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. 

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. 

Ah, Polly.

"Sometimes when you lose your way to me

I think you don't care at all

If you don't get here soon

I'll tear that clock down from the wall"

- Billy Bragg

You surprised me, Polly. I've been riding this rollercoaster for weeks, and I've made a lot of assumptions. Some of which are incorrect. Some aren't. 

I'm still learning where the lines are, because they have been redrawn. Do you have lines? Where are they? Not where I thought they were.