Packing

I have a few hours left before we go.   I really, really hate packing - makes me cranky and makes me run late - which i never do otherwise.  This makes our trips generally start not so "vacation-y"; more like "pissed off mommy."

This trip is part work (dress clothes, computer, work stuff) and part family vacation (hiking, sightseeing, museums, outdoors).  It's in the 90's here - but 40's and 50's where we're going  (wool and fleece being dug out), and also we need first aid kits, adaptors, outdoor gear... and we're flying - so it all has to fit in one bag each ( i got special dispensation to have two - small ones tho).  [yes - mouse - no baby to pack for - so that part is easier for sure]

It's a family vacation - and i am very much looking forward to this chance - for what we will get to do and see and for the time as a family.  But i still don't do the shifts from family and mom and work and travel and go go go...to submissive and slave.  At least not altogether gracefully.

And maybe it's not meant to be a shifting - maybe it's meant to be all beautifully integrated - and, I really ain't got that.

how do they decide?

Or is there more to it?

nothing new under the sun

There's a file in my head of things i see as i have watched the women in my family, my generation, my mother and her generation, and even my grandmother and her generation.  

At dinner recently with my parents - actually at any dinner with them in my memory - my mom is up and down, literally at beck and call for my dad - a different kind of fork, heat this a little more, cut this for him, serve everything his way on his time, here's a better cut of meat, a glass of milk but just this much milk but a large glass, "no - i want this, no i want that, no - i really want this;"  the high maintenance factor is dizzying, and she barely sits down and never does really eat.  

My Aunt (said the proper, Southern way, not like the insect name)- choosing a dress for her 50th Wedding Anniversary - many lovely options and possibilities - and always the first factor is her husband's preferences - in style, color, design - the first cut is always his preference - and she knows exactly what he will or won't approve of - it has been 50 years after all.

My husband's grandmother doting, fussing, scurrying around to fix everything just so for my husband's grandfather.  The smallest, simplest thing was a chance for her to do something for him.  My grandmother working a lifetime to take care of her family, doing whatever needed to be done.  Both of them - tiny houses with very little 'stuff', but always enough and always spotless and welcoming.

I have an enormous family, and this pattern is repeated over and over, in the generations before me.  I guarantee none of them ever heard the term M/s and i certainly can't imagine trying to explain the concept to any of them.  But the form is the same in so many ways.  

Among my generation, this doesn't exist much.  Where it does - for some it took a church to tell them  how she is "supposed" to treat her HOH, and how he is "supposed" to treat her.  For me it took ttwd to let me see it is ok to serve him, to enjoy doing things for him, and to show him that it's ok to accept that, that it can be good for both of us.  

Life was hardly idyllic for the older generations - the serving and pleasing and deferring existed right alongside all sorts of difficulties and hurt and not so nice interpersonal things.  And, from the great, great grandparents to my youngest cousins - there are examples of people who have/had long, loving, strong relationships with a form and a flavor that isn't anything like this thing we do, or that thing they did and still do.  So many ways to be, and nothing really so new....

Engaged

No - not that kind of engaged - we're already married - since forever it seems like.  But - engaged with each other, with our relationship, engaged in our lives....

Part of my problem was that i was becoming less and less engaged with him, and less engaged in our life.  And, honestly, I felt like he was less and less engaged in us, less engaged with me.  I'm sure some of that was perception, skewed by emotions.  Some of my perceptions were also the truth - he knew i was off and struggling - but not how to respond.  

We also each misunderstood the other on some really fundamental things, things like consent and what it affords each of us:  he needs to know that i ultimately have an out - that there is never a question of non-consent or abuse; i need to know i have room in the whole thing to have doubts and to kick at it and that it will remain firmly in place.  This sounds so basic, so black and white, no room for interpretation.  I suppose not for us.   We've worked to straighten this out - to explain ourselves better to each other, to set a plan.  But - you can never know what you don't know.  

There were also paradoxes i couldn't reconcile mentally or learn to live with gracefully.  I'm learning - maybe not graceful, but starting to accept.  

It's hard for me to hold both in my head - to do my own work,  to be responsible for and control myself - and to let go and trust him to take care of me.  For some reason, for me, these are mutually exclusive things.  

My concept of active submission, taking care of myself, controlling myself, being responsible for myself - competed with the idea of learning to rely on him, to defer to him when necessary, to allow him in and to allow myself to be open and to accept his intrusion, physically and mentally - esp to accept that he is so easily able to influence and even manipulate my mental and emotional state.  

There was the selfish, but very strong feeling that if he wants me to be open and vulnerable, and submissive, then he needs to take responsibility for maintaining my mental and emotional balance.  He should see when i'm off  or struggling and he should step in and fix it - fix me.  I became angry, then despondent when he didn't.  I wasn't able to see how to be me, how to be the strong, capable, self reliant person  i am, and who he loves, and at the same time submit to him, to be his girl.  I am starting to feel how it works.  I can't explain it, but the paradox is becoming less important.

And there is active dominance also (thanks mouse).  I don't need him to step in and fix me, i don't want to lose my own strength, i don't want him to force me into submission; I do however need to know that he wants and values my submission, i need some input about how he wants that submission to look, i need him to be engaged.  And he has been.  And the dominance and the submission really do feed each other and build us both up.  

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.