38,000 feet. And falling.

Not particular in thought tonight. Up here on Delta flight 34.

Newark to Amsterdam.

I’m in 27F

Just spilling. Let us see what evolves…

There’s a tidal emotional pull I’m feeling of late, and I’d love to ascribe it to coincidence, hormones, projection, conjecture, hysteria or a psychic break. But I don’t think it is any of those. I think I’m simply susceptible to the vagaries of the emotions of others. I’m trying to work on controlling that, so that I’m not so readily buffered about by the unthinking energetic thrashings of friends and even strangers. But the thing is? In the case where I’m opening myself up, deliberately, to the possibility of submitting to another human being, I find myself on the peculiar path that leads to involuntary disclosure and reflexive reception.

 

One of the things with which I’m adept is the capacity to absorb the emotional states of other people. Probably some of this is inborn,. And definitely some of it is learned, a result of growing up with a parent suffering from PTSD and manic depression. It was helpful to be able to read moods and subtle tidal shifts of emotional switchbacks, and decide quickly whether it was appropriate to jump on the wild ride or disconnect before the gravitational pull dragged me in. I would work very hard to engage and entertain when I thought it might help, and did my best to “cheer up” my Father when he was in a depression or to keep him rolling when his manic phases took him on broad stroke impossible flights and seemingly mad adventures.

 

I sometimes wonder if these impossible dreams… of helping my Father, of saving my Mother from the doomed marriage, of being perfect enough to book every audition I hit so that I could help our family make ends meet, of being good enough in school to guarantee I would be able to secure a secondary education on merit alone since the money wasn’t there, all served to lay a foundation for a core desire for deliberately unequal relationships. The Kobayashi-Maru of love, baby. A chainfall of no-win scenarios

 

Pop psychology often leads us down this path…distant parents, inappropriate signals, poor bonding, what have you, can lead to a fucked up adulthood. Thing is? For all of the weirdness of my childhood, it wasn’t all that. I didn’t suffer any physical or sexual abuse. And even though my Dad was kinda crazy, his obsession with travel led me to see places even children wealthier than I never saw, and his compulsive musicianship gave me an appreciation for art that stayed with me. And my Mother’s seeming passiveness masked a faith and strength I didn’t realize she possessed until I was well into what passes for adulthood, and  never saw in myself until very recently.

 

So what if growing up walking emotional eggshells and feeling as though love means working to please others does carry over into adult life? Where does a girl wind up? Well, in my case, it is deliberately seeking relationships where I’m at an apparent disadvantage. I mean, really. What person of sound mind and spirit decides that waiting hand, foot and heart on someone else is a healthy plan?

 

“Healthy” or not, it seems a soft way to channel what might otherwise be a slow writhing death of a thousand hurts, slights, lost in a confused derangement of relationships that provide the same inequality without the erotic connection of submission, and the encompassing safety of a dominant who nurtures and cherishes that submission as a valuable commodity.

 

I have had relationships based on power exchange, and relationships with a more egalitarian approach. And with the exception of my boyfriend in High School, all of my relationships have still had an unequal component to them. In retrospect, I poured myself very deeply into relationships, and accepted whatever amount of affection and devotion I received as sufficient, even when I really craved more. It felt natural for me to love more, give more, and so that was the way of my world.

 

It made a great deal of sense, all of my confusion around the sanity of this dynamic once I uncovered my desire for a D/S relationship. I mean, wasn’t it at its core, about the S giving the D everything they were, and the D graciously accepting it?

 

Yeah.  Well, sure. And beyond that thumbnail sketch lies a Sistine Chapel of emotional detail.

 

In taking a long, hard look at my history, the emotional seismograph of my submission, where it grew stronger and where it faltered, I see so much of it was presented to me as a challenge, and as a way to challenge myself. In my first (and, to be frank, only truly formal) relationship, I was in training for roughly 2 years, and never was deemed “worthy” of being collared. Despite my desire for it, my Trainer had established his own system that, due to the vagaries of those who had gone before me, precluded my being granted this elusive honor before such time as I’d proven myself worthy of it.

 

I look back and wince a bit. “Earning” the right to be who you are meant to be seems … a cruel joke at best. A Sisyphean struggle against one’s own desire, as though even the desire to serve, to be owned, was something to which those drawn to slavery had to fight again and again to “win.” What the fuck does one do to earn the right to live to their fullest?

 

What if.

 

What if?

 

What if being who I am, just being me, and having that place, is how I grow best? What if it isn’t about singing and dancing to prove I’m worthy? What a revolutionary idea: giving oneself, and then growing into that role? Encouraging and nurturing the tendrils and vines of that seemingly delicate, yet impossibly hearty plant around a structure into which it can grow and explore, rather than cruel truncations into forced topiaries of subjugation?

 

Perhaps what I needed wasn’t a trainer, a drill Sargent, a bender of wills. Perhaps more a gardener, a caretaker. Someone who saw the potential, the drive, the desire, and sought that as its own goal.

 

And so, well over a decade later, I find myself looking again at an “unequal” relationship. And as I consider possibilities, embrace some things I’d not thought I would again take on, and set free other desires, to see if, like the things we love, they return to us if they were ever truly ours to begin with.

 

Sometimes, it is clear and simple. Sometimes, I don’t know. I have jarring moments that are, at the core, doubt masquerading as “sensibility.” I see myself opening up my heart and myself in a way I never have before. It feels joyous but looks very little like what I thought I wanted. It feels strange as waking up to three moons and two suns in a caliginous sky. Newness is scary, sometimes, even to this girl so, so accustomed to turning the brave face to the world even though behind it trembles a vast uncertainty.

 

And yet, I DO know. Into my heart I have pouring a pure whisper that is a clear, smooth susurration that assures as it soothes

 

“You cannot fail. You cannot fail. Remove the traces of that word, of the concept, from your lexicon.  There is no challenge before you that will do more than wind you, and teach you, and you have the strength and wisdom to draw the lesson from the pain. Pain is fleeting, the lesson remains, and grows and shines. Do everything, take it all in. it is YOURS for the taking.”

 

And then I feel the slip in my heart. I have so many years of fear clinging to me, so many fears I am working so hard to give over to my God, to let Him handle them, to take this yoke from my shoulders. And every day it eases down, incrementally slipping away. But I cling to these strange bedfellows, these fears and trepidations. I’ve lived with them so long, they leave a vacuum as they are pried away, psychic leeches that have been subtly bleeding me of spirit for so much of my life. Is it odd to say I mourn their passing? Even parts of me that are no longer serving are still parts of me. And they deserve compassion in their passing.

 

So here I stand, in the midst of a shift that leaves my defenses undone. For so long I have longed to have the heart connection and depth of absolute devotion that comes with the type of submission I carry and is reserved for the type of dominant who is prepared for and fierce enough to take me, to take me on, who matches my passion, my power, my devotion, hand for hand and then exceeds it. But what if that person arrives with preexisting conditions that break the back of what you thought I needed,truly wanted? What if, on paper, to looks like to much of a compromise? what if, “logically?” It “can’t” work?

 

What if I let go of “What if?” and embrace “What is.” …?

 

What IS is a startling connection, a level of emotional intelligence I’ve never seen before.

 

What IS is a remarkable level of respect, of focus, of stunning intent.

 

What IS is me feeling in way I have only previously scented as a brief whispered potential, and one which evaporated in waves of time and tears.

 

What IS is…a foregone conclusion.

 

My ideas about what I need experienced a seismic shift. Perhaps I am, once again, leaping off of that cliff into something that is emotionally risky. Maybe somehow? This independent, feminist , proud and shy, strong and vulnerable service-oriented masochistic monogamous Alpha Slave has been, somehow, hoodwinked by some preternaturally charismatic con-artist who delved through decades of defenses and found a way to undermine common sense into a simmering puddle of complacency.

 

Or maybe? Maybe what IS is a new chapter. And new can look strange. And feel different. And a new chapter brings new adventures. Unlikely that this will be the last, but it certainly is the next.

 

So yeah. Fuck yeah, it looks crazy and tastes insane and sounds unreasonable and feels risky.

 

And I’ll take it. To go, with extra sauce.