Place

Mel suggested "Perhaps a post on just the way you understand your place in the life,(your family's dynamic)"

That's a daunting bit of writing, actually. My "place" in the life and our family's dynamic is something that I tend to keep gently held and private to a great degree.

Part of it is that I want to protect myself. I've suffered from perceived judgement before -- here and in other fora. It is hard to not take it personally. Too, I want to protect my family. I know how easy it is for things written here to get misinterpreted, or misread, and then things get said (and sometimes not said) that are hurtful and mean and just plain damaging to the hearts of the folks I love and care about. A larger truth is that there are details about how we are with each other inside our relationships that we don't necessarily share with one another. We take great care to be very, very gentle with each other's sensibilities and feelings, and being "poly" doesn't mean that we don't find it valuable to sometimes interact privately as the "couples" that exist inside our triad.

I also suffer, at some level, from the "Velveteen Rabbit" syndrome -- I am not entirely convinced that I am really real. That is especially true when I put my brand of slavery up against the sometimes "lurid" accounts that fly across my screen day after day after day. It isn't even close. No point in even trying; might as well cash it in and go stand in the "wannabe" line because whatever I'm doing, it doesn't look like the "real" stories that I read.



So, this kind of self-revelation makes my stomach twist.



My place.



I'm His slave. I belong to Him. My mind, my heart, my body, my emotions, my work, my energies, my attention, my life -- all of it belongs to Him. That is a simple statement that encompasses a set of layered realities. In principle, what passes between the two of us, is not about me. He has no obligation at all to act or choose in ways that make me happy or answer to my desires in any particular moment. As a practical matter, He does care for me and love me, so He attends to my health, my emotional state, and my feelings. That doesn't mean that I always get what I want (although that happens more than some might think is appropriate, given my status).



That's kind of a general statement of "theory." Making it REAL for those peering into our lives from outside feels challenging. I think that when I say to people that I am a "slave," most imagine some sort of image that is drawn from the fairy tale realms of harem literature or the even more lurid porn industry fantasies. I know that, when I was living in my long, long, repressive vanilla marriage, harboring my own masturbatory dreams, these were the secret images that fired my imagination -- because, the fact was that I had no reality to dream about or think about. Whatever, I know that beginning with a statement that I am "slave" sets up images for people that my reality doesn't match.


My place is focused on Him. It begins with His life and His needs. The reality of that can be terribly difficult sometimes. Here lately (and "lately" might be loosely defined as the last couple of years or so), His life has felt like it has been lived on a high speed treadmill from which there is no escape. The demands are seemingly endless, and they feel like they are coming from every direction at once. His working situation just keeps getting more and more demanding and slippery and bizzare. His aging parents' needs escalate day by day (and it is often scary). We've got a good friend who is slipping away in hospice care -- today or tomorrow or maybe next week. His adult children have their own things going on, but they are making the transitions into nascent "adult-style" relationships with Him -- a really neat thing, but also time intensive. He has his own health issues, too. Things are better now than they were some months ago, but with each passing month and year, the battle to maintain good health gets tougher. He's powerful. He's strong. He's bright. He is also human and there are limits to what one person can carry on their shoulders. Sometimes He gets tired. Occasionally, He gets downright grumpy. Now and then, He is simply overwhelmed -- to the point of tears. He needs to be held, to be rubbed, to be comforted, to be supported.


Does that mean that I don't have times when I "want?" Not at all. Last weekend, schedules conspired to keep us from being able to have any but the briefest of sexual contact -- and no SM play at all. We were simply running the whole time -- in a half dozen different directions. Even as my own sexual desires begin to come back around and wake back up, life seems to be keeping us from going down that path. It is frustrating to me, certainly, and (I am sure) to Him as well. Those are risky places for a strong willed slave -- keeping track of where your heart and mind and emotions belong in those moments is trickier than it is under less stressful conditions. Earlier this week, I asked Him (partly jokingly) if there might be sometime soon when He could fit me in on His calendar. It was my way of letting Him know that I understand His pressures, and that I don't want to add to that, but that it is important for me to make sure He knows that I am hungry for His touch. Slaving means knowing that it is not about "me." So that hunger will wait. I am confident that, when the time comes around again, He will come back to me in that way.


As for how our "family" works -- we are three. Committed adults, living and loving together. Technically and legally, Master and T are husband and wife. I am "loved" but without legal status. Master's mother, in her occasional lucid moments, worries about the "nice neighbor lady" -- that's how we usually present to the family and the outside world. She muses that I seem nice and not unattractive, so she cannot imagine that I haven't found a man...


T and I are often (almost literally) of one mind, and we work to take care of our Man. Sometimes the connection between the two of us scares Him -- and there are times when I know He feels like we gang up on Him... We joke that "it takes a village" to raise a Dominant. We know that, between the two of us, we can make things happen for Him. I know, too, that my sister-heart loves me, cares for me, worries for me. Having her in my life is a gift that I can never "repay."


The daily stuff, the routines, the patterns, the logistics? Does anyone really care? Do you really want to know who does the dishes, who washes the socks, who shops for the potatoes, who scrubs the toilets? You can ask if you really care. On the next level up from all of that, we manage to pay our bills, find our necessary documents, keep track of our various schedules, make it to all the doctor appointments and stuff. We don't usually feel stepped on or jealous, although we DO have to stay aware and pay attention. We all have feelings and moods and needs. We are sensitive to one another as much as we can be. We try to make spaces for one another and for the pairs that are part of our triad. We've learned to acknowlege that our distinct pairings need things done differently and at different times and in different ways. We work hard to accommodate and respect and value that.


That does not mean that we have achieved poly "nirvana." There are still bumpy places. When life gets intense, when energies get stretched, when the stresses begin to wear on one or all of us, we all find the places where we rub around the edges. We all have our tender places, the things we need and want, and the places where there simply isn't enough to go around. Mostly, we pick up the slack for each other, try to be there for one another, try to give each other room to do whatever is needed when it is needed. We continue to talk about what we have to share or "teach" about doing poly, but honestly, I'm not sure that telling others how to do this is where we are just now -- or that anyone cares.

swan