Posts in category "Thoughts"

Ride

A lit­tle while ago, I shared a cor­re­spon­dence with a woman who once found this site by search­ing for “cool futon cov­ers” on the web. She was a sin­gle moth­er (the search was for her daugh­ters’ new futon), and she told me that she gained a new con­scious­ness after read­ing my entries. She led me to believe that this some­how changed her life, a woman who was begin­ning to real­ize that she had come to the end of the direc­tion of her life in her ear­ly thir­ties, and that she grew up too quick­ly, and could­n’t relate to her teenage daugh­ter.

She had always been ner­vous, and what I believe was a lit­tle intim­i­dat­ed, with our cor­re­spon­dence; I could tell that she was putting up a wall, a sort of sep­a­ra­tion to keep her dis­tance. When I brought this up to her, she acknowl­edged it. Later, she sent me this let­ter.

This is me. Without spellcheck or the com­fort of a cut + paste option. Ink is hon­est. Even more I hes­i­tate before com­plet­ing the thought/sentence. But I want­ed to give some­thing more and this seems like an accept­able amount for now.

What if I am just “trite”? I estab­lished that opin­ions are irrel­e­vant, so what the hell.

I had a mas­sage tonight + I feel bet­ter, phys­i­cal­ly. I can move my neck and look over my shoul­ders. I was begin­ning to look like a lit­tle old lady when I drove, turn­ing my entire body at the waist to look left or right. It cost me $80 to not be in pain. Funny, that’s about the amount that my com­pa­ny paid me to get in this shape. Ironic.

I just climbed into Jessi’s top bunk of her bed + hugged her. She did­n’t hug me back, but she did­n’t push me away either. That’s progress. We argue over the most insane­ly stu­pid things. It is usu­al­ly by acci­dent that we find our­selves get­ting along these days. Putting forth an effort does­n’t seem to work at the moment. I sup­pose that will change over time….but I sure do miss her.

It is late. I’ve had my bath, I ate din­ner (egg sal­ad + chee­toes). I won’t read tonight. I have enough in my head right now. Besides, I’m afraid I will be tempt­ed to stay up too late. I can’t func­tion on a few hours of sleep like some peo­ple. I need a sol­id sev­en hours minimum…and that’s been rare late­ly. I have a big clos­ing at 8am with a very impor­tant client. She is there because of me. I’d love to tell the pri­madon­na bitch to kiss my ass, but she pays my bills…so instead — I will kiss hers. Being a grown up sucks.

I won­der what it would be like to “check out” of this world? To give in to the notion of insan­i­ty and be for­giv­en any­thing + every­thing for lack of a func­tion­ing mind? Perhaps that sounds a bit dra­mat­ic — but for me it sounds like peace. If only I could some­how be sure that I could find my way back — maybe then it would be a viable option. I’d nev­er have the guts. I could­n’t let go of the con­trols. Voluntary insan­i­ty — — now there’s a fan­ta­sy I could play with. But alas, I would nev­er make it in a world with­out log­ic + order. Wow. I have writ­ten non stop. No more hes­i­tat­ing. I real­ize I’m no longer break­ing up the para­graphs cor­rect­ly: and I’m sure I’m start­ing sen­tences with the word “and”. Ha! I haven’t reread one thought, haven’t ripped out a page + start­ed over — see — it’s just me.

I could tell that just from talk­ing with me, learn­ing how I under­stand my life, she was begin­ning to under­stand many parts of hers that she was­n’t com­fort­able think­ing about. Raymond Lindquist once said, “Courage is the pow­er to let go of the famil­iar”, and I admired her for what seemed to be a great effort to share her­self with a stranger.

For a while now, our cor­re­spon­dence has stopped. It was her deci­sion, and some­thing I assume to have end­ed only because she has giv­en no response and no rea­son. She always told to me of her dreams, to one day buy a motor­cy­cle and take the high­way to the woods, instead of her exit home. From there she would save the world, one tree at a time. I’ve always hoped that that’s what hap­pened. That the rea­son why she stopped reply­ing was because she took Jessi with her, and left every­thing else behind.

And I wish her all the best.

Life On Contract

I remem­ber once when I was younger, say about nine or ten, my par­ents took me for a car ride. I had no idea where we were going, because I nev­er ques­tioned them when­ev­er they told me to get in the car. I’ve always been a vic­tim of hum­ming engines, and even today I find it hard to stay awake while rid­ing in a car. I fell asleep and even­tu­al­ly woke up in a parked car with my seat­belt still on, uncer­tain of how much time had passed or where my par­ents had gone. The sur­round­ings were unfa­mil­iar, the park­ing lot, half-full, even more so. I sat there, expect­ing my par­ents to come back any sec­ond.

Not know­ing how much more time went by, I start­ed to ques­tion whether or not they had pur­pose­ly left me there, some decade-late, do-it-your­self, abor­tion. “No”, I thought, “They would­n’t just leave the car, it’s too much mon­ey”. When I could­n’t fight against my sus­pi­cion any longer, could­n’t con­vince myself that they would­n’t just leave me in this lot like a baby on a doorstep, I start­ed to cry. I did­n’t know what to do. I gath­ered up the courage to leave the saftey of the car, and locked the door, know­ing that in doing so I would­n’t be able to get back in, but too scared of get­ting in trou­ble if my par­ents were ever to find out.

Wandering around the adja­cent plaza, my face a com­plete sob­bing mess, I looked for them through the store win­dows. Excuses, apolo­gies, promis­es to be a good kid kept rac­ing through my mind as I won­dered from store to store, being care­ful not to let my eyes off the car. Eventually, I found them in a light fix­ture store, chat­ting with a sales clerk about some wood grain ceil­ing fan. I went in, approached them, and all I could say was, “Where did you go?”. They told me, mat­ter-of-fact­ly, that they went shop­ping and that I should have stayed asleep in the car. After fin­ish­ing their con­ver­sa­tion with the clerk, they left with me, and we all went home. I was shak­en, but hap­py that I was­n’t dis­card­ed because of poor marks of bad piano form.

And even though I wish that the entire inci­dent did­n’t hap­pen in the first place, a part of me won­ders what it would be like if I had nev­er found them. Perhaps a res­o­lu­tion.

An end to the stip­u­la­tions of a con­di­tion­al life.

Fifteen-Minute Conditioner (or It's A D/s Life: The Perils Of Faith)

I under­stand. A lack of feed­back is the ulti­mate test of con­fi­dence, one of the many cru­cibles of a rela­tion­ship. The strong make it through, the weak fall apart.

I have to be strong. I have to cast aside my inse­cu­ri­ties, and not look back. I have to trust in Louise as much as she trusts in me. I have to be more open, more com­mu­nica­tive. How can I be sure of what she thinks if I don’t speak to her first?

I have to be strong. I have to treat Louise bet­ter. She should­n’t be pay­ing for my bad days. I have to push through the weight, or we both pay, the vicious bad-mood cycle. I have to be firm first, or there is noth­ing for her to sup­port.

I have to be strong. I once asked Louise for three things, and I can’t be scared to ask for oth­ers. I have to take that leap of faith, because love is noth­ing with­out risk.

Do peo­ple real­ly become stronger from pres­sure? I’ve always cracked, and it feels like I’m crack­ing now. Is this what the strong have gone through?

No one can promise that I won’t get hurt. No one can help me.

And I have to be strong enough to deal with both.

Self-Restraint: Tensility

Some peo­ple turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I real­ly want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emo­tions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been try­ing to write this for near­ly a month, but could­n’t get it down until I real­ly lis­tened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the pow­er lines. I decid­ed to split this up into two sep­a­rate entries, after real­iz­ing that I have two sim­i­lar ideas in my head, but two very dis­tinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, respon­si­bil­i­ties, dead­lines, and tons of oth­er mis­cel­la­neous things are def­i­nite­ly mak­ing me think of ways to get the ten­sion out of my arms and shoul­ders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mind­less­ly stoned. Maybe go reck­less­ly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel bet­ter for that lit­tle amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing some­thing irra­tional, even though I have no idea what or why, sim­ply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, espe­cial­ly when I’m hav­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly bad day, because I don’t want to be depen­dent on any­thing.

I don’t want to rely on nar­cotics, or mate­r­i­al goods, or self-muti­la­tion, or any­thing at all to make myself feel bet­ter. I want to be sure that I can han­dle things, no mat­ter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stress­ful, mis­er­able, for­lorn emo­tion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writ­ing are the only things that I allow myself.

And some­times I have to tell myself that it’s enough.

It's a D/s life: Stepping Outside The Circle

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.