room to breath

I keep trying to write about how difficult the past 6 weeks have been.  It just sounds like whining.  The fact is - they were impossibly hard, mentally, emotionally... It has used all my capacity and then some.  They have left me raw and completely depleted.  

It all isn't over, but i've had some room to breath: the past few days have been, by comparison, much easier.  And i am very thankful for that - I need my strength back.  

This post is for gratitude.  My husband has supported me so that i could support the ones who need me.  He has let me fall apart so that i can be the strong one for them.  He has taken decisions out of my hands so i can be the one making the hard choices for others.  He has adapted our dynamic so that i could manage all the other roles I need to fill.  He has pushed me to do the next hard thing, and the next, and the next.   He has even gone to fill my place when i was too sick to stand up.  

And as i move in and out of my life here, in our home and our family, and in our dynamic, he has let it ebb and flow in a way i can handle and which feeds me.  Now he has started to tighten things back up, as i'm getting my strength back, so to speak.  I am working to cooperate with it, to go along His way, to shift back; not just that even, i am trying to shift my focus off of me where it has been for so long.

With this time to breath again, has come desire again: a little, mini sub-frenzy all over again.   I am overcome with wanting to feel Him.  I have intrusive fantasies of pain and use and domination.  I would sit and read or watch porn all day long if i could.  I poke at him in subtle or not so subtle ways hoping to provoke a more vigorous response.  I am aware of a palpable space around myself, a space i can move in that feels too large and too open.  My skin, my body, my heart, and a very large portion of my brain want to be bound much more tightly, much more aggressively to him.  I'm not sure i could get enough, I'm not sure it wouldn't be dangerous.  

Partly it's escapism - a desire to lose myself in things i crave, and to leave the inexorable worry and the impossibility of it all behind.  I recognize this.  But it is also me, it is who i am, these desires and wants. Some small part of my mind knows i should be grateful for this too - that he keeps me, keeps us, in the real world.  That he makes me focus myself, control myself, be responsible for myself.   That he won't let it be dangerous - not in that way.  That i get what he gives, not what i think i want.  

where i am

 there are so many parts of my life - that all move in their own way and their own time and their own cycles

and they swirl around and ebb and flow and i direct them or they carry me - depending

and then some them insist on being in the forefront - on being attended to - a riptide i have to go with

and that is where i am now

and have been for a good bit

may parents' situation isn't getting better, it isn't leveling off, it isn't lending itself to a plan - it is dire, and in constant flux, and unknown and unknowable  - and it insists on being attended to

and when i am sick, or my kids are sick - that insists also

and work would really like my attention also

and it's been forever i think since my husband and i have had any us time together - and precious little time or geography in common at all

and i can handle it - until i can't

and then i doubt everything - but especially i doubt if being open and vulnerable and dependent on him is really good for me - because it feels so risky, dangerous, un-protected and unwise

it is very much harder to keep myself going, to absorb it all, to function and be the source of strength for so many others if i'm open and bare and without any armour

when things happen to prevent him from providing what i need, from taking care of me, then i feel an overwhelming need to protect myself, but that involves shutting him out.

and then it seems obvious that this is all a really bad idea, what was i thinking?

and he asks me to wait, to hold on, to trust him, to stay open to it

and then everything else amps up once again - and it doesn't really matter because "us" again disappears in the swirl and is overtaken by other currents insisting

consent

I have both consented to be His - whatever He determines that to mean - once and for all, and I have chosen, and continue to choose to be His - at each juncture, over and over again.  I know these two are opposites, they appear mutually exclusive.  Somehow in my head they are not - they are both absolutely true, and absolutely fundamental to our relationship.

I have given myself - entirely and forever - to him because....  This one is hard to put into words - i have because that is what i feel, because it's not me giving myself if it's conditional or limited, or constrained in any way.  Because my commitment isn't tenuous or temporary.  Because giving just what's easy isn't anything.  I am a whole person, the known and the as yet undiscovered, I'm not divisible, and i have to give him all of me or none.  Because if it's for a finite time - it's not really giving, it's renting or leasing.  I retain control in the end.

Because i trust him - all the way, not with limits, even for the situations we haven't imagined yet. Because he needs to have that total trust.  Because he wants me to be open to him, all the way, in every way.  Because that's where and how this power exchange works for us - the openness and intimacy and connection that is only possible if it is all encompassing.  Because he asked me to jump and I did.

A once and done agreement is a box though - a large one or a small one - it's still a box.  There are edges and boundaries somewhere- walls that define the size of my world. Or maybe a circle defined by the length of the chain i'm tethered to.  Somewhere there is a point at which i want to balk, or stop, or go my own way.  It may be a trivial thing, or it may be a very, very important thing - but there will be times that i must go his way no matter what. I can go about my merry way until i hit the walls or the end of the chain - then I'm stopped.

There is a safety and security in being in that box.  The walls may be occasionally maddening, but the fact that they are there is most often comforting. Whether simple or desperately complicated, having the choice out of my hands is easier, easier to do the little, stupid, things and the really, really hard things if you know the wall or the chain is going to make that choice for you anyhow.

And it's not me and it's not open, and it's not honest and it's not trust if i have no choice in the matter.  I have to be engaged and paying attention and thinking and feeling and choosing.  To obey, I have to have the choice not to.  To submit, to give myself to him, I have to have the choice not to.   I think he needs to know that i choose, that I consent.  For me - to fall back on "I will do whatever - but only because you say so," is a form of closing myself down to him.

Choosing each time - leaves me free to move around the whole world, out of the box and off the chain, but always as His.

in the news

Maybe this needs a trigger warning - I don't know.  I need to work it through - maybe other people have reconciled all this once and for all in their minds.....


It isn't a made for TV drama, it's not  fictionalized or amped up or pretend or even far, far away.  Three women, women now - they were children when they were taken.  Three women kept locked, chained, beaten, bound, controlled, raped, used, hurt, starved, forced to bear children, psychologically manipulated, harmed...


controlled   beaten   bound    used      hurt    manipulated    

Some of my kinks, many of my strongest (favorite?) kinks.

I know --- I know my husband loves me, I know I want what i want and respond how i respond, i know how i feel about him and what he does. I know anything - however benign, can be twisted for evil.  I know this isn't a bad thing between us.

I know i chose, continue to choose, fully, freely, unreservedly.

I know it's not the same - except that it is - in form, in appearance, the words.

I know that what is between us is good, is love.  But it all still gives me pause.  Maybe that's ok - maybe it should.

subtle but effective

A two foot long leather strip, maybe 3/8" wide.  So simple.  And for some reason one of His favorite tools.

It lives mostly on his nightstand - sometimes posing as a bookmark, sometimes looking like just the odd thing lying there.

It's not used to tie my hands, or feet, or even to bind other body parts, although that was what I had imagined he might want to do when i gave him the whole spool as a gift.  Fun to hit me with though apparently - quiet, stingy, but not particularly serious.

Mostly it seems to be His - I don't know what - subtle reminder when he thinks I need one maybe.

Right now it is tied around my right leg - just below my knee.  He put it there yesterday morning before he left for his trip.  I'm not to take it off until he gets back - except to shower.  Simple - yes?

And not.  As I dress for work - I realize I am limited to pants - even though the weather is finally warm and I would have chosen skirts.  And after work, to walk the dog, and putter in the garden, and make dinner, and run the boys here and there - I certainly would have chosen shorts.  But instead I will wear jeans.

Not terrible or very difficult to live with - and only for a few days.  But it's a choice taken away, a preference  overridden.  And  a subtle but effective reminder.

sandwiched and yelling

And nothing remotely kinky about it....

I am - we are - the sandwich generation.  My parents are in very poor health, have been medically fragile for years now.  They live in their own home, with outside help, but only just at the threshold of not managing.  My sister and I live far away.  It wouldn't be possible for either of us and our family to live with them in any case, nor for both of them to live with either of us. But this arrangement is tenuous.

And last week it tipped over.  I spent the week sitting bedside in an ICU, hoping and praying and facing very conflicted feelings about end of life, and quality of life.  I was also the comfort, support, decision maker, everything coordinator, protector and let's face it - the parent - to my mother.

Meanwhile, my family, my children and my husband, my job, my obligations and commitments of all sorts here, went on without me.  Many people graciously stepped in to cover for me.  But i am not good about accepting help or not meeting my responsibilities.   I'm just not.

My husband, very wisely, was nothing but supportive throughout, no demands, no obligations or expectations, no rituals, just concern and encouragement.  I couldn't have handled being sandwiched between any more roles, trying to meet and failing any other responsibilities.

My father is out of the woods now, we think.  I'm home for a few days - trying to catch up.  There's more to do there, more back and forth, more time away.  But for the moment, my husband became my Master again, i returned to Him, he made that happen.  And it feels very good.

The overwhelming stressors are still there though: the impossible situations, the powerlessness to help, especially from here, the not knowing, the obligations not met and catching up i need to do, the looming return to that role, when i really want to stay in this one.  Yesterday on the phone my husband was offering concrete solutions to a specific problem,  He was offering to cover for me - yet again.  And i lost it.

I yelled at him....I don't do that, never, well, hardly ever. And he told me i should, told me to lash out and let go.  That i need to.  And he was right.