Maybe I'm Just Different

It can be difficult to write in this medium and keep your "voice." There is undeniable pressure to conform, to compete, to capitulate to those who find things to be annoyed about in what is offered (or not offered) in the words I write.

I'm human. There are times that I look around and wonder what it is that I am doing here; wonder if I'm doing this "the right way;" wonder if I am "as good as __________________ (fill in the blank," or good enough; wonder why people come and read -- only to criticize, judge, castigate, snipe...

As long as I've been participating in the online world, it has often felt like junior high, all over again. Early on, when I first found my way to listserves, talking about Domestic Discipline, and chat rooms talking about Submission, there were clear "in groups" and clear "out groups." Crossing the line from one to another was tricky if not downright impossible. I got myself thrown out of more than one place because I simply did not "fit;" would not bow to what seemed to me to be arbitrary norms of status and prestige.

I tend to write what I experience. I tend to write what I know. I usually write my life. I don't prescribe for others, and I usually don't judge. I don't do fluff pieces. I read a few places, where what is written seems somehow useful, interesting, or stimulating. I am not one to fish for comments, and I and not a "me too" commenter elsewhere. My time and energy is so awfully limited, so what I read and what I read is necessarily limited...

I've come to sense that maybe, my path is quieter than some. Maybe it is similar to something that happened to my spiritual walk a few years back:

For years, I'd seen myself as a "spiritual seeker." Then one day, I came to understand that I'd gotten hooked on the SEEKING. I started to notice that it no longer mattered what I was looking for, it was the act of seeking that was driving me... I began to wonder if there would come a point in the spiritual questing when I might FIND whatever IT was, and if, at that point, it would be appropriate to QUIT seeking. That realization seemed to quiet my heart, spiritually, and settle me into a place that ended much of the frantic looking for truth that had preceeded it.

In some ways, I am sensing that I may have come to a similar point in my growth with this lifestyle. From the beginning, I have felt as if it was somehow important to continually escalate everything all the time -- that I was somehow obliged to constantly LOOK for MORE. There's a "performance" mentality to all of that, and it keeps me feeling like I'm continually at risk of falling behind the "rock stars" of the lifestyle. Well, I'm not a rock star. I'm not in the local dungeon every weekend (there isn't such a place for starters). I'm not going to keep up with the biggest pain sluts in the cyber universe. I'm not at home chained in the basement -- I'm earning a salary and working in the community, and that's the way it is going to be until they drag my dead carcass out of the classroom by my feet. I'm not a photo/porn model, or a writer of great fiction. I don't long for Master to unleash "The Beast" -- I know just how scary that can be, and I've no deep desire to see it on a regular basis. I know we don't play as often as we used to... and I know that neither of us particularly like that circumstance, but then neither of us are as young as we used to be either. When we do play nowadays, I think we're finding our way to some places that feel fine to us both.

I am here, and here is mostly good. I am coming to understand what my place is and what my life is and how my choices have evolved. I've come through the transitions that brought me here and I'm feeling like I've come to a place where I can QUIT seeking because I'm THERE. I am happy with my life, and looking forward. We've made it through some really tough stuff, and it feels amazing to be standing in this place together.

That is probably not interesting reading. Probably not "hot." Probably not much fun for those who got excited about our various "train wrecks" and near misses. Oh well. For those who read because there is something about the simple truth of our lives together that draws you -- bless you.

swan