A leap

This is difficult for me to do, but i believe i need to step back from blogging for awhile.

I write here for many of the same reasons others do: to clarify, vent, explain, communicate, learn, to try to understand.  I love people's comments and i read other people's thoughts to help me learn what's possible and to understand myself.

It has also been part of my role, to bring information to him, to do the research as it were.  I love research.  But there have been some predictable downsides to the arrangement.  He has made it work, but it has not been a completely comfortable part of my role.

A big part of the difficulty of this role has been keeping straight in my head what is something i read, something i liked, something i thought i might want... vs. what is what he wants, what is right for us.

And i think i've come to a point that i am not able to listen to him well enough, the point that i need to let go of my desire to guide my own understanding and be able to focus much more clearly on him.



I need to shift focus for awhile, and i don't know how it will work or what lies ahead. It is a leap for me.  This feels a bit  like walking away from friends though, and that makes me very grateful for the friends and the support i have found here.  Thank you.

I can see there's more

I suppose - mostly i see questions - the kind that philosophers and theologians have tried to answer for ages.  

Questions like - which is more important - intent or actions?  What you think or what you actually do or say?  Which really counts?  If I can override a not-so-charitable first thought and do or say what i know is the better thing, isn't that good?  Or is it fake?  If i'm only acting "good" but not changing my heart, isn't that still bad?

This isn't just a submissive thing - it's a human thing.  But - i've been seeing it in thinking about my submission lately.  Quite often my first thought or impulse is not so nice.   For instance, if he calls me or asks for something when i'm in the middle of something myself - annoyance and irritation are often the first things to come to mind. 

When i screw up - big or small, my very first thought isn't necessarily remorse or regret at having disappointed him.  I'm old enough not to be instantly defensive and blame anyone else; i accept responsibility when i screw up.  But my regret, honestly, is most often disappointment in myself at having messed up.  It's a fine line, I know - and maybe not an important one?  But the focus is on me, not him, not first and foremost.  

It's like there are still two worlds in my head - the one in which my impulse is to please him, to have that and to have him as my center, vs. the one in which i really want to manage things my way, keeping in mind that i have committed  certain things to him.   I step wildly back and forth, not all in one or the other.  Maybe i never will be - it may just not be possible.

I suppose it's like everything else about this whole thing: everyone is different and everyone grows and changes.  I may never be able to do away with the dual worlds in my head to submit so deeply and wholly in my mind; but i am in a far different mindset now than i was before, so who knows where it's going.  

I did ask my husband what he found more important to him.  He of course said it depends.  He appreciates it when i can override my not so ideal first reactions and do or say the more appropriate thing - esp if i can also manage the more appropriate tone.  But that, of course, he would prefer i feel it and mean it too.  As to what he thinks about the inside of my mind - that i didn't ask.

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back to wondering - and not

I've bitten off way too much for this summer.  I have ended up with many more projects at work than i had expected, and much more travel for work - which actually - has never been part of my job before.  I kept waiting for things to slow down; instead, now i think i need to learn to adjust and fit the living of my life into this new reality.

My husband is travelling more too, that may stay the same or it may get better.  Who knows?

So - overall - less time together - more passing back and forth.

Add to that - our boys seem to have a pact for the summer to make sure one of them is always at home with us - at all times.  They are very close in age, but have managed to align their schedules and activities precisely opposite to each other.  Less and less opportunity for us to have time together ALONE!

Last year, the year before - being in this spot and thinking about the coming few months would have put me in a bad place in my head.  I would have feared the worst, i would have imagined it all falling apart, i would have lost my balance and spiraled to a crash.

This time - i don't find myself wondering all those horrible what-if's.  I'm sure i will be up and down some, and my balance will wobble. I'm sure i will wish for more than i will get.  Who knows - i may crash even.  But i'm hopeful that our dynamic is established enough for each of us to deal with it all more effectively.  I'm confident enough in the fact that he wants what he wants and that he will try like hell to make it happen.  And I have enough experience to know that we've recovered from crashes before - they don't have to mean the end of it all.


On the other hand - I've come to realize something that does make me wonder.

I've had a bad case of poison ivy the past few weeks.  I have no idea how i got it - but it is ALL OVER.  I itched.  (Can i just say  - when the itch builds and builds, as you sit on your hands - finally breaking down and scratching that itch is just about as good as an orgasm.) And i scratched - i scratched a few spots into infection.

I can be stubborn about seeking medical care - in general i don't.  And since poison ivy doesn't reach the threshold of life threatening - i hadn't planned to this time.  My husband was on my case.  After awhile, so were my sons.  And even my online friend read me the riot act in his own way.

[Yes - now i've gone to the doctor and the magic steroids are doing their job.]

The wondering though is that this is something that hasn't changed since our dynamic has.  I've always been like this.  My husband has always asked me to make the necessary appointments or to think about getting something looked at.  And i have always politely (or maybe  not so politely) put him off.   Eventually i have taken care of the biggies that one needs to take care of, even the woman things.

But it did make me stop and wonder why this particular area is different than the rest of our lives at this point.

nudges

We are both coming and going, it feels like constant motion and mostly passing back and forth, sometimes travelling together, only a little time to stop and rest in each other.  But mostly it's good.  He nudges in the right places at the right times to keep us both fueled.

Me pushed to my knees to start his day for him, then the clover clamps, then bent over the end of the bed for him to finish the start to his day.  And me left with a focus on him woven subtly in with all the rest of my thoughts and business of the day.

No more big blanket at night, just a thin quilt that leaves me almost warm enough but not quite: so i seek his warmth all night, and he wraps himself around me - we both stay with each other all night instead of wandering off to be just beside each other.  

And his taking care of things that need doing, because he is actually home that day, and he can, and it lets me be at work uninterrupted.

These things keep me going, they keep me balanced, and they keep us - well - they keep us as "us" even when we are mostly passing back and forth.

don't lie to me

I don't, and i won't - when he asks that way.

But there are questions i would really rather not answer, questions I would rather deflect or ignore or giggle at or just put my head down and look away.

There are things i would really rather not admit, especially to him, and especially in that moment.

Of course those are the ones he asks, then looks right at me and says, "and don't lie to me."

it has to be one of us

If you had asked my husband 4 yrs ago if he could ever forsee a day that my desire would leave him saying no to me - ever - much less regularly - he would have laughed, hysterically, then sighed a huge "i wish, if only..."

But - it does - and he does. Which is good because lots of things might come to a grinding halt - like jobs, and our household, and our kids lives, etc - if i had my way.

I am now a greedy thing.  I want him, i want the contact, the containment, the control, the attention, the whole big stew of dominance and pain and sensation and SEX.   And i want it - a lot.

And it occurs to me that maybe, to a certain degree, it all depends on this apparent imbalance, and on my being denied.

He uses my desire to manipulate me - of course.  It keeps me focused on him and waiting for him and motivated to please him - all of which i would (try to) be anyhow.  But - him having what i constantly want makes the layout of the power grid painfully obvious.

I do worry that i frustrate him too much, that i am too over the top at times, that i am too needy, that he wishes he had a nice, normal girl.

But... if he always wanted more than me, more than i could provide, if the balance appeared to fall the other way in this  - i would feel like a complete failure. It would crush me. No amount of reassurance could make it work.   I don't think it could work at all.

So - he keeps me often in a state of wanting - whether by necessity, or by design, or both.  And that inequality is absolutely one of the things that keeps the power flowing.

kneeling

We had been fighting.  No - not really fighting.  We had been not hearing, not understanding, not knowing how to proceed or what to do - what to even try.  

We had tried and failed and started and failed - over and over....

We were both feeling crushed and defeated.  Fear is so much harder than anger.

We were at the point of having no idea how to get through.  Sitting across from each other at the dining room table - words were done.  Neither of us could do or say anything right in the other's view.  

I got up - i imagine he thought i was walking away.

Instead, i knelt by his chair and laid my head on his thigh.  I stayed that way some time.  Slowly his hand moved to my head.  

And slowly we began to be able to understand each other.

Kneeling is not a big part of us.  He has me on my knees when he wants to use me that way.  And i appreciate the sometimes that he has me sit at his feet as we both relax in the evening.  

But for me to choose to kneel, to risk to kneel before him (to him?  for him?)  felt both wholly unnatural and like the only possible expression of what i was really feeling.  

Kneeling is so foreign to everyday physical language; it is so tied up in religion and mythology, fairy tales and  cautionary tales.  It is steeped in symbolism and meaning.  It is a big thing, an obvious, overt, and grand gesture.  It is what it is because it is physically risky, it puts one person at the other's mercy.  And it is just as risky emotionally as it was designed to be physically.  

And it was, at that moment, the meaning i couldn't manage to put into words.