I Do Not Know What to Call This

I keep hearing myself, in my head, talking to myself.  One of the things that I have been telling myself in the last few days is that "it feels like we have turned a corner."  Not literally.  The idiom means that if something or someone turns the corner, their situation starts to improve after a difficult period.  We have come through a very difficult period, and it feels like things are beginning to improve -- on a number of levels. 


That is good news.  Better is better.  It is.  I am convinced we have been carried along by powerful magic, pure un-redeemed stubbornness, remarkable good luck, and perhaps some friendly spirits.  I'm guessing that not one relationship in a hundred would have withstood the period of two or three years through which we've just passed -- and remained intact.   


So, here we are, having turned the corner.  Or seemingly so.  There is the odd sensation that I can no longer see what was.  It is behind me, around the corner, and out of sight.  All that remains is ahead of me.  What that is, I do not know.  This is such unfamiliar territory.  There are none of the familiar landmarks, and nothing that I recognize or could use by which to orient.  This side of the corner is utterly foreign.


He is feeling better and better, maybe even starting to feel good.  As that happens, He and I are beginning to circle around the resurgence of our D/s dynamic... and I am a mess.  I failed so utterly at being "slave."  Clearly, I am not up to the ideal of "no limits" slavery.  I have limits -- definite and incontrovertible, and when I am pushed, I will fight like a wild cat to protect myself in those places.  I still read around the BDSM blogging circle, and I can see where and how I fall short of the mark.  Everywhere I look, there you all are:  trusting, confident, softly submissive, sure of yourselves and sure of your dominant partners.  I tried that path; made a thorough-going mess of it, and now it is a fact that I am "in control" in our relationship to some degree.  The part of me that wants to be "good at this;" the part of me that wants to be "doing it right;" the part of me that values "success" is horrified at that truth.  I am ashamed at my weakness and inability to do what others seemingly do with ease and joy.  


My therapist tells me that there is some of my power that is mine alone; that it should never be given away; that I was foolish to ever believe that could be done safely.  No sensible person should give away all of their power to another.  She contends that, knowing that, I can choose deliberately and consciously how to share my power and create a relationship that works better than what was before.  It all sounds so rational; so sensible.  Sitting there, across from her, I can nod assent to those ideas.  Intellectually, they make perfect sense -- and then I leave and they sit inside of me like a stone.  To hear the life I dreamed of characterized in that fashion makes me feel small, foolish, diminished.  How can she be right (and I imagine she is "right"), and that make me feel so bereft?  


I am conflicted.  I love Him.  Still.  Always.  I want to be His.  Am His?  Don't know what that means.  I know where I will not go again.   I know what I will not tolerate ever again.  I imagine that requires some sort of "negotiation," and I have no idea how to do that with Him.  It sets off my famously convoluted capacity for asking "what if," and always brings me to the awful question:  "What if, after all, He doesn't want me anymore?"  


Then again, what if He does -- want me?  Still.


Sue (swan)