Continuing the Conversation

I am not at all good about responding to comments here.  It is, along with my erratic posting habits, my worst failing with regard to this blog.  It is partly a matter of time.  Things can pile up during the school day -- the large chunk of time when I have no access and no possibility of being "here."  That's the easy explanation, but the other, more personal reason that I am so bad about responding to comments here, is that it draws me into a level of intimacy and conversation that challenges me -- triggers my natural shyness.  I know that, to those of you who have seen my butt plastered across this site on more than one occasion, it may seem odd for me to claim to be shy -- but that is the fact.  Intense, intimate conversation is way more difficult for me in some ways than knowing that you are all looking at my backside -- after all when it is my butt showing, I can't see any of you because you are behind me!  The conversation, however, has reached such a level that I really want it to continue.  I want to continue to be immersed in the dialog with all of you.  I am willing to try and quiet that shyness, and risk being more open and more vulnerable.  I want to do my part to be worthy of the friendship that you have showered on me (and on us) in the last month.  So --

Once again, I am awed and humbled by the depth of caring and amazing thoughtfulness that so many have shared here with me.  Your comments on my "Mask" post left me stunned, in tears, quivering with awareness of the circle that has become so much a part of my life.  I want to assure you all that I am not in anything that feels to me like a "crisis."  Our recent switching has not undermined our dynamic or damaged it or even radically shifted it.  It has created a time of emotional turbulence and an uncomfortable unsettled feeling, and I am aware of my own internal responses to that.  I do have some sense of uneasiness as we are confronted by yet another shift in our patterns and realities.  Mostly, it feels to me like I am just fussy -- the way I remember my small babies being now and then when I was a new young mother. 

Alice, you are right, there really are not any definitive "rules for what we do...no right way."  I do understand, intellectually that I acted on my "love and concern for him, at his request," but somehow knowing that does not seem to quiet the nagging voice in my head that is keeping me wound up over it all.  You are also right that I've never cared about the "true slaves," but I do have enough left over junior high girl cliquish trauma to want to disarm the mean voices...

elle, I am so very aware of what it costs you to be with me.  Be assured that I always know that your love and support are poured out for me and for us.  Somehow, that "there is no truer slave" declaration of yours comforts me.  That affirmation feels like a balm and so thank you.

abby, you are, of course, right -- I need to remember that I am His.  That has been enough for a very long time, and will continue to be that.  Thank you for the reminder. 

morningstar -- I know that there is that belief that switching as we have done, and shifting the locus of control as we have done, must somehow undermine the very dynamic -- and I really don't have any sense that that is what is going on with me or us.  I am certain that he is still exactly as Dominant as He has ever been.  I don't believe that being Dominant can be put on or taken off situationally.  I am feeling His attention shift, in this moment, to the very critical work of reclaiming His life, and I support that with my whole heart.  That effort demands that much of His energy be focused on other things, and (regardless of what I think about it intellectually) I feel that as a loss.  I am sure it is temporary, and I am trying to be patient and supportive as it works its way along its course.  It is just that I am not, by my nature, a patient sort...

Impish1 -- I am feeling "fatigue, concern for ... Master's health, and some degree of fear and uncertainty about what might be the next thing.  I really do try to keep my mind and heart in the present moment.  I know that worry about "what is coming" is a waste of time and energy, but my mind seems unwilling to stay put just now.  It wants to run all around and make me feel crazy and agitated.  You are right, they are "little demon voices," and I'd be most happy for that chance to sit down face to face for tea and quiet conversation.  Thank you for reaching out to me in the midst of all your own struggles.


nancy -- I am... taking that deep breath.  And then another and another and another.  Smile.

Finally, as You wrote, My Dear Master, our power exchange has not dissolved in the face of our radical approach to all of this.  You have, in my view, been stronger and more powerful than ever in all the years we've shared with one another.  I am so proud of the determination and courage You've shown through all of this.  I am so relieved to be with You aware and clear-headed.  I feel safer than I have for a long time, and that is a great gift -- I thank You.

Just as I have felt fiercely protective of You, through so many serious health challenges in the last few years, I am, in this passage feeling ready to take on the world should anyone have the nerve to try and harm You.  I can feel the part of me that acts as watchdog standing guard at Your side -- too big and tall to be compared to Your protector terrier of long ago, but no less ferocious.

I understand that there are and must be changes.  It is the fact of being alive.  These are good and positive changes, but they scare me, and I think they scare You as well.  I know that this new place will come, with time, to be our norm and our reality, but I am uncertain and uneasy in this beginning.  No surprise there, and I know it is a discomfort that is nothing compared to Your own challenges in creating this for us all.

You understand me so well.  You know that I really do understand what it is that we are engaged in, and You know I am strong enough to stand with You -- whatever comes.  You know I'd not prefer our former reality to this one that we are creating, and You know I'll invest my heart and soul in making that reality come to be manifest in our world.  It really isn't that I am "freaked out" at the divergence of this reality from the fairy story model of M/s.  More, it is my own longings and weaknesses that haunt me and make me wish I could fold up into Your arms and go only where You would take us.  It is maybe the most dreamy "submissive" part of who I am that, feeling tired and exhausted, imagines how good it would be to have all the control shift back to You -- right now...

I will probably forever question if I am a "good" slave or a slave all.  It is the way I am.  In another facet of my life, I question my teaching in the exact same way.  I want to be "good," and I want only to please You.  I am thrilled and honored to be Yours, and I will forever work at being the very best I can be for You.  I'll try not to let myself become so weary that I cannot serve well.  I will care for You and care for myself so that I can do that well for as long as You need that service from me.  I'll fuss, I imagine.  I'll try to do it quietly.  In the midst of all that fussiness, I'll walk with You and love You and hold You and be for You.

Always and all ways,


swan