I see that it’s been 7 months since I’ve posted anything to this blog. There have been a number of reasons for this, many typical and mundane enough to make your eyes glaze over. Chief among these myriad banalities is that my professional life has been central to my existence in a magnitude unrivaled by anything in recent years. I’ve been out and about at school getting my pedigree papers to wave in front of people to demonstrate that, yes, I can be trusted to learn a few things on my own — and as part of that, I’ve been conducting research and helping others conduct their own.
Arguably less banal has been the hit to my self-worth that not taking home a paycheck for two years (secondary to seriously pursuing academics) has caused. Stress and coming off my antidepressants (otherwise, a major coup!) put me up a couple dress sizes, which did not help as I’ve realized that apparently my personal schema for “worthwhile” involves making money and being thin. Add into this perfect storm the fact that Skyspook has been less structured with me re: our kink and that I’m largely dominant and a leader in classroom settings (where I spend most of my time during the day), slave life seems some days like an island that I’ve happily visited in the past but rarely get to anymore.
It’s a tricky thing; for us, and for my own sanity, I need more personal power – and to do that, I have to go out there and fight the good fight. It’s difficult, too, in that I’ve built my skill set, knowledge, and experience up to a point that a lot of my success now depends more on opportunity and luck than anything I can completely control. And I’ll tell you, attempting to build power without any degree of control – it’s terrifying to me.
Don’t get me wrong. The last few years have borne wonderful fruit. I believe in my ability to learn and achieve more than I ever had before. I just don’t know where (if anywhere) it will lead.
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There’s more, of course, going on than all that. Otherwise, I never would have written. I know I devoted a good 300 words to why I don’t write anymore, but alone they’re not compelling, and up until this point, they didn’t inspire me to write (obviously), so alone they wouldn’t be sufficient.
I want to talk about a calm and a turbulence. I will probably be able to write about the calm but probably not the turbulence. There are many reasons for this. But first, the calm.
Recently, I’ve found a deep calm with Skyspook. I’ve been accused many times of being ridiculously complicated as a partner, but sometimes I think the opposite is true; I’m much too simple. For years now, I’ve been struggling with feeling like Skyspook loves me (and also that he is attracted to me). It’s a bit odd because I sometimes have no trouble feeling it from other people (that they love me or are attracted to me), and other people tell me that yes, of course, Skyspook loves me and that it’s obvious to them, but I have a difficult time feeling it. And the way he expresses his love often doesn’t help.
However, the other night, we were having a date night at home where we cooked a couple of steaks and watched Ender’s Game on DVD, and cuddling in the dark after the movie was over, I asked him where on this list of his life’s priorities our relationship fell compared with everything else, for example, his career, the house, saving the world (Skyspook’s a very idealistic person), etc. He answered quickly, without hesitation, that our relationship was at the very top.
Gentle reader, this changed everything.
It was obvious to him, but truly he’d never said that. And in my first marriage, I ranked just behind video games. Maybe I should have assumed that our relationship was Skyspook’s top priority, and maybe a lot of other people would have, but I did not.
He was amused that it was such a revelation to me. I was probably ranting at that point in response, taken over by so much elation. I told him it was like that idea that meeting me was the best thing that had ever happened to him – he’d never said that either – and he agreed to that.
A light is on, and it’s staying on. I’m calm. I’m secure in my relationship. That was literally all it took.
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The turbulence. I can’t write about it, although I want to. I will say that it has nothing to do with Skyspook.
A year and a half ago, an awkward alcohol-fueled situation drove me to journal about it a day or two later. I needed it, needed to get out the knots in my psyche, and as soon as I’d posted, I felt better. Instantly. However, even though I’d taken pains to keep names out of the writing and literally none of my close friends who weren’t there that night guessed the identity of all 3 subjects correctly (only one, who had a reputation of making insensitive remarks while drinking was ever correctly identified and only rarely, even so), 2 of them were very upset (one very hurt, one more angry – to my understanding) that I wrote and posted what I did. I’m no longer friends with one of them, and although that wasn’t a main cause, it acted as a catalyst to get the two of us fighting, and a bunch of other, more integral conflicts arose. And although I’m still friends with the other, she was very hurt for a very long time, and I don’t know that she’s ever completely forgiven me for what I wrote and certainly would never agree that I had a right to write and post it. There were a number of responses to the writing posted elsewhere that were quite critical of their behavior, and to my understanding, she disagreed with my depiction of her behavior and she felt that she could not defend herself from the critical responses without identifying herself, something she didn’t want to do. So I’d tied knots that she couldn’t undo without claiming something that she felt didn’t belong to her.
And when my pain ended (once I’d gotten out how confused and frustrated the whole situation had made me), hers began.
So here I am again with some turbulence. Something happened that gutted me, that has fucked me up in a novel way, and I don’t know what to do about it, how to untie the knots. But because of what happened before, all those months ago, I don’t feel like I can write openly about it – at least not yet. Maybe one day when it is masked enough that even the actors don’t recognize themselves in the scene.
Now I find myself with things that I can’t unhear and knots I will carry so I don’t tie more knots in others.