The Road Taken

You know I'm just a small-town girl
I'm off to see the whole wide world
I'm off to see the Wizard too
Do everything that Dorothy won't do

Joe Jackson, "1-2-3"

It is brave to make a choice. Even if it's whether to eat an apple or an orange. Living itself takes bravery, and making choices to move forward is outrageously terrifying. I've made a ton of decisions in my life, some small but significant and some huge and overwhelming. But I have never, ever been unable to take a step, pull a string, turn. *That* is the gift I received from my parents, and it wasn't one they had intended to give me. 

"Indecision is the seedling of fear!" - Napoleon Hill

When we play in bdsm with fear, it's only because we are able to use suspension of disbelief to think that we are in danger. I mean, sorta, because RACK and all. But really, when someone puts themselves intentionally in harm's way we call that bottoming, masochism, submission, whatever, but within the context of a community, it's "safe-ish", right?

What isn't safe is standing still and waiting for the wave to overtake you. It smells like submission ("I'm not making this decision"), but it's really a power move, to stay still and not do anything. It removes the onus of responsibility, accountability, and sometimes, integrity. 

I can't live that way. What scares me more than the probable chances of failure, injury, heartbreak, is that I could lose control over my own destiny. I will not submit to fear. 

If you're standing on a precipice, looking at a fork in the road, holding out two hands, pick one and don't look back. 

(Art by John Baker, "Indecision")

Down

When I am standing against a wall, a mantel, a cross, a bedframe, I get overwhelmed before it even begins. I start thinking about what's to come, what is about to literally hit me, and I start questioning my life choices. 

It's over in a split second or two. It's my opportunity to either let go, or stay. It's my chance to resist, refuse, speak the manipulation, voice the no. A fellow submissive said recently something like "I can either give myself over to it and let it happen, or stop now." Every day, every minute, is a submission. Every time I choose to move forward and submit and stay in place. There's no law that keeps me standing there. 

The other choice I have to is go away, and leave by body where it is. Disassociation, they call it. Stepping outside of my body and letting it happen to someone else, is what I call it. Except it's me, there's no avoiding that. I'm the one with the marks, the success or failure, the residual aching and arousal. So many times you have recognized where I am, and your hand on my shoulder or between my legs, or around my neck, reminds me that there are not two identities but one, and I must daily make peace with all of it. All the parts. The beautiful and ugly and disappointing and raging with joy parts. The hot and cold, the smooth and razor sharp gouges that everyone including myself has left. 

There's more to a beating than the physical. 

The Devil I Love

"In the end, I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love"

- Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"

We're taught that love wins. Love trumps evil. What if you're in love with evil? With the wrongness of things? 

Love doesn't always conquer all. There are a ton of people who have lots of love in their lives, and are still living with discomfort, shame, dissatisfaction, disappointment. Loving someone doesn't mean you get what you want, or that your needs are being met. Raven Kaldera talks about falling in love with a dynamic, rather than a person. It can lead to disappointment, being in love with a concept represented by a person, rather than a person themselves. But maybe it's possible to be satisfied with this, but I don't see how - people are not static and have, unfortunately, faults and biases and egos. 

It's a little chicken-and-egg: Did you fall in love with a person, or did you fall in love with your Owner/Master/Mistress/submissive/slave? Are you even "in love"? 

I am attracted to wrong. I am attracted to subversive, gritty tough darkness. I long for emptiness, and restriction, and shadows. These things, these concepts do not make me happy, but they are necessary for my happiness. Halloween is coming. 

*Tarot card "The Devil" by Wren McMurdo

Solo Fight

There is something very important about being alone. I mean, we're all alone, ultimately, in our heads, right? The words lover, partner, toyfriend, play partner, nesting, all indicate that there's someone else on the other side of that. You can't be the lover of no one, although you can be the lover of yourself, I guess. 

I asked my owner the other day if he ever got lonely when we were playing. When I'm silent, or sobbing, or on the floor at his feet. "Rarely," he said. Which doesn't mean never.  But we are not equals in this, and he can pick and choose when he wants my company.

Last year I went on a few trips by myself. Sometimes I met someone at the other end, but usually not. A healthy ingredient of being a good partner is being really, really good at loving yourself.  A strong submissive/slave/bottom is all about knowing your own value - why would someone want to own you or dominate you or torture you for their pleasure if it wasn't worth something? What are you giving up if it's not worth anything, even to you? 

My "journey" (yeah, I hate that word) these days is all about finding value for myself, outside of my owner. I was asked the other day what I am proud of and I literally couldn't think of anything - I had to ask my owner what he was proud of me for. It's a scary funnel, when everything you are is focused on another, separate person that you don't have access to whenever you want. Finding balance between what I want, what I am proud of, what I love about myself while prioritizing what *he* wants and is proud of is a balancing act I'm still working on. It's especially hard for those of us with survival/trauma histories because the things we may otherwise be proud of us are just shrugged off as "I did what I needed to do, why is that something to be proud of". 

Still working on this. 

Adrift and that's OK Because I'm still Leashed

 

"Codependence: a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person manifesting low self-esteem and a strong desire for approval has an unhealthy attachment to another often controlling or manipulative person."

- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I was in the Denver airport when I let go. 

People swirling around, the loudspeaker blasting static and information about a further delay, the crackle of someone's chip bag on the ground. I had spent the previous day fretting about how to make everyone happy, how to make it work somehow. And I just got so tired of thinking about all the reasons why to do and why not to do it, and I had a moment of clarity that said just stop. Just stop fretting. 

It's not so easy for those of us with odd psychology to let things go. I have always been in non-egalitarian relationships, so I'm not always sure when something is D/s related and when it's just related to loving someone in general.

It's not always sexy, BDSM. I'm no elitist claiming that my lifestyle is better or more fulfilling than any other version of BDSM, or of a vanilla life. I often wonder if, if I could choose, would I choose this way to be? I don't know. The definition of codependency leaves me chilled - it's right, but it isn't. It it a choice, or isn't it. I have a friend who is deeply involved in BDSM, but gave it up for years, hoping that the need would evaporate or be overcome like a drug addiction. It didn't work. I don't hate this part of myself, not anymore.  But I absolutely need to make peace with it, all of it. I'm using all of the slack he's giving me to come to terms with everything, because the connection, the leash back to him, is what makes all of this have meaning. I can do it alone, but I don't want to. 

I may not have many choices about my autonomy now, but I.Chose.You. And I still do. 

Photo of Ute Mountain's Chimney Rock, Ute Tribal Nation.

Misunderstood

There is nothing that makes me more ashamed than when I find myself wanting. What you give me should be enough. If I could teach myself, train myself to want less, to need it less, I would do it immediately. Instead, I get angry at myself, frustrated that I cannot just accept it, and move on. It's that thing I keep talking about, the tempered temper. 

A TPE (total power exchange), or ATR (authority transfer relationship) means that there is no alternative. There is no substitution, there is no renegotiation. It literally is whatever you say it is. I want to meet you where you are, not where I want to be, because that would defeat the purpose. I've called it the "funnel" - how my whole life, my time and energy and body was dedicated to you, in your service, but if the purpose - doesn't need you right now, then what? I keep running down the same paths.

So I daydream, I work, I write, and I think of ways to backfill. I need to re-balance, find some paths away or around instead of leading to you in all cases. I've never been good at this - submission isn't just a part of me, a character quality or an orientation. It's not a hobby, it's not part time, it's not a way to get off. How much easier it would be if I was more pliant, flexible, agreeable, less temperamental, easy going. Less needy. 

art "Misunderstood" by BikangArts

The Gift

"This will never end 'cause I want more
More, give me more, give me more
This will never end 'cause I want more
More, give me more, give me more
If I had a heart, I could love you
If I had a voice, I would sing
After the night, when I wake up
I'll see what tomorrow brings"

- Fever Ray

A friend who knows me really well told me I have a superpower. My superpower? I can eroticize almost anything. *Almost*. The movement from "I don't like that" to "What the fuck are you talking about" to "Hmmm" to curiosity, to decision making is a familiar one to me. It's true that I've done this over and over again in my life. I think it's a coping mechanism, and a way to accomplish goals that don't fit anywhere else in my life. 

Recently my owner decided that in his presence I will no longer wear pants. No pants, no shorts, and my hair will always be down. This may sound like some romantic thing, but honestly he doesn't care if it's a burlap sack or my hair is gross and unwashed, it's very close to arbitrary. He likes me available when I'm with him, even if it's symbolic. And he thinks my hair is prettier down. It's a pain in the neck, and now my wardrobe needs some revamping because I just don't do laundry enough to accommodate this change. 

But it also had some unexpected effects. It changed my identity. 

I've never been a super girly girl - I mean, I like the trappings. The fancy shampoos and multiple pairs of shoes, and I like clothes and makeup and pretty things. But my voice can get husky, I tend to lope when I walk instead of saunter, and (up until now) was most comfortable in jeans and a t shirt. This change has had the unexpected effect of making me feel more feminine presenting than I ever have. I don't hate it, it's not so far from how I see myself that I'm uncomfortable - it's not like the sissification kink, it's not that. It's that the way I have presented myself in public in the past has been very - armored. Protected. Partly by choice, and partly because that's often how women *need* to go out into the world. Now, I feel more vulnerable, more careful about my body, and more *examined* than I'm used to in public. 

That's not the only thing he's made me eroticize recently. The other thing he's made me eroticize didn't happen in a vacuum. It's a fantasy I've had stuffed in a deep dark box for a very long time (I'm not the only one who pictures those things that way, am I?) that I was unwilling to examine, for very good reasons. I am not fond of this, this, *thing*, and I'm still having a hard time accepting it. But in general, it's too late - he dragged it out into the open and made me look at it and admit it and is waiting for me to accept it, like an writhing, snaky, blackened, smoking gift. 

*art "glory hole sculpture" by Terry Cullern