Hello, World!

Hello, world!  Princess here. We haven’t really met but I’ve been here all along.  I tried to come out once before when Master was dating that English guy a long time ago but then he single tailed Her foot without CONSENT and that was the end of him. I was VERY mad he did that. Master was too - as She should be !! - and SHE told him he killed me. But it wasn’t true. 

I’m baaaa-aaack.

Because now Master has learned some stuff and She is committed to bringing me along in Her life. She always was but She just recently kinda figured out more HOW.

It’s hard to explain, you know.

So I got to wear the Eeyore costume at Fusion - thank you john and Chloe!  And She let me buy a cute insulated lunchbox 40% off at the Whole Food register,  even though we didn’t exactly NEED it and we have to be FRUGAL and pay the STUDENT LOANS off before we get OLD.  

But we still gotta EAT and now I put some food in there so we aren’t so *hungry* at work when the cafeteria  with the yucky food closes. Master hides my lunchbox in her worky black leather bag, it’s kind of our secret, but sometimes She carries the lunchbox down the hall out in the open and then we feel very Brave.

Master bought me a kigu too!  It about *killed* Her, She was very STRESSED about that. It’s a blue budgie fleecey outfit — PRINCESS IS A BLUE BUDGIE!! —

Sometimes now when She goes to work, when She locks the house door and picks up the bag with the lunch box, She says, “Cmon, princess! Let’s go play in the office!”   Sometimes She lets me hold the steering wheel and we go ZOOM ZOOM on the curvy fast road.  I don’t *really* like it there much otherwise.  The other day I just kept looking and looking at fun things on the internet - fun cuddly pretty clothes. And She was getting stressed with all the work I wouldn’t let her focus on. Finally She got *smart* and gave me some SNACKS and sat me down and said, “I’ve got to *work* now so here’s your snacks, I need you to play by yourself for a while but I’ll be back, and then we’ll go home and have some FUN and then sleep in our snuggly BED with clean fresh yummy sheets.”

That worked. She is catching on.

And we have UNKEY!!! Yay, UNKEY!! 

Master met him at camp and they thought they wouldn’t play ever cuz they are both Tops but they liked each other, so cuddled and stayed in touch and then Master got brave and told him She was interested in exploring with me and would he be my Big? And he said YES!

Unkey says let me out of “pandora’s box”.  Unkey knows pretty good what to do with a princess, and he is helping Master understand too. He is a long-long way away mostly we just text, it’s nice to know there is an Unkey in the world who wants me, even if I can’t see him. And Master tells Unkey when I feel scared enough that the general shows up and yells, and then NOBODY can think straight or hear ANYTHING for a while.  Unkey needs to know that cuz he can’t hear it... yet.  I’m making some extra work for Master but that’s ok. Cuz I’m INPORTANT.  And Unkey doesn’t mind that I get a little sad in the fall when the light changes, cuz lots of people are Seasonally Defective like us.

Master gets scared sometimes cuz, well, She doesn’t QUITE  know what to do with me and I’m a HANDFUL. I mean, She knows about Carl Jung and that OF COURSE a big strong serious efficient effective MASTER like Her has an opposite Shadow piece — ME!! — inside. And it’s really important to let everybody talk to each other and get along.  So that’s kinda hard for Her sometimes. But Unkey says: it’s not my first rodeo. So he knows what to do. 

We had some bad days at work this week, and aw... Unkey did the *best* thing... he sent a voice memo of the Peanuts sound track playing in his house and he said it always cheered him Up and he hoped it help us... and he’s here, still HERE.

Best. Unkey. EV-ER.

He didn’t even think his phone could DO voicememos, but we told him it would really help us to hear his voice so we can feel CLOSER to him, when he is far-far away. So Unkey made it happen RIGHT AWAY, even though he had that phone a long time and never thought he could.  Last he tucked me in on the phone. *so happy*

That’s what he’s like. He sends snuggles and cuddles and headpats and forehead kisses. It’s wonderful.  He came to visit the first time last week and we went and had DUCK HASH and WAFFLES. And I showed him my kigu and we cuddled a lot and talked, and he made us feel *so* good.  

I don’t understand it but when Unkey takes care of me, Master and I get so HORNY!  Why?!  I dunno. But it keeps happening.  A LOT!  Maybe cuz it was taking a lotta ENERGY to keep that lid on old pandora’s box.  I want Unkey to come visit again SOON.  And stay LONGER this time.  

*sigh*

Now I want LOTS of things. I want a one piece fleece jammies that has a drop bottom so I can be warm and snuggly AND have Unkey pat my bottom at the same time.   I love bottom patting and scritching.   Maybe SANTA can bring that for me!  I’m gonna write a LETTER.

Uh oh, Grampy is calling Master, I gotta go now.  Bye!

Battlestations

REPORT!!

Sir! A little has infiltrated our defenses, Sir!  We do not know what she wants, Sir!!   We’re not sure how she slipped past us but she is in the control center, SIR!!

Perform a thorough assessment and report back!  If we cannot get her out, find a way to bring her into The Cause!

YES, SIR!!

—

I’m a Dominant.  I’m a Master. I take responsibility for My life. I accept that I neither know nor control everything. So, I need a plan.

WFT was that coaching technique? Good shit, that, can I get some guidance like it? Find the coach. He’s in Europe. Message on FB. Send an email. Request sessions if nearby soon. Request info re: what techniques used. No reply.

I think something like this was in the van Bessel book. Yes. Do research. Looks like an internal family system (IFS) technique. Who made it? Find the guy. Buy a book. Here’s a website. They train. They certify. Search certified therapists near My zip code. Choose best candidate. Email. She called. First visit scheduled.

Assess what a little needs. Assess signs of little ish tendancies I may have discounted. I see some. Pause.

Be ruthlessly honest. I didn’t attend that ageplay class with Nayland at Fusion randomly. *breathe*  Daddy is too squicky, little girl is too squicky. Must find alternative ageplay paradigm that doesn’t feel squicky. Pause.

More ruthless honesty, viewed through this new filter. I have said for a long time that I am attracted to men who have successfully parented. *breathe* not panicking. *breathe*.  I floated trial balloon to john at some point and he observed people with actual kids aren’t usually into littles play, he has kids, thus he has said gently that he is not interested. That was My easiest, most emotionally safe entry point. Door closed.

Last spring I asked My friend Don if he’d be interested in playing with a bit of a Daddy energy; we may have been talking past each other but regardless, he very nicely turned Me down on grounds that is reserved for his primary. Score one for Me, at least he is into it.

Hrm. I met a good man at camp. I liked his energy. We cuddled once night, completely chaste. I loved it. We stayed in touch. We began on premise we both are tops so no opprtunity to play. Ooop, his partner just left. Ooop, just realized he is a Big type. Deep breath. Tell him you are interested in exploring.

He. Is. Interested. Too.

—

REPORT!

Sir!  We have established communications with the little in the control room.  What shall we do next, Sir?!

Establish trust, find out what she wants, report back. Don’t spook her, this could take awhile. Whatever you do, keep her talking!

YES, SIR!

Big

When I worked up the nerve and finally broke the shocking news to john, he was nonplussed. He said, “well, you did blog that you might be becoming more of a switch.” At first his response was a little disappointing, I was hoping for a bigger reaction (like when I startled people in the Eeyore costume), but I got it later when he began to tease Me about new kinds of porn he might send, just tweak Me. I’ve told several people now, and debated quite a bit how far to spread this new information, but I don’t really see a legit downside (mere discomfort doesn’t count) and I think we all hide too much anyway. So following in the spirit of one of my favorite blogs, theDrewduality, I choose relentless honesty.

I have a Big.

But let’s be clear:  I’m not ready to say “I *am*” a... little.

You remember Littles, right? I hate them. I hate Littles with a passion I feel for almost nothing in My life; even iphone data loss does not trigger in Me the disgust response I have in My innards at the sight of Littles in full blown regressive whiny play mode. I’m pretending when I neutrally say something benign like “not My kink”.  I just want to hurt them, break them, really, and not in a fun way. I can think of few things more terrifying and repulsive than the Little  Miss Littles Contest.

I don’t use the word hate lightly. I hate Littles.

So of course I have to wonder why. Why are they uniquely offputting to such a degree? I have tried not to think about this too much, but it has been in the back of My mind a long time. Waiting.

The relationship with slave t pulled some of this off the back burner. Specifically, My lack of interest in sex with him made Me notice that My Dominance is as a rule not about sex. At first I thought that was just a gender difference (it’s logical somehow a guy Dom would go more easily to “suck My dick!”), but I realized I do have a strap on and I have liked having My cock sucked. So if I have willing boys at My command, why doesn’t it happen? Why is it never the right time? Why do I forget I own that strapon? Why is it always too much trouble to find the right O ring? Why does that not get planned out better? 

How is it that I have men willing to serve Me and yet I do not have the sex life I want?

For a long time I told Myself a story that subtly blamed the men.  John is in chastity. Other subby men don’t give Me the sexy vibe.  It feels too parental. I’m a competence freak, they are not competent enough.  It was all sort of true. Until tarin in our breakup conversation said:

I feel sorry for you.

I feel sorry for whatever happened to you that makes it so difficult for you to have the sex life you want.

I hope you figure it out some day.

—

In the moment those statements mostly sailed by, with so much other stuff flying around. But the arrow actually found one of the little castle tower turret windows and zipped through the walls and struck the heart of things. Thank you, wonderful tarin.

Why **don’t**  I have the sex life I want? I’m almost 50, and in 35 years of sexual activity I’ve yet to create the sexlife of My dreams... and I’m a big bad uncloseted Dominant. It’s got to be Me, not them. It’s got to be Me. I could fuck a lot more than I do; I don’t. Because I don’t want to. Or at least, the part that wants hot wild gratifying primal sex is not the part driving the bus when the guy with the penis is within arm’s reach. And in the last year, I’ve lost interest in other activities too. Fine in the abstract, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but those activities have lost whatever hotness they once held; when the guy is RIGHT HERE, I don’t want that.  We end up in bed, naked, he is willing to do whatever I ask.

And we cuddle.

At Fusion, Midori said to us: Beware the tyranny of the technician, focussing on all the skills. Ask yourself, where is My hunger?  Begin with that.  Where is Your hunger?

Ok, I am hungry for cuddles. Most of the time. Enough that it is derailing other things.

Pondering all this, I remembered a single coaching session I did once in Europe with a total stranger. We sat in a room and invited all the parts of Me to come in and talk.  The first one marched in like she owned the dump, all hyper competence, vigilance, kicking ass and taking names; we later named her the general. The other was silent and timid and could hardly be coaxed to talk at all.  She asked only for this: bring me along sometimes. For purposes of the blog, I’ll call her little one.

Two weeks ago under great stress at the office, I flashed on an image of the general screaming at the little one, who was lying on the ground defeated and dirty and exhausted. The general was screaming at her to get up, but she couldn’t.  It was like the scene you often see in movies about a fresh recruit who almost fails in boot camp, but gets screamed at enough by the tough DI, and the recruit goes on to succeed. Three years after that single opera coaching session, I suddenly had a live wire connection to those parts of Myself.

Of course. The general mostly runs life for Me and it has long been thus.  It is exhausting for Me and others sometimes but it works pretty well. The little one is there unnoticed but not without effect. The general gets the boys in the door but when we hit the staircase to the playroom and the bedroom, the general leaves. Very quietly the little one takes over, she gets to play with her fun toys.  And she gets a way to meet her hunger for cuddling.  A long time ago I wrote a story which included a statement saying everything that happened in the impact scene was just to get HERE, to the neural magic of aftercare; I was more right than I realized.  I have always dropped hard and needed a lot of aftercare.  It’s funny how we sometimes accidentally overhear ourselves say a truth we didn’t know we knew.

So it appears the little one has been pimping out the general to get her wordless hunger for fun and cuddles met.

Shit.

I Miss My PalmPilot

Once upon a time I lived on the cutting edge of technology. I stayed there for several years, owning a series of PalmPilots early in the PDA revolution. Then QWERTY keyboards on phones came out and being both a power user and slight gear whore, I abandoned PalmPilot and had an LG phone with QWERTY keyboard and flip up lid, initiating Me into the age of texting at the expense of all other data functionalities.  Blackberry just never seemed worth it to Me, tiny buttons and that pesky lawsuit.

In time, three things I love (PDA, querty, apple) combined and I got an iPhone. And I have had a series of misadventures with iPhone backup.

Once a well-meaning subby who works in IT decided to help me by upgrading My iOS to the new version. Despite being told I was terrified of losing all My data and he must not lose all My data, he lost all My data, including several years of photos and 20 very expensive opera lessons in another country. Thereafter I resolved to never trust anyone else again with My iphone, and to get better at this, so I have been very careful with the current iPhone. I bought it before leaving the country and chose it to have the max 128 MB of memory so that I could take unlimited photos and videos while I was traveling abroad. It was SPECIFICALLY the need for more photos and videos and storage that caused me to buy the new iPhone 27 months ago. Perhaps, gentle reader, you begin to see where this road may lead. Since then I have amassed a mountain of photos and wonderful videos. This week the phone began acting strangely after I installed iOS 11.0.1.   I called Verizon to complain that I couldn’t text anything over the LTE connection, they ran a diagnostic which took almost an hour to install due to the poor connections on both 4G and Wi-Fi. And about the time the nice rep was telling Me that My sim card might be going bad, he interrupted himself to announce I would be receiving a refurbished phone because My battery had a flunked

the diagnostic in spectacular fashion. A replacement phone arrived in less than 24 hours and I carried it around for a few days until I had the mental energy to focus on the upgrade. Last night I did that. 

I very, very carefully followed ALL the instructions. They were a little annoying because they consisted of six steps, and each step told Me to go read online for the details. I of course can’t do that when I’m screwing with the phone. So first I read all the websites to make sure I was clear, and it was at this point that the Verizon website decided that it needed a nap. So I ended up on tech-support and eventually was able to proceed.  One of the super duper important steps is to back up, so I backed everything up to the iCloud, and was proud to confirm that indeed a back up had been done 36 hours previously, so I was almost feeling good about myself and my tech skills with the iPhone again. I successfully erased my iPhone, damaged an earring trying to remove the sim card, fixed the earring post that was bent by the sticky sim card tray, moved everything over to the new phone, got it to work and was generally feeling almost proud of Myself, like I had recovered from the previous trauma of losing everything. 

That lasted about 30 minutes until I went to pull up a photo. It was at this point I realized I had no photos. There then ensued several hours of swearing; head scratching; deep depression; complaining; wringing of hands; raging against machines; imposition of ashes; and the search for overnightable sack cloth on Amazon. 

Having already erased the previous phone it was impossible to look at My Settings and see what might have been fucked up. I considered calling My previous slave who might have some answers and decided that that was no longer a choice. I was dutifully advised by boy d to look in the iCloud and see if I could find them anywhere, but since the new phone was telling me that iCloud had not been set up yet I became fearful that I would accidentally over-write what photos might be in the iCloud with the nothingness currently on the new handset. 

I went to bed convinced that I was deeply screwed, resolved to throw Myself on the mercy of the Genius Bar on Saturday at whatever point I could generate enough hope to get out of bed. I woke to a beautiful morning not immediately remembering how screwed I am. Then I did, and opened Notes to draft a blog. Then My head exploded as I realized I have lost all My Notes TOO.   As I laid there (in bed, naked in the golden, liquid life-is-good sunshine) blankly looking at the screen, I was confused. A moment ago there were zero notes. Now there are more. I look and I’ve only lost a year, ok, whew, that beats the alternative. Then I actually saw a progress wheel come up and spin. And ah-HA! Suddenly there it all was. 

Well, at least I didn’t lose ALL My data.

I took a photo. Last night in all the drama I had taken a new photo and it showed up in the memory as being “1 of 1”. That’s how I knew Houston had a problem. This morning when I took a different photo and went to text it, it was not 2 of 2. Instead all of My photos were present - all 27 glorious months of photos are on My iPhone replacement. I guess that’s not considered an essential function and so it happens later in the reinstall process. I had noticed third-party apps were still downloading in the background at one point last night but I didn’t care about them very much so I figured they would arrive eventually. I didn’t realize that was the case with the photos. It apparently it took all night for them to come. 

So as much as I love Steve Jobs and as much as I love Apple, I want to say that I miss My PalmPilot. My PalmPilot had a physical cradle with a physical button and a physical cable and all I had to do was set My PalmPilot in the cradle and push a button and everything in the palm pilot auto magically would go into the laptop. And I could see it RIGHT THERE.  There was an extremely simple interface that allowed Me to choose whether I wanted to synchronize them both or have one overwrite the other. I never screwed that up.  True, if the laptop crapped out at the same time as the phone, in an iCloudless world, one was still screwed.

In point of fact, I did not screw this one up this time. I just didn’t understand the reinstall process and suffered flashbacks as a result.  So I did not screw up but it was so upsetting for a while, it *feels* like I did. So I did good but it strangely does not feel like a success. 

Now I shall get out of bed and finish My taxes.

Camp Is My Overdue Schoolyard

A recent Facebook meme encouraged Me to open up a book and read the first sentence on page 57 to see My love life described with uncanny accuracy.  It said:

25% More Growth!

Admittedly picking up a big gardening catalog tends to skew the results, but still.  Uncannily accurate.  Lots has been in flux this year.  I've recalibrated in My head how I interact with john.  Tarin has gone. boy m is less and less physically present due to family issues. boy d appeared at Fusion but now may need to move away for work.  Through all this I have been weirdly ok.  Which is to say - intermittently devastated and depressed and yet fundamentally fine and capable of joy.  I hear this is normal and healthy.  I find it bizarre and yet it is a massive success.  Allowing Myself highs and lows of joy and grief is the opposite of depression.  I have it from a number of very expensive and persuasive professionals over the years that this is how normal people experience life, they take it for granted. 10 years after ending treatment for clinical depression, I really do consider it an achievement that I can sob over My dear slave's departure (with another person in the room, no less! Being emotionally supportive!), then go to camp only days later where he is present, and enjoy the hell out of Myself... aware, yes, of the slight pricking of discomfort occasionally, but nonetheless fully living the experience.  I had a great time at camp and the split did nothing to harm the experience.  Much of My life that would not have been possible.

I come from good hardworking Dutch and German farming stock.  There is no drama. The emotional temperature is always measured in degrees Kelvin. The painting "American Gothic" is a dead ringer for the portrait of My grandparents in its colors, its timbre. On the spectrum of emotional heat, if Italians are on one end, My micro-culture is on the other.  It's sort of emotional Kremlinology, knowing what's happening is something derived from microscopic research of tiny shifts.  When things are fine, no need to talk, there's nothing you need to say.  When things are bad, no need to talk, doesn't change anything anyway.  When things are fine, everyone is quiet and modest and not taking up more space than absolutely necessary.  When things are bad, everyone one is doing everyone a favor and just making themselves invisible.  Come to think of it, invisible seems to have been the ideal.  It was normal until I realized it's really fucking weird and inhumane.

Things were more acute for Me because I was alien to that land and therefore ostracized with my funny accent and knowledge of not only where the Mediterranean is located but how to spell it correctly.  Then I turned out to be smart (maybe pulled along by high octane parents, too) and was skipped a grade, so clearly I thought too much of myself and needed to be taken down a peg through years of being tormented.  So I just sat on the school bus for two hours a day and read.  Sat by myself on the edge of the school yard and read.  Sat in my desk and didn't talk to anyone. Sat at home and read or played the piano or milked cows or did chores.  I had two shining moments in childhood: both involved kicking/ punching a boy who had long tormented me.  (Oooo, never thought of it that way before. Hmmmm...) Having grown up in such social isolation, I didn't learn all kinds of things. The research says it is through play that children learn how to decode social threat from real danger; it's how we develop social skills, through that sort of pack rough-and-tumble play.  Well, I was on the remote edge and on high alert at all times, never knowing which kid on the bus or in the class might be the next to say or do to me something that I was unprepared to handle. Hypervigilance pays some handy dividends but it is tough to unlearn:

I'm reading a book, I'm not here.

If I'm totally focused on this task, because you can't see me.  That makes me such a small target it won't cross your mind to come after me, so I all is well.  Even if you say something awful, it bounces off the book.  If I never respond, it officially never happened.  Turn the other cheek and all that.

Ostriches might bury their heads in the sand, but I highly recommend books. They get you into college.  But the la-la-la-la-la-not-here technique has major disadvantages in adulthood, especially in bed.

It occurred to Me singing My way down I-95 today that DO camp events are the playground I never had. At both events this year, I have stepped out of My comfort - read safe - zone to be more silly, more playful, more bouncy, more...

Effervescent.

I dressed as Eeyore and wandered around among strangers relaxed. I had sex with the boy two beds over wearing a dinosaur costume.  I allowed Myself to be orally pleasured, quite noisily, in a cabin that holds 25 people. I cuddled easily and quite happily with someone I know not at all. I rubbed mud all over an ex and kicked him on the ground, without stressing over it. I swam and walked naked for hours, bouncing, prancing, smiling, laughing, shaking My ass and My boobies at men, surrounded by people who do not know me, whose opinions of Me I do not know, and I did not have even a passing thought about how they might hurt Me. I was the opposite of invisible. I was fully relaxed and authentic, and somehow a somewhat new-to-Me organic personality came to the surface. It is really impossible to overstate what a big deal this is for someone who used to have a hard time walking through a restaurant to the table, because she hated the feeling of people looking at her. Honestly, I really was once the moral equivalent of Amish.  And all this was easy.  I didn't work at it a bit.  That's how I know it's real, and it's progress, and it's truly Mine now.

Camp is My safe place. Camp is My happy place.  Camp is the overdue childhood I am getting to enjoy now.  I will always be grateful to Greg of Dark Odyssey for giving Me this.

The poet David Whyte posits the interesting possibility that we might grow more innocent through our lives.  We might grow more innocent toward our deaths.  We normally think of innocence as something lost, virginity lost.  What if we could actually grow in our ability to experience wonder, joy, awe, to be amazed?  To not reason from the bad things that happened before, ever narrowing our possibilities, but instead to keep expanding them?  I discovered David Whyte's Poetry of Self Compassion a long time ago and I like realizing that I've managed to live my way into those ideas he planted with Me.  I'm suddenly reminded of a Rainer Marie Rilke quote I used to keep above My desk at work about 10 years ago when I was going through the depression:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and books that are for now written in a very foreign language. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you; you would not be able to live them. Because the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,  some distant day live your way into the answer.”

I did it. The distant day has come.

As I sang My way down I-95 today, I also considered faintly that maybe it is time to take opera lessons again. Maybe I am ready now to take that step; I wasn't four years ago when My teacher left. I really struggled to give Myself permission to make loud noises, even in a private voice lesson.  I might be ready to take up more space.  To fill a room with My body and energy and presence and voice.  To be a person who draws attention, be someone you want to look at, someone from whose luminousness it is difficult to look away.  And to feel so at peace and rock solid within Myself that I can be completely vulnerable, completely relaxed despite the risk of aural catastrophe and the judgment of a crowd; to let the music flow through the instrument of My body. To give Music its voice so it can be heard, and to do that without any feeling of responsibility for what happens.  To be a vessel, as the Bible suggests. Allow Myself not just to breathe, but to be breathed.  To allow Myself to be played.  There's a confluence here with camp and Dominance and owning a house.  It's a groundedness, a certainty, a feeling of being able to stand rooted in the center of everything internal and external.  I am the Mountain.  My feelings and thoughts, My arousal and voice are the clouds that shift around Me.

Even more radically, perhaps it is time to consider identifying as a switch. I really am in switch territory, when it comes to play at least.  Mountains are, after all, not monoliths. I find more and more I am playing with switches and playing in the sensual territory in between the labels in My head.  It is true that I have bottomed to fire play, scratching/knives, massage, and other pleasurable sensation for a long time; I just have thought of it in terms of being served, receiving service.  Maybe calling it service was a subtle mental crutch. Maybe.  It's something new to consider.

I'll Wait For You

Fado fado.

Zhili byli.

Once upon a time...

I was fifteen and I had a sweet wonderful boyfriend, My first, named John. (No, not Chloe's john.) We met at Debate Camp and saw each only on fortunate Saturdays when our school buses had taken us to the same debate tournament. We talked on the phone, not local calls. I ate Jello pudding pops sitting on the basement steps with the door closed, and furtively described exactly how the pudding pop was sliding in My mouth, what My tongue was doing. He crocheted Me a scarf for Christmas and gave Me a little necklace, and shared his notes with Me from tournaments I didn't attend and those notes helped Me get to the State competition, where My partner showed up hungover so we lost. He called in songs to the radio dedicated to me.

One of maybe only 3 or 4 times John was at My house, My parents were there, My dad home from the road. John and I took the sofa cushions outside and laid on the ground fondling unsupervised while My parents had sex upstairs little realizing their oldest was in danger. The next time, I visited him, Getting Myself all the way 45 minutes into Milwaukee on pretext of doing debate research at the university library. Then quite terrified I followed his instructions to get on a bus, first time. Alone, unsupervised, off the radar, in a major city with no money, no phone. I nearly cried when he got on the bus one stop after me, knowing I was scared. We played on his bed in the attic of his home and the only reason we didn't go all the way was his ever interrupting sister.

That spring I was in a music competition and he took the bus across the big city. He said he didn't need Me to talk to him, he knew I needed to be in competition headspace and couldn't do that. He just wanted to see and hear Me play. He wanted to be there. And he was. And I indeed did My own thing that day. And I won. And he was proud of Me.

The rest of life in My junior high school year was not good, it was disastrous for reasons way out of my control, that I very possibly never thought to share with him, but he was wonderful. The memories are luminous. The way first love should be.

Then one day toward the end of the school year, he told Me he loved Me. He wanted to marry Me some day. I said...

...But I'm going to go away to college.

And he said...

...I'll wait for you.

And then I'll go to graduate school, maybe law school.

I'll wait for you.

And then I might have to move, and I will need a couple of years to start a job and build a career before I'm ready to get married.

And he said:

I'll wait for you. I'll wait as long as you need me to wait.

And I thought: Holy shit. I'm gonna be 30 and this first boyfriend of mine from 15 is gonna be following me around, and I'm not gonna want him any more but I'm never going to be able to tell him after all that waiting that I don't want him anymore.

At that time in My life, there was literally no one I could turn to for advice. And I had the crushing realization that it would be so easy to get knocked up at 16 by my first boyfriend in the sticks of Wisconsin. And I realized my only plan for surviving my life was to throw myself body and soul through the escape hatch of college, away from my dysfunctional family. I was suddenly terrified that the boy I loved and desired was a ball and chain, going get me pregnant, and I would never, ever escape the hell that was then my life without him.

So I dumped him.

No warning. No explanation. Just cut him off. Froze him out. A door slammed shut inside of me and crushed him. 

It was all I knew how to do. I had no words for the desperation to escape. Couldn't name the dysfunction. Couldn't explain the inchoate terror. I was a mountain climber fallen into the crevasse who calmly cuts off an arm to live.

I had the sense to feel badly about it, but had no clue what could be done.

A few weeks later, we were at the World Affairs Seminar representing our schools and avoided each other in the classes and dining hall. Friends of his came and asked me as envoys what had happened, he didn't understand, he wanted to understand. I had no answer to give them. Much later, I heard he remained devastated and unable to move on for years. It's possibly the worst thing I have ever done to anyone.

So as I walk around Summer Camp this weekend, and see Tarin occasionally, see him spot Me, and make an immediate hard turn to avoid Me, working hard to stay hundreds of feet away as if I were radioactive, I am reminding Myself of John, and not just because of karma. 

I am reminding Myself that once I felt an inchoate terror for which I had no words, and all I knew how to do was slam the door on the one person in my life that made me happy. I panicked precisely because they had made me happy, like Icarus flying to close to the sun. And back then, it wasn't John's fault at all, just as it isn't Mine now.  I did that once, or at least, a version of Me so far away now that it feels like a movie character, did that once.  I even regretted it terribly in the moment, but the only way out seemed to be through.

It gives Me compassion for Tarin despite the pain he is causing. I have been in that place, and it is very lonely. No one could help me then, and it was at that time in my life that I stood in a bathroom and seriously considered chugging a bottle of pills. I didn't. I soldiered on and I did make it to college  and much more, far, very far away. I escaped and healed and grew into someone else. Decades later I found John and apologized, and though he forgave Me, I'm not entirely sure I forgive that version of myself. We do the best we can. As Hawkeye Pierce tells Father Mulcahey in an episode of MASH:  Best is best.  But sometimes it's hard to believe.

Sometimes Life Is An Annoying Poem

My boy tarin has had an intense summer. If you know him, you have read his own writings elsewhere. Since he has been public in other forums about his struggles there can be more detail here. 

When I met tarin 18 months ago, he was the walking wounded. Sweet, smart, kind, witty, I enjoyed his energy and his company. I felt how deeply he was hurting and I knew I could help. he was several years out from being in an Owner/property relationship, in which his Owner treated him abysmally throughout, and ultimately abandoned him. he had not been in another /s since.  he doubted whether there would even be someone he could serve. he was growing his hair long with the beautiful and romantic idea that if he ever found a worthy Master to live happily-ever-after with, he wanted to have cutting his hair off be part of his collaring ceremony.

I told him I could be his Master, but it would not be sexual for Me. That was our agreement - nonsexual M/s - and for a good while it worked. I taught him to be emotionally honest and transparent with Me, about everything. I cut his hair with him, provided life leadership in a number of areas, and taught him to protect the property at all times - even when that involved pushing back on Me. Along the way, we spent a lot of time processing his trauma history, and the marriage was the tip of the iceberg, there was long standing childhood sexual abuse by a brother, and much earlier, there were beatings by a parent with mental illness, lack of compassion from the other. He had done a lot of counseling already, I was just helping him raise the bar from survive to thrive.

I taught him that service to Me included becoming the best and fullest version of himself.  I taught him that he has value because Master believes he has value, even in the moments where he feels he has none. We did A LOT of emotional heavy lifting.  And I grew too. I opened up, allowed Myself to be more vulnerable, allowed Myself to trust someone more to meet My needs, and got better at forgiving. Having Tarin be so already excellent at service when I met him allowed Me to rely on him, allowed Me to grow in what areas I was willing to rely on him, and meant he was spotting even more areas as we went along.  It was the first and only time I have felt evenly matched in an M/s dynamic.

I was aware of sometimes being the Angel who has no pain, so that I could help him with his, but I was conscious of it and made sure My needs did were properly tended. I was careful to not be a martyr, careful to care for both of us. And it worked really, really well. It was unexpectedly comfortable and easy, and I enjoyed feeling that some good was coming of the years I had suffered Myself in comparable ways. Above all, I felt privileged to be part of his life, someone he chose to share the road with him. I felt I was doing good in the world by supporting him to grow. I felt for the first time like a true Master.

I admire tarin immensely. What he has been through would have destroyed many others. Many people have marvelled at My own tenacity through life's adversities, but the struggles he lives with daily would make Me give up. I have been honored to teach him how to be happier than he has known how to be, to introduce him to Joy as john introduced Me. I will always consider it a great accomplishment of My life to have been a Master to him.

Last year I sent tarin to Butchmann's Experience as part of My requirement that he be the fullest version of himself. It was hard but tremendously positive. This year at Fusion he did some ordeal track classes: the Ordeal of Pain, the Ordeal of Pleasure, the Ordeal of Power. I was a little surprised he chose these classes, and it meant we spent less time having fun together at Fusion than I expected, but I support anything that helps him process his extensive trauma history and opens a path to greater Joy in his life. Two weeks after Fusion, he went to MTTA slave academy, and the next week to Butchmann's again.

I knew he needed time to process the Fusion ordeals, and that was ok. I knew slave academy would be an intense experience for him. I figured it would be August before the dust began to settle from all that deep exploration; I knew it would be months more before the work was done. I was prepared to have him less focused on Me for that span of time so he could do the work. I felt it was the right thing for My boy. A good Master would do that.

I was not, however, prepared for him to come to Me in the hour between leaving slave academy and getting in his car to drive home three states away, and to tell Me that he has been struggling for six months, and had concluded that he can no longer remain in our nonsexual M/s dynamic. As good as things are, it is no longer enough. he needs, deserves more. Though he didn't use the words, he wants, as Julia Roberts' charachter in Pretty Woman says at the end: he wants the fairy tale. he wants the dream. The relationship that is everything, he wants to find The One. 

And I want that too, both for him and also for Myself. 

It has been a sadness for Me that I am not able to give him the sexual component he longs for. I think it has to do with the Master role, perhaps the age difference, it just feels too... parental? I feel more like a bossy big sister. Maybe I am just deluding Myself and I was afraid.

But still, something like parenting is what he needed, and I was able to provide it. That has been the wound he carries, the absence of someone he can look up to, trust, someone who advocates for him, encourages him, is loyal and clannish, cares for him, teaches him. And he has grown to the point he is ready for more than I can give.

That is a successful relationship. I am proud of us.

I always knew the platonic element was a difference; I thought we had addressed it at the beginning. I did not foresee that it became more of a problem for him - not less - as the relationship deepened. That was admittedly naive of Me. My executive mistake was in not putting more structure in place. Perhaps if we had had a contract that renewed every few months, that would have given us a structure for grappling with his emerging concerns.

Perhaps.

I heard a new story the day he ended our relationship, a story much earlier than the bad Owner, even earlier than the abusive brother's harm for 10 years. At the age of 5, his un-diagnosed mentally ill parent beat him, and he went to school with a black eye. He's on good terms with the parent these days, who is now properly medicated, but somehow, they have still not talked about what happened back then.  When asked by the teacher what had happened, little five year old tarin told the truth, not knowing he should lie. When Child Protective Services came to the house and asked him again what happened, he saw his parents' faces of anger, he understood he had done something wrong.  Or as I see it: he intuited that if he told the truth about the harm those he loved had done, he would lose them one way or another.

As I told him... at five years of age he was wise enough to understand the choice: truth of self or abandonment. And so he chose to lie, he recanted. CPS left, he stayed with his parents, and they beat him again.

This is the memory that he had been wrestling with at slave academy, and two weeks before at Camp during the ordeals, and for much longer before that. But I only just heard it after he told Me he wanted out of our dynamic. When I heard the story, I felt we had struck bedrock.  This is his fundamental struggle, the choice between truth and enforcing his boundaries vs being unloved and being abandoned.  Many people have some version of this choice that operates to drive their decision making in life. His is a lot bigger, starker  than most. The stakes are far higher, because the wiring that gets created so early runs deep, and it has had a long time to be reinforced by a string of later events.

And so, when I heard he had concluded he cannot stay in our nonsexual M/s relationship, I saw it as an opportunity to create a counterbalance to what happened at the age of 5. I supported him telling Me the truth of his feelings, and I didn't do or say any of things I might have chosen, that would have applied emotional pressure on him to knuckle under. I didn't speak of a slave obeying the Master. I didn't tell him a slave shouldn't do this. Fortunately, I was so stunned that I didn't even feel angry at that moment. It didn't seem real.

I told him I had always known that if I did My job well as a Master, some day he would want more, and I was proud of him for getting there so fast. I told him I was sad because I had hoped that My feelings would change in that direction, and they hadn't, and it pains Me not to be able to give him the complete package. I told him that it hurt a lot, but I didn't hate him for telling Me these things, I promised not to abandon him. We would find a way - I, as the Master - would find a way to transition us.  These might be the last acts of Mastery I can ever offer him, but I am hopeful they might be the most powerful.  I have considered it My job to define and raise the bar for how he can expect people to treat him.

A few weeks passed and we had a good, multi-hour call in which it became time for Me to talk about his decision, where My feelings are. It took a lot of prompting from him, a lot of dead air on the line and "Talk to me, Goose" before I could tell him the truth of those feelings. That I was sad and surprised. That it hurt My feelings others at Fusion and slave academy knew more of what was going on before I did. That it deeply upset Me he had not handled the need for change within our M/s dynamic, he had broken it, seizing control and announcing a decision, rather than coming to Me with a problem and trusting Master to navigate the whitewater with him. More profoundly, I felt blind sided and abandoned by the one person from whom I did not expect it. he apologized and explain how deeply confused he has felt, which meant he didn't know how to say something; this was the first relationship he has had which he actually wanted to end well, but he doesn't have any experience winding down a relationship amicably. 

So then for a few weeks I felt we were in a no man's land. he still wanted and needed some support in life, and I was offering leadership where it seemed to be welcome and made sense but obedience is off the table and he doesn't necessarily do as I advise; he has been somewhat unresponsive, which caused Me worry and upset; and I no longer felt there was a balancing level of energy being provided to My life. It has been difficult and hollow and unsettled. It has really knocked Me for a loop.

In Hope Floats, Sandra Bullock's character says: "Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome. Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts the most." We had an awesome middle and nothing happening now will take that away from us.

Tarin promised in that first call that he would come to see Me in August and October, to wind down the relationship and figure it out in person. Then his three open weekends of August passed, and each weekend I couldn't get a straight answer, and he never did come. And I knew at each step that what I feared was indeed coming to pass.

So now we have had the second call, on Friday. And now he has said that tarin has left the building. All the little things that were threads to connect us over distance have been teed up and are officially gone. I will no longer call him My boy. I can no longer expect from him the thousand little things I have come to rely on. All the answers are

"I don't know" or "I cannot commit to anything".  My M/s relationship ended the day slave academy ended in July;  it just took us time to accept fully what had happened.

I said that it seemed we had landed in that trite greeting card: if you love something, set it free. He made Me laugh - not easy under the circumstances - by dryly noting that sometimes life is an annoying poem. And I was reminded again how much I miss him.

It's heart breaking to lose the person I have most trusted and deeply enjoyed and relied on on a daily basis for so long. You wouldn't think that's possible from 600 miles away, but it is. I'm trying to focus on the good, trying to focus on feeling gratitude. I'm choosing a positive narrative and resisting the negative one.

But I don't want to go to Master slave Conference. I don't want to deal with people innocently asking where My wonderful boy is. I don't know how to give a cocktail party length answer. I don't want to answer in a way that disserves him or Me, or in a moment of weakness, tarnishes what we had. I don't want to ugly cry on anyone's shoulder in a hotel conference center surrounded by miles of low pile industrial carpet over concrete.  If there is support to be had from other Masters, I will find it elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I did meet a new boy at Fusion, and we spend good time together. I hate that he is getting to know Me while I am grieving and depressive; I don't like this side of Myself and I have always hid it. But the new boy d swears he doesn't mind. he cooks, massages, helps, amuses, distracts Me, and puts up with My grumps and considerable irritability. Now he is playing the Angel to Me, and it is uncomfortable but maybe it is good. Maybe I've grown enough to let someone in easier, further, so that I can be deeply known and supported too. Tarin taught Me that.

For that I will always be grateful.