Solidifying

All those long, long days in the hospital were mostly grim -- surely not much fun.


Master was out of it, terribly ill, taking some significant pain medications... He was unable to get in and out of bed without assistance, unable to keep much food down, suffering from terrible diarrhea and unable to tend to His own toileting independently. He needed help to dress, help to shower, help with just about everything.


One of the things that I tried to do, on a fairly regular basis, was go into His email account and delete things so that His mailbox wouldn't start bouncing. He subscribes to a whole bunch of Yahoo Groups lists, and so He gets lots and lots and lots of emails every day. I knew that He could always go to the Group webpages and look back at any of those mails, and so I felt it was OK to just delete them all. On about the second or third day that I'd been doing that, I felt like He was coherent enough to understand what I was telling Him about it all, and so I explained what I'd been doing to Him.


At first, He said, "Oh, good. Thank you for taking care of that." Then, He got an ornery look in His eye, and He said, "Did you delete all the emails from my girlfriends?"


That stopped me for a half a beat until I realized that He was pulling my string. I got right in front of Him and told Him, "If there are girlfriends out there who want to come up here and clean up Your puke, and wipe Your ass, then I'm going to send them emails and tell them to get the hell down here right now!"


We had a good laugh together over that one. We did.


I think though that that little exchange is emblematic of a shift that I can feel happening for myself as we've come through this latest ordeal together. I am coming to understand the place in which I stand with all of this. I've proven to myself, that I will do what is needed -- anything that is needed, and never balk and never blink. I am not just playing; not just pretending. I am more than "up to" the task of being His, and if there was ever any doubt, then it has been banished in these last few weeks. Anyone who wants to go toe to toe for the position that I hold in His world -- just bring it.


All the "others" that have worried the crap out of me for years, have resolved themselves into bits of fluff. They'll continue to appear on the horizon every so often; asking Him for this and that -- wanting whatever it is that they think they want. They'll negotiate with Him, and He with them, for the fulfillment of mutual needs and desires. They'll come and go -- probably more and more as His energy and strength and health recover to levels we haven't seen in many, many years.


Whatever that amounts to, I HAVE this place. I am no longer in doubt about my capacities or my willingness or my value. I will defy anyone to measure up. The "others" can't do it. Not one in a thousand could do what I can do and have done in His house. I will not worry anymore about the pretty little playthings that float around the edges of my world. I've always been told that the solid foundation of polyamory and the "compersion" it requires is that partners have to feel emotionally secure. For me, finally, things have gotten very solid.

swan