An old nursery rhyme proposed that life is but a dream. If Dr. Leary were alive today, he would add, most likely in an LSD induced state, that we’re just an imagination of ourselves. I have a hard time agreeing with either aphorism, but even if they were true, it wouldn’t matter.

A certain gluttonous cat once mused, exactly 19 years ago today, that life can be compared to something found on the dinner table. Perhaps the most famous comparison, however, was by a technically borderline deficient person who said that life is like a box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. As things go on, one realizes that there isn’t one comparison that’s more valid than another.

Even an outspoken Queensbridge rapper has flowed, “You a killer or a hustler, dealer or customer / Gangsta or buster, youngster or old nigga / A weed head, a coke sniffer / You rich or a broke nigga / Know you all relate to this shit that I wrote niggas / Life is what you make it nigga”, and I tend not to disagree.

For me, it now seems like life is simply a test.

More importantly, however, from here until the end, no matter what, life is gravy.

I’m having one of those days, actually, one of those weeks where I can’t seem to write anything down. I have all these ideas floating around in my head without the words to follow through. Maybe it’s because I don’t exactly know what I’m feeling, like a bittersweet mix in the palate, or an indistinguishable taste. For once I’ve started to take control of things, started to be pro-active instead of reactive. Started listening to hopeful, inspiring, energetic music. I’ve realized that I have the ability to point my life in the direction I want to go, that I can’t rely on others to make me happy, that I can start living for myself now.

And it’s all new to me.

I have so many things on my mind, so many things I want to write about, have been planning on writing about even, but this seems to be the only thing in which I can properly express myself.

John and I parted yesterday, agreeing that we would plan to see each other over the summer. It was the first time that we parted with embraces, and up to then, we had always left each other with verbal salutations. I realized that I started asking him for advice, a line I had never crossed with him before. Our minds generally don’t match. We may get along well (one may even say famously, in the superlative sense), but we also have different levels of tolerance, different goals, different worldviews, different strengths and weaknesses.

So what has changed? What has made me trust him in this now, when I haven’t in the past? I rarely heed his advice; it’s usually so completely different from what I’m thinking, and I almost never agree on the set of thoughts on which they’re based.

Perhaps this new-found trust is due to the fact that I’m slowly starting to understand a part of his mind that has baffled me in the past: a seemingly inherent evil. I felt like I couldn’t trust him, because I felt like nobody should trust him, and it became serious enough to make me question the foundation of our friendship.

At one point I started to distance myself from him, although later on (perhaps solely) due to the fact that it showed he actually cared about this, I started to trust him again. This made it a blind trust, because it wasn’t based on a train of thought of his that I could actually understand.

Now, I can more make sense of his words, his actions. Even with a liberal dose of some seemingly heartless, coldhearted comments (very broad), which even made me feel like a moral person, I trust him more than ever.

Why do these words come so easily?

Perhaps he can be viewed as a friend in the logical sense. He sees friendship as a sort of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship. Although there are circumstances which he may find beneficial to disregard any sort of proper morals (such as a stab in the back for further gain), he also understands that following these morals and having strong relationships is much more beneficial in the long run.

He can’t be blamed for this approach to friendship. I’m starting to believe that there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, I’d probably completely believe in it, if my mind wasn’t so hesitant about admitting that I was very, very wrong, and very, very ignorant. I had always viewed it as a being his approach as being too cold for me to be comfortable with it all, but now, I realize that as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my own approach to friendship, there’s nothing that should make me uncomfortable.

And now, trust has solved everything.

When I made the decision to journey into this lifestyle, I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, although I suspected that it would be easier for me than for other novice dominants, just from the fact that I have a very clear of idea of what I want in life and know myself well (or believe it at least).

The hardest thing has been stepping outside of my comfort zone, or what Warren describes as, “the psychological barriers to undertaking such a politically incorrect activity.” It’s ironic; he warns, “…keep in mind that by admitting her desires, [the submissive] could be seen to be rejecting gains that women have slowly and painfully made over the last 20, 50, 100 years”, something I understand completely, but it’s not Loo who’s worried about rejecting these gains.

It’s me.

After all, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been programmed by society to a certain degree. No violence against women, females are to be treated as equals, et cetera. And along with this are my own programmed morals and beliefs. Expect nothing from anyone. Punishment does more harm than good. The list goes on in varied and inconsistent ways. What makes it all harder is the fact that breaking out of the bubble must be done out of self-interest. As much as I’d like to keep reminding myself that this is not only what Louise wants, but needs in a relationship, I have to forgo the reinforcing of any such idea. To acknowledge it is to ruin the dynamic between Dom and sub.

Interestingly enough, the only way I’ve been able to get past these personal boundaries has been to not intellectualize them, to act without thinking. To expect a woman to ask for permission to leave my side, or come to bed. To have her sit at my feet instead of next to me. To hit her until the point of tears, but not stop. To know that her body is mine, and not her own.

To live this life for me, and not the both of us.

It’s funny…I always think of the stereotypical, recently divorced husband, and think to myself “I’ll never end up like that”. I’ll never “go back” to living on canned food, messy rooms, or general unkemptness if I ever split up with a long-term girlfriend or wife. So I try to live my life the same if I’m in a relationship or not, and not depend on someone else to do things for me, by being healthy and clean when I’m not going out with someone.

Then I realize that there are already things that Loo does for me that I wouldn’t do myself. I don’t have the patience to make my bed, but she can’t stand to sleep in wrinkled sheets, so she makes the bed every day. She buys fresh vegetables, because I always purchase the easy-to-cook frozen ones. Can I go back to living without little sweet peppers packed with my lunch, or without someone to brush the cat hair from my clothes as I get dressed for work? How much of ourselves do we knowingly or willingly give away, when we accept the help of others?