An Old Friend

In the very beginning of my blogging endeavors, back some six years or more, the earliest commenter at The Swan's Heart was Malcolm.  For a very long time, he was the only one to visit regularly and leave words of encouragement or wisdom or simple friendship.  Over the years, Malcolm has poked at me and prodded me.  Sometimes he has overstepped, at least in my view, and I've come roaring back at him.  He has remained a steadfast friend in this place.  Malcolm, if I've never said it, I am grateful for the time you have gifted to me over the years.

Most recently, in a comment on my "Magic" post, my friend Malcolm has written words that I imagine cost him some time and energy.  They are, as is the norm when he speaks to me, not entirely easy to hear/read, but they point to a deep part of my own personal set of struggles and fears for this part of the path, and so provide me with an opening to say what is true for me in this instant:

...Well, Sue, I have been reading your blog on and off for years. It's never been more interesting than it is these days, because we are now into real, universal problems. You have been allowing comments recently that are very critical, and I'm sure that's a good thing... Sue, your problems will never be solved by thinking. You have to become soft. To submit. To relinquish control. It's so ironic that I'm saying this to one whose who has devoted much of her life to submission! Now you have to submit to one who has much greater, infinitely greater, power than your Tom's personality. This "one" is none other than a vital part of yourself. You will not be betraying Tom by that ... I have come to realise that the Universe (God?) is friendly, will give me and has given me what I need if only I stop trying to direct the show ... You are trying to defend your habits of thought ... It's counterproductive to try to defend them or reconcile them with other systems. Habits of thought are just that, nothing of great importance that you need to keep...  just now it's what you don't understand that is causing you trouble. Your training in submission is not being used for the greater purpose it could fulfil.

Whew!

That's a lot.  There's truth and wisdom in these words.  I am struggling with defending what I think against what feels like an assault.  I know that perception is not entirely accurate.  No one is "out to get me" or "out to get us."  The people that we are dealing with are doing the best they can too -- believing what they believe because it works (or has worked) at some level for them.

Malcolm pokes his finger into the place where I've claimed the description "submissive," and called me to account for the doing of it.  And that's an awful lot of my problem just now.  I do not know and cannot know what will remain of our D/s when all of this settles, and that scares me.  Master is so unsure of this new reality.  I can see His struggle with the step 1 admission of powerlessness -- how to reconcile being powerless with being Dominant; with being "Master?"  I feel like I have to let Him go into the hands of these "AA'ers" who claim to have the magic that can save Him and us, but I am terribly afraid that the "healing" they promise will leave us nothing at all of the life we once valued -- the dream I thought we shared.

So many people say to me, "just go to Al Anon," but I can't imagine that there are very many Al Anon meetings where I could lay out the contours of our dynamic and erotic orientations -- and get much in the way of understanding or "help."  No one is going to hold onto me while I cry my way through "maybe never being slave again..."  I just don't see it.  And while Malcolm suggests that it is now time to submit to something bigger than Tom, I can't picture that being an adequate replacement for what I think may be lost forever.  I cannot go back.  We cannot go back.  The life we had that was driven by alcohol wasn't good either.  I want to believe that there will be better things in the future; that something good and healthy can come out of all of this... 

It is all such a muddle.  I am so confused.  So afraid.  What if I don't do the right thing?  What is the right thing?  How will I know?  Who can help me?

swan