Inertia

Being Mother's Day I spent considerable time with my family yesterday and one of the comments one of my sons made was how frustrated he was that one of his best mates had ended up with his girlfriend. His complaint is that his friend has remained juvenile in many ways and that he needs a girl that can help him to grow, whereas his girlfriend accepts him just as he is.

"I imagine Alison cooks for him..."

"Every night. It's sickening to watch."

Of course, it's comfortable. It's comfortable for them both, really, because Alison is a home body and John (if only you knew how silly it sounds to me to make up these names for real people) likes that he is looked after. But, my son is right, John isn't likely to grow much at all with her and that's a wasted opportunity.

This is one of the big points of having a D/s relationship, isn't it, to grow; to have fun and pleasure, and to grow. For reasons I don't really understand I've desperately wanted to experience, to explore and grow, and I've wanted that for people with whom I engage, not least of which is my husband.

It's not just that we've been together forever and that in that scenario you need to shake things up a bit every so often. It's that it just comes innately to me to grow; to challenge; to want to be challenged. It's not always comfortable for me but it is a lot more comfortable that being static. I thrive on momentum. It can drive my husband mad because I tend to talk about what we can do next. I'm not someone who tends to sit back and rest on my laurels. If he comes out to the garden and I've single handedly stacked the trailer with all the prunings, he might say, "You're a productive little thing, aren't you?!" I need to get stuck into things and move on.

One of the big issues in relationships is the need to cater for one another's energy levels and I think that all our energy levels fluctuate, from time to time. It's totally understandable and normal for this to happen and in the same way, arousal levels fluctuate. The desire for play fluctuates. Stressful periods of time probably mean that a person has less dominance to offer. Personally, I don't find that I have less submissive tendencies during stressful time because the submissive strategies calm my stress. However, I can say that times when I am stuck in deadlines I must put aside submissive needs. We need to be alert to the other person's needs and adjust the temperature accordingly.

However, what if the other person can't change and grow at all? What's been on my mind is that perhaps some people are intrigued and drawn to power exchange relationships because they have a certain neurological disposition that makes a certain degree of rigidity an integral part of their makeup and the way they lead their lives. Perhaps that rigidity will always be the same rigidity, year after year after year. Perhaps, there will be no growth and adjustment because it is built into the DNA that there will be no growth, no matter what.

I was talking around this issues with my son yesterday too. I was telling him about 'The Rosie Project'. The protagonist is a lovely, very intelligent man with Aspbergers who is looking for a girlfriend and I was saying that I struggle with the concept of acceptance, in part. For instance, my dog is silly. There is no two ways about it. She isn't bright and there are still moments of great frustration for me about that. I imagine having a dog who would run with me and act sensibly and although I love her, I can see the pitfalls of having a dog who just isn't that smart. I work against those feelings. I know I shouldn't have them. I can see that the children accept her quirks and I try to see it that way as well. Still.

In the process of this 'journey' of mine I've become a much stronger person, more outgoing. I still thrive when my husband takes charge of the situation, as he did this weekend. I really love being in that submissive mindset, sleeping on his chest, feeling at peace with the world after a session or two of tight containment, in whatever form that takes. Just as importantly, I love it when I feel that he's operating with some momentum; that he's moving and growing and that there is a sense of a future where we can embrace life and all that it has to offer. I love moving with him, rather than parallel to him. I'll still grow anyway, because that is so important to me to continue to grow, but when one moves in tandem with the other, that's gold. That's when I am truly in my groove.

It's been a bit of a motto of mine for many years to say that one shouldn't force friendships or have high expectations. People are as they are, and provided you've done your best, you have to accept the friendship for what it is. Friendships come in all shapes and sizes and part of friendship is not to expect too much. Intellectually, I know this. Yet, I also know myself too well to truly believe my own words. The truth is I sometimes engage in a difficult relationship because I'm intrigued; because I think it might provide growth; because I want to see it grow, on both sides. But, what if one day you wake up and smell the roses and realize that there are limitations to how much you should expect because perhaps there are neurological issues that don't allow for that growth?

What I am up against is the realization that I never accepted a poor prognosis about anything. I turned it into a winning situation because there is something inside my brain that tells me that I can. Not one to sit by and watch failure I made it right. I made it good. Maybe, I needed to deconstruct the situation and reform the situation but that's much easier, as hard as it is, than conceding defeat.

What's that old saying - God only gives you what you can handle? My third child was born with a few challenges but he never let that get on top of him. I remember talking to a boarding house Master on the sidelines of a soccer game a while back and we were talking about resilience. I was saying that that son has buckets of it and I didn't know where on earth he had got it all. What made him continue to try and try when others would have conceded defeat? "You gave that to him," he said to me. "No, it was nothing to do with me," I replied. "It's always been there."

But, today I am wondering, maybe I did give him that resilience. Maybe, I did. Maybe, as a mother I passed down to them the will to make it, whatever it means to them, to make it. Maybe, instinctively, I passed onto them the desire to stretch oneself. I'm not one to subscribe to neurological limitations; to simply accept that people can't thrive and learn, in their own way. Maybe dogs can't grow new neurons but put people in the right environments and there's something more that they can do, be, give, think and learn. Surely. A deep dislike of inertia. That's my Achilles heel.