Nothing is Simple

I was awake early this morning -- 3:45, and unable to get back to sleep. Often in the last year, those wakeful, quiet, dark hours have given rise to spiraling and swirling sadness. This morning was calmer and more contemplative, as I looked back to the hours exactly a year ago when I was preparing for the surgery that has set me on the long path of struggle and discovery that has comprised this last twelve months.

I look back and I find it hard to sort and sift:

The things that happened because of the very real and very serious health concerns that created the move to seek out and agree to the hysterectomy in the first place -- and that continued even beyond the surgery itself, complicating and prolonging the recovery.

The initial lack of any sort of hormonal support or monitoring (on the part of my doctor) for potential hormonal impacts of the surgery. That left me completely unprepared for the disappointment that I encountered when I did finally get through the long recovery phase and then encountered the reality of a vastly diminished sexual response. It was at that point that I also discovered my doctor's lack of preparedness and/or willingness to address those issues.

So much "life" going on while all of that was happening: work stresses all around, health worries that just seem to keep on creeping into our lives in ever more insidious and increasingly tenacious ways, parents with all their various difficulties and needs and demands and issues, all the adult and nearly adult children -- don't we get to quit worrying about them eventually???, cars, clothes, teeth, plumbing, electrical, appliances, finances... Oh good grief!!!

We noted, pretty quietly and sort of in passing this month, that we've reached the 4-1/2 year mark of real time, full time, living together as a family. We've gotten "accustomed to" each other. There's a lot to be said for that. It is comfortable and mostly easy and predictable and mostly safe and secure. We understand each other and we know the rules and the expectations and the routines. There are more places where we are easier where each other. I suppose that seems odd to those who would imagine that BDSM (and M/s in particular) should not BE easy.

Perhaps they are right. I know He has left a very great deal of leeway for me this year. I'm surely not spanked like I might have been before. I know He is afraid for my well-being, both physical and emotional. He simply does not believe that I am sturdy. I've not been in the stocks for over a year. Not once. Perhaps in time. I miss it by times, but I'm afraid, too. If He doesn't believe in me, I don't believe in myself either. We spar more with each other emotionally, and verbally. I test more. I'm not as sure. I know that I am suspicious in a way that I never used to be. That is an artifact of our encounter with outsiders who, because we trusted and were open, were able to come into our lives in a very difficult and ultimately destructive way. It has made me afraid to seek contact with others, and that has led to further isolation.

I've come to the end of the year with a whole lot of new prescriptions. I am determined to end some of that as soon as I possibly can.

I've got myself a passle of paradoxes: woman without feminine sexual responses -- slave with an awful lot of choices -- mother without children -- spouse without marriage -- masochist who struggles with pain -- lonely wanting to avoid contact with other people...

Just not simple... not anymore. Maybe never was.

swan