Perfectionism

I'm not at all sure that I am or ever was representative of women of this modern era. There is a certain blitheness about the way I go about life. In my younger days I was fairly 'live and let live' in my disposition towards others, so although I noted certain characteristics inconsistent with the way I'd do things, I wasn't particularly troubled by them. If it was wildly outside what I considered fair or reasonable I might question something perhaps, but I was in no way demanding. To use other terms, I was what is considered  as without boundaries.

Having said that, I remember telling my husband off one time in my mid twenties when I'd been waiting at the appointed spot for considerable time; a spot that wasn't comfortable to be waiting in. His sense of time was something that I had difficulty understanding. He'd say that he'd be a couple of hours when in reality he needed more like a couple of days. Or, he'd say he was coming to bed "soon" and rock up in the wee small hours of the night. He often underestimated the time it took to do something and even though he could give assurances freely that he could get something done for me, he'd struggle to tear himself away from the project at hand, or the thing that held his interest. When he did attend to the task it seemed to take an endless amount of time, for only a perfect job was satisfactory in his eyes.

The washing of the dishes was a strange affair. When we married he rushed out to buy a dishwasher, as if the lack of a dishwasher somehow implied that he had some unwanted involvement in the chore. The event stood out because making decisions was something that he often labored over for fear of making the wrong decision. When he occasionally did do the dishes it reminded me of a surgeon preparing for heart surgery. It seemed a job done with meticulous care and attention. My attempts felt sloppy in comparison, as was my packing of the dishwasher apparently for he often noted that something hadn't been done quite right.

It soon became clear that his relationship with workmen wasn't a happy one. Invariably he found fault in their attempts and he was much happier doing it himself, even if it might take a decade longer. He'd assure me we'd saved a fortune, though, as you might imagine, I  didn't see it that way. Recently an oven sat in the middle of the kitchen for 9 months as he got his head around installing it and framing it in the absolutely right way.

You'd be correct if you assumed that this has caused me a great deal of frustration over the decades. Trying to explain my frustration to him is like talking to someone from another planet. It simply doesn't compute. What matters is his sense of the fitness of things and this is determined through his own particular lens of perfectionism and obsessiveness.

Things reached a head several years ago when I found myself having the occasional conniption. I think the frustration had built to such a level that I demanded that he understand what he was doing to me. He'd apologize that he'd upset me, but then he'd talk me around to seeing things from his point of view. There was no winning this war. There was no change of perspective to be had; no recognition that he was sending his wife mad.

Naturally, I reached a point where I researched this dilemma and bit by bit I filled in the dots and created an accurate picture of what was going on. Then, I looked for solutions. Modern psychology was brutally honest with me. The person to change was me because I was the person who was able to change.

I needed boundaries. I need to express my feelings in particular ways and/or state what I needed at the particular time and in a direct but neutral way. I needed to be proactive. I needed to buy out of circular arguments. I needed to do things for myself where possible. I needed to keep in close communication and enjoy time together with him, but I also needed to understand that I had to be a free agent; to find joy in ways other than in the ways that I had intended and expected when I agreed to his marital proposal; to any marital proposal.

To my eyes, his priorities would often seem misplaced, but these were my eyes, and the common theme that remains to this day is that he was doing things in a completely necessary way and at a depth of detail that was absolutely essential for our benefit. If the need for a perfect outcome meant that the outcome was delayed, perhaps permanently, then this was the way it was.

It became a process of wrapping my head around the fact that there would be little meeting of the ways, but rather that I learn to 'let go' of certain expectations of life, of a certain living standard, of certain marital expectations, and instead focus on other ways to be  a happy, stable and fulfilled human being.

This is the face of perfectionism and of being married to a person with an obsessive-compulsive, anal retentive, perfectionist personality. If someone told me ahead of time the rocky road ahead, well, I'd have been a fool to do anything else than to find another highway. But, that's rarely the way it works out. We discover our partner's traits as we progress down the road and after the time it is easy to do a U turn.

The  five stages of grieving as outlined by Kubler-Ross are accurate; not necessarily experienced in the same order as the next person, but still, we do go through all the stages, and complete the cycle at the stage of acceptance. I have learned to accept that no change will take place. I've adapted my life, my mindset and my pursuit of happiness around it. I am at peace. I am loved, and happy. I live a good life even when, to the fly on the wall, it can look pretty darn odd. It is what it is. Come hell or high water, a perfectionist, full of love as he may be for his wife, and who attempts to make up for his oddities in other ways, is unable to change.

No Need to Apologize

Typically, we're  brought up to believe that it is important to apologize for wrong doing. 'I am sorry' is a phrase that often ends an argument, and/or makes someone feel better, and/or that brings closure to the upset.

It gets a bit more tricky when both people feel that they should be apologized to, which can lead to no apologies at all, or the old standby, 'I'm sorry if you're sorry too'. Then, regardless of 'fault' the two people just drive on, no matter who really was at fault.

It really bothers my husband when I don't apologize when he thinks I should, which can be complicated by the fact that he has often spoken rudely (in my opinion) after the initial offence, which makes it hard to apologize, because I think he should apologize also for being offensive.

On the other hand, part of the training that I have undergone was about not needing to apologize. The theory there was no apology was required on either side, but rather that there was a cosmic sort of understanding that the other person was sorry about whatever had gone down. Rather than bother about fault and hence apologies, it was only necessary to drive on in a spirit of this mutual understanding that things would go awry sometimes, but the best intentions were always meant.

To date, there was only one "sorry" and this was early on in the association and really meant absolutely nothing, now that I think about it, because the same behavior pattern has remained. Always, however, there was plenty of encouragement that apologies were not needed or wanted, the subtext being that I shouldn't expect them either, of course.

If I recall correctly, there was one major statement that an event that occurred was not my fault and this was a big, big thing in our friendship. Completely unsure of what I could have possibly done to cause the rift it was a statement that meant a great deal to me.

On the flip side of the coin, I apologize quickly and fully for wrongdoing. My 'brief' is completely clear to me and I know when I err. I give my regrets sincerely. I don't recall getting "that's okay" in exchange. If I've erred then apology or not there's usually more to be said on the matter. I rather think that the two sides aren't entirely balanced on this issue, but there you have it and in any case, that's in line with the arrangement anyway. We never shot for equality of any kind.

In the midst of this, I've struggled to put that practice into practice at home, until it suddenly occurred to me how much sense it made for the life I live. Let me explain.

My husband has a volatile nature; very sweet, but inclined to flare up at a moment's notice, the tone deepening and the pitch increasing as it suits him. So, over the years he's needed to apologize endlessly really. As a young man, one knew he'd lose it and then the apology would happen soon after. I got to the point of encouraging him to try to not lose it in the first place but decades later it's clear it is impossible. For some years, on the whole, he gave up apologizing. I noted it, smarted about it and got my nickers in a knot about it. If he didn't apologize, I felt, it meant he didn't get that it was troubling to be on the receiving end of a ranting man. I could be upset for hours.

More lately, he's gone back to apologizing and I think that is because he is more aware of his vast changes in moods and I think he'd like to do something about it (but can't), so he apologizes instead. Some upset remained. I tend to talk to myself in the shower about it, to get privately  upset and it is that upset that can ruin my mood.

But, then the penny dropped. There was something to the idea that if you didn't expect an apology, you didn't need to get upset at all. Better, I pondered, to accept his short failing on this matter and see it for what it was. Privately, he was sorry, and  also most likely to make up for it in some other way. More than anything else, this avoids a huge amount of angst on my part. I acknowledge him as flawed, but loving, that he appears to be vaguely aware of the flaw, at least after the fact, and likely sorry. The great part is that I don't allow it to encroach on my mood. Win:win.

I am not at all sure that my husband is willing to accept a 'deal' about this and I don't even suggest it. It's a private deal with myself. So, in those moments when I slip up, he's likely to want me to say "sorry", although I do also think that there have been many times when he has let it go, because it was such a slippery slope when we had both done wrong.

This decision on my part to not expect apologies is part and parcel of a newly embraced feeling of comfort with the philosophy of being 'the bottom'. If one takes to heart that one follows directions regardless of whether one likes them or not, then there's an intention behind that there will be the odd issue, but that the trust between the two of you means that the best intentions were always in place. More than that, it means that there will be moments when the 'bottom' doesn't care for what is going down but that's the agreement, the 'informed consent' that this is the sort of relationship wanted and desired; at the very least, agreed upon.

In some respects, that sort of policy also ensures the 'Top' and the 'bottom' are always working to make it the best possible relationship it can be. An absence of apology doesn't mean that the offense hasn't been noted and in this way there's an even bigger commitment for both people to do better next time. If the Top isn't sincere about wanting to be the best he can be under this arrangement then that too will be duly noted in good time. This only works when both people desire to improve and progress in their submission and dominance, I think. At least, that's my feeling upon writing, and a concept I've been mulling over for some weeks. I certainly wouldn't advocate it to the populous at large by any means but for those involved in a power exchange dynamic it may be an option worth considering.

Battle of wills

For most people, I imagine, sexual arousal doesn't happen every day. Supposedly, men think about sex copious times a day but even then I have to think it is a fleeting thing; a short circuit of the thinking, responsible brain that knows it must attend to business/economic matters. As Nicholas Cage in The Weatherman reminds us, the brain can be obsessive and that's when arousal overwhelms us. We just can't stop thinking about it. I've certainly known that feeling and it's a good feeling, until life gets tricky because you forget something as critical to your life's happiness and well being as remembering to bring home the tartar sauce for your wife.

I'm aware that some 'bottom' partners have daily rituals - to wear a corset, or to wear no panties, or to be naked at home. Then, there are the rituals like one member of the partnership irons the shirts or pays the bills. At times, there is something very sexy about a ritual. I think, for me, it is that there is a certain amount of force - control - associated with this. Maybe I feel that rituals are better than no rituals.

Yet, if something happens every day, if it is so ho-hum and defined that there is no doubt about it, does the arousal remain? Kinksters, of course, will find their love object always desirable - be that feet, or boots or long nails - but even then, I wonder if we all don't need a rest from that endless, circuitous desire for lust.

I read this morning that a remedy for some kinks is to initiate a very unpleasant smell around the kink object so that the kinkster will associate the nasty smell with the object and want to avoid the experience. Sometimes, my ongoing lust will initiate a feeling within me that I associate with 'too much'. I know that I need to take a break - immerse myself in activities that having nothing to do with sex, lust, power exchange or control. I live with certainty that the lust won't disappear so it's not at all a risky thing, certainly a good thing, to take a break from those activities, thoughts and apparatus that make for my lust. In this way, I can return to enjoyment of the lust later.

I think daily rituals can certainly be put in place. Once you've worn a corset daily for a while, living without a corset might seem unsettling. Once you've had long French acrylic nails the thoughts of regular nails may well seem impossible. And, this is where my argument falls down. This is a daily ritual, of sorts, for me, and it is well entrenched in my life. It suggests I can do rituals.

But, I'm struggling with another daily ritual, struggling to see it as something I can do continuously and struggling to see having the ritual as arousing, even though it has an erotic component. Actually, I struggled with the permanency of the acyclic nails at first too. Maybe, I'm in that stage again; struggling to accept that my own will means nothing here. I'm struggling to accept the significance of the daily ritual as to its power and effect on my day, my state of mind, and yes, to my high state of arousal. I'm caught in the vice between understanding that obedience is 'de rigeur' and the knowledge of what the daily ritual does to me. And, right now, the struggle is not being experienced so much as a turn on but rather a bit of a turn off.

I know that I am a natural submissive. My arousal of concepts associated with this state tell me that. Yet, I do find the 'every day' concept very difficult. Like, you mean there is no time off, I ask? There are no exceptions? There is no holiday or excuse acceptable? You mean, you're going to be a tyrant; an obsessive compulsive/anal retentive; rigid? Don't get me wrong, part of me loves rigid but part of me fights rigid, tooth and nail. In a battle of the wills, who must win? Don't even bother answering. I know. I know. Sigh.

Discipline

I think I have wanted a power exchange relationship my whole adult life. I'm excited by the oddest things - some sort of statement that something is not my decision, a commitment that something is done as told; an 'in your face' declaration that a task is given for "discipline" and to enforce control.

I accept such statements in a two-forked way. First, there is the intellectual sense where the words are challenging to me. Somewhere in the mix, that response is there within my mind. What usurps my responding to that feeling with some sort of expressed rebellion is the fact that these sort of arrogant statements of fact really turn me on. I get off on arrogance. I get off on the reminder that it is my role to do someone else's bidding; that my role is to please and satisfy.

When confronted with a task, day by day, day after day, 99 times out of 100 I do it uncomplainingly because I know I must 'face the music'. If I don't face the music and do it, then ultimately I face the music in another way, because there is no defense for non compliance. Do it. Don't do it. The music must be faced either way. I'm "evaluated". Could there be a more challenging (arousing?) declaration than that?

Still, the intellectual side of my brain, or some might say the willful side of my brain, insists every now and then on trying it on; complaining. I imagine this is to be expected. I imagine it to be not at all difficult as to how to respond. Only one person can be in control.

It's a test of the dominant's will and strength of resolve, but not one that I plan. I don't look for trouble, but trouble sometimes looks for me. My intellectual brain sometimes interferes with my pleasure.

Discipline prevails, as it should. For reasons I may never fully understand the disciplined life works for me supremely well.

Doll features

The mind of a doll is rather simple. She's an objectified thing and therefore she doesn't think too deeply or too much. The doll's mindset enables her to switch off from everyday concerns, to put the world aside for a period of time and zero in on rather slutty thoughts.

There's no denying that the doll is a slut. What she does and how she does it all relates to allowing her to be that which society would shun. As the doll, she is in a state of constant arousal. Basically, whatever allows her to feel her dolly state is allowed. Whatever doesn't allow her to sink into that space is not.

I hope it doesn't need repeating that the doll doesn't dress in such a way as her appearance would be considered slutty. To the contrary, the doll's mindset cannot be identified by the way she grooms and dresses at all. Her preference is skirts and dresses, of course, but they aren't the kind of garments one associates with a slut.  There are some hints, to be sure, but she's neat, clean, well dressed and groomed on the streets. What happens beneath her skirt is another thing but she raises limited suspicion from passers by as to her status.

The doll is subject to suggestion. She sees things and hear things and her simple, little mind processes them in her own unique way. She sees her acrylic nails all day and every day. Over time, she wonders what it might feel like and look like for them to be really long. Thoughts that were originally out of the question become intoxicating and one day she says to herself, "I want really long nails. I want to put my dolly state on display!"

The thought surprises her as much as it might other people. Where did this idea come from? And, why this day? There are no definite answers to this question, except to say that she has finally succumbed to the idea of very long and oh so slutty nails. This is her idea at her instigation.

She goes down to the salon and asks for a new set of nails. She's cool as a cucumber, steadily breathing, full of excited anticipation, until it is time for the man to bring out the cutters to cut down the extraordinarily new long nails. It's her move.

"Peter, what if they were an inch long?"

He demonstrates zero resistance to the idea.

"You want an inch?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

He cuts them down and to the doll's eyes they look even sluttier than she had expected. Once he has cut them he moves away to do a quick manicure for a little girl who has come in with her mother. This gives the doll time to take out her little ruler and measure them. They are more than an inch. They are even longer than she asked for. The man returns.

"Peter, I don't know. Do you think they are a bit long?"

"You want shorter?"

"A tad."

He cuts the nails to such a miniscule degree the doll can barely see any nail coming off at all. He clearly approves of the length. He clearly understands he is dealing with a doll!

It's time now for the final stage and he asks the doll if she wants clear polish as usual or color?

"Clear, please. Or, should it be color this time (to hide all that slutty white nail)?"

"No. Clear."

(Peter is a man of few words.)

"Okay."

The die is cast. It's clear. It's sluttsville all the way.

It's been a week now since that fateful day. It's impossible for the doll not to notice her claws. It's impossible for the doll to act abruptly, hastily; without showing due care. It's impossible for her to do some tasks herself and the dumdum dolly has to ask for help.

It's impossible for the doll not to be reminded a hundred times a day that's she's a doll; a slutty object ready and available for use.

It's lovely.

Service

A few weeks back I was making dinner. I think I was waiting for the vegetables to finish roasting, or some such process as that and I decided to turn on the television and see if I could find something interesting for a few minutes. My attention was immediately grabbed by a old nun. I had entered the documentary at the moment they were explaining that this nun was once a famous Hollywood actress. She was a gorgeously feminine and refined young woman and there was footage of her with her beau; a man who was engaged to her and very, very much in love with her, as she was with him. They looked stunning together.

Shortly before their wedding he noticed a change in her demeanor and asked her what was wrong. It was at that point that she revealed that she couldn't let go of the idea in her head to join a group of nuns; that whilst she loved him she felt a burning need to serve God.

He was devastated and for a time they were estranged. However, they returned to one another. To this day, I think some forty years or more later, she is still a nun; in fact, she is the head nun (sorry, I'm sure I am using inaccurate words) and he still visits her regularly. He never married and he never found another woman to love the way he loved her, and so he returns to her on a regular basis to visit.

I happened to have been viewing towards the end of the documentary and I saw them embrace and say goodbye to one another on this particular day. He walked away from her as he must have done endless times before and for a brief moment sadness was registered on her face, but then she seemed to go inward again, cross herself and turn towards the big cross on the table in front of her;  to her service towards God. Her equilibrium was restored. She was serene.

A few minutes before this scene, a young nun came to see her to explain that she was still having moments of struggle. The struggle was apparent in the words she chose and in her evident sense of agitation. The old Nun assured her that all was in order; that she had made so much progress. She was doing well.

It all moved me deeply. These people deeply touched my soul.

Courage

As I learn more and grow, progress and alter, I feel I know quite clearly what I would want to have. This, in fact, makes for far more challenge than I have ever had before because I know better than ever before that there is a big gap between what I would like to have and what I can have.

I see my husband trying to give me what I want and in his efforts to do so I also see that it is an effort he puts in for me. His focus isn't in it. He does (and probably must) maintain his focus on getting better. Ideally, he'd prefer that I look after myself and demonstrate empathy; be strong and stoic; patient and understanding; just that. This is not a time for a wanting and needy submissive but a time for a wife to exhibit strength.

I do wonder if it is time I 'let go' of what I want and focus more on what is. There is this sense that the writing here and the tendency to want something too much is causing me too much angst; far too much distress. It doesn't mean that my desires have changed but the relentless beating of my reality is so at odds with my dreams and fantasies that it has simply begun to hurt.

It is one thing to know that you heart beats faster and there is a lighter spring in your step when you feel your nature and can express that nature -  that you can live as you were meant to live - and another to understand that this part of your nature has no real current place to exist. To know that nature and what the expression of that nature can do and to not be able to express that nature is too incongruous for my mind to handle right now.

We have briefly discussed this and there is no easily identifiable answer except to say that first of all, he needs to get well. In his own mind the solution lies in his insisting that I become more involved. He very much wants me to come to him and tell me when I am in need; when I need him. I see his point of view and it may well work but I feel the hugest reluctance to do this and I have told him this. Still he insists. He says it is what he wants but I register this thought with heavy heart. I have only ever wanted what people have wanted to give to me. This directive goes against the grain of everything I know about myself - to go away and bleed alone when I am hurt.

Perhaps what I am experiencing is what all women experience when their husbands alter or grow unwell. As much as you want to aid them and empathize with them, your heart is in mourning for the life you once had and the man you once had and abject fear controls your responses and the thoughts in your mind.

In my mind, one must always have hope that things will turn around. I have always woken up feeling hopeful. Yet, in the past weeks I have woken only half aware that my mouth is forming the word hopeless. Is this now hopeless? Is it time to give up?

Well, I'm better than that and stronger than that but there are some days when I do wonder where this journey has taken me and whether the price I have had to pay is too high. But then we're in the final days of a three week  school holiday vacation where I have had precious little time to get on with my own work and maybe you are reading the words of someone who is desperate for some privacy and a little peace.

This life

I love my husband profoundly, deeply, absolutely, eternally and with passion. I want that to be absolutely clear. I can't imagine life without him. We fit together very well in every way: our bodies, our minds, our world view, our morality; everything.

Now that I have made that clear let me say that I can't imagine anything in this world more erotic, more fulfilling or more arousing than if my husband had had the mindset of an owner from the first day that we knew one another.

In some ways, he did have the mindset of an owner. I was always his girl. We were always a team. He expected that I'd follow him and that he'd have the ultimate decision making powers. That was all in place early on.

But, the business of training a girl just wasn't on the radar. For one thing, we were young and for another he had no yearning or natural desire to lead me to that life. He displayed no sadistic yearning and since I kept my masochistic desires well within me, he had no sense that anything was missing from my life.

I am prepared to say that there have been probably three occasions, perhaps more, when I have told him of my love and devotion but that I felt in some way that there was something missing, as if there was this need within me that wasn't being addressed.

In the early years, I could give him little detail about this feeling except that I felt I needed something more intense than we had. He loved me passionately and he always tried to allay my concern. He said that we belonged together and that we would always be together. I would try to forget about the longings and get on with enjoying life, but the feeling would return that in some way a part of me was not alive.

Eventually, I told him more about what I needed and he didn't hesitate to change for me as much as he possibly could. He read material and learned about the sort of dominance that I craved and more and more, I began to feel a whole human being; someone who was living according to their nature.

The truth is that some of the desires I told him about made him feel uncomfortable; or perhaps that I wasn't sure what I really wanted; the old story that 'you think you want it but when you get it you won't like it'. It was before children on a trip to Europe and in a town on the border of Switzerland and France (Chamonix, to be exact) that I first told him some things.

I can't remember how or when I told him about my spanking craving, or perhaps I didn't tell him and he gathered that to be the case from little hints here and there. I just can't reconstruct that period of time. What I do know is that he left the hotel room and when he returned it was with a switch. I was beside myself with lust and somewhere in that love making I did call out, "Please...please...take me up the ass." He didn't think I really meant it. He couldn't imagine that I could possibly mean it and it wasn't until two decades later (at least) that I assured him that I did definitely want that.

It wouldn't work for him to be the sort of dominant that I read about and to some extent crave in my fantasies and in my ideal world within my head. Our way of life has more of an ease to it than that. Over time, I have adapted to accept him as someone who has very high expectations of my responses to him. I no longer questions his decisions on any level or even attempt to answer without a respectful response (unless it is said in jest, at times). Our relationship is much more that of an owner/owned girl in many respects. It is all a part of me and him now and how we operate together.

But, I'd be lying if I said that life didn't shortchange  me there for a little bit. I would have loved to experience the full Monty. I would have loved to have experienced the fullness of having met a man  so dominant in his nature and with a hint of sadism that he pushed me and made me grow according to his own needs. Perhaps he wanted to mark me or insist on nipple rings or a small tattoo. Or, perhaps he insisted that I wear only certain clothes of which he approved, or that he told the hairdresser how my hair was to be worn, or how long my fingernails were to be. Perhaps, he had me perform a certain ritual each day or had me call him at a certain time each day with my thoughts. Perhaps he monitored what I ate or how often I exercised or what  I did with my time. All or any of this would have been insisted upon and demanded regardless of what I had to say about it.

I imagine that he wanted to educate me. He'd have me read certain books and he'd want me to express my feelings about them to him. He'd want me to achieve something for myself in this world and to this end he'd insist that I not put myself down, that I take myself seriously and that I have the courage to go out there and try. He'd believe in me completely and insist that I make use of my god-given skills to have the pleasure of succeeding by using them. He'd be stern about that and any efforts to put myself down would be met with a stern rebuke.

He would take me and use me in line with his own desires and my connection to him would mean that I wouldn't hesitate to oblige. If this meant accepting the pain he offered, this would be part of my life and it would be an expression of our love and my acceptance of him as my owner. I know I would flourish in this life because on the occasions that my husband has done this, I've experienced a heavenly rush of endorphins; a profound sense of adoration and happiness that I have experienced in no other way.

In my life, I've met his needs of a wife and he has now met all my needs of a husband. But in an ideal world, from the very first day my life would have focused around his life in every conceivable way, thereby feeding my intensely experienced desires. I would have molded into him and accepted his training of me as the richest and most prized of gifts and never known what it felt like to feel a hole in my heart; a desperate longing for I knew not what.

Loving me as he does, he wanted me to have what I so richly craved and concessions were made to grant me the gift of experiencing that sort of training; to know what it was to have a dress code formulated; to be trained to respond as an owned girl should. He knew that I was his well enough to allow me to experience the fulfillment of this need in a safe and respectable way and with a man I trusted and who has my trust to this day. His confidence in himself and in me and in our union is abundant and made that possible.

I write in this Internet space in some respects as an interloper. I come to this life late and I come to it in as complete a way as I can but with the knowledge that I will never know the life that some girls have. I am not jealous, but I am in awe.Yet, the pleasures I have experienced are entirely whole and complete. I have never been happier than in the past five years; never believed that I might have the opportunity to be this happy. If I were to die in my sleep tonight, the truth would be that I have lived completely; happily and according to my purpose.

Assistance

Anyone who has read regularly on my online journal would understand that in submitting to a dominant force, I am responding to an innate sense that this is right for me. I find it erotically appealing and as well, it is my nature to respond in a submissive way.

I feel compelled however to make clear to any readers that look towards this journal for some advice as to their personal lives that over considerable time I have reached a point along my life journey where I believe that responding to my life events in a submissive way alone is an inadequate response to the challenges I face.

I am not one to run to the doctor. I certainly attend his rooms if I am due for preventative care or if my children need his attention, but only once in my life have I mentioned in passing that I have a personal difficulty of a psychological nature. I didn’t ask for help and he obviously didn’t think I needed help at that point and it was just a cursory chat. Apart from that, I have never sought psychological assistance. I have simply done by best on my own.

The moment in time when one reaches the point and understands that one has to take care of oneself is completely arbitrary, it seems to me. I could not have predicted that the past week or so would see me understand that this is something I had to do for myself.

I have made the first appointment and set in place some professional care for myself. I need to talk my issues through with someone who can guide me over a handful of sessions in the process of making things better. I see it, now that I have made the decision and acted upon it, as a very positive step, both for me and for my marriage and our lives together. There is no reason at all that anyone should feel threatened about such a step. If I had a physical injury I would see my doctor, and now that I have identified that there is an issue that I cannot handle all on my own, I will attend the doctor that can help me with that. But, I concede that it is very new for us; absolutely the first time ever and it is a bit daunting at this time for us, as well as empowering for me as well.

This step has no effect whatsoever on my submissive state of mind or on the power exchange in which I engage. Indeed, I see it as an opportunity to live better, stronger, and happier and with more balance. If all goes as I hope it will, the power exchange will be strengthened and enriched. Indeed, I intend to disclose that I am in a power exchange relationship so that it is clear how I live my life, what comes naturally to me and what I want.

I share this information with you because I do feel a responsibility to the reader of my online journal. If you feel that you need some help along the way, whether you are dominant or submissive, you should get the help. There is no reason whatsoever why it should endanger the power exchange. To ask for help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength and I can assure you, I feel better already.

We

We say so much and yet say so little of what we mean.
We talk to each other and yet misunderstandings are rife.
We think our motives are understood.
We wonder why the other is not co-operating.

We aim to please one another.
We want the other to be happy.
We act naturally but purposefully for the other's good.
We live by a code only known to us.

We get closer and it feels so good.
We misstep unwittingly and some distance returns.
We correct.
We reconnect.

We endure.
We hold onto something dear.
We patienctly wait for matters to unfold.
We give thanks for having found one another.

Play

As a mother of four children and a woman who was trained to be a high school teacher, I watched with fascination last night a documentary about children’s play. American children, it was proposed, were at risk of losing essential free play in their lives. So competitive had American parents become on their children’s behalf and so terrified of what might befall a child if left unsupervised, their free play time was evaporating. We saw footage of very young children, less than eight years old saying that they felt “stressed” (I wondered how they learned that word...) They relayed that they were always expected to be doing something.

The vast majority of parents around the world would be inclined to agree that team sports build character. I agree that sometimes team sports build character and I also agree that sometimes team sports are just counterproductive. I saw evidence of both scenarios with my own children. It has to be the right sort of team and the right sort of sport with the right sort of coach to be a positive experience, in my opinion. When I saw one son being sidelined and the coach acting like a control freak weirdo, I suggested to my son that he might be better able to fill in his Sunday afternoon. He was just so relieved that he didn’t need to handle any more of our expectations of him. Instead, he did what he really wanted to do: highly competitive and challenging stuff but on a whole other level. As one expert on children’s play reported, team sports have the potential to build character.

And another thing: The researchers discovered that in team sports some kids hold back. They don’t want to make a mistake in front of the screaming onlookers. But, take those kids and put them with other kids in a smaller situation, such as their own neighbourhood away from the screaming parents and they became leaders on the sports fields.

But, I digress. The important point made, based on considerable research is that free play situations for children are essential to build their emotion intelligence; to develop problem solving strategies and conflict resolution strategies.

It was fascinating to watch what happened on a primary school playground when adults made available equipment other than balls and bats. They scattered into the trees, a variety of coloured scarves, and what do you know! Suddenly, many children were using those scarves to imagine all sorts of scenarios. They were, for forty minutes, different people in far off lands. The playground came alive with the sounds of children at play: happy, bubbly, creative children. It was a sight to see!

When I moved to America, I was just a simple Aussie girl with my own simple notions of bringing up children. If they wanted to play in a mud puddle on a stinking hot day, that was fine by me. That is what free, creative Australian children do. I was shocked to discover that this was a real novelty to the American parents who looked on. They had never seen such a thing: the abandon of a child who has sat on the sidelines all sticky hot summer day to watch his older brother in a soccer tournament simply have enough, take off all his clothes and wade through the puddle stark naked. To me, it was the most normal event in the entire world.

My two eldest children adored the Robin Williams’ Captain Hook movie, ‘Hook’, and I loved it too. It was so filled with an imaginative spirit that it was impossible not to fall in love with it. Imagine my confusion, therefore, when I found myself involved in a conversation with American mothers full of complaint about the movie. They thought it just “silly”. I just kept my mouth closed. Their world of bringing up children was something totally alien to me.

When we left America, we were snowed in for almost a week. Everything had gone. We had nothing in the house but some cardboard boxes. Never fear! We also had some masking tape and my daughter got to work to make a “house”. For three days, she and her younger brother played in their house, blissfully happy and content.

With my two younger children, I had to accept that their sort of play was going to be different. They both adored the screen and whilst they had full and varied extra-curricular lives in the form of music and sport and drama and so on, their creative play might have them in the library at lunchtime working with another aficionado of animation or whatever, putting together a movie. So be it. We are all different. A ball is not going to appeal to every kid just as one sort of recreation is not going to appeal to all adults.

As the child psychologist in the documentary said in so many words: It is about raising a resilient child. In this world the most important thing we learn to do is to adapt. Children must be resilient enough to adapt to life’s challenges. They can’t learn this skill wrapped in cotton wool, constantly supervised.

Whilst free play for my children was something that I instinctively understood and provided, it hadn’t occurred to me that I also needed free play; the opportunity to lose myself in a world of my own invention, or to have the opportunity to adapt to someone else’s version of a wonderful world.

My husband, too, perhaps didn’t understand that. He was a child who really knew how to play. With a large farm as his playground, he and his siblings were very creative and free indeed. But as he grew older, he may have lost sight of its importance.

Nowadays, we play freely and often with one another. And each time we do, we gain something: the opportunity to lose ourselves in our own creativity; an opportunity to be free and unencumbered. You are never too old or too young to want or need to play in a way most suited to you.