Authentic

So much has happened in the last few months. Major house projects (tankless water heater; bluestone patio; now a new AC unit). A mind blowing Fusion that deserves its own post. The slightly sad conclusion that things are not as they once were with j and perhaps never will be again, and it’s gotta be ok and it’s time to name that, if only inside Myself. The body-based therapist that turns on light bulbs over My head every visit, illuminating life, kink, and increasingly job. Some major asthma problems. The garden which is so much better with the wood planters, the magnificent tomatoes, the much heightened pleasure of it all working better because of evaporating slower. Visits from parents and some talks about what comes up in therapy, what happened in childhood. Finally getting four new tires after constant tire related hassle (at the same time I feel I’m “suddenly getting traction” in life generally).  Hating work, thinking I really must leave, fantasizing about quitting in a spectacular, unprofessional way. Changing perceptions of things I have been sure of (I had FUN and ENJOYED a ClubFem meeting last night... wut?). New people in My life both subbie and not.  An Oh-why-not shamanic healing ceremony that I both don’t quite believe in but found very on point, and swear has had a definite effect... It’s all personal growthy, occasionally angsty, but super positive. I don’t need to air all the details of the deep trauma work here but no problem because it is happening so fast now that some days I want off the merry go round, and I definitely cannot write about it fast enough. I’m also less interested than I used to be in documenting it. I’m more interested in living than memorializing or intellectualizing right now.

I’ve even debated lately whether Princess needs her own blog, or sub-page of this blog.

What I realized this morning, waking up slowly, after buying the AC unit, the four tires, working 9hrs on a weekend pretty pissed off, yet having a strangely fun time at ClubFem after work is... it’s all quite simple.

This is about authenticity.

The child is confronted a choice:  be yourself and risk rejection by the people who are your world, whom you need to survive... or sacrifice who you want to be for the comparative physical safety of not being overtly rejected (disappointment, disapproval, punishment) by the adults around you. As a kid, I had to choose attachment over authenticity in a big way; those were the only choices available to me then under those circumstances.  It has taken Me this much time, work, therapy, experience, and yes, Dominance to reach a point where I can begin to see that in a given situation - especially an intimate one - I often still choose to betray Myself. It happens so deeply and reflexively that I didn’t have awareness of it. But now I do.

I’ve had to explain Princess to several confused playmates who know Me as a Dominant, who think Littles are icky and incesty.  Here’s My best answer. Princess is Id. She is the voice of My innate, authentic impulses and longings.  She’s tremendously valuable.

The General is valuable too, as the Sam Kineson inflected voice of My fears, a signal of where I expect to be hurt. The Shadow is the whisper of all the choices I make to avoid conflict, to preserve attachment and sacrifice Myself for perceived safety. It’s all so helpful and MasterMe is figuring it out fast.

This growing is disruptive to be sure, but as the Chinese know, chaos contains opportunity. I may lose people I really care about because the changes seem too weird. At the same time, the changes are bringing new friends, new activities, and new joy to stale activities. Hopefully, it leads to a new and happy work world too.

I’ve gotta live and be who I am, in every moment. Otherwise, why be here at all? Like Andy says in Shawshank Redemption, it comes down to this: Get busy living or get busy dying.  

It used to happen that what I wanted felt irrelevant to My life; it used to be that to allow Myself what I wanted I needed a week’s worth of Congressional testimony to somehow PROVE that what I wanted was OK to want; was in fact the RIGHT thing to want; that if you thought about it hard enough it was logically the ONLY thing it was reasonable to want.  In even the smallest decision, the stakes associated with failure were so high.  It’s not that I didn’t know what the want was, but it was so often drowned out by the cacaphony inside My head shouting I shouldn’t want it at all... I shouldn’t have any wants in the first place, should take up less space in the world because the world didn’t want Me, and in fact, it might be best for everyone if I could manage to make Myself invisible.  And God help Me if what I wanted involved any form of joy, pleasure, or happiness. 

Fucking Calvinism.

The simple fact I wanted it didn’t matter, unless I could prove it, and OBTW unless I also could get it without inconveniencing anyone else or drawing too much attention to Myself or spending too much money. 

Dr Gabor Mate did Me a big favor by saying that an observable event is not the trauma. The core of trauma is that it causes you to lose yourself. 

Now I know that what I want is everything. What I want is an expression of Me; there is a Me shaped hole in the universe and My only real purpose is to fill it. I’ve gone too long already.

I didn’t think I needed to learn this. I thought I was living a really independent life, most people would say so. But self-rejection has been so deeply embedded in My operating system software that I didn’t know it was there. I suspected it a few years ago when I first started working on better receiving service. I got a lot better at it in the surface manifestations with My slave. But in the depths, I have long been in many ways inauthentic to Myself, refusing to allow Myself to be whatever My internalized critics disapprove of.  That stuff has not been even seeing the light of day where other people might respond. That’s My work right now, to find out what got buried.

Last night at ClubFem coming out of the pool, I was chilly, and as usual, I was not completed prepared to care for My basic physical needs, so wrapped in the second, big dry towel, I was still cold to the point of almost shivering. There was a nice subby boy near Me, a guy I’ve chatted with many times, I know he likes Me and wants to serve Me, but I’ve never let him in further and I couldn’t explain why, except perhaps that I am put off by how much he likes Me. Standing next to him in the smalle kitchen,  we bumped and I noticed he was wonderfully warm, while I was so cold. I told him I was going to take some of his heat. I let him hold Me as we stood, I let him warm Me and I relaxed into his happiness in holding Me. Then I turned around and let him warm the other side.  I noticed My need, allowed it, had compassion for it, accepted the help easily, enjoyed it, and felt safe enough to not worry or be pressured into more. That’s a victory. In the past I would have chosen to stay cold, after all, it wasn’t gonna kill Me, right?

That’s Me right now, working on being nicer to Princess, working on not doing the low-grade self abuse thing any more. If Princess tells MasterMe that she’s cold, MasterMe will find a way to warm her up. And now I know that can happen inside of My dominance.  It’s what I have hoped would happen. Nobody even needs to know Princess exists inside Master.

My theme for this phase is: exploring all the things I do not allow Myself.  It’s proving to be a much deeper excavation than I expected. But I’m hopeful, and continue to believe this is bedrock. I am approaching the finish line. And frankly, I’m a long way down the road, much further than a lotta people get. It’s nice to feel I can be proud of that. 

When your computer operating system software has an OEM defect in it, it can be there a long time doing damage you cannot see. It takes vigilance and expertise to spot it. Once spotted, an expert needs to create better code, the right code. You’ve gotta tear some stuff apart way down deep, maybe in the BIOS, you get the new stuff in, reboot the system a couple times along the way. There will be some false starts, and you’ll have to persist. Then when you’re done, well, on the surface it may not look all that different. But you know what it was, you know what it took, and you feel better, you have confidence knowing it’s fixed and now it works. 

That’s the gig.