words.....

....and how He defines them for me.

We are not deathly serious here chez nous.  We joke and tease and poke and laugh, and sarcasm is rampant.  We have always been this way.  There is a whole 'nother layer of innuendo, meaning, warning or submission between us, but no one outside the two of us would know, not even the kids.

But words have power, and lines can be crossed, even in jest, maybe especially in sarcastic joking.

"You're not the boss of me" is, as i now know, not an acceptable phrase in any tone or context.

To me it had no particular significance, just a joke; to him, it carried a great deal of weight - it was consent, and respect and choice to submit.  Now it is all those things to me as well.  Just like that.


He doesn't do punishments.  But yesterday i was subjected to treated to an entire month's worth of caning at one time.  No lead in or warm up, no manageable pace, no nice rubbing or encouraging words, though not, apparently, as hard as possible.  Still...it very much had me in angry tears.  If he did punish, which he doesn't, but if he did - i have to think this is what it would feel like - physically anyhow.

But it wasn't a punishment - it was "what i needed."  Which sounds like a game of semantics, potato/potahto. Somehow he has made it clear in my head that they are different - one is what he does, one is not.  One is right for us, one is not, one is very effective, the other just not necessary.   And our structure, our dynamic flows from there.  

It was in fact what i needed. That "You're not the boss of me" came from somewhere and i did in fact need  re-arranging.  It was followed by some delicious torment with a bag full of clothespins and a pinwheel... but the delicious part wouldn't have been possible without the re-arranging first.

But before that came the words - his words - which i find i pay attention to more so than ever before.

not so complicated

Plenty of things in my life are complicated; there are things i take very, very seriously; and i can take just about anything and overthink it into stupidly impossible complexity.

Some things though are very simple.

I miss my husband when we are apart.

I am needy - except when i'm not.  Right now i am.

I am incredibly horny, and I need to be beaten, to be hurt, badly.

And, right or wrong, this is how and who I am, i can't possibly deny it.

And I am overwhelmed with whatever you call that feeling of wanting to submit, wanting to sit at his feet,  to offer myself completely to him, to have him take in whatever way he likes, even it it's just to allow me to be.

Of course it isn't about me and my wants or Him jumping to accommodate whatever mood i happen to be in - this i know.

I also know that he likes me horny.  He likes satisfying that need, and he likes tormenting me with that need.

He likes hurting me.  And he likes tormenting me and manipulating me with that need also. And he gets just as frustrated when all the rest of life gets in the way of that aspect of us.

And he likes me submissive - he likes that very much - he would like me to be that more often.

Maybe i should work on keeping those things as uncomplicated as they are in my head right now....

sustaining

We woke up to several inches of wet snow this morning.  Fall hadn't really begun yet: it stayed warm and dry until just a few days ago, the leaves have barely begun to change, even the maples, everything is still fully in leaf.  It is so odd to see snow on green, leafy trees and bushes here, incongruous, a glitch in the usual order of things, it's pretty, but at a deep level it just feels not quite right.  Many of the younger, smaller plants couldn't take the weight, all those leaves to capture the wet snow, a lot of broken limbs.

I won't break.  But i'm feeling the weight these days. I suppose this is the natural order of things though:              children trying to grow up, trying to find their own way, and falling as they do, the falls are harder to watch as they get older and the stakes are higher;
      parents at the end of life, that's natural of course, but hard to walk with them through, hard to help the inevitable;
       work for both of us that demands we be really invested and not just that we show up, balancing that against the rest, honoring priorities, keeping commitments...

Him sustaining me through it all: giving strength where i can't bend, bending me where i need to, reminding me that i am His and we are Us, I'm not my own walled off, fortified self.

spelling counts

My son asked a girl to homecoming.  That's only remarkable if you know my son.  He has been silent on the subject of girls and appears really completely oblivious to the world of the fairer sex.  We were floored to say the least.  Turns out Dr. Who is enough to have in common with a girl to cement a homecoming dance level relationship.

He was pretty clueless in fact: he needed much prodding to find out the where's and how's and when's and other details.  Including dress for the evening.  And then the issue of flowers.  We explained a bit, and thought he was on the right track.  Until he started talking about the corset he needed us to order for her on his behalf?????  Corsage --> corset....Ahhh.  Yup - spelling counts.

It got even more fun when our older son (who, btw, knows everything about anything, just ask him) started explaining corsets and why you would never think to buy one for a girl, in fact, it's such a bad idea, even dad would know better than to buy one for mom.    

a slap to the face

not that kind, the metaphorical kind

and not fun, not hawt

He gave me a lot of leeway over the past several weeks:  not so much leeway in day to day rules, more freedom in my mental state.  The project that was consuming my time and my thoughts forced me to be in a mindset of 'me first'.  I fought that initially - it doesn't feel right, and I know it's hard to come back from; but, he was right, it was the only way to finish and to do it well.

I haven't been coming back from it well at all.  He's been patient, but last night i unloaded on him with a litany of complaints of how he wasn't helping me the right way, how I needed him to do this or that, how it is really his responsibility to fix everything, including me.  Those weren't the words i was using - but - after the metaphorical face slap - it was clear - that is what i was really saying.  And that wasn't the painful part....

He has a voice - a voice that lets you know that you've managed to tap into his anger - something that he doesn't allow very often at all.  He explained, with controlled but unconcealed anger, that it is difficult for him also.  It's hard to know exactly what will be the perfect thing for me at the perfect time. It's hard to make the right decisions for the family - all the time.  In the same way that i have trouble moving between my various roles, it's difficult for him to divide his mindset as well, to transition from husband to father to work to master and owner - or to be any of those together in the same moment. That he recognizes that my role is difficult - but that his is as well, and he takes it very seriously, it's not a game or a for fun thing, that it is complex and important and he also sometimes needs time, and may get it wrong, and may want to go slowly out of caution.  That he isn't going to try to get the whole of our lives right through a tug on my hair and some swats with a cane.  That it is my role to be patient and to accept going his way.

I had lost sight of all of that, and more.  I had it all backwards in my mind.  I had let it become a game instead of our lives.  I was putting me first.

I hesitated to write about this - it doesn't show me in my best light - but i can live with that.  But it also shows him as human - something that isn't as commonly done.  I know that he only cares about what is right for the two of us, that he doesn't care a whit about how anyone else perceives him.  He is human, not mythical, not omniscient, omnipotent, or infallible. It is easier for me to fall back on relating to him as if he were, it would mean I could just blindly follow, i wouldn't have any responsibility to our relationship.  But he is and we are deeper and more complex than that.  For it to be real for us, I have responsibility also.

That slap in the face makes a much bigger impression and hopefully i will internalize the lesson better than a more literal one.

the little things are the most telling

It really has been a challenging week here (see my last post for illustration).  And I will spend the weekend on a project that has been all-consuming for awhile now.  It will be over Monday - one way or another.  

This project, my preoccupation with it, the effect on our family have all brought around some questions that I've struggled with a long time: questions about - wouldn't my family and my husband be better served if i didn't work? Isn't this just pure selfishness on my part?  Am i making the right choices?   These questions get amplified a bit in the context of ttwd: putting my happiness ahead of my family's and especially my husband's well being (or so it feels like some times.)  But they aren't new questions.  I've struggled with them before, with the same reasonings.

But we, my husband and I together,  have answered these questions before also - this is one realm in which the more things change, the more they stay the same - he has always wanted me to pursue my career, he is unbelievably supportive, and proud - which I have trouble accepting - but there it is....

This time the big questions will just have to be boxed up in the back of my mind - they torment me, but they've been asked and answered before...

There was a small moment though that does deserve some consideration, and some effort to change.  He was gone most of last week - terrible timing - but it happens.  He called me in the morning - I am awful on the phone - for some reason the phone just annoys me, doesn't matter who calls.

He called to tell me he might be able to get an early flight back, that he might even be home for dinner, that he was happy to be able to have some time with me.  And i could see what a really nice thing this was, an unexpected gift in a long week, and i knew exactly how i ought to respond - and yet i couldn't break out of my annoyance, and preoccupation and being self-absorbed.  It was exactly the wrong response - and i knew it as it was coming out of my mouth.  He graciously didn't comment, but he knew also.

This gets right to the core of all my feelings about submitting, serving, really, truly, deeply having his happiness in my mind and my heart, whether i'm a fraud, or just flawed.....

This is a small thing that isn't really so small.  And it does need to be worked on.

some weeks just leave you a little off........