Love and gratitude

i am grateful Ma’am. Grateful for this lifetime and the time i get to share with you. Grateful that our life sometimes becomes a piece of musical theatre often at the most unexpected and silly moments. i am grateful for your steadfast and constant encouragement toward being a better me and doing the things i am scared to do. i am grateful for your faith in my talent as a writer and as a poet. 

i am grateful for our family and what we have built. i am grateful for your passion. i am grateful for your unflinching unwaivering love. i am thankful that you have been open to my love and devotion and commitment. 

i am grateful for you. i love you today and everyday and each day more than the last. 

Yours…always…

Getting Married

So Pretty Lady…we did it…we got married. Beautifully, authentically, and perfectly imperfect.  i have looked into your beautiful face so many times and it has never looked more beautiful than it did when i saw you coming down those stairs in that dress…me waiting there at the bottom in my dapper best trying to keep my heart from beating out of my chest…in that moment and all moments your girl…your boy…just yours…i knelt in front of you on those steps not just because it was the right thing to do but because you made my knees watery weak with those eyes and that smile.   We did it…we got married…you made my dreams real and we did it our way…not with legal irrelevancies but with love and community and creating a magical space where we could see and be seen as our whole selves.  i was your bride and your groom…you were my wife and my Lady…the boy was there at my side and Daddy was there giving you her blessing and her wishes just as i will be there for them when the time comes and you pledge yourself in love to them.  We did that…we made a place where we could be ourselves and our friends, our families, our loves, our people could see us and themselves embraced, honored, loved, and lifted.  We were all of ourselves on that day as true as any other…we were queer and poly and kinky and together in the bright sun with the salt water near by and the fall breezes just  beginning in the air.

We did that my sweet love…and i can’t begin to tell you of the gratitude…of the joy…of the love you have brought to my heart.  You have made me more, better, the best me i have ever known and i look forward to continuing that path with you for at least the next forty years…

yours..always

tonight

As i lie in my bed eyes heavy from a lack of sleep last night.  One of those nights troubled by too many thoughts and too many bad dreams i wish to set tonight up differently.  You, lovely Lady, are off on a walk with the boy enjoying the summer weather and a night available because you have accomplished much and made time to spend with your loves before you travel. I smile at the thought of the two of you together and i wait, as patiently as i can, for tomorrow when we get to share a slice of time.  Instead of thinking things that will keep me up i think of you…i think of your beauty and the color of your eyes…i think of a stolen moment today lying next to you with my arms around you feeling as though my heart would explode from love…i think of the profound simplicity i feel in your arms.  i think of the depths i have found with you…the road we have walked thus far and how hard we have both worked.  There has been so much accomplished…so much done and yet the ease between us is so fluid and lovely.  i have no expectation that the road ahead for us will be without bumps or potholes but i put my head on my pillow knowing that we can withstand anything the world might throw our way.

i knew how much i loved you in those early days when i was too nervous to tell you and then that day that i couldn’t hold it back any more…what i didn’t know was how much more i would love you today…it makes me wonder how much more will i love you tomorrow?

love and marriage

My Lady,

There seems so much i want to say and yet so few words that want to slip from my lips and fingers. The last year has been a struggle for me dealing with scarcity of time and commuting and those mundane world things that distract from the day to day magic. You have been amazing. You have been understanding, supportive, loving, firm when i needed it, passionate in our connection, blissfully hard on my body, and gentle with my heart. My commute is coming to a rapid end and my new job will bring opportunity and change and hopefully only a little trepidation and i couldn’t be happier about that fact. It means time to serve, time to grow, time to love, time to write, time that has felt like the rarest of commodities of late.

There is also such an abundance of love. You and me…You and the boy…so much marriage and wedding and engagement and joy to share and explore and plan…i can’t begin to describe the emotion that fills my heart when i think of it all…my heart feels so often like it will explode from the intensity beating there. i am so in love with you. And i feel the love you hold for me whenever you look in my eyes and call me your baby girl…or tell me i am beautiful…or touch me sweetly…or run your hands over my skin while i chop veggies in the kitchen…our connection seems only to grow brighter and stronger. My deepest desire is to make you happy always…to make quite certain you know how deeply you are loved…that you know my devotion and my dedication to you and us and our family. It feels silly how i worry that you won’t know…that despite my best efforts i will fail to convey how much i love and adore you…that you won’t see or won’t hear how happy you make me and how much i am grateful for your presence and solidity in my life. I hope that my words here may serve as a reminder…a reminder that this girl loves you.

I love you with all of my heart, mind, body, and spirit. I am proud to belong to you and proud to be a part of the family we have built. I am devoted to you with a passion and fire i have never known. It is my deepest wish and desire to offer myself up to you…to be yours. And i know that desire has already been fulfilled you have accepted and cherished me without condition and i will continue to kneel proudly before you.

I am yours…and i know though the words don’t quite explain it you are mine in equal measure….

Those are all the words i have for now…so for tonight i will finish with the two that have always summed it up

yours. always.

 

humanity

i have written before, i think, about imperfection…about being human.  i think, though it is partly conjecture on my part obviously, that the pretty Lady has felt a bit of her humanness lately.  She has said a few things that lead me to believe she’s been a bit hard on herself over a moment between us where i felt as though i had been imperfect and She felt as though she was.  It is interesting to share these moments of humanity between us, reminders that we are not perfect Owner and property but flawed simple humans who have chosen an adventure and a life that if we are doing it correctly is rife with mistakes and pitfalls.  i want to reassure her that she is amazing and her ownership has been and continues to be a gift and a privilege and beyond that her humanness is something i cherish and honor so deeply.

We have been reading a book about imperfection and vulnerability and how it is impossible to live a wholehearted life without being vulnerable.  When we show each other our faults, when we trip, when we don’t live up to our own expectations it gives us the opportunity to learn something new and to connect in a deeper way.  The pretty Lady and i spent a lovely evening and morning together last night and today and we would not have had that experience if the experience from the other day had not happened.  There are so many ways to feel imperfect, even as i sit here i can feel my own inner voices trying to gnaw at me because i am here and not driving for the Lady and her Daddy tonight…and i know that is ego and old voices but i also know if i meditate on it and sooth those voices i will make progress further on my own journey to heal myself and make my life better.  It is a small, simple thing but each small thing builds into the big things.

i think i may be mostly rambling but it felt right to put my thoughts down and to share them.  i truly hope the pretty Lady and her Daddy are having a lovely night out for their anniversary…and i hope they both know how much their love shines between them and how happy i am to be part of their family.

whirlwind

The days have just started blending together.  We have all been so busy either with work or the house or whatever it seems like there hasn’t been time to breath.  i feel good about the Pretty Lady and i…about our dynamic…about our M/s, about being her property and what that means for us.  i still struggle with taking correction and having a better emotional reaction when i feel i have caused added stress or disappointment.  i feel myself grow frustrated and angry with myself when i have failed to do something up to standard.  i know there is no other way for me to learn to do better if i am never corrected but i always want the tasks i complete to be above correction…to be perfect.  it doesn’t seem to matter how much i tell myself that there is no such thing as perfection and no possible way for me to be perfect but that doesn’t take away the desire for it.  The problem is when i allow my mind to wander down that path all it does is do damage to the Pretty Lady.  It doesn’t matter that i am beating myself up for my self-perceived wrongs…the blows still land with unintended consequences on the head and heart of my Owner…onto the one person i want never to harm.  It is a perplexing and fascinating struggle to accept with grace the occasional, inevitable correction…to take in the information without internalizing a sense of failure.  i feel as though i am nowhere near mastering this skill and i fear i never will be.  Some part of me knows that i have already worked hard on this and have actually gotten better than i once was but i know i am not yet good enough…and that alone seems to make it almost worse.   i don’t take correction as well as i should so not only do i feel as though i have failed at whatever task it is that is being corrected i compound that feeling by knowing that my emotional response is not what it should be either.  i have not quite seen my way out of this maze yet…but i realize i must because not only does my internal conflict do damage to my Owner and her ability to be a successful dominant it negatively effects the other people around as well.

This last time my being out of sorts helped to contribute to an extremely poorly timed moment of conflict with the boy as well…and has, i have now learned, been causing him additional stress whenever he is confronted with it.  Now i find myself fighting not to question my value…my quality…as a friend, space sharer, person because of the impact my strong emotions can have on those i care about.  i am working hard to let each person’s issues be their own…but damn is my brain screaming to internalize every bad thing i think about myself…it is an old narrative that is ringing in my ears right now and  i just don’t have time for it…but i fear i also don’t have time to properly exorcise it either…i’m hoping this short post will do some good…we shall see…i will close by wishing myself well and trying to use my gentlest internal voice possible…and try and hear the soft voice of the Pretty Lady…telling me i am loved…and cherished…and truly deeply valuable.

the road traveled and the road ahead

It occurs to me that I have not posted here in almost three weeks.  I find this to be rather unacceptable so I am rectifying the situation, obviously, since there are new words on the digital page.  I have been trying to come up with something to write about the last few days but I find myself befuddled by my own need for profundity.  I want to have something to say not just to say something.  As I write that I realize how full of myself it sounds, as though my somethings to say are so much more meaningful or worthy than other somethings…but such is life.  It’s funny to me how I can look at my words and see the ego in them and simultaneously know  I know how thin that veneer is for me.  Though I have most certainly found myself stronger and more confident and more in love with myself in the last couple of years than ever before I still find myself running into the wall of self-doubt.

Being in service to the pretty Lady has taught me a great deal about myself and has definitely afforded me the opportunity to know myself in ways that I didn’t ever think were possible and with that I have a much more loving and intimate relationship with myself.  The problem I find myself facing comes in those moments when I feel the old doubts creep in the back door and sit down for tea.  I find myself feeling that hollow sensation in my chest that speaks with the creaky voice asking me who I think I am and of what use do I really believe I could be.  I have come to a point where I generally see these voices for what they are, I recognize their faces and don’t let them control my thoughts and emotions but I am not yet completely adept at this practice.  The problem is when they do sneak in and sit down and start trying to talk to me I have a hard time seeing how far I have come.  In that moment I feel like all the work I have done is lost somewhere or worse yet never really existed at all.

Now before we jump to any conclusions I know that these thoughts are not true.  I know I am not back at square one…in fact…I know how far back square one is and that there is no chance of me ever being that person again.  I can almost see the core of light that burns in my center and beyond the seeing of it I can feel it, each day, a little stronger and yet I stumble…I trip…I lose my vision of myself and I become insecure…I doubt my abilities…I doubt my capacity to be good for or too another person or to myself.

I guess when it comes down to it I need to realize that confidence isn’t actually narcissism and self doubt isn’t the end of the world.  I find myself in the ever present situation of requiring some gentleness and allowing myself a moment to see how far I have come and to see that, actually, I am doing quite well.  I never feel comfortable giving myself too much credit…I fear it will stop me from doing the work…that it will turn into complacency.  The trick then becomes being able to see that I have worked hard, I am constantly becoming the person I want to be, and that part of that is leaving room for imperfection.

walking down the aisle…

So, I have been thinking a lot lately about weddings…about getting married…about being poly and getting married.  Part of me feels like I should be waxing political and philosophical about the broader implications of reclaiming and reconstructing an institution that is typically the monogamous ideal and yet an even bigger part of me just wants to talk about how happy I am at the thought of getting married.  Now that I think of it maybe just talking about my excitement accomplishes that other goal by its very nature.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was pretty convinced I was done with marriage, done with ever, ever going down that road again been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and then lost the t-shirt in the divorce.  I realize though that my thinking was flawed.  Yes, I needed time to heal and time to distance myself from the heartache and the difficulty of the end of my last poly relationships.  I needed to see the reasons that poly failed, the reasons those relationships needed to end, and to realize that I hadn’t ended with them.  In fact, that ending opened the door for me to find so much more of myself.  And now I find myself in this whole new place.  This place that is like nothing I ever expected and is yet so much of what I always hoped for.

The Lady and I have moments where one or the other of us blushes like a little girl at the idea of our wedding, the thoughts of having our love and our commitment, our family, witnessed and honored by our loved ones.  We talk about decorations and rings and honeymoon destinations.  We talk about how good it feels, how right it feels, how sweet and strong our connection has become.  All of these things make me appreciate the simple fact that I have allowed myself to grow into the person I am now and I am not allowing my past to dictate my present or my future.  I will not let past disappointment or disillusionment rob me of the joys I have in front of me right now.  I feel contentment and possibility in my heart not just for my own marriage but at the thought of the Lady and her other loves sharing their own nuptials,  their own commitments.

My wedding isn’t going to look like anyone else’s and my family certainly won’t either.  I will cry at my wedding…I know I will…it’s what I do.  I will also cry when I watch the Lady marry her boy…and when I watch her marry her Daddy.  I will cry because of the excruciating beauty of the moment and I will cry because I am proud and I will cry because I am in love.  I will be honored to witness the love of my people as they share their commitment with the world in their ways just as we shared ours in our ways.  I don’t know that I can describe what it feels like to be truly a part of this family.  We all try and pretend a certain cynicism, myself to a lesser degree due to a terminal case of romanticism but  there is magic in this family.  There is magic in the love that lives here.  There is magic between my Lady and me just as there is magic between her and her other loves.  Each spell is different, with its own incantations and its own potions but each shimmers beautifully with its own light and I am excited to honor each in my way.  I feel as though this is a season of possibility here in our corner of the world…and I can’t wait to celebrate.

roller coasters

So I made it through the birthday…quiet successfully.  There was much sweet relaxing fun to be had over the weekend with the pretty Lady.  It was really special and sweet to get to spend so much uninterrupted time together, something that the regular poly schedule just doesn’t really provide for any of us.  And my birthday itself was pretty great.  I got to help the pretty Lady organize her new creative space and then had an impromptu dinner with many friends and maybe a couple of cocktails.  There was much giggling and laughing…and hot drunk poly sex afterwards…all in all a very happy birthday for this little slave girl.

And I’ve been working really hard on focusing on those days rather than the other days that have passed between that day and this one.  In the intervening few days my other poly relationship found itself dashed on the rocks in port break-up.  This has left me feeling a roller coaster of emotion.  There is so much in my life that is so solid, and so good.  My relationship with the Lady is amazing.  It is rich and deep and steady… i can’t even count the number of wedding conversations we’ve had lately…conversations that aren’t just someday but reality…conversations that warm my heart and make my head feel a happy sort of floaty sensation.  And the broader poly family is feeling strong and in place.  The boy and I are looking forward to him living here and us cooking together and making a home here with the Lady…it’s kind of awesome.  And then there is this other feeling…the achy feeling in my chest of loss…of sadness…of anger at the fact that another pretty girl, one i had trusted to be honest with me, to love me, to be with me…us…girls together….has decided she can’t do that right now.  She can’t or won’t figure out a way to make it work for us and that triggers feelings of a lack of self-worth.  The little brain hamsters wake up and start gnawing at the straps and their squeaky little voices start chiming in about how I wasn’t worth fighting for and I can’t trust that people are going to stick around if I need things…or change…or grow…or try and be my true self.

I fear losing all the other amazing things that I have going on and I feel shaken by that fear.  I want to be able to tell myself how irrational it is all the time and more importantly I want to be able to believe that.  Deep down I know that my fear does not come from anything real, all evidence in my life points in exactly the opposite direction in fact.  But my brain starts searching for evidence, evidence to validate the tightness in my chest.  The hamsters whisper…”see, see that thing over there?  see that it means nobody really loves you.”  And “oh see that other thing, that means nobody really wants to be with you, even around you.”  I sit down and try and tell these voices that they are projecting fear and negativity onto completely meaningless, innocuous events and most of the time they listen…or I listen…and I quiet myself down.  I think I’m doing an all right job…but I still have these moments when I feel tears in my eyes…and I have to wrestle them more bodily.  I have to yell at them to stop…that I know they lie…I have to use the Lady’s voice in my head telling them NO!! until I can breath.

It seems like one day I am fine…and the next I feel sad and small.  I will keep wrestling.  I will keep the brain hamsters in their cages.  I will not give in to the crazy talk they keep trying to share.  I will not judge myself for grieving.  I will not judge myself for my feelings but I will also not let them drive me places I don’t wish to go.

I may also eat some Girl Scout cookies.

the good one…

Yesterday/last night was interesting emotionally, it certainly did not end where I thought it would…but I guess things rarely do…end where you think they are going to.  The pretty Lady and the boy were…I don’t know…i guess fighting is the best word…yesterday.  Whenever that happens i have to remind myself pretty actively that it is not mine and that i can’t fix it.  I am a protective nurturing sort and when I see someone I love hurting I want to fix it, I want to make it better…and when it’s poly shit like that I can’t fix it, it’s not mine to fix…I’m not the one needed or wanted to fix it…and no two ways about it that sucks.  It is no one’s fault that it sucks it just does.  My problem is that when I find myself in that place I start to feel useless…at least this time I could recognize what I was feeling and channel that energy into something productive…I did the things that I know for certain make me useful.  I cleaned and tidied, I took care of the house and the cats…kept things in order.  That helped, helped me feel centered and focused, allowed me to remember my service and how good service makes me feel.

When I was done, however, I found myself once again at loose ends.  The pretty Lady was spending the night in town at Daddy’s house for the first time since she moved in with her other partner…a whole other story there…so I was concerned about her but confident that she would reach out if needed.  So I hopped on facebook and chatted with a friend who is having some poly growing pains with her partners and saw that the boy, my little brother, was also online.  I knew he’d had a rotten no good day and was probably feeling low so I decided to reach out and I am glad I did.  I ended up going over to his place with some beers to gossip and talk and generally make myself available if he wanted to open up about poly stuff.  It took a bit for the conversation to wind around to the poly stuff…but it eventually did and I’m really glad I decided to go over there and talk with him.  We talked a lot about fear and insecurity and how those things exist in some form for all of us, in our own ways.  We talked about how much work relationships take poly or mono…we talked about some of our ideas about each other…he told me about his fear of me not liking him when he fights with the Lady…I talked about my misconceived notion that he is never afraid to ask for what he wants…that he has no fear of no…he cried…we talked about vulnerability…it was good.  We also talked about how invested we are and how good it is to be cutting our own paths and not being chained to ideas just because they are the accepted way of doing things.  It felt a little like we put more bricks in the foundation of our poly family.

Towards the end there were some texts from the Lady…I was happy she was drunk and having fun and dealing ok with the sleeping arrangements for the night and was happy to tell her that the boy and I had had a good talk.  I got home settled in and sent a couple of more texts…I was about to go to sleep when I got a text from Daddy.  Now I don’t often get texts from Daddy…maybe four or five total…ever…and this one sort of floored me.

It said “I know it’s hard being the good one because you get less attention but we love you.”

Without any warning I read it and burst into tears.  Through those tears I responded with a thank you…I’m not even sure I can express what the thank you was for exactly.  Maybe it was for the fact that it came from Daddy, who is conservative with her words and therefore they hold even more power when she uses them.  Maybe it was having someone who hadn’t even seen me that day know the very thing I’d struggled with for a better part of the afternoon.  Maybe it was some dawning deep realization of just how loved I really am.  Maybe it was the beginnings of a  release of that deeply ingrained brain hamster that likes to tell me that I’m only valuable to the people I love because of what I do not who I am.  It was probably some cocktail of all of the above…but the tears were cathartic and intense and still on my mind.

Poly is not easy, service is not easy, D/s is not easy…and yet some days it is…and sometimes even when it is hard and complicated…it is still the best thing ever.