We are coming through another stressful week, and I remain in a "re-training" and "re-setting" phase as a result of my break with protocols and discipline some days ago. There have been various life issues that have intervened these last days so that the remaining strappings have been put in abeyance. I know that I have two more sets to go. Those will come -- perhaps even this afternoon. Part of me is fearful. Part of me is anticipating the completion of this part and the moving onward.
There remains the need to deal with the paddle that I broke. For me, that is more difficult; more laden with layers. It is not merely a "toy." There was the moment when I heard the dreadful, shocking crack it made as it split. The startling visual impact as the two pieces fell there on the bed with the exposed inner whiteness of the wood starkly contrasting with the stain that had been so lovely and seemingly indestructible only a moment before... There is the, for me, now forever etched in memory moment when I thought that I could simply grab up that sharply pointed, jagged piece, and stab it into Him, and end all my frustration and resentment and agony -- forever (the sheer fury that was in me in that instant). There is the irreplaceable nature of the actual paddle. It was a
Hanson paddle -- one made during the time when John Hanson still owned Hanson Paddle Werks, and signed by the man himself. There is still a Hanson Paddle Werks (of course), but John is gone. He tells me that there are replacements on the way, but it won't be the same. Even deeper than that, I broke a piece of our
history. That paddle was part of the original training/breaking time that He went through with me in our first summer together. I struggled mightily with that paddle, learning to hate it, fear it, dread it, and ultimately, embrace it as an object that bonded me to Him -- represented Him -- called Him to my mind and my heart as few other things did or ever have since. AND now I have broken it. I have always thought that I would dance on the day that I could triumph over that evil paddle, but I find instead that I am only sadly bereft.
And so, I have come part way through this reset.
I expected to be very hurt and very traumatized. I am not. I am not eager for the pain, and yet I am calm. I feel sure that He will take me through exactly what is needed and appropriate. Somehow, after all that there has been in the last year and some months, I am finally feeling like He has come back to get me from the place where I was lost and left behind. I am completely certain that, whatever this needs, He will figure it out, and make it be alright. Somehow, in the breaking of that poor bit of wood, I found the key back to the beginning and onto the path again.
swan
