had plenty of opportunities, but life just kind of kept going and I never managed to get to it.

Yesterday I took it. I'm quite confident that I'm going to pass, I see no reason why I shouldn't. The big thing, however, is that I actually, at long last, invested the time and the energy to get it done.  Or maybe I shouldn't say that I did. I should say that Mistress did.

It's all due to her helping me, focusing me, prioritising all the things in our lives and motivating me. She said I should do this, and now I have.

This is actually the only exam I have ever failed at while studying at the University, and it figures that I never took it again, since I tend to go by "if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence of ever having tried it" (Hillary Clinton, if I remember correctly). It was my first course ever at the University as a matter of fact, and it was in the year 2000. That's thirteen years ago. Thirteen years has this thing been unresolved, not finished. Now it is (or will be very soon). And even though I did the studying and was the one who held the pen to the paper, she's the one who made it happen.

She's just so amazingly good for me.

(What course it was? English 101. Go figure.)

A good call

Uhm... And then it turned out that well, I had jumped to conclusions and she had in fact kept her promise and not done "that thing". It was a misunderstanding, completely my fault too. So yeah... It only makes me glader I sat on my ass and wrote a semi-bitter blogpost about it instead of starting a fight.

In fact, when I had posted yesterday, I sat down and breathed and meditated a bit, and after a while I decided I'd rather sit with her than all alone in the living room, so I got out to where she was working at the kitchen table and simply sat down beside her, on my knees with my head in her lap.

And yes, when she finally stopped working and we were curled up together on the sofa, she asked me what was wrong and I said that I was upset and sad from before, and it was then I found out that my freak-out was completely unnecessary. It did make me a bit relieved still, especially about that broken-promise-thing, but it wasn't this big deal it would  have been if I hadn't already decided I could live with it.

Pet peeve

I was formulating a question to one of the groups on Fetlife, maybe Master&slaves or Owner/property, silently in my head. But while I was wording it, I also imagined the potential responses, and realised I already knew them.

It's not like it's a new or unique problem.

The thing is, there's this thing Mistress does that I really really hate. I'm not going into what it is, but it's a stress relief thing, something she does when she gets overwhelmed with stress or emotions, kind of to re-boot the system or something. It could have been something like nail-chewing or smoking or shouting loud profanities. It's a sudden outburst that makes her feel a bit better in the moment.

But, as mentioned, I hate it. With a vengeance. Everyt time she does it, I get an instant emotional reaction, I get furious and panicky and feel betrayed and a whole chorus of negative voices goes on in my head. I see that particular action as something destructive, bad for her and for me and a bad example for the kid, only making her feel worse in the long run and simply... simply a bad thing to do. I get an emotional reaction close to how I would feel if she hit me in anger, or destroyed something pricey. I get scared and insecure and angry.

We've talked about this. A lot. For a very very long time, ever since we first fell in love, as a matter of fact. She knows how I feel about it, and I think she agrees in theory about that particular thing being a bad example for the kid and not helping in the long run. She's even promised never to do it again. In fact, she has repeatedly said that she wont do it again, and when she still did, she finally made a serious, carefully worded promise to not do it.

And she's usually extremely good at keeping her word, extremely good. It's a corner stone of her personality. She doesn't lie, ever, and she doesn't make promises she can't keep nor does she break a promise once it's been given. Except for this one thing. Because she still does it. And I still hate it.

And when she did it again an hour ago, one of the things I started to do was whining my plight in an imaginary opening post on Fetlife. About how my Owner did this one annoying thing and wouldn't stop even though she knew it made me feel bad, and how I didn't know if I could live with it, but I can't leave her, and what shall I do to make her stop doing it!!!!

And yeah. There's only two answers to that question. It's either "suck it up, buttercup, you're owned and you can't make her do a damn thing" or "if you can't take it, leave - why are you with her if that thing is so unbearable?".

And that's it, really. I don't have to ask anyone else about this. I can't make her do squat. That's the long and the short of it. If this thing she does is so deplorable to me that I can't stand living with her and raising our kid together with her, then I have to leave. Or, on the other hand, if I'm not going to divorce her over it, if the reality is that even though it makes me feel yucky all over it's something I actually can live with, then I better just shut up and stop trying to bully her into changing.

She knows how I feel. Telling her one more time wont make any difference. It doesn't matter what I do or say or feel or think, there's not a thing I can do to make her behave in one way or another. If I could influence this, I would have by now.

So I give. I guess I'll tell her that too. I give in, I don't care anymore, I wont say another word about it. I'm still going to feel yucky, but I wont keep the illusion that if I manage to convey to her just how yucky it makes me feel that will influence her to not do it anymore. I think she knows how it makes me feel. I just think that isn't changing the situation.

I choose to be hers, her slave, her property, her wife, her best friend, hers, no matter what. If she wants to do this thing, then well, that sucks for me, but then that's the way it is. I still belong to her, I still want to belong to her, and that means accepting whatever she throws my way. I wont fake anything, but I wont badger her or argue with her or try to punish her anymore. I'm hers, and she can do whatever she want to. Including this.

(Even if I really do hate it.)

I accept it.

I accept it.

It's okay.

It's going to be okay.

Brain managing

Mistress went to Hamburg for two days this week, on a job thing. It felt like it should have been a piece of cake - all I had to do was drop little S off at the pre-school in the morning and get her in the afternoon, make us dinner and watch the telly, and put her to bed. She's still not sleeping through the night most of the time but it's not the nightly terror it used to be - she gets up, you lead her back to bed, she goes back to sleep. She might do it again a couple of times before morning, but there's no crying or fuzziness or trying to get up and having play time between midnight and two any more.

I should have been easy. I thought it would be. I'm overconfident that way. 

Instead, when Mistress got back I was an exhausted wreck. It's true I don't like responsibility. It wasn't the chores themselves that did me in, nor being constantly on call night and day, it was the being all alone with it. When my brain has nothing to stop it, it goes in all directions at once, and the mere act of reigning it in and trying to stay on course makes me exhausted.

Mistress is travelling a couple of more times this fall, once for a whole week, and I have a plan for next time. The first step is stream lining and eliminating as much as possible of the day to day tasks. I hate routine. It's incredibly difficult for me to do things that are boring, and anything that has to be done more than once is definitely on that list. A major clean up of a whole house, all done in one go, working all hours for two days? Count me in! Emptying and refilling the dishwasher once a day everyday several days in row? Kill me now, please.

So - paper plates and labelled dinner boxes. No household things besides the bare bones essentials. That's one thing. Another is eliminating choices. When I have a whole day stretching out before me, or in this case three days, my brain fills them up and rearranges the plans constantly. And I mean constantly. The amount of mental energy spent on figuring out the best schedules and activities is ridiculous. With no one else around saying "it's lunch time" or "you don't have time for that, you were supposed to be doing this" I behave like a butterfly, fluttering about constantly.  I'm going to ask Mistress to write me a schedule, with everything from "watch this movie Tuesday night" to "meet up with this friend at that time for lunch". I don't want alternatives and decisions. Freedom sucks.

And the third and most important part - I need something fun to focus on. Something that engages me and that easily catches my attention. I easily get involved in projects, at least for a while, and it stills my inner butterfly.

Again - I'm a dog. I need a chewing bone. This time I was the restless dog that went from window to window constantly barking at anyone outside, restlessly guarding and waiting, unable to relax until my Owner came home. And I was exactly as stressed out as such dogs usually gets, losing appetite and sleep, feeling run down and depressed, and wanting nothing but sleep when the ordeal is over.

So - a project. A fun, time consuming project that engages me without inducing performance anxiety. I'm thinking I'll sew something, construct a garment from scratch in some nice fabric, and that will keep me occupied enough so that my brain doesn't run amok on me.

Did I mention that ADHD sucks? At least sometimes.

Tattoos and trouble

I have my first ever tattoo now, finally. Or well, not as finally as I would have liked, since it isn't finished yet. It took to long, and about 1,5 hour after the time I had told Mistress I would be home, I said enough, and decided that the rest would have to be done another day.

In a way, it sucks. It sucks that the design got much more complicated than I had anticipated, that the appointment was made in a hurry and at an odd time, and that before I called it a day I got a terse text message from Mistress that even though she would try to be supportive and loving when I got back, she was furious and disappointed and worried that it would cost a lot more than agreed on, and that she would have a hard time being supportive.

And I totally got that.

Fortunately, the cost didn't sky rocket, we had agreed on a price before hand (thank god!) and it's now paid (almost) in full by the money I got as a graduation gift from my dad and his side of the family. I got home 1,5 hour late and didn't get to say good night to little S, which sucked, but we hugged this morning and she forgave me. Mistress did too, of course, once I was home again and eaten dinner and we had cuddled for awhile.

But it feels a bit typical for us. I suck at making plans and keeping track of time, she sucks at having plans change or things not going as she has expected. So the simplest things can turn in to huge drama, and this wasn't really a simple thing.

I wanted the tattoo to be a beautiful reminder of who we are for each other. I guess it is, now. For good and  bad.

It is beautiful, by the way. And just before we fell asleep, when I was lying chained to the bed on her arm, and she had said good night so that I wasn't allowed to speak any more, she whispered in my ear that I was her slut, her good little girl, that she was proud of me, and as the last thing, that I was her marked little slut.

And I love that I am.

Test...

Found this on "A slave to Master"s blog: The-submissive-type-test

-----------------

Your result for The submissive type Test ...

Slave

You scored 23% Humiliation, 71% Submissiveness, 58% Service, and 62% Pain!

You're the slave, you scored high in both submissiveness and service, you probably want to be owned by someone, you feel the need to relinquish your power over to someone else and to service him. You are the ideal partner for 24/7 Owner/slave relationships, whether you like or deslike pain is a matter of taste, hence with humiliation, but I would bet that the chances are you enjoy them sometimes but the most important thing is whether your Dom will enjoy doing those thigns to you.
Good luck in finding your best relationship :)
 -------------------

This really doesn't qualify as profound, does it?

Sometimes, I'm just stupid

And no, nothing can ever be good for longer than say five minutes. Bleergh.

I've screwed up, and it ended with us spending our night out yesterday, when we were supposed to celebrate our joint achievement and the merry times ahead, crying our eyes out as discreetly as possible over pints in a pub. Yey.

I like beer. It does not benefit from tears.

And now I just want to crawl away into some hole somewhere and bury myself in guilt and shame, but that would be stupid. I hurt Mistress, turns out I've hurt her several times over the last couple of years regarding the same issue, and I had no idea. We were so far from each other in our interpretations of the situation that it's not even funny.

We've got a dog. A five year old miniature pincher named Vilde, which is Swedish for Wild Thing. He's very aptly named, and when the kid was around a year old, we admitted defeat and left him at my in-laws place. He's been there ever since, even though we've made numerous attempts at bringing him home again. We go visit about every fortnight or so for a number of reasons, so it's not as if we've dumped him and forgotten about him, but still. He's not living at home.

And since I have no common sense and no impulse control (and have the papers to prove it, I might ad(h)d) I choose yesterday to bring this sore subject up again, declaring that I didn't think we would ever be able to take him home and that maybe it would be better to give up and start thinking about getting another dog. A nice one, one who doesn't bark incessantly and nips small kids in the face.

Which led to Mistress silently crying, staring out at the window and me feeling totally confused without any idea of what part of what I said was so horrible. I was even feeling kind of righteous - I was only trying to solve a problem that was obviously my responsibility, and I wanted to tell her that I gave up, that I admitted defeat and had failed. Why that would make her break down in tears was beyond me.

Did I mention the different interpretation thing? And how it so not funny? Not even a little bit, actually.

From Mistress point of view, I'm owned and collared. I've pledged allegiance to her countless times, and she's declared her intention to lead me and own me and take responsibility for our life together just as often. That should, one would think, mean that I would trust her to do that, and expect her to do that. That major problems in our life, for example who is and who isn't a part of our family, is up to her to figure out. 

I on the other hand, has the default setting of "Much Fix All the Things!". The dog was her gift to me, I was the one convincing her that we should get him, I was the one calling breeders and arranging visits, I was the one who was at home with him for three months, who made him house broken and taught him to be home alone without barking or biting on stuff. I was the one who went to obedience classes with him. It was my responsibility. I was also the one who first said "this isn't working, we can't keep him, his not happy with us" - because it was my responsibility to make him happy with us, and I was the one failing at it.

All this time, all these years, I've taken my responsibility for the dog, and his place in our family, completely for granted. At the same time, Mistress has taken her responsibility for the situation equally for granted, and my attempts at "solving" or making decisions regarding it as usurping her. Every time I've said "nah, let's not do this, let's do this instead" or "maybe next month we could try again" or whatever, in her mind I've been telling her I don't trust her. That I don't trust her judgement, that I don't believe in her ability to make good decisions and make this right, and that her time is up - I'm done waiting for her and I'm taking it in my own hands.

That's what she's been thinking. And I had no idea. It didn't even occur to me that it would be possible that she didn't think that this was my mess and my job to solve it.

The fact that this is the same damn hole I keep falling in to, the Pit of Responsibility for Things that isn't Mine, doesn't make it feel even a little bit better.

She was right. I've screwed up. I've hurt her, I've hurt us, and it doesn't matter how sorry I am. What's done is done. I can't go back in time and make it right. I'm just sad, and have a hard time dealing with it.

A seminar about a theoretical construct about D/s

I went to a lecture/workshop-thingy last week, I've been meaning to blog about it but not gotten around to it yet. Not really sure what to write anyway. The subject was "24/7 D/s from a non-sexual perspective". Not to mean that it's about asexual power exchange relationships, but about discussing the aspects of the dynamic that isn't about the sexual side of things.

So far so good. Since this was a regular work night and it was an hours drive to get there, I was a bit wary, however. I couldn't help but have misgivings about getting there and then spending my whole night becoming aggravated about people saying stupid things that would imply that me and my relationship doesn't exist. In that case, I would rather sit at home and cuddle with Mistress.

I'm perfectly okay with a speaker directing his or her focus on something that isn't relevant for me - but there's a real risk at these sort of occassions that I'll be told I'm not even real. That, for example, it's imperative to have a safe word, for everyone, or that it's really the submissive person in the relationship that actually has the power. Or that of course anyone can leave whenever they want. And so on. I even wrote a question to the organisers to have my fears laid to rest, which I got. And then I felt kind of silly. Maybe I was overreacting, or have been to tainted by Fetlife.

But honestly I don't think so. I've been to workshops and classes before. And there's a Swedish BDSM-community too, pre-dating Fetlife quite a bit, and there's the same discourse there. And of course everyone can discuss what they like - I'm just not always up for listening to it.

Anyway, the actual lecture didn't even touch upon my sensitive spots, so in the end it was much ado about nothing. The speaker, a middle aged man who was the dominant one in his relationship and had his young girlfriend there with him, had an idea about how D/s-relationship is built up, which was an okay and at times interesting construct.

 Unfortunately he choose to introduce the whole topic with a comparison with his view of vanilla relationship structures, which was a bit bad taste partly because his first words had been about how he never had been in one, and also because it was so clearly an attempt at "oh, look, over there is 'them' and we do it better!". And not the least because he pointed out getting kids and having joint economy as hallmarks of vanilla relationships, completely overlooking the fact that kids might be relevant for people in power exchange too.

Oh, and yes, he read an essay aloud about the norms regarding vanilla dating, continuously interpreting the patriarchal norms that makes the men into the subject and the active party in the mating ritual in a light as if that meant it was the women who had the power "because she just stands there, she is the one who accepts or rejects". Yeah.

My friend I. very promptly brought forward the concept of "slut shaming" and explained the norms that restricts women's choices and actions. The reason women doesn't usually ask a man out isn't because she holds the power - it's because if she does, she has immediately excluded herself from the cathegory "respectable women" and instead become a slut, a whore, not suitable for dating anyway (but possibly suitable for rape). It is about power - but the other way around.

This rather unfortunate example of cluelessness made the first 20 minutes of the evening a bit embarrassing and uncomfortable, but it did get better. As soon as the topic changed from Gender Issues 101 and vanilla-bashing, and he started to present his actual theory, it became a bit more interesting (and a lot less cringe-worthy). 

The idea, in it's simplest form, was that D/s-relationships stand on four baseic building blocks- identifying needs and wants, "the magic", communication and trust. On that base, it is possible to add other blocks, like rituals, disciplin, rules, kinky sex, lust, order, service and so on. Possible, but not necessary (which I think makes a good point - especially after what a child ridden waste land the last years have been when it comes to the BDSM part of me and Mistress...) And on top of that comes what the lecturer choose to call life goals, but I would rather describe in my own mind as "valued direction". Not goals as such, but more important things one might want to strive for in life. Becoming a better person in specific ways, living a meaningful life, those sorts of things.

And well, yes, so far so good. I actually think there is some merit to this idea. I'm pretty sure most of it has been said before in one way or another, but collecting knowledge and presenting it in a cohesive way is important in it's on right.

Is the basis for all power exchange relationships identifying needs and wants, "magic", communication and trust?

I don't know. Maybe. I agree that it's all important things. A problem I see with this model though is that it was described as the basis that is layed down in the beginning, and then it's done. You need to have it there, but it was kind of put as if once it was established, you could go on to other things.

But honestly, me and Mistress has been openly in love since 2003 and married for almost six years now, and we're still constantly circling back to those things. It's in no way a done deal or a basis for our relationship we can always rely on. We rekindle the magic every week, blowing on the embers and trying to get a flame going. We're constantly exploring our needs and wants and trying to, and at times failing to, communicate with each other. And in all honestly -trust is the biggest issue for us, all the time.

Do you really want me? I think every argument or fight we've ever had has had that as the basis, the note that is always carried through every hurtful word and every angry stare. "Do you really want me? Am I really good enough for you? Really, really? Can I trust you not to find me to lacking and abandoning me?"

But the idea that the middle block of rituals and rules and hot steamy sex is optional and can be removed without necessarily damaging the foundation - I liked that. It was an image that resonates with my experience. The actual relationship is there, whether we have time to act on the power imbalance or not. Sometimes the fancy stuff simply can't be fitted in - that doesn't mean we're not we any more. We're just a bit more boring.

I love high protocol. I love orders and rituals. I hope to have a lot of those things in my life over time. But maybe not right now, when we're building a family. We have a long life ahead of us. There'll be plenty of time for Mistress to teach me fancy slave positions.

And the importance of valued direction I liked to. In a way I think that was a big part of what was lacking for me in my former relationship. That, and of course that I was in love with Mistress... But if I look only at me and my ex and accept the fact that it wouldn't have worked out anyway (because I really don't think it would have) I think the fact that my life was put on hold was an important aspect for me.

I wasn't happy with him, in the sense that the life we led didn't make me happy. I loved him, but living with him made me miserable. We were poor. I worked a lot, mostly night shift, and he was in charge of the money but spent them on junk food, his Coca-Cola-addiction and technical gadgets. I was constantly stressed out about money, at the same time that I actually worked and made a decent salary. We ate junk, and I gained tons of weight. Stress, night job and junk food combined with no exercise whatsoever because of lack of money, time and opportunities made horrible things with my health.

At it's worse, I weighed over 100 kg. I eventually rectified that, on my own and with the support of Mistress, when we were still in the poly-tryad, but he never helped or did anything to make it easier for me.

I had a job without prospects. I had no direction in life. And he made it clear that when he was done with med-school I was supposed to go where he got a job, no matter where that was, and that if we ever got a kid, he had no plans to share parenting equally or sacrifice his career for his kids. None of that was okay with me or my values or my goals in life.

With Mistress, we have so many plans. Before her, my future was blank to me, empty and black. Now - we have tons of dreams and plans. Living with her has made me secure enough to dare to voice my desire to write fiction. She encourages me to take the time to do that. She's supported me, emotionally and financially, through the whole of my university education. She made me get my drivers license. She got me a dog. And a kid. We're living a life, we're going forward, we share dreams and hopes and plans.

We have shared values, and I do think that is super important. Not only that I get to move towards things that are intrinsically valuable to me, but that she is aware of what is valuable to her in her life, and that our values match. I don't think this really has anything to do with the power dynamic between us - but it do have a lot to do with us being able to live happily ever after together.