i probably won't, no

The other morning he came up behind me and hugged me and as he did, he started talking about the previous night - reminiscing, remembering, reminding me, teasing...

Then he asked me my thoughts - what had what kind of effect, what did i think about this and that, and what about the other?

"Honey, sweetie, dear - i was kinda fuzzy for this and that, and by the time you got to the other, i was flying, so i really only have a vague notion"

(Stern voice/evil glint in his eye) "Well - I want you to pay much better attention next time!"

i imagine i probably won't though

each night

each night he asks me to tell him something

not 1001 nights of tales - although it does have to be something new every night

and something he doesn't already know

about me, or us, or how i feel about me or us or him, or something that's bothering me, or things that are really good

and the problem is - he already knows an awful lot about me; and other stuff seems silly, or embarrassing, or unimportant, or unflattering

till i have so much of nothing to say

all day, i can have a million thoughts,

all brilliant and important and well fleshed out, ready to present

things that are weighing on me, things i realize and want to share with him, things i want him to know

i can even write them down to reference later

then at bedtime......nothing

just stammering, and diversions, and giggling, and ..........

and shame for having nothing to say that's worth him listening to, nothing to take advantage of this opportunity he gives me

diadokokinesia

We went to a Paul Simon concert with friends recently (yes - we're that old).  It was a terrific show.

But the opening act caught our attention also.  The band was technically "progressive bluegrass" - think soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?  Think guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass, and banjo.

They were great.  Intricate, complex, and fast.  Really fast.

At one point my husband turned to me and remarked about how incredibly quickly they all moved their fingers; they were flying.

"Think what I could do if I could move my fingers that fast....."

coming back to him

A while ago I had that conquer me feeling - overwhelmingly so - to a different degree than ever before - even different than the sub fever of when we started all this: i needed to feel contained, to be reassured of my place, of his feelings, to have him stop the spinning and put me to rights

This is some thing we have learned, sometimes the hard way - it is something that is different about this dynamic vs. our marriage previously.  When it's good - when the level is just right - it is the feeling that keeps me focused on him and on what i need to be doing, it keeps me centered and level and content - it is the joy that underlies my construct of Him in my head, and it keeps me humming along with energy and power.

But -  sometimes I get overwhelmed with this kind of need and it derails my focus and the energy and power start to swing too far.  If it stays unchecked, i spin out of control, it resurrects and amplifies my doubts. Eventually, something switches off, and i stop wanting it - any of it.  


And that is what happened recently.  I hinted, and i tried to manage on my own, and eventually i went to him and told him what i was feeling.  But with life and between the two of us, it didn't get fixed, and i went completely off the rails, and it was a train wreck.  


And neither of us really knows how to clean up this kind of wreck.  We both tried - and everything we tried just made it all worse.  We couldn't say the right things, and we couldn't hear the things right, and we did too little or too much... 


And last night we had some time - together - because things are just harder to fix when we are apart or crowded out by other people and other obligations.  And we were both very hopeful, i think - very excited, anxious to pick up and resume.  He filled my head with teases and promises (threats?).  I was nervous and anxious and hopeful and ... trying to get back on board. We were both trying.  He was doing what has worked in the past; he was also trying to figure out what i needed, and i told him a lot of things, none of which turned out to be the right answer.


There's the fun stuff, the sexual and the intimate and the impact and the pain used to all its effects, and being his to play with as he wants.  And then there's the whole entirety of our relationship - the everyday stuff, and the underlying agreement that i am his, in everything and at all levels.  They are so intertwined and interdependent, but they are distinct.  And i had gotten back on board for the first, but i was still holding back and reserving judgement for the rest.  


And then the evening didn't go that way, it didn't go the way i had thought it would, or had gotten myself ready for.  He didn't go the way i had wanted him to.  I couldn't adapt, so i went away.  In my mind i hadn't gotten back to him really anyhow, but i went far, far away.  

He has told me in the past - when i feel far away - to just come back to him.  But i always want him to bring me back - to come and find me and force me to come back - to do it for me - which is a pretty metaphor for, "I want him to change what he's doing and the way he's doing it to do it the way i think i want." 

After lots more hard feelings and confusion, after i left our bed, he told me to come back - literally and otherwise.  He told me that, regardless of whatever else was going on, i needed to come back now.  


And that was exactly what i needed.  That cut through my confusion, it put an end to trying to think through all the details and what could or should be done about each.  It gave me something to come back to.  And i did.


Some of the details probably need to be thought through in time because i have no desire to repeat this. But he figured out how to tell me, and i figured out how to listen - finally.   

small little wondering

i had a passing thought - as my father would  have pointed out to me - it will probably get lonely

but - i'll go with it anyhow

i'm getting a handle on being open and available and ready and as he wants me when he wants me, etc

which is all well and good - and which he indeed seems to like and appreciate and enjoy and take advantage of

but - how do i seduce him?  or do i?

how do i let him know i'm interested?

how do i let him know i find him - well - everything?

how is one actively open and available and ready?

i'm a sucker

Not so much in the gullible, P T Barnum way, but in that i like to ...., well you get the idea.

But i am also a sucker for good writing and thought provoking ideas.  If the two come packaged together - well, that's bliss.

Like most of us - I sometimes have some time for blogging, but often it is constrained by all the other aspects of life. I read very quickly, but i write painfully slowly.  This means that i am usually able to indulge myself in reading and keeping up with a number of blogs, but i can't comment or communicate with others as much as i would like, at all.  Yes - i even write emails, comments, short little silly stuff - very, very haltingly.

I follow a good number of blogs and enjoy and appreciate all of them for the ideas and ways of looking at things they bring me.  Also for the different writing styles and personalities.

You can probably see where this is heading.  Aisha nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award - and i am honored (did i mention writing is not a strength of mine) and I thank her.  I am not going to list 15 blogs to nominate: most of the ones i read, and that's pretty many, have already been nominated;  i appreciate so many different aspects of people's blogs - the thoughts, the writing, the entertainment, the emotion...; and i'm going to wuss out on trying to pick some over others.

I can list 7 things about myself though - i love getting these glimpses of other people, they add so much color to the image i have of someone in my head.
1) I am also (like Aisha) quite short - only 5'1", - with T & A, and very muscular legs - not sure what kind of mental image that conjures up - but it's me
2) i chose the name greengirl because my favorite color is green, i have green eyes, i am a tree hugger from way back, and when i started this blog, i was most often envious of the relationships i read about and i was very new and inexperienced
3) I'm a very good cook and i can grow just about anything - but i can't sew or craft or any other domestic goddess type things
4) i don't love the ocean, or beaches, just not my thing - but my husband does so i'm trying
5) I love textiles - when i get to go to a new museum or a new place - i seek out cloth, linens, rugs, tapestries, any kind of textile - ironic given that i can't sew - but it is what it is
6) I have long and fairly thick hair which i haven't permed or dyed or even blown dry in many years.  It's very healthy, but yes - it's getting some gray and i am completely undecided about what to do about that.  This is a topic my husband refuses to give an opinion on.
7) i love my job - that's unusual, even rare, and i am very very thankful to be able to say that

and as a bonus - i can't type to save my life - anyone who has ever im'd with me knows this - i suck at it - slows the writing down even further.

And now i've used all my time for today.

kites

I've been learning - learning and working to let go.  And letting go has allowed me to fly - to soar.  

But not on my own - i'm tied and tethered - to him.  He lets the string out or pulls it in.  The string keeps me near, but also keeps me up.  

A kite off on it's own, without the tension of the string, just careens out of control, it may fly higher, but it flies wild and eventually is driven to the ground or into a  tree.

So he holds the string and i float gently, or tug and pull and strain, or just keep heading up and up and up.  

But the string slipped between his fingers, or snapped, or maybe just ran out altogether.




A kite - you just fetch it out of the tree, tape it up, re-tie the string and toss it back up into the wind. 


He fetched me back, but the taping may take a little time. 

what do you call it?

there's horny, randy, needy, wanting, etc...... to describe that feeling of wanting sex, of emptiness, of wanting to be (from my perspective) entered, opened, stimulated and brought to release - there's a specific sensation that is both subtle and overpowering

but what do you call the added/different/over and above sensation of wanting to feel him more - more controlling, more imposing, more there - not that he's absent or there is something wrong, not sorrow or despair or loss - but the overwhelming craving for more - more demands, more roughness, more tightening down, more restriction, more sternness, more claiming, more, more, more  .................

just like libido for me - this neediness comes in waves, always there at some level, but at times in huge swells that sweep me away and drown out most of my other thinking

is there a name for that?

cheap date

I'm a really cheap date in some ways.   The same way that men (or boys) feel like they get a good return for minimal outlay with their date, my husband gets a lot of squirminess and mental discomfort from me for some pretty easy tasks set on his part.


Once upon a time, I was able to go to him out of the blue and tell him i thought sex would be far better for us if he changed the rules.  I was even able to tell him - repeatedly and specifically - that i thought i wanted for him to cause me pain and to use me in weird ways.  These weren't easy things for me to tell him, but i managed to be coherent and grown up about it.

Somehow, some things have changed.  


The smallest, simplest, shouldn't-even-make-me-blink things make me feel self-conscious, silly, out of place, or very small and at a loss for how to respond.  After almost two years - asking permission to get into bed with him makes me stare at the floor, giggle, and act like the silly, pre-teen girl i never was.  I've asked him, but he won't tell me how he wants me to be in that situation, and I feel like i have no idea at all how to respond.  As a ritual, it ought to make me feel very submissive, quiet, demure maybe - but this one doesn't do that for me.

He sometimes gives me tasks - with a  time frame - and they are things that shouldn't be that hard.  This post by Jake hit on one thing.  Occasionally, my husband will send me links to websites and ask me to choose three things - usually they are toys, of a sort.  He makes it clear that he may or may not ever purchase what i choose, but he wants me to show him what i've picked.  I find this incredibly difficult to do.  It is hard for me to show him what i might or might not want; to think about what really does arouse me; to admit, even to him, what i so very much don't want to admit i find intriguing.  


I don't think he's going for humiliation; somehow to me, humiliation seems like it should be deathly serious.   But he gets an evil grin when something is clearly hard for me, or makes me uncomfortable, or better yet gets me to blush.  He has that Chesire Cat grin every night when i ask to get into bed.  And he pushes forward with these kinds of tasks with the same glint.


There's a really fine line for me between uncomfortable, makes me feel silly or self conscious, or even blush - and over the edge into angry, or shut down, or totally pissed off.  So maybe that's the thing...Sometimes it feels like play - in the very best senses of the word: not so deathly serious, joyous, connecting - like the bedtime ritual.  But it's also got a challenge to it every time, it's him pushing me to go with him and keep myself from moving into anger and withdrawal.  


I still have trouble (obviously) thinking about us in terms of humiliation.  Mostly, i imagine that some things are really just that, in principle, it's just that i'm such a weenie/cheap date/easy target - take your pick - that it hardly seems the right term.  I've also had a fairly dim view of the idea of humiliation used in this way - which is to say, honestly, it scares me.  


This is another area where i really don't know my husband's feelings about the whole thing either.  If past experience is any indication - there is more to it somewhere deep in my head than what i see right now, and in his as well.  I have to add though, that two recent posts, one by mouse and one by sin both gave me a different perspective than i had before.  It's not where i am, or where we are i suppose, but a nicer view than i had previously.  

"You know this isn't a punishment, right?"

I was bent over the bed with his belt being applied to my ass at the time those words were spoken.

But he was right, and i did know it wasn't a punishment.  It was a re-set though.  And i needed it.

I had been increasingly cranky over the day.  Not snarky.  He knows that if he ignores that, it dies pretty quickly from a lack of attention.  But i was moody and withdrawn and pouting and rebuffing his attention, which he hates much more than smart-assed or even snarky.

I know he has learned how to spank me in a way that cuts through the foul mood.  It's not erotic and it's not taking me off to a happy place.  It starts out harder than a long session of impact and pain would, but never moves into that kind of intensity either. He stopped - i thought too soon. I wanted it to ramp up and go on a much longer time.  But that wasn't the purpose this time.   And he was right.  I got up mellowed and happy to be close to him.  I apologized and thanked him.

I think this kind of pain gives me something to be pissed and cranky at:  it lets me build up those emotions, focus them at something, then release them altogether.  It also greatly reassures me that he wants me a certain way and cares to help me be there.

I know the topic of punishment, especially using pain as punishment in a D/s relationship, is debated and is unique to each set of people involved.  I know it is possible to produce an altogether different type and level of pain than would happen during play, enough that it would be punitive and cause aversion.  I am certain he could do this.

But i also know that i have a relationship to pain that i don't comprehend at all and am only beginning to see the shape of.  And i know there are a lot of switches in his head (good ones) that get flipped in inflicting pain on me, but i won't even try to guess at the overall lay of the land in there.  I have no idea if his view on punishment is a philosophical thing, or a desire not to complicate an already complex use of pain between us, or something else, or a combination.....

Whatever i think or guess might be good for me or that i think i want doesn't matter.  He doesn't use spanking or other real  pain as punishment.  He may tweak or swat or pinch or bite to get my attention or emphasize a point, but as a consequence or a deterrent or retribution, no.

In the end, it probably doesn't matter what you call this kind of spanking - punishment maybe, reminder, re-set, attitude adjustment, maintenance.... in the end (yes - a pun) it works.  And, contrary to how i've approached everything else, I haven't felt compelled to understand and label and second guess this.  I've been able to go along and even be thankful that he seems to have figured out what works for us.

playing vs. really taking the leap

I can sometimes get fixated on a particular question or idea and get myself worked up and convinced it's all falling apart, or never really was in the first place.  Recently I've circled back around to an issue that has come up a lot before: the idea that i need my husband to fit a role i recognize in order for me to know how to behave. In other words, that i need him to call himself my Dominant or my Master and then to act the way i think he should in that role in order for me to be able to submit to him.


There is a person (other than my husband) that  i talk to about D/s, ttwd, and relationships in general.  I contacted him a long time ago, when i first came to my husband and asked him to not let me say no any longer.  I had so many questions, and so much fear.  This person, this friend, doesn't make suggestions or give advice, and he has never requested i do anything, has never asked anything of me.  He has, however, very patiently answered my questions, discussed ideas and concepts, given counterpoint to my views, helped me learn to form better questions, and helped me to see my own answers.


So i recently brought up this issue - that sometimes I can't get past the feeling that my submission means nothing to my husband, that it isn't really submission - it's just me randomly doing stuff.

My friend was more blunt than usual in his response:

I think it is in those moments that you continue doing the things that matter to you even when you think he does not care that you are being your most submissive. I believe that if you can only feel your submission through his dominance or if you can only feel value in it when he forces it from you then you have not really submitted yet. You are playing a game of action and reaction, if you like me, I will like you back. If you love me, I will love you back. If you dominate me, I will submit. However it does not work this way...... you submit because it is who you are, because it makes you happy, because it full fills you and in doing so you make those around you happy as well. 

It is all about you when you decide to let go of expectation and give yourself to him and take joy in the way he enjoys that. That he does not, in your opinion, reciprocate in the way you want is the wrong kind of selfishness. It is attitude that says you must be as I want you instead of a attitude that says I serve because it makes me happy and I accept who you are as you do of me.

I needed to hear this.  

I have needed to let go of the image in my head.   

I have needed to recognize how self centered of me to want him to be what i think he should be rather than knowing i love and respect him already. 

I have needed to let go of contrived notions and just serve him.

I have needed to just be what he has all along told me he wants me to be.