Life, in general. And stress induced amnesia.

So yeah, it was awhile ago since I blogged. And that's okay, it happens to everyone. But... I actually had to go to http://slavetomasterblog.blogspot.se/ tp check her blogroll to remember the name of this place. That'
s bad. That's really bad.

I do have the excuse that my life has been completely topsy-turvy for about a month now, and that I should probably be happy about remembering my own name at least.

My job contract was up in June and I was offered to stay on but in the end I changed jobs which means we'
re relocating after the summer. Or rather re-relocating, we're going home again. Mistress has been working from home alternating with travelling a lot, and we're moving back to closer to her actual workplace, and our home town. It's all good, I think it will be a good job for me and we never really settled in here anyway. But it's changes, and changes are hard.

And we've found and bought this amazing house. We're moving in August 14th, and we can't wait. We're both on vacation until then and little S is home with us, and yesterday we came home from a two week road trip to the south ofSweden. Before that I did three weeks at the new job, sleeping at a friends' house during the weekdays, and yeah, we haven't had decent routines or anything resembling order and structure for over a month.

But amazingly we're both good with each other. We have all sorts of stress induced symptoms, from cold sores to panic attacks, but we're in love and secure with each other. A couple of weeks ago this kind of stress and lack of alone time would have driven us at each others throats and induced hundreds of "you don't really love me!!!" meltdowns. I'm so glad we're not doing that right now.

The house though. The house! We found our dreamhouse, it's perfect in so many ways. It never even got out on the market, we heard about it from a friend of my moms. I got a phone number to "someone who wants to sell their house, you should call her" and got up my nerve and did. I'm so glad I did, Mistress wasn't even at home that week, and I was in all kinds of jitters (I have a bit of a phone phobia, calling strangers is not my favourite pastime).

We arranged to check it out on the way to somewhere else and got thirty minutes roaming around with a overexcited little S hanging around our throats while making small talks to the current owners. And two days later we made an offer and they accepted and well, we bought it.

It's built somewhere before 1850, a very classic red two story Swedish farm house. It's got original  floor boards that are 50 cm wide, five fireplaces (one in the master bedroom) and it's beautifully renovated with all modern appliances. We don't have to do a thing, we're just moving in.

It also got 8 acres of land, and several outbuildings with different functions. One is a stable, and we're getting horses! Probably not this fall, since there is some work to do to make the woods and the farm land into pasture and get the outbuildings in to use, but next summer for sure.

We have our own woods! With hunting rights. Well, we have land for almost anything we might like to do. The school bus stops just outside the house, it's in a little village with other kids (though we don't know ages and whether or not they are playmate-material of course) and it's just perfect.

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.

Life and plans and mice and men...

We've been talking about life goals a bit, about plans for the future and what we want to happen in our lifes. The big stuff, the big picture. I make happy fairy tale plans for the future all the time, with Mistress humouring me and humming along, without making any commitment either way. That's just how we do it, because we have different needs when it comes to planning.

But now Mistress is the one initiating it, and it feels great. When it's just me, it's just dreaming. I can dream all I want, but I can't make anything happen. The wheels doesn't start to turn until she is onboard.

My job contract ends in June 2015. It's very likely I'll be offered another position then, with better pay, at the same place. I could go on doing what I'm doing in the same office with the same colleagues. If I want to.

Mistress has a deal with her employer about working from home for the duration of my job contract, but whether or not she could prolong that is uncertain. It might be okay, it might not, it's hard to say. And I'm not sure she wants to, either, she'll get new assignments at work around that time that might mean she needs to be more on sight anyway.

 And in June I'm going to get my license, provided I keep working like I've been for the last six months, and that means the job offers available to me will increase drastically. There's a lot more job offers out there for licensed psychologists than for those just out of school.

In August 2015, little S starts school. That's absolutely crazy, I have a very hard time wrapping my head around that one. But that means wherever we are at that time will be her first year in school, and if we move after that, she's going to have to change schools, and that's a hassle I'd like to spare her. If we can - it might not be possible.

And... the trickiest part. I'm 34. We've been talking about having another baby since little S was born, five years ago. And if we're going to do that, we need to do it sometime soon. It's not to late, not at all, but it's not something that we're comfortable postponing for say another ten years or so either. We could, but the risks increases, and we can't just have sex without protection and hope for the best. If we want a baby, we need to take active steps to make it happen.

Mistress is ten years my senior, and she says she's starting to feel old (mind you, she threatend to whack me in the head with an iron saucepan when I was complaining about feeling old at 18, and she was 28 and had "about to be 30"-angst. So her feeling to old isn't really a new phenomena.)

All this means that the coming year we have to make some big decisions. Where are we going to live, and how are we going to make a living? Are we going to try to have another baby, or are we happy and content with having an only child? We need seclusion and hate having neighbours, but we want good communications and a well stocked grocery store. I dream about dogs and horses, and we both crave nature - woods and water and a view.

How do we reconcile those dreams with our needs to live in a culture rich environment where we feel safe and don't have to deal with prejudice against same-sex couples? Where will little S thrive the most? How do we balance our needs against the need to be close to our respective parents? And jobs - we need jobs that's stimulating and fun and reasonably well paid, and not to far from wherever we choose to live.

Yesterday we were cuddling on the sofa, hashing all this out, pondering this and that and the other, and circled around the question of another baby. I mentioned that when we were discussing it a time table showed up in my head. That we should keep working on being healthy and losing weight, so that I was in the shape I need to be to safely get pregnant at the end of this year, and that we should start arrangements with the relevant hospital in January 2015. If I got pregnant sometime during the spring of 2015, I would be able to finish my job contract, and be eligible for paid parental leave when the baby arrives.

And do you know what Mistress said? She said "I think that sounds reasonable. I feel the same way."

And that means it's on. It's on! It's the best gift I've gotten for a long time. She said yes!

We're going to have another baby!

(We just need to take care of some things first. Like me losing 10% of my current body weight. And oh, actually get pregnant. But apart from that, it's all settled!)

Everyday life

Did you know that working full time makes it a lot harder to keep up with blogging? I've just noticed...

We're pretty much settled in our new home now, all three of us (four counting the hamster, but I'm not sure he really qualifies as a person. And the fishes totally don't count.) Mistress is working from her office at home or travelling - both to her office at work for hours from here, and all over Europe for meetings, workshops and stuff. She's been gone quite a lot lately, and it's a bit of a hassle. But I'm surprisingly okay with being alone with the kid. I'm exhausted when she's finally back again, and it's very obvious who it is that does the laundry and cleaning in this home (a clue: it's not me), but we get by.

But that working full time thing? So not my thing. I recently re-negotiated to 6 hours/day instead, and it feels a lot better. I earn less, and I wont get my license until June (instead of April) but I won't go bonkers or run straight into a wall again, and that's important too.

The apartment feels like home, and little S seems to like her new pre-school. But... this part of the country isn't our home. We don't have roots here. We don't identify with this place. It might be and adjustment thing, or it might simply be that we're a couple of academic lesbians in a working class town.

I'm submissive, but I'm rather good at defending myself

I'm not really comfortable at work right now, which bugs me since it has nothing to do with my actual job or anything I'm hired to do. As far as I can tell, I'm performing perfectly adequately, possibly a bit over expectations, as far as my actual job goes.

Unfortunately, that's not all that it takes to be a good enough employee, and this... this place doesn't really mesh with me. At least not in all aspects.

Last week I had an unfortunate run-in with an arrogant, 70-year old male doctor, who didn't think I provided him with enough service and maintenance when we had a joint assignment with a patient. And I didn't, since I figured he was a colleague and a fellow person whom I supposed I would be cooperating with - not cater to and serve. He didn't appreciate that, and I didn't appreciate him telling me so much.

So. Yeah.

It's the third time someone over the age of sixty kindly but sternly has attempted to tell me how I'm supposed to act and how things are actually done here. I'm getting a bit sick and tired of it.

In the moment, I seem to always find my feet. So far I have an exemplary record of answering calmly and with poise something along the lines of "that's not part of my job description" or "I'm sorry that [this thing I do] makes you uncomfortable, but I'm going to keep doing it for [this and that work-related reason]."

But. That's in the moment. I know I come off as sure of myself, as confident and tough and able to take care of myself. But in the long run, I'm none of those things. I don't want to pick fights with people. I don't want to be critisized or corrected or told I'm doing things wrong, no matter if I agree or not. I don't want to have to defend myself.

Because at the core of me, I'm submissive. I don't want to stand up for myself against arrogant, spoiled old doctors. I want to please and be liked and accomodate. And when I don't, and get called on it, it hurts and rattles me, and now I'm all afraid and unsure of myself and worried and have this angsty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

So why do I do it? Why do I enter a strictly hierarchical system like the public health care system, with ancient traditions of strict ranks and expected obedience, and then refuse to conform? Isn't that kind of stupid, especially if I don't actually like being a rebel, and the consequences of acting like a rebel?

I do it because I really really want to be a psychologist, and because I'm good at it. It's a job I can actually do, and do well, as far as the job goes. The things I've been defending myself against are the demands from the work place that interfers with my ability to do my actual tasks, because the demands interferes with my disability.

I can have ADHD and be an excellent psychologist and therapist. Those roles plays to all my strengths, and barely touches on my weaknesses. That's what I want to do, and something I can do, despite being a scatterbrain with low attention span and a distinct lack in stamina. Under the circumstances offered by this position, I can actually succeed, and perform well above par for the course at this very specialised task.

But. I can only do it if I'm allowed to do precisely that, and not a thousand other things that female employees who's not a doctor routinely are expected to do. I'm not a nurse, or a medical secretary or an orderly, and I'm not any of those things for very good reason - one of them is that I suck at that kind of work. It's not that I think I'm to good to be doing it, it's that I know I'm to bad at it. Very much the same issue I have with being a stay-at-home-mom, incidentally. It's not that I don't want to do it, it's just that my disability covers exactly the skills that kind of serviceoriented, multitasking job requires.

I can barely administer my own patients, I'm not going to take over those tasks for some doctor too. I can sit in for hours and hours on meaningless meetings where my input isn't asked for - but it takes ridicolous amounts of energy from me, and to preserve some for, you know, my actual job, I've taken up knitting. Straight up scarves, no patterns, and wooden knits that doesn't make any sounds. And still someone felt she had to come and tell me "we don't do that here". Ah well, yes we do. I do - because without it I'm not going to be able to do my job, and I'm not willing to compromise with that. And so on, ad infinutim. It feels like I'm constantly surprising people or disturbing people, just by trying to exist in the workplace and create a space where I can do my job.

So basically - I have a job with tasks I love doing and that I'm good at. I want to please and accomodate and be a good employee, in accordance with my submissive, labradoresque soul. But, unfortunately, other sources at work gets in the way, and my tactics for trying to do my job crashes against unwritten rules and expectations in the workplace. And since I'm very very anxious to do my job, I'm unwilling to compromise with the groups informal rules and the informal leaders display of status.

And of course, I have a life long experience of never fitting in, of never being good enough, of never getting the social codes anyway, and of always feeling slightly like an alien. If I was good at conforming and listening to what other people expect of me, I wouldn't have my family right now, because me and Mistress wouldn't have been together. So, on the whole, it works in my favour, I would say.

I'll just hang in there, be myself, keep on not letting people bully my or push me around, defending my position as psychologist and my right to do the job I'm actually paid to do, and to not be burdened down with a thousand other tasks that's not part of the job description (because I'm to handicapped to deal with that - I don't have the resources), and if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, let the bosses fire me, if that's what they want to do. I'm not backing down, and I'm not quitting. I'm goint to keep going straight ahead in my valued direction, in being as good as I can be at my job, and not take responsibility for the myriad of things that aren't working in the organisation and that I don't have any power over.

But I long for the move. And for vacation. In to weeks time I have three weeks off, and when I return to work, I'll be living with Mistress again. I need her. I need her to tell me what's really important, who it is I'm really supposed to be pleasing, and who I belong to. And it's not the public health service organisation, nor it's elderly employees.

Moving, and different strategies

Moving is hard. We got into an argument yesterday over trying to plan things out. Suddenly we couldn't talk to each other, we just got mad and desperate and nothing she said made sense to me, and she looked at me as if I was talking a foreign language. At one point I declared "well, if you're going to be like that, you can plan it all by yourself!" and stalked off to a different room to sulk.

Slave of the year, that's me.

Anyway, ten minutes later she ordered me back, showed me a chair and said I wasn't allowed to leave again until she said I could, and that we would resume our planning, with her using any tone of voice she damned well choose and I just had to stand it. And that, of course, made everything much better.

Later on we talked about it some more. What went wrong, why we seemd to bump heads all the time. And one of the things that came up was that I'm really really afraid that she'll change her mind. Either that she would decide that it's to much hassle to move, and I'll have to quit the job and move back home, which would be a bummer, but I could live with it. Or, worse, that she would say it's to much hassle to move and I should keep commuting to my job for another ten months, since I've been pulling it off so far. And that I couldn't live with. Not with my sanity intact.

And since that's what I'm secretly afraid of, every change of plans or possible delay freaks me out. When Mistress said she'd rather not celebrate Midsummer at our new apartment but rather at her parents cabin, I freaked. Likewise when she worried that we won't be able to afford movers.

Add to that that we have radically different ways of processing difficult situations, it gets really interesting. I get through hard times by ignoring as much as possible, focus on the end goal, and muddle through. Mistress worry and fret and complain and plan everything in detail, and borrows a lot of trouble in my opinion, but she always manages things in the end. For her, things mostly turns out to not be as bad as she thought they would be. For me, there's always disaster in the wings, unforeseen troubles attacking me without notice.

The point isn't whether the strategies are good or bad, they're both and neither, but that they tend to counter act each other. When Mistress worry and fret and complains, she wants me to be her sounding board, to hear her out and listen while she solves the problem, by coming at it again and again from different angles. Reasonable and effective and something I'm good at when the problem in question isn't something that matters to me, like her work or things like that.

But for me, I either do or I do not. If I'm ever at the point that I'm saying or thinking all the negative things Mistress gives voice to when planning something difficult, I'm already out of there. When I start worrying about something, I'm ready to give it up. If I'm going to do something, I do it, and after the decision is made, I can't go back and ponder it again, because if I do, I quit. But Mistress needs me to listen to her pondering about it, and well... it freaks me out.

Especially when I forget that she's a different person than I am, and interpret her behaviour as if it was me doing it. Then her problem solving to me means she's given up and isn't going to go through with it. Which, in my deepest fears, leaves me stranded and alone in a strange town, hours from my family, abandoned and dispensable.

That's not what's going on, of course. First she gave me a solemn promise that as from the 1st of July, we're all going to be living in the same apartment again. And then, she ordered me naked, used candle wax on me, beat me and fucked me. And then all was right in the world again.

But moving is a hassle.

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.

Life change

And then, all of a sudden, I got a job offer. And accepted. I started six days ago, and since the workplace is 1,5 hours from home, I've been living in a hostel all week.

We're okay. I'm okay, a lot more okay than I thought I would be actually. But everything about our day to day life has been turned upside down, and we're reeling a bit from the shock of it. And has a ton of things to do, and a lot of major decisions to make.

I thought I'd be blogging a lot about the job and the change, but I think I've been to busy living it to have time or energy to reflect all that much. That will come later, but for now, I'm pretty much in the moment. Good thing, I think. 

I wont be Mistress' stay-at-home-slave anymore for a while. The plan is to work full time for a year, provided we can stand it and no one gets sick. After that, we're pretty agreed on me not working full time ever ever again. But that's then. Now is now. And I'm not really sure how I feel about it all.

Getting through the days

March is question-month, and I want in on it. That is, I'd love to get questions since I usually have no idea who reads this and I'd love to getting hints of things to blog about. So if anyone want to know anything about me, just post a question in the comments, and I'll answer it.

More than question-month, March for us have been sickness month. When we got home from Paris, little S got chickenpox and I got the flu. Yesterday was the first day in two weeks I could take a bike ride without wanting to puke or cough up my lungs. Little S is still covered in scabs from the 'pox but at least she was virus-free and her old happy self again.

Except that she spent all day complaining about tummy ache, and half an hour before bedtime she throw up. She kept throwing up every halv hour the rest of the evening, and Mistress who slept in her room said that she was sick the last time at 2.30. Yey.

And I just shut down a bit for the time being. I don't want to play this game, but there's nowhere else to go. We'll just live through it and believe that we will get healthy again, despite the evidence to the contrary.

I was at a job interview last Thursday, and I will be going to another one next Thursday (unless I'm puking my guts out at the time). There's some kind of low level anxiety humming in the background all the time, and it contributes to me freaking out. What if no one wants me? What if they do want me? What if both jobs want me? And then again, what if they don't? What if no one will want to hire me ever? What if there's something wrong with me? And so on and so forth.

If I do get a job offer, I'll start fretting over whether or not I can do the job, and about the fact that it means we'll have to move and all the hassle that entails. But that's next on my fret list. For now, I'm stuck on "no one will ever want to employ me". Oh, and "we'll never have sex again, 'cause we'll be sick forever". Happy fun time all around.

The trip, the babysitter and general ickyness

Okay, so we went to bed with an unresolved horrible argument over our heads. When I woke up, Mistress was with little S, and we didn't get very much time alone all day. And we had a decision to make. Should Mistress go, or should she stay?

If she went, I would be alone with our sick daughter while down with the flu. We wouldn't die of starvation, I wouldn't neglect the kid and I would be able to call for an ambulance if needed. But it was easy to envision two rather grim, taxing days, and the emotional ramifications afterwards for me would probably be rather severe (meaning I would be exhausted, depressed and pissed off for quite some time).

She could stay home, of course. If someone had said to her a month ago "oh, by the way, that meeting? Both your wife and your kid are going to be pretty sick that week, just so you know" she would have said "Hell no!" and cancelled. But this wasn't a month earlier. This was the day the meeting started, and it was a start-up thing for a project four years ahead. If she wants a face to the people she's going to be emaling for the coming four years, she better be there. She wouldn't have planned on going at all in the first place if it wasn't important.

Or we could ask her parents to babysit for us. My mom doesn't have the health for it right now, and my dad's out of town. But her parents could - if I hadn't had the flu. Because grandpa eats immune-suppressing medicine, hanging around with my viruses would be a bad idea. They're immune to chickenpox, though, so they could take little S to their place for two days. Great, I would get to rest, Mistress could go to the meeting, and little S would be taken care of. Except that little S herself cried her eyes out at the thought of it and refused to go anywhere without at least one of her mummies (preferably both). Understandable, since we went to Paris for two days without her last week, and she's itchy all over on top of that.

So we had three solutions that each one was great for two of us and really bad for the third. No compromises, no way of softening the blow. Someone would have to suffer. And we were desperately unhappy, with unresolved issues hanging over our heads, and all thinking or talking was accompanied by incessant whining from the itchy, miserable four-year-old.

As usual, grandma came through for us in our darkest moment. She telephoned and asked if she should come alone, and stay at our place  'til the day Mistress was coming home. That way grandpa wouldn't get sick, I wouldn't be left alone with the responsibility, and little S wouldn't have to leave her mommies or her home.

So in the end, Mistress went, I'm sick in bed, and little S is miserable, itchy and whiny in the living room with grandma. About every thirty minutes she makes a dash for the bedroom door crying for me, and my heart brakes. I've been up and about a few times, and even when I feel almost fine laying in bed after 30 minutes of sitting up and socialising I'm about to keel over, sweating and dizzy. Not all better yet, no.

I'm trying to console myself with that she's not really happier when I'm with her, she's miserable from the chickenpox and there's nothing I can do. Of course she prefers me from grandma, but she knows and loves grandma. She just wants me too, and I want to be with her also. But right now, I just want this horrible sick feeling to go away. I'm not to fond of anything right now, to be honest. Everything seems rather horrid.

General misery

Yesterday we had this huge breakdown and fight, with both of us feeling betrayed and pissed off and misunderstood and panicky. I hate when that happens.

At one point, just before I went to bed, I was on the toilet, trying to pee, but instead rocking back and forth in despair, crying soundlessly and hardly able to breath from heartache. It was the most miserable I have been in years, my brain was in some sort of panicky, primal state where everything is gone except misery.

Right now Mistress is in Tallinn, Estonia. Little S is in bed covered in chickenpox. I have the flu. The state of our little family is rather pitiful at the moment.

But we skyped just now, and talked for almost an hour about what went wrong yesterday. Apparently, Mistress assumes I will tell her without prompting if my cold develops into the flu with high fever, even if she's to busy to actually ask how I'm feeling. The fact that I assumes that if she wanted to know how I was she would ask doesn't exactly help, though. There might have been a slight misunderstanding regarding this, yesterday.

Right now, I'm going to obey orders and go to bed. I miss her.

I miss her.

I miss her.

I miss her. 

A trip to Paris

We went to Paris. Can you imagine? I got to see Paris.

We haven't been there all of Febuary, there's no neat excuse for me not updating for three weeks. It's just like that sometimes, I get quite and can't form words. And then I snap out of it and start writing again.

But anyway, we went to Paris. Mistress had a meeting, and I got to tag along. We flew there from Stockholm Wednesday, and home again yesterday, and stayed two nights at a hotel, while Mistress' parents babysat. Two nights is not a long time to spend in a big city, but it's a rather long time for little S to be without her mommies, so it felt like an okay compromise. Anyway, Mistress is travelling again on Tuesday, so if we had stayed any longer she would barely gotten through the door before it was time to leave again.

I like tagging along to Mistresss work-functions. I get to play the role of acconmpanying wife, and I'm rather good at it, for short bursts of time. I'm good at mingling and making acquaintances, and I actually enjoy meeting her colleagues and chatting about work and travels and all kinds of things.

But mostly, I just like beeing with her. I don't want to be left at home, I want to be where she is. She is my home. Anywhere in the world is okay, as long as we're there together. (Well, except maybe Helsinki. We had a terrible time when she had a meeting in Helsinki and I went along. But I could probably be happy there too, just as long as I could be with her, and we could cook our own food and didn't have to rely on Finnish restaurants...)

This trip, I got to see the Louvre. And Notre Dame. And the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes. And I got to walk along the Seines and drink red wine to lunch (and get tsked at by the waiter for answering "oui" when he asked if I wanted ketchup to my fries). I liked Paris. I want to go back there, someday.

I also like being home again, with our own bed and our kitchen and most of all, our adorable four-year-old. It's good to have a family. It's good to be missed when away.

Spanking new and shiny

She's home now, and the moment I saw her it was like a weight lifted from my shoulders, and as if someone clubbed me in the head at the same time. Intense relief and killing fatigue. She's home. I'm not alone anymore.

I tend to liken myself to dogs occasionally, and when she's away that's even more apt than usual. Because I really act like a dog whose owner went out and the dog walks from window to window, restlessly checking everything, not settling down, not eating, just walking and waiting and checking everything out incessantly. Until the owner comes home and the dog collapses in an exhausted pile of fur on the carpet and sleeps for twelve hours straight.

To lessen my anxiety I actually made something for her while she was away. That speaks volumes of my increased health, that I don't have to use all my energy just to manage the bare necessities, I can do a little more than that. So I got inspired and turned one of our kitchen implements, a wooden spatula, into a spanking thingy.

I drilled six holes in it, sandpapered it and then applied black shiny varnish. I screwed up and used too much varnish the first time around so I had to sandpaper it all off and re-apply it, which was a bit of a hassle since it took ten hours to dry and needed two layers. But I got it done in time, and it felt really good to do something. To create something with my hands, and to work with wood, which is my favourite material. 

She tried it out a little on me yesterday, and declared that I was so going to regret making it. I think she's right, in the best way possible.

They haven't called me back about the job, and I'm thinking that means they picked someone else. Part of me feel horrible about that, but I think I'll manage. It's a bit unsettling having no idea what my immediate future will look like, but it's okay. I'm in a good spot - I would love to be able to move forward with our plans and our lifes, but it's okay to just be here too.

Even though I almost started to cry this morning when little S and I played house and she made me the mommy of two dolls, stating they where her little twin sisters. I want babies! I want her to have siblings for real. Or sibling, since I don't imagine I'm going to be pregnant more than one more time in life. But I want that time, I want another baby. (Twins would be good, though. I'd love twins. Too bad Nature doesn't take requests.)

And the job is connected to the having babies-thing, because it would make a lot of sense economically and career-wise for me to work for a while so that I can become a licensed psychologist before I take time off to be a mom again. I'll probably be in an even worse spot looking for work if there's three or four years between getting the exam and my first job. I've heard employers frown upon that kind of gap in one's resumé. Also, I'm a bit afraid that if I don't get that done now, maybe I never will, and then I will never be a psychologist, not really, and would have worked my butt (and my sanity) off for seven years for nothing. That would sting a bit.

I want to do this. I want to get a job and work as a psychologist. If I don't get a position anytime soon, though, we might have to move for me to be able to do that, and meh. That's not something I'm looking forward to.

Life in general

I kind of fell off the interwebz during the Holidays. And a bit longer. I need silence to order my thoughts, and there's been a lot going on. Mostly just that Mistress was on vacation from work and little S was home, so I didn't need my computer to keep me company.

Today Mistress flew to Copenhagen for work, she'll be back Wednesday. I'm lost and confused as usual when she's away, but not as angsty as I used to be. I'm healthier now, I have more energy and recuperate a lot faster than before when I do get exhausted, so I'm not as scared to be alone. It still sucks, though.

In general my life is awesome. I might get a job offer this week, I was interviewed for a position last week. If I get it, my awesome life will change tremendously. If I don't get it, it will go on as before with the important difference that I'll be more aware of how awesome it really is and how much I'll appreciate it. Whether I get this job or not, being home like I am now and having this much time to myself is a short interlude in my life, a rare treat, and I'll savour it while it lasts.

Shame

Shame is one of the most destructive feelings I know. A lot of the crap that has happened to me, and most of all the crap that I have been instrumental in allowing to happen, has been caused by shame.

And I'm ashamed all the time. Or at least very often. For a very long time in my youth I didn't have any memories. Every time something would pop up in my mind, there would be something shameful associated with it, and I would immediately shut it down. That feeling, that dread coursing through the body, the wish to disappear, to cease existing, it's awful. At times, it has controlled my life.

I have two major things I'm ashamed of, and one is not being liked. I grew up knowing I wasn't loved (as an adult, I've started to think that I probably was, but that can't change my experience as a kid), and I was bullied in school on top of that. I had two best friends, both of whom betrayed me horribly, first one at twelve and the next one at fourteen, and contributed to the bullying. So that's one. The other one is not being good enough.

I have ADHD, but no one knew that. I grew up trying harder than everyone around me, and still coming up short. I was always late, didn't do the things I was supposed to, forgot stuff, didn't clean up after myself, made a mess, broke stuff, and so on. I was constantly not living up to the expectations from people around me - people like my parents and teachers, who saw a smart, talented, charming kid who for some reason just didn't seem to care or try very hard. While, at the same time, I was working like crazy to get through each day, and not letting anyone see that I was struggling. Because of shame.

If I hadn't been ashamed, maybe someone would have known what my life was really like. Maybe I could have told an adult about the bullying. Maybe I could have explained that I did my very best and still couldn't manage to do homework - that I did care, a lot, but just couldn't make it work. If I hadn't been ashamed. But I was ashamed, and I much preferred being labelled lazy and unambitious than having people know I couldn't do it.

And that haunts me still.

I've been sick lately, on top of my ongoing issues with mental fatigue and burn out. I'm getting better, but it's a bumpy road, as always. Mistress has taken two day off of work and we've gone to her parents for a mini vacation. Today I took little S on a shopping trip so that Mistress could get some time for herself and work, and after lunch I accompanied my mother in law to the vet with one of the dogs, a big rottweiler that doesn't particularly like other dogs and last time had made a big fuss while waiting for the vet. I'm pretty proud of how I handled it, there was no wrestling matches or incessant barking this time, but after that and picking up som groceries, I was pretty much wiped. I spent the afternoon in bed, and at dinner time I was all kinds of woozy, feeling sick and dizzy and thinking I wouldn't survive the evening.

On top of that, Mistress had asked me earlier to take care of little S after dinner so that she could work some more, and it made me rather panicky, because I really didn't think I would be up for it. And again, that made me overwhelmed with shame.

Every time I'm asked, especially by Mistress, to do something that is beyond what I can do without feeling seriously ill or paying a heavy price afterwards I get terribly ashamed. I'm awashed in it.

In the end I did take care of little S while Mistress worked, we had a nice time playing a game on the iPad together, and it wasn't so difficult. It helped that little S was in a good mood and stayed focused on the game.

And then eventually the day was over with little S going to bed downstairs with grandma, and I started to relax and feel like maybe, maybe I was okay, maybe I had made it. And the first thing Mistress says to me is along the lines of "oh, we said we should work tonight, we need to do that thing with the survey job".

And at that point my head exploded. The shame got to me, the camel's back was broken by the last straw, the last drop made the glass of water overflow in a cascade of liquid anguish all over the kitchen floor, and I could feel my brain changing gears in to crazy mood.

Because in my mind her even suggesting that I would be up for anything more strenous at that point ment I must be a total failure. A let down. Not good enough. That nothing I had done, nothing I had achieved or managed or made myself do had been worth anything. No matter how hard I strain and press myself, it's not even close to being enough. I'll never be enough. I'll never do enough. I can't be good enough, I can't be loved or worthy of love, I can't achieve anything that makes me fit to even live and breath, I haven't earned my keep, neither as her wife, her property nor even as a human being. I need to work 'til I drop and die and be done with it, because nothing else will cut it.

So yeah. It wasn't a great conversation starter, as such. To my credit, all I said was that I wasn't up for it, that I was hurt and upset that she suggested it, and that I wanted to go lay down in the bedroom, alone. That might not sound like a very tempered or reasonable response but compared to what my brain was screaming at me, I was positively cheerful.

And then I did just that, went and laid down, and instead of rehashing every slight and every shameful moment and debating with myself whether I was right to be hurt or not, I did a mindfulness-exercise, a simple but thorough body scan. I can do that now, that's pretty cool actually, even with my mind on fire with anguish and panic and shame I can redirect my consious focus on something of my own choosing.

The feelings are still there, the discomfort and panic and adrenalin surge through the body, but I can still focus my attention on my left toe, my left foot, the leg, the knee and so on. It takes about twenty minutes to go through the whole body, and by then the panic has subsided, the raging fires of despair has died from lack of things to devour, and everythings a little more settled. It's a neat trick.

We talked about it, of course, afterwards, and we'll figure something out. But shame. I hate it. It's the least constructive thing ever. I'm working on it.

Resolve

Mistress is going away again, for two nights this week. I'm okay with it, even though I don't like it of course. I have a very clear and unambiguous order for the three days she's gone: Be in better shape when she returns!

I've had a depression setback in November - it's dark, I have an never-ending cold and noone is calling back to my job applications. Unfortunately, the strategies I unconsciously applied to solve these issues only made them worse. I tried to ruminate and worry, which never works and just make me feel yucky, and then I had a lot of guilt and bad conscience that drove me to do a lot of presumably good stuff like cleaning and things; only when it's done out of guilt it never ends well. In the end, my brain started going the old depression route again, and  Mistress picked up on it because I started to snap and snarl at her a lot.

I do that - when I get depressed and stressed out and angsty, the mere effort of holding a conversation or eating breakfast feels like to much, and I start lashing out. Not all that much, I usually bites my tongue, but Mistress notices and it makes her grumpy in return, which all to often ends in arguing and bickering and general misery.

So. No more rumination or guilt trips. No compensating and trying to be a "good girl" just because I feel like a shitty one. Back to meditating regularly (wich I haven't been doing), walking and going to the gym, lunching with friends and generally doing all the things that I know makes me feel better, instead of things I'm driven to just to avoid feeling bad. Because that's not the same thing.

But I'll miss her. Like crazy.

A better day

It's funny what a difference it did that we talked a bit on webcam this morning. Little S seemed happy too, even though it's a little bit strange with mommy on the computer and not in hugging distance. And for me it ment that the day seemed somehow normal. I could start my day with her, and just now we talked a bit again, and somehow anchoring my day with Mistress in the beginning and the end of it, everything feels more like it should be.

Half is done now. Friday she'll be back.

The tough and the weak

I miss her. Insanely. I cried today when I finally got to see her on the webcam. I can't remember if I've ever acutally cried from missing her before. And in a way it made it easier. It's not as hard and difficult when I don't have to be strong and brave and tough it out.

This time I don't have to. I don't have to be as strong, because the work isn't as hard. I don't have to go to school or be at home all day alone with the kid, and I'm not even half as tired as I used to be just a little while ago. For the first time in a long while it's not unusual for me to get through a normal day and not be crushed by fatigue and despair some time after dinner.

And I don't have to be as brave, because finally (finally!) both me and the people around me have a realistic view of what I can and can't do (okay, everyone except for my mom, but I'll leave her out of this...). No one is expecting me to not be a wreck when Mistress finally gets home. It's part of the equation. I don't have to feel guilty, and I don't have to hide it. It's okay, it can be what it is.

I'm not normal. I wish I was, or at least that the things that makes my life difficult could be toned down a little, but I'm not. What's new and exciting and uplifting is that I no longer have to act as if I'm normal, and I'm no longer expected to react as if I was. How I'm in fact wired, what really happens with me and my brain, is taken into account now. There's no longer this glaring mismatch between the map (how everybody else works) and reality (how I react in real life).

Which means I can skip the brave face and stay vulnerable. Stay present. Stay in touch with my emotions. And that is so much less work than dealing with the side-effects of the brave-face-approach. The brave face means walls and detachments, means self-sufficiency and loneliness, means independence and distance.

I hate the brave face. I love the privilege of weakness and dependence and softness and crying after Mistress because I miss her so so much, and I need her so so much. I love the freedom that comes with the luxury of openness and vulnerability and honesty and humility. I'm allowed to miss her. I'm allowed the weakness that comes with that feeling now, when I don't have to perform to the utmost of my ability at all times any longer.

I still have to tough it out, though, because today is Tuesday and she'll be home Friday afternoon. Two days down, three more to go. 

Going away

Tomorrow morning Mistress leaves for Spain. She'll be back Friday, and even though I really don't like her going away from me, it feels a lot better than the last time she travelled. One of the main reason is probably that this time neither I nor anyone else thinks I'm okay with it, and expects me to be perfectly all right when she gets back.

We have all kinds of support in place, the biggest one being my in-laws coming and living with me and little S from Tuesday to Thursday. And we're going to talk every day, and I'll have a schedule, and there's food in the fridge, and everything is going to be okay. Except that I'll miss her like crazy.

Yesterday she whipped me, hard and deliciously cruel. Today we made our version of sweet love, including a whole lot of nipple pinching and strangling. I feel safe and loved and treasured. It's going to be okay. And at least she'll be home soon.