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.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Oct 16, 2016
Dec 1, 2013
"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*
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*
Apr 14, 2013
Giving things up
I just wrote a very sad email. A friend had asked, several times actually, if we wanted to come to the LARP she's organising this spring. I've been avoiding giving her an answer, but today I did. I wrote and said no thank you. We simply can't. And the moment I hit the send button, my heart felt like it was bursting.
I want to!! I want to keep my friends! I want to go to LARPs! I want to fantasize, roleplay, sleep in the woods and cook over an open fire. I want to wear the outfits I've sewn myself and for a moment, a few hours or a few days, enter a different reality, become someone else. I want that!
But I know that whatever I might fantasize about now, the last ten times we've tried it I haven't really been up for it. Sometimes I've skipped out in the last minute (a shitty thing to do) and sometimes I've gone through with it, out of duty more than enjoyment, and not gotten that much out of it.
I'm afraid that if we ever do have the time and energy again that all our friends will have forgotten us. Forgotten me. They do a hundred fun things every week (so I read on Facebook) and I don't. I'm not there. For the first few years I always thought that well, they'll be there when I get back to it, but I wonder how long that window will stay open? How long before any attempt to rejoin the ranks would be met with "who are you?"
And at the same time I simply can't work up enough enthusiasm about it. I like being home at the evening at week nights. I don't like going out after dinner, I'm tired and I want to be with Mistress the few hours we have alone together. I can go out, but the truth is I don't want to.
And our weekends are hard work taking care of little S. We've tried, numerous times, to bring her to things we enjoy, but she doesn't enjoy them and that ruins it for us. Of course we can go to a meeting and have her with us - but at least one of us will spend the entire time focusing on her, because otherwise she'll either destroy something, throw a tantrum or disappear, and that's not much of a meeting.
The truth is that the free time we do get we need to spend in a way that gives immediate satisfaction. Not planning for fun things that are going to happen in three months - we can't afford that. We need things that are fun now.
And I do get to see friends. The few I have that are 1) not super busy having a life and a hobby and not have time for me or living in a different city and 2) those that I've come close enough to actually call without anything specific in mind, those that want to go grab a coffee with me in particular, those that I can talk to about anything and nothing and simply enjoy the company of. I have those, and maybe the thing is that that is enough.
And also, the Master thesis. For once I'm doing a project at school. School takes up most of my energy not spent on little S, and that means I don't have much left. I actually enjoy what we're doing right now, but it drains me. I come home and I mostly want to sleep. Or kill things on the Playstation.
I don't know. I guess it's not the end of the world if I'm not one of the cool kids and all my acquaintances forget about me. Maybe what I'm grieving is a phase in my life that is over? LARPing saved my life (literary - it was at one of those times during my upbringing when I was a the brink of suicide) when I was seventeen, and has been my main thing in life until now. Or maybe until a couple of years ago.
Maybe I'm growing up - prioritising home life, school and job application, being a mom and having a nice home, over hobby and projects. I don't know. And I don't know whether it's a good thing or not. It is as it is, I guess, for the time being.
I want to!! I want to keep my friends! I want to go to LARPs! I want to fantasize, roleplay, sleep in the woods and cook over an open fire. I want to wear the outfits I've sewn myself and for a moment, a few hours or a few days, enter a different reality, become someone else. I want that!
But I know that whatever I might fantasize about now, the last ten times we've tried it I haven't really been up for it. Sometimes I've skipped out in the last minute (a shitty thing to do) and sometimes I've gone through with it, out of duty more than enjoyment, and not gotten that much out of it.
I'm afraid that if we ever do have the time and energy again that all our friends will have forgotten us. Forgotten me. They do a hundred fun things every week (so I read on Facebook) and I don't. I'm not there. For the first few years I always thought that well, they'll be there when I get back to it, but I wonder how long that window will stay open? How long before any attempt to rejoin the ranks would be met with "who are you?"
And at the same time I simply can't work up enough enthusiasm about it. I like being home at the evening at week nights. I don't like going out after dinner, I'm tired and I want to be with Mistress the few hours we have alone together. I can go out, but the truth is I don't want to.
And our weekends are hard work taking care of little S. We've tried, numerous times, to bring her to things we enjoy, but she doesn't enjoy them and that ruins it for us. Of course we can go to a meeting and have her with us - but at least one of us will spend the entire time focusing on her, because otherwise she'll either destroy something, throw a tantrum or disappear, and that's not much of a meeting.
The truth is that the free time we do get we need to spend in a way that gives immediate satisfaction. Not planning for fun things that are going to happen in three months - we can't afford that. We need things that are fun now.
And I do get to see friends. The few I have that are 1) not super busy having a life and a hobby and not have time for me or living in a different city and 2) those that I've come close enough to actually call without anything specific in mind, those that want to go grab a coffee with me in particular, those that I can talk to about anything and nothing and simply enjoy the company of. I have those, and maybe the thing is that that is enough.
And also, the Master thesis. For once I'm doing a project at school. School takes up most of my energy not spent on little S, and that means I don't have much left. I actually enjoy what we're doing right now, but it drains me. I come home and I mostly want to sleep. Or kill things on the Playstation.
I don't know. I guess it's not the end of the world if I'm not one of the cool kids and all my acquaintances forget about me. Maybe what I'm grieving is a phase in my life that is over? LARPing saved my life (literary - it was at one of those times during my upbringing when I was a the brink of suicide) when I was seventeen, and has been my main thing in life until now. Or maybe until a couple of years ago.
Maybe I'm growing up - prioritising home life, school and job application, being a mom and having a nice home, over hobby and projects. I don't know. And I don't know whether it's a good thing or not. It is as it is, I guess, for the time being.
Mar 31, 2013
Reflection over function
Today was a much better day than yesterday. We went on an outing, me and Mistress and little S and grandma and grandpa. We were outside almost all day, and I kept in the background and only interacted as much as I felt like, and slept in the car on the way home. I love that - to be able to come along and participate, but not have to strain myself and do more than what is really healthy for me.
A friend asked me the other day if I would always be like this, this tired and careful about noise and such. And I said that I didn't know, but that it was much better than six months ago, and that I think I'm still healing. Weird business, this brain thing. We don't have any pain receptors in the brain - unfortunately that doesn't mean it can't get hurt.
Of course I wish it would get all better. I have been in much better shape than this, I think. But I also think that the demands put upon a working/studying mother without a fortune in our society is something I'll always struggle with. There's always something to do, there's always demands, routines, people. Things that are supposed to be done at regular intervals, at an even pace. It's completely the wrong set of skills for me, and I don't think I'll eve be able to do them well.
So in a way I'll never get better. I'll never get well enough not to need special consideration, never well enough to be able to do everything people assume I'll do, to live up to this role I'm put in by giving birth to a baby and being born in this time and this place. I will, in that regard, always be a disappointment, a special case, a little less than others.
It makes me kind of sad and a bit afraid thinking about it.
But it makes me relieved to know and accept that this is so. The lifelong struggle of denial was much more agonising and frustrating. I don't have to judge myself by others yardstick any more. If I judge myself and what I can do in a more fair way, based on what I now know about my cognitive functions, then I'm both impressive and awesome.
I have a beautiful loving family. My wife loves me and wants me in her life forever. My daughter is pretty and talented and well behaved and funny and kind and seems to have a good life, and she loves us both and I'm pretty sure she knows she's loved, which is the most important thing.
Thanks to Mistress I have my drivers license. I live in a reasonably clean and comfortable home. We have a lovely dog that is well taken care of. And I'm about to finish a very taxing university program, and graduate as a psychologist in June.
And I have a handful of wise, warm, loving friends who knows me for who I really am, and who still likes me. My life is good. I'm good enough. And having all this, having accomplished all this, despite a brain that doesn't really work like other's do - that makes me not only good enough but absolutely awesome.
A friend asked me the other day if I would always be like this, this tired and careful about noise and such. And I said that I didn't know, but that it was much better than six months ago, and that I think I'm still healing. Weird business, this brain thing. We don't have any pain receptors in the brain - unfortunately that doesn't mean it can't get hurt.
Of course I wish it would get all better. I have been in much better shape than this, I think. But I also think that the demands put upon a working/studying mother without a fortune in our society is something I'll always struggle with. There's always something to do, there's always demands, routines, people. Things that are supposed to be done at regular intervals, at an even pace. It's completely the wrong set of skills for me, and I don't think I'll eve be able to do them well.
So in a way I'll never get better. I'll never get well enough not to need special consideration, never well enough to be able to do everything people assume I'll do, to live up to this role I'm put in by giving birth to a baby and being born in this time and this place. I will, in that regard, always be a disappointment, a special case, a little less than others.
It makes me kind of sad and a bit afraid thinking about it.
But it makes me relieved to know and accept that this is so. The lifelong struggle of denial was much more agonising and frustrating. I don't have to judge myself by others yardstick any more. If I judge myself and what I can do in a more fair way, based on what I now know about my cognitive functions, then I'm both impressive and awesome.
I have a beautiful loving family. My wife loves me and wants me in her life forever. My daughter is pretty and talented and well behaved and funny and kind and seems to have a good life, and she loves us both and I'm pretty sure she knows she's loved, which is the most important thing.
Thanks to Mistress I have my drivers license. I live in a reasonably clean and comfortable home. We have a lovely dog that is well taken care of. And I'm about to finish a very taxing university program, and graduate as a psychologist in June.
And I have a handful of wise, warm, loving friends who knows me for who I really am, and who still likes me. My life is good. I'm good enough. And having all this, having accomplished all this, despite a brain that doesn't really work like other's do - that makes me not only good enough but absolutely awesome.
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