Employment Dilemmas

I've worked for a paycheck all my adult life.  Excepting for the months immediately following the births of my two children, I have always been in the employ of some organization or institution.  I've worked hard... for every single employer; done the best work I knew how to do in every position I have ever held.

I haven't always agreed with every policy or every political stance of every employer I ever worked for.  Some were anti-female, and chauvinistic in attitude and practice.  Some pushed political agendas with which I, personally, disagreed.  On more than one occasion, I pondered the ethics of accepting my paychecks from the coffers of those whose views were so diametrically opposed to my own.  The mental gymnastics required in those circumstances are, I imagine, of very little interest.

As a teacher, in a variety of schools over the last quarter of a century, I have lived from spring to spring -- the annual ritual of signing the contract that, each year, defines the work I will do in the next school year.  This year will be no different.  In May, there will be a day when I will be called upon to sign the contract for next year.  Most years, that day is a day of relief and some pleasure.

This year, however, the agreement that I am expected to sign, is more problematic ... and far more challenging personally.  Contrary to the assumptions that will be made on the part of some of my strongest critics, the concerns that I have with the document are really not about me.  I am way beyond the point where the "pelvic issues" that are featured most prominent in the document are really pertinent in my life.  Those who are far younger than I am; who are in the midst of their childbearing years, are confronted with prohibitions on the use of contraceptives, IVF, artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, and abortion.  For those who are not married, a pregnancy will spell the end of their careers.

Beyond all of that, there are severe and draconian limitations placed on what any of us can say or do that might give the appearance of sympathy or support for anything that is "counter to."  Perhaps the biggest single difficult area for me has to do with LGBTQ people.  I work for an institution that says one thing and does an other when it comes to people who are not heterosexual in their orientation.  The document that I am required to sign this spring will put me at risk if I stand up for a gay child who is bullied on the playground.  I will, likewise be fired if I am seen to attend the wedding of a gay friend.  I cannot publicly ally with any organization that holds views that are in conflict with the proclamations of the most dogmatically strict arm of the institution.

It is not an easy place to be.  I love the work.  I love the school.  It is not, for me, just a job -- or just any school.  I do not want to be anywhere else, and I do not want to do any other work.  I believe in the place, and I believe in the kids and families with whom I work.  I do not share the religious perspective that has set all of this misery and anxiety and fear in place, but I have, for nearly a quarter of a century, been a respectful partner in the mutual endeavor of providing an excellent and ethically based education in this place.  I have dear and treasured colleagues who will not return next year because they cannot bear to sign the document that is required.  There are families who are long-standing, integral members of the community, who will not be placing their children with us going forward; who will choose to find a place that is more fair and open-minded.

For the rest of us, we will sign the objectionable bit of paper, and keep our own counsel as to why.  For some, I am sure it is about money.  The need for a job is not a small thing.  None of us are independently wealthy.  Many of us believe in the mission and vision of the place.  Ours is not like any other school I've ever seen.  It is an unprepossessing place that creates remarkable transformation in the lives of students.  We work together, and we make amazing things happen in big and small ways.  Heady stuff.

It is a sad march through this slow, softly-blooming spring.  My heart is heavy, and my head is in a whirl from the unspoken questions that fly everywhere.  There is great pain and great fear in everyone I meet and see these days.

Six weeks, and it will be summertime.  Perhaps there will be a quiet space where the fear can subside.  The summer sun and heat will bake us all and we will rest.  Those who can will go back to school in late August, and begin again to lay foundations and build structures that will, we hope raise up good, decent citizens for the world.  Whatever the paper I sign next month declares, that is the work that I do.

Waiting to Know Our Fate

We have been Blogger bloggers since the end of 2004 -- a very long time.  We've survived at least one major upgrade to the Blogger hosting tools.  We've wended our way through all sorts of quirky and sometimes downright maddening glitches and oddities.  We've met so many interesting and good-hearted people from around the globe because we've spent a lot of time here on Blogger.

Blogger is not perfect, but Blogger has been good to us and for us.

Today, however, might be the last day for us, and a lot of our Blogger "blogspot" neighbors, and the really scary thing is that there is no way to know for sure.  I want to believe that my blog does not fall under the sanction delineated by this Blogger email that I received earlier in the week:

But, the truth is, I'm not certain.  This is a pretty tame site as adult blogs go, but I have some links in my blogroll to sites that do advertise for adult sites.  I have, over almost nine years, occasionally referred to and/or linked to sites that would probably be classified as "adult."  I've tried to be careful and respectful about that.  The place carries the adult content designation, and there is the "up top" disclaimer that tells you what you will find here -- in case you landed here by accident.  I'm not trying to shock or offend anyone who doesn't plan to be here.  I don't "monetize" this blog.  There are no ads for anything here -- not sex aids or whips or kinky books.  Honest -- I've never made a single penny as a result of writing here.  I'm just talking to myself and my friends; writing a journal that details my personal journey.  I know it isn't for everyone, but I can't imagine that my writing here does anyone any harm.

The ominous sounding Blogger email declares that everything changes as of today.  I don't know how long it will take for the beheadings to begin.  I don't know who is really at risk.  I don't know where the lines are going to be drawn.  And so...  I wait.  Maybe a lot of us are waiting to see whether our blogs will still be here when the sun rises tomorrow.  I hope I'm still here.  I hope all of the rest of you are still here.

swan

Big Strong German Girl

For years, He has referred to me as "His big, strong, German girl."  I have been sometimes amused by that designation, and sometimes proud of it.  I've tried hard to live up to the not so subtle expectations embedded in that characterization.

I've been strong through sicknesses and surgeries; through healing and rehabilitation.  I've been strong through death and loss and sorrow.  I've been strong through addiction and despair and anger and desperation and depression.  I've been physically strong, fixing and repairing and maintaining the stuff of our lives.

I've been strong in the practice of submission, bending to His will through changes and challenges both large and small.

Now, as He proposes that He is ready to "reinvest" in our lives -- in the eroticism of SM play, in the expression of our poly relatedness, in some manifestation of the power exchange dynamic between us, I find that I do not feel strong.  I seem to have used up all my strength.  I feel needy and small and want only to curl up and be held and sheltered and protected.  I am not at all sure that wanting those things is a "fair" place for me to be, and I am not at all sure that He is ready to take that on.  I think that He and I are both tentative about trusting in the way we once did.  We are learning what we can believe in, and what we can trust.  It is a process.

It is hard to explain.  It is hard to understand.  I often don't know what or how to feel about any of it...  I am, I think, still strong, but I am also that needy, frightened, lost bit of human.  It feels a lot like this:

For Strong Women by Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid. 

Daughter Update

I do not have much information, and some of what I have is "conflicting," but it does seem that she is "safe."

It could be that she is "ill" and perhaps in the hospital.  I am being given no details by the friend that gives me that information.  I suspect that, if that story is true, then she may be in a mental hospital.  I do not know why.

It could also be that there was some sort of altercation between her and some guy.  My son reports that he has been told by her "boyfriend" that she had a fight with some guy, broke his glasses and his phone, and he called the police.  In that case, she is locked up on a parole violation.

I can't really verify either story at this point.  It is likely that neither one of them is really "good" news, but since I was imagining that she might be lying dead in some field somewhere...

Well...

Yeah.

Thank you all for all your thoughts.  I do appreciate it.

swan

Worried

Today is my daughter's birthday.  She is 35 years old.  At least I hope so...

She has "vanished...dropped off the radar.  She does not answer her phone.  She does not answer messages left on her Facebook page.  She does not respond to text messages.

I am worried.

Maybe she has just gone quiet.  Maybe she is there and just out of communication.  I don't know.  I only know that, in the past, when Sarah has "become invisible," it has not been a good thing.  It generally portends legal trouble and a drop into drug use.

I am trying not to imagine horrible things.  I am trying to remain calm and patient.  I have no choice but to wait this out.  But, oh..., my heart is aching tonight.

Thank you for listening.

swan

NTG

I have what is called Normal Tension Glaucoma.  It is an unusual form of glaucoma which usually manifests with elevated pressures in the eye.  That high intra-occular pressure damages the optic nerve resulting in progressive loss of vision.  In normal tension glaucoma, the pressures that are measured within the eye are within the range that is considered to be "normal."  However, even though the pressures seem normal, the disk of the optic nerve, visible at the back of the eye, shows clear evidence of damage.

In the early stages of the disease, there are essentially no symptoms.  One doctor described it as being in a room filled with 1000 lamps.  If one lamp, here and there, gets switched off, odds are you won't notice -- unless you are looking right at it.  The progressive loss of visual function is not easy to observe until the damage is well advanced.

I have been lucky to be monitored by very good eye doctors, and my glaucoma was detected very early.  It has been watched carefully for many, many years, and has been "stable" for about four years.  I don't notice that I have diminished vision, although the visual field tests that my doctor performs twice a year clearly show the damaged spots in my field of vision.  He says that I have moderate to advanced damage...  but it has been controlled by medication, and kept stable.  Until today.

Today, my regular checkup showed progression in the damage visual on my visual fields test, and the measured pressures in both eyes are higher than they have been for years.  Not dangerously high for a normal person, but too high for me.  The recommendation is to increase and expand my use of three different prescription eye drops to try and bring the pressure back down.  He'll check it again in about 3 weeks.

And then...  He told me that he is moving his practice to another office, and limiting his hours to mornings only.  There are other glaucoma specialists in the practice that I can see, but I am worried.  I feel uncomfortable about losing this doctor (who is no charmer) because he is very good at what he does, and he has followed my case from the very beginning.  It scares me.

The whole thing scares me.  I have lived with this for many years, and not really looked at it very closely.  I have lived with the fantasy that I could just go on as I have been, taking my eye drops and seeing the world as I do today.  Now, I am faced with the potential that this may, over time, result in a significant loss of functional sight.  No one can tell me when or how much.  The prognosis is unclear and unpredictable.

I am shaken.  Worried.  Afraid of a future that I cannot control, and cannot avoid.  Tonight, I want to sit in the light, write on my computer, watch the television, and look at the faces that I love.  I feel, somehow, that I ought to remember, everyday, that I will not ALWAYS be able to do that.  The things that I love; the things that fill my world with visual interest and joy -- they will be taken from me, bit by bit.  And I cannot even begin to guess, how long I will have...

Bummer.

swan

Beginnings

A new school year starts this week; full of promise and possibility.  I am as ready as I can possibly be -- and, as usual, I am a nervous mess.  There will be new kids to meet, and new classes to tackle, and I am awash in anxious feelings.  What if they don't like me, what if I can't engage them in this new material, what if I'm just no good at any of it...?

My dreams are chaotic and full of disturbing imagery.  I wander lost and helpless through a landscape that I don't recognize, but which still seems vaguely familiar.

Not to worry, however.  It is fine, really.  This mental fussing is just part of getting into the pattern and rhythm of the school room.  I am, actually, entirely ready and relatively certain that my preparations throughout this summer will set the stage for success for me and for my students.  I am physically healthier than I have been for a couple of years -- no major aches and pains, and feeling hopeful that I may even have found a set of things that can help to minimize my migraine issues, too.  I look at my face in the mirror, and I can see my eyes sparkle back at me.  It has been a long while since the last time that sparkle was part of my daily look.  It has been a good summer, interestingly.  Even as we've worked hard to come through His knee surgery and the requisite rehabilitation, we've enjoyed the long, slow, lazy days and nights.  We've reveled in hours to spend together.  We've laughed and loved and learned, once again, how to be gentle with each other.  It has been a summer full of small things, and that seems like a very big thing.

I remember trudging back to school last August, uncertain that I had the personal resources or reserves to make it through the year.  I was, then, exhausted, beaten, and sad.  This beginning feels completely different -- vibrant with power and hopefulness.  I have been conscious about not looking backward; deliberate about focusing on what is.  Still, the contrast between now and then is amazing.  All the various, small steps toward health and healing have paid off.  There are now so many moments of joy and love and simple happy sweetness and peace.  I cannot point to a specific moment when life changed and showed up feeling good again.  I only know it has, and I am glad and grateful.

So, I am headed off into a brand new year, and I am nervous but also excited.  Nervousness will evaporate, I am sure, in the rush and spill of happy greetings and new adventures that lie ahead.

swan

Not Quite Apollo 8

It was Christmas time, 1968, when three American astronauts, Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr., and William A. Anders, guided their Apollo 8 spacecraft across nearly a quarter-million miles of black void, out of the grasp of Earth, into orbit around the Moon, and back.  It was a first; had never happened before.  At 13 years old, I was among the many millions who listened and watched as the explorers spoke across the emptiness. One thing I remember with almost visceral clarity is the silence that fell each time Astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders vanished behind the far side of the Moon, losing all contact with the Earth for 45 minutes on each of the 10 orbits. During the first long silence the black void crackled with tension until Mission Control in Houston reported, "We've got it! Apollo 8 is in lunar orbit."  Jubilation!  With one breath, we who remained bound to Earth breathed a single, universal sigh of relief in that moment.


I was reminded of that moment this morning when, in the darkness of the predawn, Master rolled over, pulled my still sleepy self into a hug, and asked if we could try to make love.  It was, for me, exactly like that exhale I recall after the long, silent wait for Apollo 8 to reappear -- "When will He reappear following the trauma of the surgery?  And, what if...?"  The unspoken fear, guarded closely in the long dark nights of the last three weeks, evaporated early this morning in the simple, often under-appreciated gift of an erection.  Now...I am assured that we are where we should be, safely on the radar, and soon to be headed home to more familiar territory again.  


swan

Making my Case (Owning my Failure) for the Last Time

I am, unwillingly, at the end of the part of my life during which I called myself His slave.  Actions of mine changed our lives forever, and ended the possibility for me to ever again live as "His," in that sense.  He will not have it, and I cannot blame Him.  I understand it is my doing, and I accept that I cannot do anything to change any of it.  There is no going backward.  In this, as in all other things in life, forward is the only direction.

We remain.  Lovers.  Partners.  Joined, inextricably, through all of it.  We are at the beginning of something entirely new, and I do hope and believe that it will turn out to be good.  The ending of my slavery is not an ending of all; only that one seminal bit of my own life...

And still, I cannot seem to stop arguing my own case in my head.  It is as if I am forever standing before the seat of judgement.  I have, to this point remained voiceless, and have not spoken out on my own behalf.

I lived my life in service to Him for all the years we had together before everything crashed.  From morning until night, each and every day, my focus was on Him.  What He wanted, what He chose, what He needed -- that was what I worked to make a reality.  I supported Him.  I honored Him.  I followed the path He set for us.  

Hind sight is always very clear, isn't it?  Not very helpful, but unerringly clear.  I know, now, that at some point, the path we followed turned toward addiction and codependency.  I am sure I knew we were on dangerous ground, and like a coward, I remained mostly silent.  On the rare occasion when I would choose to confront the problems besetting us, I quickly lost my courage in the force of His predictable anger.  Those who would declare that I failed as a slave would be correct if they would point to my devastating cowardice.

The final, cataclysmic choices that I made when all had fallen into crisis were, I believe, only the final, inevitable playing out of my failing.

I fell into the great fallacy of the "perfect BDSM slave."  I gave away my power when I should have held it available for the "exchange" we so desired.  Each time I silenced my own inner knowing, I gave away the thing that He most valued.  Each time I watched Him act to destroy Himself, I betrayed the trust that was the foundation of who we hoped to be together.  I laid before Him my weakness when I should have served Him with my strength and my courage. 

A slave ought not to be a doormat or a robot.  A master deserves the fullness a slave can give:  heart and power and intellect -- all dedicated to His service.  I talked myself out of that giving, exchanging it instead for a sense of being "loved" and "liked" by Him.  I made myself willing to let Him be harmed rather than accept that He might be angry with me.  

It was only at the end, when I saw the devastation that loomed for us all, that I remembered what I had promised:  to serve Him with my whole being.  In the end, I believe I saved Him, and saved all of us.  Finally, I acted, as I ought to have done years earlier.  There was huge cost to that; for Him, for me, for us all -- but I will forever believe that, in choosing to return to courage and power, I behaved as a slave ought to have done.  

It is now over.  We have survived, and turned to a new way.  He does not want my slavery anymore, and so it is.  Something new will grow in that place in our lives.  What I leave here is the marker of my story for any who might follow this path.

swan 

Be the Change You Want to See

I started back today seeing the same therapist that I saw a few times back last winter/spring.  I was not happy about beginning that process again.  I am not one who appreciates the soul-baring vulnerability of therapy, and I deeply resent the time and the money and the emotional cost.  However, I finally found myself so tangled up in my own thoughts and fears and hurts and confusions that there was simply no good option.  I am lost and feeling alone, and I need someone from outside myself and our immediate family to listen to me fuss and whine and spin around -- and point me toward the exit.  I can't do it for myself anymore. 

She is J, and she is very good.  She is now, with my return to counseling, working with all of us in individual sessions.  If one were keeping an accounting of the "good things" and "benefits" to accrue from our struggles in this year, surely finding J would be on that list.  We've been lucky to have her wisdom and acceptance and simple affirmation of who we are individually and as a family.

When I worked with her back in the early months of all of this, I felt pretty solid and pretty secure and pretty centered.  She declared, in those days, that I was "the pillar" of our family.  I found that intimidating, but was also flattered and a little proud of my own sturdy strength.  Except that, as time has passed, I've started to wobble and tremble.  I'm not feeling so strong these days.  I am exhausted and weary and scared and desperate.  I veer from hopeful to hopeless and back again at a dizzying speed.  When I sat down in J's office this morning, it took only the simple inquiry as to how I was doing to send me into a flurry of tears and whimpers and a shaky-voiced litany of fears and woes that left me limp and trembling.

She listened to my random, stream-of-consciousness outpouring, and then proposed this version of my dilemma:

You are divided in your approach to the challenges in your relationship.  You could respond to any of the  situations that you are trying to deal with from your strong, powerful, capable, intelligent woman persona -- or you could respond from your slave persona.  It must be hard to figure out what to do with those two possibilities.  Which one do you want?

That stopped me in my tracks.  I could tell, inside myself, that what she said was true.  I know that strong, independent, capable, powerful woman.  She is the one who runs a busy classroom of growing pre-adolescents with a sure and steady hand.  She deftly handles the many unpredictable shifts of the school day, and never breaks a sweat.  She judges and evaluates and decides the course to take through a thousand minor (or maybe not so minor) tumults every single day.  Too, I know the slave who is quiet and calm and secure and soft and yielding.  She is the part of me that waited and waited and waited to be taken in and held close and given the gift of a place to safely lodge a heart that longs to submit.  In my mind, I rolled that question around and around -- if there were a choice to be made here, which would I choose?

Deep breath.  "Slave," I told her.  "If I could choose, I'd choose to respond from the slave mode."  And, saying it, I felt some bound up place inside of me release just a bit...

I've pulled myself back from that place through the last year.  I've chattered away in my mind, and been absolutely convinced that I just COULD NOT continue to live as His slave for a whole variety of reasons.  I've been stiff necked and stubborn and hellbent on having it be the way I think it should be.  The part of me that has "control issues" has put together a very convincing list of whys and wherefores -- all the justifications for pulling myself away from Him and the promises I once made.

This morning, in less than an hour, affirming my stated desire to live and respond from "slave mode," my oh-so-perceptive therapist turned me around; showed me what I wanted; and showed me how I'd been sabotaging that for myself and, possibly, for us.  I sat there breathing and knew that I couldn't do one thing about changing how He feels about me or us or the M/s dynamic we once enjoyed.  He won't be pushed or manipulated or coerced by me.  That doesn't work -- never has.  I can, however, resume the role that I once lived with grace and joy.  Whatever He might choose for Himself, my living as His can't hurt us (at least, I don't think it can).

I've wanted Him to fix things for us.  I've wanted Him to make me feel safe again.  I've fallen into the trap of believing that the only way for me to give Him my submission is for Him to "take" it from me.  I don't know what I've been thinking -- I know better than that.  I know how this works, and I know what my part is.  I need to walk the talk.  If I want our current intimate stalemate to be broken and our dynamic to be restored, I need to bend -- to "assume the position" of slave.

It may not be easy.  Probably, it will be very difficult in at least a few places.  I am afraid; terrified even; at the reality of His continuing anger with me.  I don't want to face that -- or deal with what it may mean, but I am ready to lay that down and trust Him to find a way through it for the two of us.  I have been fierce about my efforts to steer things, and it has been catastrophic.  I am not a good ship's captain.  I can't keep insisting that He see it my way, do it my way, make me happy.  I have to let this go; believe in the heart of who He and I are together; and take the risk of trusting once again.

And so, once again, I will be...

swan

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

Learning about Fear

Once a month, I attend classes at a local university with my principal and a colleague. We are a team working to learn how to implement a particular sort of educational system transformation in our school. There's a lot of research in this area of educational theory, and it does seem to be the latest, greatest, best thing.

The man who is teaching the program is an odd sort of duck, and he is all over the place with information and theories and odd metaphors. He fancies himself a great storyteller, and so his lectures are peppered with weird tales that often seem to go nowhere. I find him irritating, and it is hard work for me to stay focused on the goal of the class so that I can extract the valuable information from the deluge of silliness that he pours out each month.

Aside from the educator-specific mumbo jumbo, one of the things that I came away from out of the last workshop was the concept of the "amygdala hijack." The amygdalae are almond-shaped bodies located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain, considered to be part of the limbic system. The amygdala is the arousal, “fight or flight or freeze,” and emotional memory part of the brain. Its job is to protect by comparing incoming data with emotional memories.

An amygdala hijack occurs when we respond out of measure with the actual threat because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. For instance, the amygdala will react
similarly to the threat of being eaten by a tiger (physical threat) and the threat of an ego
attack (emotional threat) by bringing on the fight or flight or freeze reaction. In an amygdala hijack, the amygdala overtakes the thinking part of the brain, and when that happens, there’s little or no ability to rely on intelligence or reasoning. An amygdala hijack happens in a split-second and reduces the number of options that feel like viable possibilities.

Being afraid triggers the limbic system. Any sort of perceived threat, real or imagined, can send the amygdala into defensive mode, and the instant that happens, the ability to analyze, evaluate, perceive options, organize responses, or carry out plans -- all these neocortical functions are compromised.

And that seems important to me, because I've spent a lot of this last year being afraid -- afraid for Master and T, afraid for T's mom, afraid that I'd be "aced" out of the grandma role because I'm so far away, afraid that my daughter will not be able to put together a reasonable life for herself, afraid that I'd somehow not be up to the challenge of this year's incoming class at school, afraid that His work situation will not continue -- or that T's won't -- or that mine won't, afraid that I am not able to measure up sexually or submissively in our relationship, afraid of my reactions and my responses and my emotions, afraid ... afraid ... afraid ...

It feels like I've spent months and months with my guard up, with my defenses at the ready -- continually in battle mode. I am combative at home and I am combative on line. If I'm not careful, I fall into warrior mode with my students -- and they are far too young and vulnerable to be dealing with my crazy imaginings. I have to consciously remind myself not to lash out, not to imagine enemies around every corner, not to believe the worst of everyone I meet, and not to expect the worst possible outcome in every situation. I am so ... tired.

Experts, who study this, suggest a process to interrupt the amygdala hijack -- SOSS:

Stop –Physically withdraw. If possible, name the trigger or emotion. This keeps the
neocortex engaged and active and helps to prevent the amygdala from taking over.

Oxygenate – Take deep breaths with intention and purpose. Pay attention to
breathing. This keeps the neocortex engaged.

Strengthen appreciation – It’s difficult to get hijacked while focusing on
appreciation, particularly if you can appreciate the source of the hijack -- the person or the circumstance that appears as a potential threat.

Survey the landscape – Take the time to revisit the hijack experience after it’s
completed to learn more about what happened and why. Work to identify the trigger to
better manage emotion and interrupt the hijack early.

So, part of what I'm turning to focus on during the new year just ahead, is checking my fears and learning to stay out of "fight, flight, or freeze" mode. I want to stop reacting from fear and start reacting like a rational person. I want to enjoy and appreciate and breath. I want to sleep soundly and calmly. I want to be in my life fully and joyfully without the continual anxiety about what happens next to threaten my safety and security and peace of mind. I want to stay in the moment and enhance my awareness of what is good and real and solid in my life.

I am not so naive as to believe that I can banish fear altogether. Sometimes real things happen that are very scary. Sometimes it makes sense to be scared. I will likely be scared again and again in the days and weeks and months ahead. Still, I think I'll be stronger for the really scary times, if I'm not wearing myself out on every imagined phantom.

swan

Bad Dreams

I am having awful, disturbing, scary dreams. Almost every night. Sometimes, I get so agitated that He wakes up and, finding me fussing and thrashing in my sleep, wakes me up. But then, if I go back to sleep, the dark images come pouring back.

This morning, I woke up in the early hours before dawn, shaken from the imagery of my dreams. I'd been completely immersed in a dream where I was climbing ladders up into winter-bare trees against a stark gray sky. I was dressed, head to toe, in a heavy, black woolen coat and a strange, almost derby-like black hat. In my dream, it was my job to knock dead blackbirds out of the trees so that they would not fall onto passersby on the sidewalks below. Some of the birds were dry and dessicated, and when they would hit the frozen ground they would shatter into a pile of feathers and "dust." Others of the dead birds were swollen and putrid. These birds would hit the ground with a sickening splat and release a nauseating stink into the freezing air.

I woke up feeling horribly distressed and upset about this particular dream. It has bothered me all day, leaving me feeling strung out -- raw and tender and angry and jittery. I don't put much stock in dream interpretation, generally, but this one feels so compelling. Here's some of what I found, looking around for what it might all signify:

• To dream of dead or dying birds, foretells a period of coming disappointments. You will find yourself worrying over problems that are constantly on your mind.
• To dream that you are climbing a tree, signifies that you will achieve your career goals and reach those high places in society. The degree of difficulty to which you climb the tree will measure the speed.
• To dream that you are climbing up a ladder, suggests that you have reached a new level of achievement. It is symbolic of prosperity, hard work and your efforts.
• To wear an overcoat in your dream, suggests that you are shielding yourself from life's hurt. You may be trying to put up a wall.
• To dream that something stinks, suggests that you are not being supported by your social circle or your environment.
• To see or wear a hat in your dream, indicates that you are hiding an aspect of yourself or that you are covering up something. Alternatively, it represents your attitude or the various roles and responsibilities you have in your waking life.
• To see a blackbird in your dream, signifies a lack of motivation. You are not utilizing your full potential. Alternatively, it represents jealousy.
• Black symbolizes the unknown, unconscious, danger, mystery, darkness, death, mourning, hate or malice.

Arrrghhhh!

swan

Encounter with Terror

Last weekend, Master ordered a new whip. He likes a whip maker named Arturo, who makes whips that seem to be intended for the "non-kinky" market, and that seems to keep his products in a price range that is way more reasonable than what similar items cost in "the lifestyle."


Himself has been pining away for an 8-plait rubber bullwhip that Arturo makes, and so Saturday morning, He placed the order -- and I began a spin into complete terror and despair.


Whips scare the crap out of me, and that is the plain, old, garden variety of whip -- made from leather. Rubber is a material that, in my experience, is way more wicked than almost anything else that impact play implements get made out of. Rubber sticks to the skin when it hits, and it then pulls the skin with it when it pulls away. The kind of damage that rubber does is much more intense and more long lasting than leather or wood or acrylics... A rubber bullwhip seems beyond my capacity to actually imagine, and serious contemplation of that combination takes me to a place that is beyond panic. Beginning shortly after He placed that order on Saturday morning, I was obsessively contemplating the impending reality of a RUBBER BULLWHIP, and it didn't take me very long to get past panic and all the way to terror and utter and complete despair.


But I didn't say anything to Him. He was so delighted in His purchase, and I am His slave. I don't say, "no." I work hard to please Him, to do what He wants me to do. I understand that, in our dynamic, He decides how and when we will play, and with what. None of this pivots around my pleasure or my desires. It is for me to submit; to obey; to trust... So I didn't tell Him about what I was feeling -- I didn't want to be seen as trying to "top from the bottom," and I was acutely aware of His distaste for anything that even remotely appears to be "service topping."

We went to bed late on Saturday evening, and He dropped almost instantly into a deep sleep. I laid there in the darkness, and the RUBBER BULLWHIP loomed larger and larger and larger in my imagination. I know how whips cut and burn, and I know how rubber sticks and pulls. A RUBBER BULLWHIP would, I was absolutely certain, pull great strips of skin right off. I couldn't sleep. I could barely breathe. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest. Tears simply streamed down my face as I tried to keep from sobbing out loud. In my mind, I saw myself, standing under the lash of the RUBBER BULLWHIP -- skin being flayed from my body; blood running down my legs and back and pooling at my feet; knowing that I must stay in position; knowing that I must not make too much noise; knowing that I would die (really and not metaphorically) before it was all over.

It all made me very sad. Very sad. I mourned the years ahead that we would not have together. I wondered why He wanted to kill me when He'd always seemed to be completely thrilled with having me in His life. I wondered what it was that I'd done or not done that had changed things to make that happen. I went round and round with the internal voice that wanted to declare that "it wasn't fair," explaining the dynamic and the agreement I'd made and how that impacted the notion of "fair." Lying there, in the dark, awash in panic and misery, completely unable to sleep, I began to formulate a list of things that I needed to get done in the few days I had before the RUBBER BULLWHIP would be delivered: laundry, final phone calls to my son and daughter, some sort of legal transferal of the deeds to my condo and my car so they could belong to Master after I was gone, batteries in the smoke detectors, one more trip through His closet to make sure everything is in order... What a crazy hodge-podge of "chores!"

By Sunday morning, I was limp; exhausted both physically and emotionally. I wasn't angry, but I was completely without any hope. There wasn't one shred of belief in me that I'd be able to survive what was coming, and no thought to do anything to change my fate. I was completely resigned. All that was left of the emotional storm I'd been through was a slow, steady, seemingly inexhaustible stream of tears.

When He woke up, all fresh and rested and ready to go, He found me completely wrung out; compliant but without any energy or enthusiasm for anything. I was completely into a "whatever -- nothing matters anyway" state of mind.

He read the despair in my eyes immediately and demanded to know what was wrong. At first, all I could do was burrow into His chest and shiver. It wasn't the response He was looking for, and eventually, I heard that tone of command that inevitably brings me straight to whatever is demanded: "What's wrong? Tell me!"

Five words, spoken in a tiny, and very tired voice: "I don't want to die."

"What!?!?! What are you talking about? What is wrong with you?" And, so I told Him. Told Him all of it. My fear; my certainty of the outcome; my confusion as to His reasons; the whole list of things that I needed to get done before... well, before; and my utter and total saddness at all of it.

I think He might have laughed except that I was so clearly serious, and in such a state. He pulled me in very close, and began to reassure me, as if He believed that all of my craziness was, in fact, not crazy. Carefully, step by step, He walked me through the logic of all of it; He loved me -- always and all ways; would never harm me; had ordered the whip because it was such a great deal, and because He liked it; had never ever hit me with the one bullwhip we already own... so why would I believe He intended to use this one on me? It was a tapestry of reasoning and logic that began to pull me slowly back into a contemplation of the possibility that I might not be at the end of my life (and yes I know how melodramatic that sounds -- welcome to my sometimes wild internal universe).

Finally, sensing (I think) that I was through the crisis I'd created in my mind, He asked me, "Why are you still here? Why didn't you leave? How is this "protecting Master's property?"

I just looked at Him, incredulously, tears springing afresh -- "I can't leave! Where would I go? I don't know what I would do!" The idea that I would somehow leave was beyond my ability to even conceptualize. It had never once, through all the long and scary hours of the night, crossed my mind...

Which brings me to the point of this whole long, pitiful tale: slavery is about relinquishing control. It is as simple as this: all the decisions are now His. Often, when someone wants to get into a tussle with one of us who claim the title "slave," there will be the proposition that we would surely draw the line at some point -- family, work, physical injury, or death. I've always resisted getting into that sort of hypothetical discussion, because I don't think there is anyway for any of us to know for sure what we would do in the event we came to be pressed in some atypical and very difficult fashion. I've watched others wrestle with their own enconters, and I know that the outcomes are as unpredictable and variable as the people involved. There is no pattern, no prescription, and no "one size fits all." Giving up control, as it turns out, is a risky business. I only know that I encountered my own terror, all alone in the depths of the night, and I stayed put. It is a piece of information about the nature of our dynamic that I've never had before.

swan

Leaving on a Jet Plane

In just about 64 hours, I'll load my things in the car and head for the airport. I'm flying to Denver on Thursday afternoon for a five day visit with my kids and new grandson.

I am thrilled and excited. Simultaneously I am frightened and sad. I can't wait to get to that baby, and I am so looking forward to spending some real time with my son and daughter and daughter-in-law. But, doing all of that means being away from home and being away from Master and T. They can't go with me. They used up all their "time off" after the surgery. So, I'll make this trip by myself.

He's given me positive support for making this trip. He's been clear that He really wants me to go see my grandchild. There is something about being the age we all are -- the advent of a grandchild is an event that we all understand. So, there isn't any dissonance that is being generated by His reactions or responses to my traveling.

But that dissonance still echoes in my mind and my heart. Being away for this long feels really extreme, and I feel very wobbly about being on my own all that time. He'll be here with T, and she'll take good care of Him, but I still fuss... about His lunches, and the C-pap, and His pills and calcium, and His breakfast, and...

Ohhhhhh... It is just one of those places where the reality of the choices that brought me here comes back to be faced once again. I am a very long way from the place I once called home. The children I bore are adults with their own lives, and those lives are being lived in the place that I left behind. This grandchild will grow up, mostly, out of my sight and out of my reach. This trip will satisfy the immediate longing to touch him and look into his baby eyes and breathe in his baby scent, but I have no illusions that he'll grow up knowing who I am. The distance is too great. I'll make this trip, looking forward and looking back at the same time, and then I'll come home to Master and to T, and try and pick my life back up again. Surely 5 days isn't too long... I hope.

swan

Scared

I've been trying to work my way around this without actually owning up to it, but it just sits there making me crazier by the day. A large part of what was intended to happen when I was directed to start writing a personal blog, was that it was supposed to help me get things out of my mind and into words. The idea was (and is) that I'd write and by doing so, silence the voices that drive me around the bend.

So. Deep breath.

I'm scared. Witless. Worried to the point of distraction. And my fears and worries keep building on each other, and no amount of "rational" self-talk seems to have any impact at all on my ever-growing anxieties.

Things are moving along here; progressing toward the approval and scheduling of bariatric surgery for Master AND T. If all goes well, they'll have surgery on the same day at the beginning of my spring break, late in March. I'll be able to be around while they are hospitalized and for the first few days after they come home. They'll hopefully move through the post-operative phases in sync with one another, and we'll minimize the time that we have to deal with liquid and soft diets for the two of them.

They should be the ones who are scared and worried. They, after all, are the ones having the surgeries. They are the ones who have to go through all the preparation and recovery, and deal with the "forever" lifestyle changes that this all requires. I am just the support person -- easy as pie for me...

I know, intellectually, how much improvement this will likely bring to their health and well-being; how much it might improve their self-images and sense of self-worth. I know that this is really the only way to give us all a shot at a long and happy life together. Part of me is enthusiastically counting the days until we'll no longer need medications for diabetes, and high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, and acid-reflux. I can't wait until the time when the aches and pains that have become so much a part of our lives in the last few years are lessened and relieved due to significant weight loss. I am enthusiastically imagining the day when I can take the C-Pap out onto the driveway and beat it into a pile of rubble. There is so much potential good that can reasonably be expected to come out of all ofthis, but I keep running into the dark corners in my mind where terrible, unspeakable, scarcely imagined disasters happen as we go through this, and it is almost more than I can bear. If I get too close to my fears, it just about drops me to my knees.

I know I'm being silly. I know I have to stop letting this stuff get me all wound up. I know I have to find a way to be strong and sure and positive, so that I can be as helpful and supportive as it is possible to be for my family. I can do that, and I will do that.

But for today, I just need to tell someone that I'm scared.

swan

Fear and Risk

Jojo raised an important question in a comment left on the "I am in Love " post:

I have often wondered if you are fearful of posting pictures of yourself online. I like seeing your happy family. Yet I fear some ignorant and judgemental people will somehow identify you through this blog and use it to threaten your job. I also understand not wanting to live your life in the shadows and being afraid to express who you are. Do you ever worry about kids or parents finding your blog

Where does one begin to respond to a concern that is so deeply felt and so kindly expressed? There is plenty to say about this particular issue.

If the question is, "Are you afraid?" then the answer is, "yes." There are real risks to being "out" in any degree about a lifestyle that is outside the social norms in our society. We live there on at least two counts: polyamory and BDSM. In fact, I doubt very much that even remaining fully "closeted" about alternative lifestyle choices is going to provide what might be considered some sort of "fool-proof" guarantee of safety. The risk cannot be eliminated. Our lives can, and occasionally do, attract attention -- and sometimes our reality scares people who do not understand. Add to that the often significant contingent of people who just DO NOT APPROVE, and it is pretty easy to begin to see "enemies" and "threats" everywhere. Any reasonable person might worry under those circumstances, and we do.

The only way to be "safe" from those who might seek to do some sort of damage if they become angry, resentful, or spiteful is to simply not live in the way that we do. If there is no perceived difference between "us" and "them," then there is no real basis for anyone to try to attack us.

So, we could pretend; pretend to be "normal;" pretend to not be who we are with each other or in the world. There's a whole other level of harm and damage to making that choice. Surely the loss of our lives together would be a huge destructive force for us. We would be damaged if we felt ourselves forced to withdraw from the community of like-minded people with whom we've connected through this and other media.

So, yes there's risk, and the potential for real harm -- and so there is a level of fear. We choose not to be driven by that. We choose to believe that the majority of people are good and decent. We choose to hope that even those who might disagree with our choices will not become overtly hostile or behave in ways that are deliberately malicious. We are conscious of the possibilities, and we try to take care not to let our "alternative" lifestyle writing and publications cross over into our "other" work and lives. It isn't perfect, but it is the balance that we strike.

Mostly, we try to be mindful but not "captured" by the worst possibilities. For us, the tag line that Master uses (Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.) is not just some pretty, clever throwaway bit. It really is the vision that is at the core of our family. We are not naive about the possibilities for trouble, but we are also not so fixated on the negative possibilities that we lose sight of the great benefits we've gained by daring to live as we believe we were meant to live.

swan

It Must Be Summer

He and I slept in this morning. Then He went for His morning snuggle with T, saw her safely launched into her day. When He came back, we played -- and it is Tuesday. It must be summer. Finally!

Summer, for us, is a magical space that revolves in an entirely different time mode. Through the months of the school year, our week days begin abruptly at 5:45 AM. We have just a minute or two to snuggle awake before I'm up and headed out to the kitchen to make breakfast and pack lunches. He often takes that time to get His shower. Then, I'm off to the shower and dressed in my "teacher" clothes. I sit with Him to eat a quick breakfast, and am out the door at about 6:45. In the evenings, we eat dinner at about 7:30 (when T arrives home from work), assuming that we are all home for dinner and not off to one or another of our meetings. It is a schedule that is grueling. We have very little down time during the week, and on the weekends I am most often planning for the next week and grading student work. Too, we tend to try and fit in some "Grandpa" time on the weekends along with all the rest of the set of family that we need to try and keep up with as well.

During the school year, we are lucky if we get to "play" on one morning of the weekend. At best, anything resembling SM is going to happen on Saturday and Sunday. When things get really hectic, we can go a couple of weeks between sessions.

Then summer comes. I'm the only one who is technically "off" for the summer, but having me off makes the schedule relax significantly. He still has to go about His business of course, but His schedule is way more fluid than mine. We can play on a lot of the weekdays, once it is summertime.

That's the practical and prosaic description of how this all comes about. Of course, my head and heart care not at all about the practicalities. By the time we reach this point in our year, I've become sincerely "nuts" about the limited playtime that we've been enduring. In my head, the decline in play equates to a growing conviction that He simply doesn't want me anymore. I know it isn't true, but it still feels like the explanation that makes sense. I know that we've both been running different directions, on killer schedules, without any options for months -- but that voice just keeps poking at me:

If there were someone else (younger, cuter, newer, sexier, more
masochistic), He'd find time for her... It is just that you are old,
worn out, predictable, and not that much fun...

Now, I don't know if there is anyone else in the world that runs that "game" down on themselves, but it is a guaranteeed way to make things even less "fun" when they do happen. Having that track running in your head when it is time to get your ass beaten does not help in terms of getting into the right mindset.

So. Summer comes and there is more time. I will be spanked a whole lot more. That is a definite. It began this morning. Paddles and a strap and the cane. I wasn't particularly there, in the beginning, but He was. Right there with me, talking me through the rage and the fear and the doubt -- insisting that I am His and will be His and will, therefore, of course, be spanked. He assured me, by His words and by His actions that all is well between us, and that I have no reason to worry. It took awhile, but I could feel the waves of calm moving through me, easing the tensions, erasing the frustration, letting me settle gently into His arms and His strength.

So, summer is finally here, and it is good.

swan

Why do you Submit?

Greenwoman asked this question in response to the "Safe Words" post:

Do you yield in those moments of resistance because of fear of pain/displeasure or because you choose it....feeling curious. I've not had a punishment dynamic in my relationships really. So I read and watch closely about it when reading other blogs. I'm curious how you feel about it.

It is an interesting query. I don't think that I really spend much time contemplating and analyzing the "whys" behind my submission. Mostly, I think, it is what I do because it is who I am, and who we are together. Still, there are more than enough times when I struggle or pout or rage (and the act of submission becomes more conscious and more difficult) that it seems worth considering WHY, and how, I submit in those instances.

Let me address the nature of the dynamic between us first. I really don't see that what we have is a "punishment dynamic." There is, as anyone who has been around here for awhile knows, the potential for real punishment to occur in our relationship should my choices make that a necessity. He has the authority to determine when and if there has been some behavior that needs correction. It is always a difficult and challenging occurance for me physically -- and for us both on an emotional level. It is also relatively rare, and not at all the foundation of our relationship.

The real ground of our relationship is in the consciously chosen and deliberately defined power exchange that we practice. He has ownership of me, and I have consented to and fully agreed to that state of affairs. That arrangement/agreement between us arises out of our very significant complementaty sexual/erotic orientations, and is supported and enriched by our love for one another. In practice, it means that there are patterns and expectations that require my submission in all sorts of things -- and it means that (for the most part) that submission is to be freely given, not dragged from me.

Neither of us are inclined to a power exchange that is created out of force or coercion -- that would fall into the realm of abuse (at least by our lights). I give. He does not have to force that, drag it out of me, or beat me to achieve or maintain it. Generally, that understanding of what we are about means that we proceed relatively peacefully, and without a lot of drama and battling.

But, I am far from perfect. I can be moody, resentful, angry, out of sorts, and just plain bent over the seeming unfairness of things sometimes. All of those tend to ratchet up the level of difficulty that I have in coming to the place of willing and reasonable submission. If it happens that I am "having a moment," and that coincides with Him deciding to play "Uber-sadist," it is much more difficult for me to find my way to the "yes, Sir" that is really the requirement and expectation. In those moments, I (usually) make choices about submitting that are born out of a whole jumble of internal monologs that I can run if needed. I talk to myself about being good, about keeping my promises, about being His, about loving Him, about just getting through this one -- and this one -- and this one, about not wanting the control, about the meaning of the collar I wear, about where the anger or resentment belongs, about knowing that I will not die no matter what I might feel like in the moment, etc. There is even a dangerous, and volatile set of scripts that I can drop into that run along the lines of "I hate this, I hate YOU (Him), and when I get lose I am going to fucking KILL You, You bastard!" I try not to go there. The potential for falling off the edge into the darkness is way too great. Still, sometimes letting the anger and misery flow is a good way to work it.

I guess, the real answer is that belonging to this Man makes me happy. I feel most secure and most at peace when the connection between us is strong and vibrant. For both of us, that strong bond is, to some large degree, formed in the intensity of our SM interactions. I need to submit, and He is the One who can elicit that response from me.

Conscious power-based relationship dynamics can take us to places we might not anticipate or predict. Surely, for me as a submissive, the dynamic requires that I be willing to go wherever He chooses to take me (and us). I am completely aware that His choices in that regard are made with love, but not always with a view to what might make me happy in the moment. I am still willing to go where He leads. That is a willingness born of love, of deep knowledge of one another, and of rock-solid trust. It has grown as we have come to know each other better. It is different today than it was in the early days. I expect it will become more defined and more sure and more mature as we go forward together. That is the nature of good, long-standing relationships. I am not always easy with it; I still struggle; I have days when I fuss and fume -- but more often than not, I am there, where He wants me, with my heartfelt assent to His commands.

swan