Five Good Things -- First Edition

As swan posted earlier today, in the post immediately prior to this one, swan has given me a writing assignment. Use this Link to see what this is about.


Thursday evening I quite suddenly and with no particular antecedent event became acutely depressed. I have never had clinical depression before and don't know how to explain this except as some aspect of alcohol withdrawal. I only know I was plunged into a very dark, agitated, hopeless, and somewhat angry place. I felt my life was worthless, my future was without any hope, and I wanted nothing to do with anyone. I've worked with people in depression, and am aware of it as a mental health professional. Going there will certainly give me greater empathy for those effected by it.



Fortunately I awakened feeling better today, and swan's "intervention" detailed in the above link was helpful in seemingly banishing it altogether.......or so I fervently hope. I don't know why I had this depression in the first place. So, I suppose I have no way to know if it might reoccur.



Anyway I was required at the end of my spanking this morning to quickly come up with five things I am grateful for in my life. I selected them rapidly in that I was having my bare ass smacked with a paddle until this "task" was completed. I don't feel that I identified them in any sort of rank ordering. I was quite frankly trying to answer the question(s) satisfactorily enough to end my spanking. I didn't understand that there was a total of five "blessings" I was to come up with. swan tells me she told me that but having just been spanked fairly unexpectedly, then having had a rather cathartic and even more surprising crying bout, I likely wasn't listening as acutely as I could have been.



swan wrote about my reaction to the directive that I write a paragraph about each of the five items I selected. It was not that I'm burdened by writing five paragraphs. I love writing and have an undergraduate college degree in English. Anyone who has read me here knows I am long-winded at the very least. Those who read my post (three posts prior to this) Fred's Side of the Gavotte, which went on interminably, can certainly tell that I can do five paragraphs standing on my head. I was simply first very surprised when she announced she was going to spank me after we made love this morning. Then I was stunned when subsequent to her spanking me I broke into my crying jag. Certainly she had paddled me and it had quite definitely stung to the point I was wiggling and bouncing about on the table a good bit and ouching and owing a lot, but it was not enough to give me tears based on the sensation alone. I had been so miserably upset the previous 36 hours, and somehow that just caused it all to burst out in a cataract of tears. This also had me surprised. So she hugged me and nurtured me very sweetly while I got all that out, and was sure we were done.......sure until she resumed paddling my ass and telling me to name the things in my life I was happy about. I began, and was stunned further that she kept paddling me and asking for more. When I reached five she stopped and said I had done a good job, that she wanted me to continue to focus on good things in my life, and that she was going to assist me with that focus. She went on to tell that to reinforce my focus she was going to have me write a paragraph on each of the five aspects of my life I feel good about. By this time the incredulity of my reactions about all this was growing incrementally with each added permutation of this situation. My reaction was really not a sixth grade boy's, "Oh no not five paragraphs!" so much as it was a sort of amazement at what had transpired in her controlling the events of the preceding ten minutes.



The irony I feel in her turning about techniques that I know I have used on her numerous times in the past is quite poignant. The other reality I am experiencing is validation, that now, experiencing these techniques, implemented by one of my two loves, with the support of both of them, I can see just how effective, and helpful they are, even if at times they are difficult in the moment.


So for my writing assignment:



1. I am grateful for our condos. I love where we live. I love how we have the legal cover against any potential charge of polygamy in having two separate addresses as we live as a polyamorous family. While we have these two addresses they are constituted such that we readily enjoy them as one good sized home which afford us 2200 square feet of modern living space, backing up to a very scenic pond and attractively landscaped lawn space, four full bathrooms, four bedrooms, 2 dining areas/living rooms, two very nice covered patios, enclosed on three sides overlooking the pond, two garages, and two kitchens (which afford t and swan each their own kitchen space--the only areas of our living space my two loves do not manage to share without conflict.) I have particularly loved our condos since in the last year or so we have been able to purchase a good bit of new furniture, and have laminate floors installed in them both. I love our wonderful walking course swan and I tread for our daily power walks. I am increasingly coming to enjoy our neighbors as the elderly condo Nazi's who were the original inhabitants here increasingly move on, and new and younger people, especially ones with kids, move in. I love our proximity to all manner of shopping, dining, and health care. I most love that we have found a way to afford to continue living here despite the huge income hit we took when I lost my job in June. I am grateful.



2. I am grateful for my loves. I cannot in any number of paragraphs tell you the assets of either of my loves that I love and value. t your never flagging understanding, humor, love, respect, forgiveness, compersion, compassion, cooking, hard work, social/political consciousness, and sheer joy in life are simply the high points of you. swan I love your sensuality, your intellect, and your writing, and the vastness of your wealth of knowledge about so many things, your putting up with me, your amazing skill at helping children learn and grow, not only in academics, but as people, your creativity, your willingness to share everything with me no matter how intimate, and last but not least your cooking. You both love me more than in any relationship I have ever experienced and I would be blessed beyond all reality and beyond anything I deserve, to have either of you, and no one else. Having you both is more than I can believe has befallen me. I am grateful.



3. I am grateful for our cars. We have three: a 2007 KIA Rio 5 hatchback (paid for:), a 2009 Mercedes Smart Car (paid for:), a 2010 Hyundai Tucson (half paid for). swan loves her KIA and it provides us a wonderfully economical very versatile car that gets her about on her way to and from work and elsewhere, and hauls the large quantity of materials, supplies, and stuff she needs in her teaching. I love the Smart Car .(Yes Sheila, we did get it back not long after our return from Colorado in August.) It is a riot to drive, performs amazingly for what it is, is as fuel economical as a hybrid, and makes me the center of attention wherever I go:) Besides I like that when I drive anywhere when young children see it they generally point and break out into huge face lighting grins and giggles. The Tucson has every option we've ever dreamed of from vista roofs, to power everything, including sun roof, even a viewing screen to help us back up. It provides us all the room we need when the three of us travel together. It was a huge asset on the trip to the Outer Banks in May and swan's and my trip to Colorado in August. It performs so well yet it is a highly engineered 2.4 litre four cylinder engine that frequently gets 32-34 miles per gallon out on the road on long trips using regular gas. Besides it is red and looks really hot:) I am so grateful that we have these great cars and that we were able to pay for them such that we can afford to have and maintain them despite my career change.



4. I am grateful for my health. This one is kind of ironic in that this little writing exercise was prompted by my having had what I suspect was a real mental health crisis and I have always pointed out the absurdity that believing that physical and mental health were separate and distinct from one another is a fallacy. I am, though, amazed at the changes.......the improvements that have occurred since I managed to reduce my weight from 320 pounds down to the 159.5 pounds I weighed this morning when we got out of bed. I no longer deal with type 2 diabetes (anymore than someone who is aggressive and vigilant about their diabetes does when in remission), with meuralgia parasthetica (gone), hypertension (gone), hyperlipidemia (gone), sleep apnea (Bi pap machine gone....thank god), and spinal stenosis (gone). Additionally my osteo arthritis, while it progresses and is a cause of chronic pain and will require two surgeries over the next two years, is way improved due to the weight loss, and the rehabilitation I will accomplish after my forthcoming shoulder and knee replacement surgeries will be immensely easier because of my weight loss. I am so glad that I am now power walking, 5.52 miles today...........and I feel good when it is over. My risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, etc. has diminished off the charts. My endocrinologist, cardiologist, neurologist, have all told me that I have no reason to need their care any longer. I am too healthy for them to do anything for me. I feel fifteen years younger than I did a year and a half ago, and as swan is pointing out to me daily, as I change, I now have improved face color and clear sparkling eyes today, as a result of my twelve days of alcohol cessation (as of today.) I am grateful.



5. I am grateful for my knives. When we got to this one as swan was spanking me this morning I was thinking, "OK, certainly she will be satisfied now. We will be done." I was amazed when she cracked me with the paddle again and said, "OK what else." I was feeling pretty desperate and in need to stop any further spanking, so I quickly clutched at "My knives, I am grateful for my knives!" She smiled clearly knowing that was a desperation option, but also acknowledging that I had done what she asked. Too, she knew that, while this was not as global as was my valuing aspects of my life like my loves, my health, and my home, it too was sincere. I have what some people would call a hobby, but it is way beyond a hobby. It is a fetish. It is secondary to my spanking fetish but not by much. Over the last couple of decades, mostly the last 11 1/2 years, I have accumulated hundreds of knives of all sorts, sizes and kinds. Mostly they are of excellent quality. I am sure I have invested over $10,000.00 in knives. I am expert in them. I find them sensual and beautiful. I incorporate them into my sensual erotic BDSM play. I did, in my misspent youth, use them as weapons, and know how to do that, having learned from an expert. I hope to never use that skill further. I love my knives. At any point in time I usually have at least ten and sometimes a couple dozen of them on my person. I care for them, catalog them, fall in and out of infatuation with that day's favorites, and admire them endlessly. I am grateful for my knives.



There. I suspect I have fulfilled at least what she might have expected from one of her sixth grade bad boys.



One last interesting side note. My god -- since my weight loss getting spanked hurts at least twice as much as it did when I used to switch in the upper two-hundred pound, to low three-hundred pound weight range. Now admittedly before I resumed switching about a month and a half ago, I had not bottomed in like 5 or 6 years, so maybe being spanked when you are 55 or 56 is different than when you are 61. But I suspect that my now very skinny only slightly padded bottom (especially compared to before my surgery) simply is hugely more sensitive than before. Either that or I simply have become a pain weenie, but all I know is I carry on and suffer from spankings way more than I did when I used to switch, and when her intent is sincere punishment I become traumatically desperate when I'm spanked.



OK assignment complete..........what do you think "teach"?



Tom



Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.