Category Archives: having limits

Full head, full house, ouchie arms

If my arms were great I wouldn’t be able to type much because I have four kids here. My arms suck though. There are a few things I want to try and remind myself of, maybe so I can talk to Noah about them.

My shrink is quite perturbed by my level of interest in Deity. This is becoming A Thing We Talk About. She’s all: “Sport fucking! Yay! Falling in love. Boo.”

When I mention that I already love other partners she cocks an eyebrow and says, “You don’t blush and stammer when you talk about them.”

Well, maybe that is true.

I have a better idea of what I want from my submissive. I have times when I don’t feel I have the oomph to do what I want to do but I feel deeply secure that the line of stuff I’m interested in asking for are all things that are right up his alley.

I have… more comfort around Cupid. I think I’m a lot more into him than I should be. I’m tap dancing on a high wire trying to figure out how to keep him in a spot in my life even though he’s probably not going to be interested in the group stuff everyone else will put up with. I went from wanting someone to do something to wanting Cupid to do things but I’m not 100% sure what.

I’m really not interested in hunting just the now. I feel like I have a lot to explore and learn about and I’m really excited about that.

And I get to balance it with helping Noah feel secure. The whole ship won’t sail if he feels insecure. First I have to figure out how to help Noah feel loved. Then I can figure out what it means that I love these other people.

Because I do. I love my Daddy’s. Every single one of them for different reasons.

What do these loves, these attachments mean? I don’t know. Many of them have been there for a long time. (I messaged Daddy James today to say that even though I was in his neighborhood… I still am not fucking him. Sigh.)

I do love these people. But what does that mean?

What is love?

Some love is possessive and about ownership… but not all love. Sometimes love is about generosity and sharing and wanting them to get joy from anyone but you. Loving someone can include hoping they find the girl of their dreams and settle down and don’t have time for me.

But not Noah. He’s not allowed to run out of time for me.

I fall in love easily. I fall in love often. I fall in love with great intensity. Usually I love forever.

If I sat here and listed allllllllllllll of the people who have a piece of my heart… I’d sound like I was bragging. I would be bragging.

Aren’t I a lucky bitch? I have been able to love so many people.

Some of them even loved me back. At least a little. For a time.

Do any of those loves mean I do not love Noah? I don’t see why that would be true. I married one man. One man has seen me through hardship and illness and despair. One man helped me create the babies that give me life.

It really doesn’t matter how much I love other people this will always be true.

Noah is the only person who ever really looked at me and decided that he was going to prove to me that I am worthy.

Loyalty my friend, loyalty. But what does that loyalty entitle him to? My friend who was here the other weekend says jack shit. My shrink says definitely not sex.

I don’t know what I think.

I know I shouldn’t care what random people out in the world think. I really shouldn’t. I was stupid enough to read one of those “People who commit suicide are selfish” posts. I shouldn’t have. I should have opted-out and done some self-care.

Suicide has shaped my whole life. My grandmother killed herself by overdosing when my mom was pregnant with me. My mom dealt with that loss through my infancy. It was hard. She had been very close to her mother. I don’t really know why. My brother lit himself on fire because he could not cope with the pain of his life. Given how his life was… I don’t feel I have the right to anger. Was he selfish? Yes. But he had the right to be. He was left alone in care facilities where he was abused and that was all he would ever know. My father sat in the garage with the motor running and wrote notes to everyone in the world telling them that I was an evil liar and he was innocent. Even though he’d already confessed and collaborated every story. He wasn’t going to drive himself to the court room that day.

Selfish is just so beside the point.

My therapist OD’ed on heroin. She could not deal with the pain in her life. My adopted step-mom (long story) OD’ed on injected pain medication she was not prescribed. She could not deal with the pain in her life.

I have been institutionalized for attempting suicide. My stomach was pumped and I’m still here.

I don’t have a lot of the attachments other people have. I get what I create. I do the absolute best I can with the platonic friends I have…

Sharing sex and intimacy creates tighter bonds.

I don’t feel like I’m in a position to turn down a good twitterpation. Even if it makes my therapist uncomfortable. Am I going to wreck my life over it? No. I hope not.

Noah’s parents just sent us a cheerful letter to tell us about the cruise they are going on. The same month as the one we are going on. The one they won’t go on with us because they have to “get the hay in”. The hay they won’t touch with their hands because they have employees.

What is attachment?

I’m listening to the kids as they play in the back yard. I’m kinda ridiculous about enforcing outside time. “Y’all spend too much time inside. Get out into the sun. Go. Go. Go.”

I do go with them…

Right now I medicate. It was a long day of driving and being sober. Processing with my therapist. I feel like I’m almost ready to be happy. But not till I deal with Thursday. Oh Thursday.

I love you so. I have been such a twat waffle and I do not deserve your forgiveness. I have no. no. no. no idea how this will go.

Fuck.

I’m thinking of a pithy movie quote, I think from Girls Just Want to Have Fun “You always hurt the one you love.” Shannon Doherty? Is that it?

Anyway.

You know… I think I love my biological father. Even with everything. Most of the people who raped me… I loved them. Many of them I love them now. I might feel really angry with them… but I love them.

What is love?

Even though Tommy spent my childhood beating me and trying to rape me… I loved him. I’m sad his life was so terrible that he had to die to get away from it. I cannot bring myself to be angry with him for not wanting to suffer more for my convenience.

It is almost the anniversary of Tommy’s death. Next month. Eighteen years now. In three more years he will have been dead as long as he was alive.

Rest in Peace, Tommy.

What am I doing with my life?

I am trying to stop being a destroyer. I want to be a builder. I want to be someone who makes less pain in the world and not more.

There are reasons for temporary physical pain that alleviate intense emotional suffering and I don’t know how to deal with that dichotomy. Sometimes I don’t know what I am doing.

I want to figure out how to help there be less pain. One of the ways I do that is to understand and find compassion.

I like loving lots of kinds of people. They all teach me different things. I learn best by being able to stand very close to someone and bask in their presence. I know this after many years of trying a lot of ways to learn. I will pick things up faster. I will learn more quickly. I will try to synch up with this person in any way I can because the drive to conform is what keeps our species alive.

The main reason I manage to be so god damn weird is because I have allowed myself to pattern off incredibly different people. Contradictions are ok. We can all solve different problems.

Ok. Time to be off.

I love you. Even when I have no idea what that means.

Shame is complicated

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Well. I am starting to set up conversations with people. It’s going to take a few days to schedule all of them. Scheduling is a moving target. And I’m trying to figure out how to build the wave. Looks like the first chat will be the easiest and least stressful. The next scheduled one is the one I’m most anxious about. Then I don’t know where the rest of them fit in yet. I need to leave time for crying after these.

It won’t be someone else’s fault I’m crying. I do it from stress.

I’m scared. I feel like I still… know my boundaries when I run into them and have to cut to stay “ok” in my day to day life. I don’t realize until I’m way way way over capacity “Oh I should have stopped a while ago.” Then what do you do? Because if you cut to cope because you are over capacity PEOPLE ACT LIKE THE WORLD IS ENDING. OH NO. LET’S THROW EVERYTHING IN THE AIR AND CHANGE EVERYTHING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS WRONG.

Or maybe I was a little over my rev limit?

Fuck. I don’t know.

I feel bad that my ability to cope is so limited. It is a lot bigger than it used to be, but I still have limits.

It really complicates things that interacting with children (and their uhm questionable fucking ability to respect body autonomy) changes how I can handle adults. And that is so variable and it feels so incredibly unfair. Like, if Noah had a date scheduled after the day/night I had with the kids yesterday…

Oh god I would have flipped out. But when you are dealing with other people you need to schedule commitments and keep them. So my boundaries with other people aren’t allowed to be fuzzy and squiggy like that.

But my life is fuzzy and squiggy and variable and I am not someone who can manufacture consistency for another adult’s sake.

I have a hard enough time providing consistency for kids. That is my limit.

I have a hard time being patient and giving and loving with adults when I’ve had 12+ hours out of the last 24 with a kid screaming in my fucking face and hitting everyone. One of the kids had a hard day this week. It happens. These are tiny little people who have a lot going on with their sensory systems. There are days they are just fucking overwhelmed and they are obnoxious as fuck to deal with.

At the end of that I have no patience to give to grown ups. I really don’t. And that’s not fair. I feel like a fucking asshole but if I am activated that many times in a day I literally just can’t turn around and give to an adult. I will flip out and start screaming and breaking things.

I need to go hide away from people after that. Because I’m frazzled as fuck. I got through it without being mean to the kid. I didn’t scream. I wasn’t unduly rough. I didn’t punish harshly. I did enforce a metric fuck ton of time outs. But that seems appropriate and useful. Stop hitting people. It’s not ok.

I’ve seen a bunch of kids go through phases like this. It isn’t about a kid sucking or being bad. It’s a hard phase and it takes patience, love, and correction correction correction.

I get so tired.

I feel like an asshole playing the “traumatized body/brain” card a lot. But the reality is that my central nervous system is shot. I have an acute stress disorder. These things are noticeable strain. I do have limits. Things that activate my emotional system… I can only be calm through so many. Once I get scared enough… I’m not physically capable of thinking and processing the way I must in order to act like a fully present adult. My range of tolerance is wider than average (according to the shrinks I’ve been seeing for a long time) but it isn’t infinite and I start off so much more distressed than average.

I don’t want to take things out on people because I am moody and variable. That means that mostly I assume to defaulting I should offer nothing sustained at all. Because I might fail.

So far Pam is the only sustained once a week dinner guest who can actually deal with my emotional variance and the fact that sometimes you show up and I’m screamtastic and fussy and… no fun.

Everyone else stops coming.

And Pam is leaving the state. Eventually. She keeps threatening. We’ll see.

When I feel ok I have a lot to give. I have patience, love, energy, tolerance… when I don’t feel ok I feel like a bank vault. You don’t open that easily or for fun. It’s fucking hard and takes a sequence of codes and… then only take out what you fucking have to what the fuck close that fucker already.

This is why I don’t want “polyamory”. I’m not good enough at being consistent enough to be a dependable part of a group of people like that. I feel ashamed of myself, but it is true. I have very good friends who sometimes want to have sex with me. And I love them a lot. I will move mountains for my friends. When I can.

When I can’t… I fucking hope you have other support people too. Because I will fail you. I give you what I have to spare. That is what I can give.

I have signed on for being the sustainer of my children. I have signed on for helping to sustain Noah, with the strong caveat that he knows sometimes he has to catch himself. (Hey–he can’t always catch me either. Seems fair.) I have signed on to be a consistent source of non-continuous sustaining for my Bonus Kids. I’m one of Their Grownups. I like that. I like that I did manage to find someone who thinks I am worth the trouble of coming to because their kids need someone like me.

I’m grateful I managed to find folks for that. It wasn’t looking like that was going to work out. It was looking like I was not worth that much effort from anyone.

I’m really grateful things have gone this well for 6 years with my Bonus Kids.

I would never ever ever ever ever play with or sleep with the parents of my Bonus Kids because I can’t fuck that up. That’s like shitting in the waterhole. It’s really stupid long-term.

I fuck up a lot of sexual relationships. I fuck up a lot of non-sexual relationships too… but I fuck up sexual relationships faster. I run hot and cold and that hurts people.

Even I need to understand some boundaries.

I know many dozens of non-breeding long-term polyamorous adults. I have never been capable of the emotional consistency I see them enact. That’s bothered me my entire adult life. That is part of what reminds me of how broken I am. I know so many people who can do it. Who can be consistent and dependable in their emotional reactions.

My emotional reaction to thing A is impacted by thing B and thing C and thing D and thing E and I don’t fucking know how that will go on any given day.

I’m more predictable and calm than ever in the past. How come this progress never ever ever ever feels good enough?

Ok, I just thought of a piece of why Noah dating is so difficult for me…

I always know, every day, that at the end of the day I have to handle the extent of my emotional variance on my own. Noah helps a lot more than anyone else but he has limits. His manufactured cheerfulness is part of what he does for me. That consistency of affect helps me more than words can say. I calibrate off of him. I try to match him. I model after him. When he isn’t here and I am flailing… it’s hard. Even if he can’t sit down to process with me for hours, being around him is regulating.

If I am going to leave more space in my life for not depending on him to be physically present and I know that he is leaving me to go do something fun with someone else…

I need to lock down hard on not depending on him. Because I will resent the fact that I will sometimes have really shitty days and he will be out having fun instead of helping me. Because I built a life that was very near my carrying capacity and then I added shit and sometimes I get really overwhelmed and… I don’t have enough help. Getting less is hard.

I do encourage him to go do things with friends. Because I feel guilty as shit that he doesn’t have much of a life. He works and has the social life I bring to him, mostly. I don’t know if he’d be more motivated to seek out more of a social life if I provided less of one? I do invite a lot of forking people over. He’s not just hiding at home with his family or working. But not much is of his initiation.

But dating is… different. I feel bad about that but it is.

It isn’t fair that I don’t really believe someone can treat me like I’m important and be seriously in love with someone else. I think people can fuck their friends and still be nice to me, sure. But be really in love? Not really.

Love means so many things. What is love?

I will lose time and support in that equation. Because love may be infinite but time is not. I’m doing fairly well… because I have the level of support I have. If it decreased I would… have a hard time.

If I have to spend yet more time alone with my kids regulating myself… that has a cost. The road trip demonstrated that to me quite clearly.

I wasn’t all that nice by the end. Not really. The kids were so glad to get home.

Both kids have commented a lot recently that I’m doing better. They have individually and collectively commented on the fact that I’m not screaming anywhere near as much as I used to and that is really nice.

I’m scared to rock this boat.

I’m scared that being selfish with my energy and only wanting to give it to my kids like this means I have no business pursuing nonmonogamy because I am just using my friends and I’m not offering good trades.

If I’m going to do this… I need to get more comfortable with canceling going forward. I can’t pay the cost of doing something I don’t want to do in the moment any more. And that’s complicated.

I’m not dependable enough and… that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be doing this at all. Maybe swinger parties. Other than that I’m too much of a selfish asshole to date.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

This is part of my transactional shit. Noah and I talk very explicitly about what we trade. What kinds of energy expenditures we each need to receive. What are our priorities and which can be dropped when things get tight?

I don’t have enough to trade other people. Not really. I have “what I have going spare today” and often that is so little.

The only consistent front to Noah dating that I can manufacture consistently is space. I can’t promise closeness. I can’t promise loving reconnection. If I have to cope on my own then I need to fucking cope on my own and that is messy and hard. Because mostly how I cope is to be pretty fucking hard on myself. That is how I have come this far.

I did not get this far on compassionate self acceptance. I got this far from being a fucking dictator with my body who doesn’t give a shit what I’m feeeeeeling.

Just work, bitch.

But Noah really wants me to be sunny for him. I can’t do that when I’m coping on my own. It is variable and inconsistent and happens randomly. That’s how it has always been. He is spoiled by how consistent I have been able to be while bouncing off of him for hours a day.

That’s from you. That’s from modeling off of you. When I lose you…

Noah teaches me how to be nice. I can hear it in his voice. When he errs towards nastiness it feels like an instrument being played off key and I instantly mention that he’s harsh. He stops, gets this weird look on his face, and tries again.

I think that is a lot of what has allowed me to be as stable as I’ve been in the last ten years. He works so hard to model it.

When I lose my model I fuck up so much more. That doesn’t feel like a fair burden. And, I know this is bullshit, but I’ve had a hard time with how much he works. I’m not supposed to feel like that is a choice to be away but that’s been hard. I’ve had to be very conscious and deliberate around not being an asshole to him over that. It’s not a rational reason to be mean to him and I’ve had to work on it because it is triggering to me.

It has taken a lot of time and effort to be truly supportive and not kind of an asshole about how much he works. I think I’m pretty good now, but it wasn’t easy.

Noah is the person who makes me feel safe. That’s not fair. I know I should “feel safe in myself”. Whatever. I don’t. I never have. I spend a lot of time feeling like I’d like to vibrate out of my fucking body to get away from myself because I am the problem. I am the one who brings so much pain on myself.

I am the one who can’t behave consistently enough to be worthy of love.

Maybe if I were someone who could say, “Today is a bad day for a date… you should reschedule” I would be able to handle him dating without wanting to scratch his fucking face off when he comes home all excited and I had a shitty day with a side of shit salad. But I am not capable of doing that kind of thing. I’ll put my head down and tell him to do what he wants to do and then I’ll need three days away from him because I hate him so much.

It isn’t fair. Or rational. Or whatever. I know.

I have never had a time in my life when I was not giving to other people pretty much at the extent of what I had to give. I’ve never had a time when I was just… idling. I’m tired. I have hard days with this caregiving crap.

Noah is tired too. His job isn’t easy. He comes home to us.

I’m sorry I am not good at letting you have other people in your life who are more dependable and worthy.

That’s something Noah brings up a lot. I’m really insecure about the fact that everyone he has wanted to get involved with since we got married is just… so mellow. He brings it up really frequently how irrational I am because these are incredibly non-threatening people. They are not drama.

I’m the problem. It never comes from someone else. Just me.

But he also doesn’t want to deal with the fact that giving him space to go be with people who are not worthless pieces of shit means that I am going to spend a few days hiding to deal with the fact that I don’t really like being the problem, the drama, the variable one who just can’t get her shit together.

I feel embarrassed that I fucking exist.

Just stop crying about things that shouldn’t make you cry you stupid, whiny bitch.

None of these people should make me cry.

Being alone makes me cry.

Then why do I need to go be alone once he comes back?

Because I had to hold it together in front of the kids and I need space to recover from that facade. I can’t model off of you when I need to react to you and I have not been allowed to do so even a little bit all day. I needed to pretend all day that I was fine and everything was fine and I don’t mind lots of extra alone time with the kids, sure why not.

I have to pay the piper for that later.

And I’m not supposed to take it out on you. That’s not fair either. I can’t let my tone of voice get shitty. So I need to be alone. In order to not take my emotional variance out on you I need to be alone.

I’m told that my “yelling” by having a harsh tone counts just as much as when I escalate in volume and start screaming.

So yeah. I need a lot of alone time.

Even though I don’t decompress very well alone. I can’t decompress in the presence of the person I am feeling activated because of. I can’t use you to calm down when I am upset because of you. That’s what I mean when I say that it is losing my safe person. If I’m crying because I had to spend more hours manufacturing sustaining cheerfulness alone because you wanted to go fuck someone else… I can’t be in a room with you. I just can’t.

I know we are already talking about several steps down the line from this. I know.

I feel like I should have some idea of what my feelings are given the conversations I’m going to have soon. Fuck my stomach hurts.

I don’t have enough to trade. I have no right to even be having these discussions.

I feel like shit.

Luckily the first conversation will happen this weekend and will actually be the lowest stress one of the bunch. I need to finish scheduling them. Oh golly.

*head desk*

If only I wanted to fuck fewer people this would be easier. Or Noah. Either of us, really.

Something occurs to me: a lot of this comes down to… I don’t ask for additional support on the really hard days. I just don’t. You have to just show up and see that I need it and provide it. Or it will be invisible to you. If Noah is going to be present less, he will see a lot less. Which will be massive in my life. That will be a huge reduction in support. Because I will not be capable of asking for more support in other ways. I just… that’s a thing. That’s a very known thing.

It all comes back to being my fault. Everything would be fine if I were less fucked up.

Words and asking

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Yesterday Noah asked me why I didn’t use my words to ask him for something if I wanted it. I hissed, “How well does that go?” He said that I get a lot of little things I ask for and almost none of the big things. I just about screamed, “That’s why I didn’t fucking ask.”

There is this story about my mom that goes around and around in my head. My mom got tired of having her little boys play with their Matchbox cars in the kitchen, the only non-carpeted room. She knew my dad would tell her no to ripping the carpet out of their bedroom. “It would hurt the resale value of the house.” So she waited until he went to work (he worked graveyards), put the kids to sleep in her bed, took speed, and ripped the floor up by herself. She had the laminate mostly installed before he got home.

I asked my mom why she didn’t ask him. She snorted and said, “If I ask then I get told no, then the consequences are big. If I just do it… he’s not going to undo it.”

I think that’s a lot of why when I decided I couldn’t be monogamous right now I said I just couldn’t follow rules and I needed to try stuff. I needed to see what felt right and not say no to things before I even really decided what I felt about it.

And that backfires. Like such arrangements do.

Sometimes. And sometimes it is absolutely the only way to get what you want at all. Yeah, I was a serious asshole. I really was.

I feel like the fact that my sex life has been entirely measured in someone else’s satisfaction for many years now has broken something in me. Something I don’t know how to fix. I’m bitter about how much “taking one for the team” I’ve done.

I guess the thing I’m getting from the team is physical support through disability. Oh.

It is interesting having a friend visiting for the weekend (sorry I’m puking) who is an absolutely ardent feminist. Of the take-no-shit-variety. I was doing my expounding on trying to figure out what I “owe” Noah.

She looked so pissed. I said, “It’s ok. Say it. Even if it’s mean.”

“I want to punch you in the face. You don’t owe him shit.” She went on at more length. But that bit is enough.

An awful lot of our relationship is predicated on transactional trades. We spend a lot of time talking about how much we owe one another. It’s complicated. It is a lot of what allows both of us to feel safe.

But there is no fair.

How much of everything in life has to be changed just because of one shift. I don’t know.

Yesterday I emailed all of my folks and told them I am not going to go out on a date again in May. We need to actually negotiate. This is involving some really long, rough conversations in person and a shit ton of livejournal entries on our private filters. There are things my kids don’t need to see someday.

I am so weird about boundaries.

I think that part of the problem right now is I have made a lot of deals over the years I probably shouldn’t have made. Not how I did. They took from me in ways I didn’t really have that much to give. And I feel long term hurt by them. And I’m feeling bitter. And I’m holding it against Noah.

That list of done-me-wrongs never needs to be part of the public record. That’s kinda like crying rape because you didn’t like the sex. The fact that these are in retrospect not deals I should have made…

That’s not something I’m going to publicly take Noah to task for. That’s complicated.

I made choices. I made choices I shouldn’t have made, but I didn’t know that till it was too late. That isn’t something to punish Noah for. But I clearly do.

Recently Noah made a list of shit he was holding over me (good god that. STILL?!?!) and I should probably do the same.

That won’t be public.

Noah and I are in a funny place. We both understand very clearly that if we don’t make this marriage work… we will just not ever be ok again. We won’t get over this failure. Neither of us would remarry and have more kids. We would date and be complete assholes about never trusting anyone again. This is… one of those things about our personalities. We both walked into this not sure that it was really a good idea to be taking a risk on even one person when we have been burned and burned and burned and burned.

When you learn before age 3 that you are not loved, not likable and all you are worthy of is abuse and contempt…

Trying once is really what you have in you. Getting over that is brutally hard. You can try once. After that it will be broken in a way that can’t be got back.

We get one shot at happily ever after.

No pressure.

To be fair most of the first ten years have been excellent. This really has been a good marriage. But some things need to change and how they need to change and what that shape will look like is… in flux and that’s god damn terrifying. Change sucks donkey dick.

I find it… interesting… that Noah is really willing to talk about a third kid lately. Yeah. That would put me right back on a choke chain. It’s true. I would go home with my baby again.

I want another baby. I’d see a high risk OB. I’d be at a hospital the whole time. I’d follow orders so I wouldn’t die. But… yeah. I don’t think it is going to happen for lots of reasons.

I know my friends are starting to talk to me about adoption but I’m really not done grieving the son I wanted to give birth to.

This is complicated with a gender fluid kid who really… is on their own journey.

I wanted to work through my shit with a little boy. I know that isn’t “fair” either. But I did. I have to grieve not getting that. I mean, I have a great relationship with my Bonus Kid and I’m really happy he visits more lately. But it’s not the same.

I have never been allowed to love a little boy of my blood. My nephew was the closest I came to that and… complicated. My brothers were violent monsters. I had no other family contact.

This is just a thing.

I dreamed about my son for years. Sometimes I wonder if I was dreaming about the sons I could have had with previous partners and that just wasn’t meant to be part of this story with Noah. I don’t know.

It’s complicated.

Yes I know there are lots of kids who need homes. They are going to have different problems genetically than my family. I don’t already intimately know what needs to be done to correct their unavoidable issues; I have researched everything that has touched my family extensively over the past fifteen years. It is going to be a very different very hard problem to work with a different child.

I am so tired.

Now that I have an almost 8 year old and an almost 6 year old, do I really want another baby?

Yes. I really do. But it isn’t going to happen. Sometimes I wonder if wanting space away from Noah is part of grieving that. He doesn’t want another baby.

I get why. There are good reasons. I feel sad.

Being a mom is kinda the thing I think I’m best at. I get quiverfull. I get it.

This is all so complicated. Because if Noah was all “Fine let’s have a kid” I’d be all “Bye side-boys. I’ll see you in 5-7 years.”

Even though the rest of the deals are still not where I need them to be long-term. I wouldn’t care.

Life is so complicated.

My biology understands that I exist to breed even if the rest of me would like to do other things with this meat sack.

People are so fucking weird. Even though I don’t really have the spoons to have a baby I would. I’d start trying this month if Noah consented. He’s about to be 40. Time’s a wastin’. I turn 35 this year.

But that ship has sailed. We need to figure something different out. Shit. That’s hard. It hurts.

We construct these careful houses where we can be safe. Do this, don’t do this. So we try to draw as little negative attention and as much positive attention as possible while maintaining stasis. We accept limits that may not be sustainable in service to particular goals.

I don’t know what sustainable means. I am not the best sustainer in the world. I work best in sprints followed by periods of collapse. Parenting that way sucks. So I have to be more level for them. Which is an interesting thing to balance. I can stay level if I stay small. Or if I get bigger with support.

I can’t be a bigger person and take up more room and get no more support and stay completely level. I can’t. [delete text that doesn’t go into the record].

I’m having feelings.

Thank you to everyone for the extent of the “I know you two will solve this” message I’m getting from a variety of folks. From folks we date/play with to other friends. It’s kinda funny. I feel all y’all believe in us far more than I do right now.

Thank you. I need you to carry that belief for a bit. It is hard for me.

Part of being able to construct your own reality rests on the basic requirement that you must be able to believe in what you are doing. I have a pretty good reality distortion field. But it’s flickering and I feel like I am not able to believe in what I am trying to make true.

I don’t know how to feel more safe and open right now. I feel closed off, defensive, scared. I’m not negotiating from a mindset of generosity. I have a scarcity mindset and I feel so tired of always having to take one for the team.

But Noah takes a lot for the team too. I’m not acknowledging that enough. We have both been running deficits for years. It isn’t just me. I… I don’t even know where to begin in this negotiation. This is so hard. Do we make lists of things we have been missing/pining for and then rank them in importance?

How do we deal with time? Is it about how much time we spend together? Is it about “how dare you spend time with someone else?”

Honestly I was out too much at night in April. I wasn’t touching base with the kids the way I want to. I have arranged all the night time babysitting we are going to have till the end of July, I think. I’m not going to go out more than that. No matter what it is for.

This time with my children goes so fast. If I miss much of this time I can’t ever get it back. I don’t get a second chance. I do remember that priority.

But I don’t ever get back the chance to have the sex life I want to have in this life either. If I just… don’t… that’ll be a thing.

How much do I want? I don’t know. Honestly given how busy my life is… I literally don’t have time for as much independent dating as I did in April. That’s going to kill me. No hyperbole. My body will give out if I don’t sleep more than that.

What does sustainable mean?

What is a need and what is a want?

I feel like I need to have some kind of nonmonogamous contact in my life. What that is… I don’t know. I think the need level is probably actually fairly low. I think one date a month probably would be ok. I’d like to go to parties at other times and be allowed to play then. I could accept having to play together. That would be fun to figure out. It would change who we play with somewhat and what kind of play we do. Maybe?

I can deal with evolution. I don’t have to play how I used to play, not exactly. I don’t anyway. So much has changed.

I feel like I did need to go try. It was wonderful and I’m really glad I got to be reminded of what SM means to me. And I got off a lot.

I do need some of this in my life. I may increase how much I need as my children need me less.

For now I do know that my time and energy is still… mostly going into the kids. I choose this. I want this. This is who I want to be. When I finish growing up I will be able to look at incontrovertible proof that I can sustain something. I need to see the real evidence of that before I will believe it. I’m not even halfway there yet. Don’t get cocky, wench.

Hubris is dangerous.

I have about three more years till I hit the halfway point. I believe I have about four more years with Eldest Child and about six more years with Youngest Child to teach them what they need to know to keep themselves safe… or they will have to learn it on their own painfully. That’s my window. Either I help them establish the habits that will carry them through a lifetime… or they have to learn them later, painfully, on their own.

Development is a funny beast. I’ve studied it a lot. I have incredibly strong opinions about brain development and attachment and behaviorism and emotional health and mental health and…

And I get one chance to do this right. Period. If I fuck it up I will forever more be trying to heal damage I caused.

No pressure.

I love unschooling. I’m not even being sarcastic. This is my kind of pressure chamber. I thrive under this specific kind of “Succeed. There is no or else. Succeed” pressure. I just… do it. Ok.

If you can’t find a way you make a way. The most resilient people are the ones who believe they have no choice but to make something work.

This whole “owe” thing is complicated. I get the anti-feminist bits of it. I do. But you probably don’t see how much it gives too.

Ugh. Systems. They exist for reasons and some of those reasons are good and some are shitty. WTF

But I really do need to think about this “you don’t owe him shit” thing. What do we choose to owe and what is being extorted from us? I think that is the more crucial distinction. I think making conscious trades and feeling indebted for them is not specifically evil. I think that having someone extort recompense for trades… is a problem.

Where is the line?

Shit monogamy is easier. You give what you have to give and that is that. Kinda end of discussion.

I NEVER EVEN TOOK CALCULUS. FUCK THIS ADVANCED VARIABLE BULLSHIT.

My kids are asking me a lot of questions about Lemonade. Yes they get to hear it with the swearing. There are some fucking subjects that deserve swearing. The work is to figure out context. We talk about that a lot. Code switching is a big topic around here. If you maintain super formal “nice people” manners 100% of the time… a whole lot of people will think you are a snob. Having multiple kinds of approaches to talking to people is handy.

I said to a friend “We only fight about nonmonogamy.” The response: “So you only fight about sex.”

Ok, yeah. That’s true. Not money. Not kids. Not housework (if I start feeling peevish about not getting enough help I can ask for it and get it with great civility).

Sex.

Sex is so annoying.

WHY DO I LIKE HAVING SEX SO MUCH!??!?!?! Sigh.

I really do.

I like what happens in my body when I’m having sex with more than one person. I like it a lot. I like what it does to my general energy level. Is it worth this fight?

Yeah. It is.

If we are going to be married for many more decades… I’m not spending them always taking one for the team. I need my sex life to be about my pleasure.

And pain.

I’m pretty sure I know who I want to hurt on a longer term basis. I am less convinced I know for sure what I need from my bottoming/submitting/etc. I have some idea of pieces I’d like. But are those all needs? Not really. I could be pretty flexible. I could adapt.

I am weirdly conscious of how much of my sexuality formed around my Owner. I’m ok with lots of those buttons shifting. I have no attachment to them staying where they are. But I need them moved and not just… ignored. If that makes sense.

I am a cheerful situational pervert. I’m happy to please the one I’m with. I don’t need all aspects of my experiences to be the same.

I’m not the kind of fetishist who collects the garments and sized toys that all future partners will wear one right after another.

But I’ve sure worn a lot of them. For a little while. I have never been willing to do that for very long.

I don’t like anyone that much.

Do you know why some of the awful stuff between Noah and I really doesn’t need to be published? It’s bad enough that I’m an abusive bully. I don’t need to publicly humiliate him. That’s a very different sort of line. I say some awful things some times. It’s bad enough that he can hear it in his head. He doesn’t need to see it. And know that lots and lots and lots of his friends are going to see it. Know his children can read the things that hurt him the most.

Oh JesusFuckingChrist No.

No. There are things that can’t be taken back. I can say that things are hard for me. I can’t list done-me-wrongs. Not publicly. No.

I owe my family better than that.

See how the owe is complicated?

It is useful and problematic at the same time. Just like me.

Selfish asshole

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I’ve said for a while that I’m not interested in being polyamorous. I also say that I’m not good at being monogamous. These are still both true. Noah and I have been talking and talking and talking. We are both wicked insecure. We both have a lot of abandonment issues. It makes sense given that neither of us have relationships with our families of origin.

We both feel kind of at sea in the world. We both have a hard time feeling truly connected, wanted, important. This isn’t a problem that one or the other of us have.

I’ve been hurting Noah. He’s been hurting me. I kinda feel like we need to do that sometimes just so that we have to stop and scream LOOK AT ME. STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Because over time we take one another for granted. We try to be grateful. We try to be aware and appreciative but it’s hard year after year. Sometimes we need to go do some asshole stuff so we can apprciate the fact that mostly we aren’t assholes to each other.

Last post I thought I’d have three dates a month and Noah would have one. Noah doesn’t really like what I will have to do to deal with that one date a month without being mean to him. Because I would have to take steps to deal with my feelings and not abuse him. I would need to create a lot of space around myself so I don’t lash out.

Because I would want to lash out.

Noah dating triggers so many insecurities for me. I don’t like it.

This is weird to me because I don’t freak out about him playing with friends at parties I’m at. That doesn’t bother me and I don’t god damn know why.

But Noah wanting to go out on a date with someone else… One on one time where he can pay attention to them because they are special…

I’m a fucking asshole.

Because I sure don’t mind me dating. Uhm, we decided I need to go down to two dates in a month. Because yeah. We aren’t cancelling May. Because that’s asshole shit. But starting in June we are going to… not be going out with other people so much. Because yeah. We may not be perfect at monogamy but spending as much time together as possible is really what we both want from life. If we feel that way we should act that way.

Going forward I am very happy about the boundary: no sex in places our kids go (other than our house). That feels… like a thing for me.

I’m trying hard. I’m trying to figure out what wants to bend and what needs to stay rigid and…

This is all hard.

But Noah doesn’t want me to hate him. Not even a little. Not even for a little while. So yeah. Him dating is complicated. Because I do hate him when he dates. It’s terrible. It feels awful. But it’s there. I fucking hate him. He is pretty confident I wouldn’t be able to compartmentalize that long term. Maybe he’s been looking at me for a while.

And hearing about his dates makes me physically ill.

So yeah. How much dating should we do? Maybe not so much.

Is this fair? I don’t think so. But life isn’t fair.

I kinda want to list all the things we talked about. All the levels of insecurities. But the thing is, talking about that has the possibility to hurt my friends and I don’t want to do that. I’m not insecure because of the people involved. The people involved being this safe actually makes it that much harder to feel this way.

All of the people involved are wonderful, safe, kind, considerate and loving. I’m the asshole.

I’m so sorry.

I spent a long time talking to the Professor yesterday and he tried very hard to talk me into thinking that it is ok for me to get angry with Noah. I don’t feel like it is ok. I feel like it is disgusting and shameful because he deserves better than that from me. He really does. He is my whole world.

Even if I like fucking other people. Noah is everything.

Yes we still have a lot of conversations ahead of us about play. The intensity thing is going to continue to be a … topic… for a long time to come.

Sunday and Monday were so awesome. Thank you K for letting me have this. Saturday was… mixed. Mostly good. (Thanks Deity.)

My feelings are not because of the people Noah plays with. My feelings are because I’m neurotic, insecure, and I have very little intrinsic self worth. This is not anyone else’s fault. This is my shit. And it’s shit.

Noah and I talked a lot about whether or not it is easier for me for him to date strangers or friends and…

It is easier to have him date friends. It isn’t that I think anyone he has seen has any desire to be a homewrecker or a problem or hurt me or anything like that.

My fear isn’t rational. My fear isn’t based on anyone doing anything wrong. But it is intense, all consuming and there. I have to act like it is there and deal with it. Or it leaks into my life and I am a seriously problematic person.

I can’t keep verbally abusing Noah. I just can’t. Which means I need to take steps to make sure that stops. It isn’t something that comes up very often. I think this is the third time we’ve had to work on this issue in about 12 years.

When I feel hatred like that… I am fucking mean.

Yeah. I know exactly what to say to make you feel like shit. I’ve watched you for years. Yes. I can take you apart with a verbal scalpel. Yup. No problem.

I need this to be the last time I ever talk to Noah like that. It just can’t happen again. He deserves and has earned better from me. Which means I need to be careful about the situations I put myself in. Because when I’m that angry… I need to put physical space between me and Noah. Because I’m a problem.

And I don’t handle him dating. I feel really ashamed of myself.

Noah wants me to be open, vulnerable, transparent, and relaxed. I can’t be any of those things when I hate him.

I just can’t.

Which isn’t to say that I think him dating deserves me hating him. It doesn’t.

I am such an asshole.

I’d rather be told, “No really this ‘I don’t want to follow rules’ shit is over. Follow some fucking rules” than be told, “Fine then I’m doing what I want.” One of those effectively reins me in. One of those means… our relationship kinda sucks. But it only effectively reins me in after I’m good and hurt and pissed.

Like the mature and responsible person I obviously am.

It isn’t that I feel I must own Noah’s cock solely and permanently. It is that… I want to be there. I don’t want to feel like I am being left so he can go find someone more interesting. Which makes me a flaming cunt for dating other people.

God I don’t like me very much.

I have no particular desire to stop seeing my submissive, Deity, Cupid, or Daddy. But if I only get to see them every other month… that I can live with. To be fair I’ll probably make damn sure I end up at parties with my submissive every month even if we don’t make dinner dates every single month.

Noah won’t let me hit him. Ok he would let me hit him. He told me so. But he wouldn’t like it at all and that feels terrible. I have absolutely no desire to hit someone who is tolerating being hit but who doesn’t like it. That’s disgusting.

I feel… like a piece of shit for wanting to date and not wanting Noah to date. I am not asking Noah to be monogamous.

I notice that he puts a lot of effort into dates with other people. We have dates if I go find an event and I go find a babysitter and I …

That hurts.

I feel selfish and terrible.

Yeah. This is who I am. I am selfish and terrible.

Limits are funny

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My code switching skills are variable. Sometimes I’m excellent. Sometimes I really suck. I have managed to compartmentalized enough that I can have wild sex in every part of my house when my kids aren’t home. That is new. For years it was behind a locked door even when they weren’t home. Noah can testify that it was wacky.

I have serious issues with sexuality and children. This is about me and it isn’t fucking rational.

I don’t want either of us to be having sex any more in places where we bring the kids. I know our house is different… whatever. I don’t care. It makes me uncomfortable. That means I have to stop having sex at the house of friends who invite the kids over. It means Noah does too.

But that doesn’t mean I have to stop going to every person’s house. But it’s an A or B choice. Sex or kids.

Some of our sex-having-friends were tightly involved with our children before sex. That makes the boundaries… interesting to figure out.

I’m having an interesting time figuring out which parts bug me and why.

Like, my kids are never ever ever ever ever going to Cupid’s house or Deity’s house. It’s just not an option. Period. Because I go there for sex.

I have a very visual memory. When I think of places I think of what I have seen there. I am an asshole about getting mental pictures of what Noah is doing.

I’m weird about how that overlaps with my kid-memories of a place.

So like… my kids have been to my submissive’s house. It was a while ago though and so that means we need to decide… is it a sex house or a kid house. Cause right now it’s time to decide.

My kids go to Daddy’s house. I won’t fuck there again.

Is it fair?

Life isn’t fair.

Someday I will just know what these boundaries are and it won’t feel so angsty. I look forward to that day.

How in the hell am I going to be a slut and a good parent. How. How. How.

In no way shape or form do I think that the path I follow is the “One Twue Way“. I think there are many ways to be a good parent.

I’m just trying to figure out how to manage me.

My emotional volatility is a real thing. It’s well documented through lots of life circumstances and events and ups and downs and unrelated situations. And to get a handle on that I picked a life where it isn’t ok to be emotional volatile so I have no choice but to god damn figure out how to be more stable. That means other peoples choices don’t need to look like mine.

Human beings are complicated systems. I’m getting my digestion in order. I’m working on sleep. I’m increasing how much sex I have and the variety because it dramatically improves my mood. Even with the odd fight.

We genuinely don’t fight often. And when we fight it is because we are both feeling insecure and threatened and we don’t know how to ask for reassurance without being kind of an asshole. I think everyone feels taken for granted sometimes.

Maybe I’m projecting.

I’m trying to get things in place for me to handle the next stage of child rearing. We are done with babies. Next year Youngest Child is going into first grade. Kiddo will be 6. Not quite time for academics… but we can see it coming. Kiddo is decidedly resisting being asked to do any academics before 7. Adamant. “Do you want to try a little?” “Nope.”

Well done kiddo. I’m proud.

But Eldest Child is teaching herself to read increasingly complicated books at a rapid rate. This month I should figure out what I need to do to get her a tour at the part-time-homeschool-through-the-district program. She’s interested for third grade. So it sounds like we are going to slide towards school instead of waiting and going all at once when she’s older.

I don’t mind.

Limits are interesting to find. She wants more consistent push now. And she wants it to be with peers in a group. I’m ok with that. I wanted to wait until she was ready. She is now. I’m completely forking ok with the amount of separation she’s asking for. I might balk if she asked for full time school. I don’t think it would go well. Part time sounds great.

It will be nice to spend more time with Youngest Child alone. That kid blows my mind all the time. The jokes. The connections. The desire to have a sunny spirit even though the child has mood swings like a mofo. This is a kid who will have a journey in life. I hope I am going to be able to be the kind of support I need to be. I’m trying.

Part of the reason we need to cut back on dating in terms of time is because we can’t date that many nights and exercise and pay attention to the kids and date each other and have friends and get alone time.

Holy crap.

We need alone time for different reasons. But we both have times when we really need time alone in a room. Preferably with our computers. Our one true love.

I see you, Noah.

Although really if I had to give up my computer or Noah I’d bin the computer without thought. Even you, oh internet, are not as wonderful as Noah. You don’t get me off like that. Speaking of which I should stop typing for the day.

Our kids were invited for an extra night at my friend’s house. So Noah left me an assignment. I’m supposed to get off 30 times. That’s hard masturbating. So I’m going to need to spend a lot of time. Sigh. Poor me. Bye.

Ok, yeah. My life is awesome. It isn’t perfect every minute. But I really don’t get to complain. Not really. I can process the parts I don’t like… but good grief.

I am where I want to be. I have support. I have friendship. I have love. I have the freedom to try things and course correct when I figure out which parts work and don’t work for me. Because it only has to work for me and Noah. Well, and the folks we go on to negotiate with. Their consent matters too.

But we have to figure out our limits and boundaries first and then negotiate from that position. Which has been tricky over the last few months because we didn’t know. I wanted to go fuck around and see what would stick. I have a better idea now.

That’s the point of trying things, right? It isn’t that you have to be committed to always doing something the same way if you try it once or twice.

Hell, even if you do something for a few years you don’t have to keep doing it that way forever. You can renegotiate.

Good grief I am insecure.

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You know… it would be super awesome if in some decade of marriage Noah and I got to the point of being able to say, “We need an epic 9 hour processing day because I HAVE FEELINGS” without the awful screaming. That’d be great. But this is like fight number 3? 4? 5? since we got married. So as bad as it is that we scream the way we do sometimes (and we are both assholes) it is rare and we apologize profusely and get through years of processing afterwards. So it’s not great. But it is unfortunately kinda effective?

We’ve been talking all day. It’s 5pm. We have not been apart for a solid 10 minutes today.

Yeah this whole “I don’t want to follow rules” thing is at an end. We gots rulez. Rulez and rulez and rulez.

I have this horrifying habit of not knowing where my boundaries are until I see them in the rear view mirror. This is a distinctly different problem now than it was earlier in my life because these days we are experimenting with people I have deep love and affection for. That means fucking up is way higher stakes.

There is absolutely no one involved in our lives right now who it would be ok for me to hurt with my flailing. No one.

Fuck.

That’s complicated. Because my boundaries and limits are squiggy and weird.

Like… I don’t want either of us to have a date in the house again. It’s not that I’m mad at the person who came over. I’m not. But I kinda wanted to cancel my date yesterday and stay home and mope because that was just where I was and I didn’t feel like I could because Noah had a date and… that’s not great on a lot of levels. I went to a date when I really wasn’t in the mood and I wasn’t nearly nice enough to my date and at the end I had a meltdown.

Seriously dude. Don’t ask if you need ear plugs to have sex with me. That’ll make me cry the whole way home.

I mean, I’m not overwhelmingly mad at you either. But I’m not going to be able to shake that off and go back to fun time. I can’t.

I’m really sorry that I’m so sensitive. I know I’m a baby.

But I’m 34 fucking years old and I think the chance of me getting over that hot button this decade is at zero.

Also: let’s say this plainly… I’m a selfish piece of shit. I’m dating people because without having sex with more than one person… I don’t really get off. And that *sucks*. That sucks for me and it makes me really resentful of Noah long term because he has no such trouble. I don’t know why I’m wired this way but I am. I have put a good solid college effort into trying to be compatible with monogamy and you know what… it doesn’t work. I just stop orgasming. It’s awful. This is a fact Noah and I have talked about a lot. It’s a problem.My therapist has been tracking this. It’s a problem.

But Noah isn’t having the same problem. So why in the fuck does he need to go off and date?

That’s what my selfish piece of shit self says at least.

So Noah is going to have one date a month. At a party. Because when Noah goes to our friends’ houses to have sex that means I then have feelings about going back to their house and that is not fair at all to our friends.

It isn’t that I need to be the only one touching Noah’s dick. That’s not it.

I’m weird about houses and personal space. I don’t mind him fucking people at parties. Not whether I’m there and not when I’m not. I don’t know why this works this way for me but after a couple of months of trying things this time and years of experience in the past….

I feel comfortable saying I have 0 issue with group sex with both of us (even in our house). I have a small problem with party sex I’m not involved in as far as I don’t want to sit and watch. I have a huge problem, apparently, with sex at peoples houses. Which makes me a fucking hypocrite because I don’t mind that I do it.

I was frankly shocked that Daddy fucked me. He hasn’t in over a decade. I didn’t expect that at all. I didn’t say no and I’m not upset but I didn’t go to his house expecting that even a little. We’ve had a tease relationship for over a decade. So I didn’t really stop and think about how I feel about having sex with him in a house where my children go. If I had thought about it hard in advance…

I feel very uncomfortable about the fact that Noah had sex in a house where I take my kids. I’m not mad at him or the person he had sex with. I just…

Now I’m going to think about that. And…

I rarely know what my boundaries are until I see them in the rear view mirror.

I know it doesn’t matter that they had sex and my kids go to that house once a year. It’s not a big deal.

Only it makes my stomach hurt a lot.

I have been emotionally unstable my entire god damn life. I have to take that into consideration when I decide what boundaries are appropriate for my life. It isn’t likely to just evaporate now. I need boundaries that allow me to go through life without feeling like I’m going to puke. (Especially because I just god damn started a medication that has a side effect of nausea and I need to be able to notice that.)

I don’t think anyone did anything wrong. I had not asked for any limits in any of these areas to begin with and not a single person broke a rule or was rude or bad or anything like that.

I just have these feelings. I’m not saying this is rational.

It’s really weird. I genuinely don’t mind Noah having sex at parties. It doesn’t make my stomach hurt. I kinda walk by the scene once or twice to wave and establish that everyone involved still likes everyone else and it’s cool.

God Noah playing with someone on my couch makes me cry and cry and cry and cry. That’s where I cuddle my kids.

(I’M NOT MAD AT YOU dear friend who is reading this.)

But I would be freaking out more if it had been in the bed. Yeah. Not in the house.

I had a hard time moving into this house. Noah bought this house for hunting. A whole parade of women came through here and that has been pretty hard for me. It took years before I stopped crying about just being the latest slut in the house. This is a thing.

I need it to not be in the house. I’m weird. It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong. It’s not that I don’t want him to play with the people he’s playing with. Shit, he couldn’t pick nicer or safer or more awesome people. I really like the people he’s playing with.

I’m sorry I am such a baby.

I don’t think anyone did a thing wrong. I don’t think anyone should be in trouble or… I just had feelings I didn’t know I was going to have. Big feelings. The kind of feelings that make it hard for me to be stable and calm and normal. The kind of feelings where I cry a lot for a long time.

It’s not your fault and I’m not blaming anyone. This happens to me. This is my life. This is about me and my brain. But I need to manage it. And Noah has to live with me. He wants me to live for a long time. He has to make choices that reflect where I start melting down if he wants to keep me. Whether that is fair or not fair. What is fair?

I’m sorry I’m unstable and insecure. But that is kinda as advertised at this point.

Also: Noah and I are going to try to go to parties more often together and when we go together he is totally free to play with friends. He’s just only going to make sure he goes to one alone. This means we will only have one of us out of the house one night a week. It was really sucking having us collectively gone two or three nights in a week on dates. That just feels yucky right now. That’s too big of a change from what things have been. Hell, I haven’t been back from the road trip long enough to want that much space from Noah. Even if the dates are nice.

A lot of the kinds of trust Noah wants from me… with hypnosis and M/s in the future… that requires a level of trust that is very hard for me. I am literally not set up to be good at trusting like that. That kind of trust is broken for me.

But he wants it. Which means that the pair of us have to work on figuring out how to build it. And that means limits that may not seem “fair” because we have very different needs and very different reasons we are doing all this.

There is no fair. Just like there is no deserve.

There is what you can bear.

I feel really sad and scared. I don’t like that I need to ask Noah for these limits. But I need to if I am going to be able to build the kind of trust he wants me to build. I will not be stable with him having dates like this. I never have been. It is unlikely to start now.

These are the safest and most awesome women possible. It isn’t that I am insecure about the people.

I’m just… a selfish baby.

We are both taking a lot of comfort from the fact that even though we had a huge fight and said pretty awful things… neither of us at any point even a little bit felt like “I don’t want to be married.” The worst it got was “I need a few hours in a room away from you.”

That feels good.

We are insecure bastards. I’m glad he is finally admitting some of his points of insecurity. Much like Beyoncé, the Queen, I need him to show me that I can hurt him. So that I can stay.

Fuck that album is going to be huge in my life. Lemonade is everything. If you haven’t watched it, stop what you are doing and go watch. YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING BETTER WITH YOUR LIFE. JUST DO IT.

ok?

If you’re all “But I don’t know how” come to my house and you can watch it. I bought it. I’ll watch it hundreds of times. It’s ok if you are with me for one of them.

We spent a long time talking about Noah’s place in the hierarchy of my self destructive habits. It’s good that we are honest about that.

One of our new rules is that only Noah can cut me. We had quite a day. We managed to get through our proposed desired come-in-all-holes date… which is frankly shocking given how I woke up. I didn’t think I’d be interested in sex. Then he spent all those hours talking to me and trying to figure out what we both want.

Ok yeah I’ll suck your dick. And then you can fuck my ass. Then we can take a shower. Then you can hurt me really really really a lot and then fuck my pussy. And then later we christened the first of May in the back yard.

Yup. That’s a good day.

I don’t have any fresh bruises but I have lots of old lovely bruises still fading. (God damn Cupid.) (That was meant to be in a positive sort of way not in a damn you sort of way. More like hot damn. Ahem.) Then I have lots of cuts. I have marks from the clothespins. The caning wasn’t hard enough to leave a mark. That’s ok. I got no warm up. On purpose. Because any little girl who will speak that rudely to her Daddy should get a caning with no warm up.

Meaning I asked for it.

Because man atonement is a thing. Which totally doesn’t excuse my abusive behavior.

It’s not ok to scream at people like that. So we made some specific agreements about how I am going to handle my behavior in the future when I am that upset. We don’t like the agreements we made, but we talked it out. It’s not ok to scream like that. I am less ok with it than he is. Which kinda bothers me. He isn’t mad at me for screaming at him. I think it would be easier if he were mad.

Fuck.

Why is life so complicated?

Uhm. A lot else happened. Holy shit this was an eventful day. We talked about so many insecurities and paranoias and fears and wants and hopes and needs and coping methods and possessiveness and sharing and…

My hands is done. I wrote this during meals. That’s the only time I did much other than pay attention to Noah today. It’s been an epic 14 hours of talking. Sex didn’t start happening till 12:30 or so. I’m ready to go pass out now. I took the Gabapentin like half an hour ago. I feel like I’m walking into a wall of haze…..

Boundaries on and off screen

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I am somewhat hyperaware that someday my kids may grow up and read this. It could happen. That means I actually… edit… maybe more than you might think of my life here. I’m nervous about how I present Noah. I talk about him in terrible ways sometimes. I also very carefully avoid saying a lot of terrible things about him.

I do not want sides taken. I do not want back and forth bickering in public. I do not want my children seeing the depths to which we sink when we are being fucking petty. Why not? It’s complicated.

We haven’t fought like this since we closed our relationship. Fighting like this is why we closed our relationship. Because we didn’t think we could stay married through fighting like this.

But that was when we had babies and it just wasn’t ok at all for me to have emotional variance because of my relationship with Noah. I had to be regulated because I was teaching emotional regulation just about 24/7.

That was kind of a difficult thing for someone who is as dysregulated as I have been all my life. I look at my children and feel that I succeeded. Clearly they got the lessons they needed developmentally when they were needed. I did it. I stayed calm. I taught them how to handle conflict and big feelings without flipping out.

I did it.

Which means I can have more things in my life that cause my feelings to fluctuate. Which is fucking tricky.

Nonmonogamy is going to be hard. There are a lot more insecurities here than either of us are really having fun talking about.

What does safety mean? What does connection mean? What are we working towards? What do we want? What is the purpose of sex in our relationship? What do we do for one another versus for ourselves?

I sure wish that these conversations could come with a little more sleep for me. Out of the past three nights I’m now only down about one night of sleep. That’s improving…

But we talk all night long because we can’t talk in front of the kids.

I am not sure either of us are being fair. Yeah, I’m being an asshole. I’m not in denial. I’m not trying to say that I’m being fine and he’s the asshole. I’m really not saying that.

I cheated and broke his heart. He thought he was going to get to be my one and only forever and ever amen.

He’s allowed to be absolutely furious about that.

I know.

I’m trying very very hard to not get into done-me-wrongs. I will talk about what I know I have done wrong. I don’t need to get into done-me-wrongs.

It won’t help. I hiss those often enough in person. It’s not like I’ve forgotten the list. I just don’t need to write it down.

How do you fight in civilized fashion when you are a compulsive over-sharer? Like this. You say what you did wrong and talk about being angry without placing blame. I’m not saying that Noah is to blame for my feelings. He isn’t. I mean… a couple of his particular phrase choices were infuriating… but whatever. I’m being a right bitch in this fight.

How do you build towards a vision of self that may not be what your partner wants? How big do you want your partner to be? How small so you can feel bigger? I don’t know.

Who is pulling whom around on a chain.

I don’t want to leave. That’s part of the reason I have no particular reason to bad mouth Noah up one side and down the other. I don’t want to leave. Even though I’m angry about some stuff right now… that’s life. I flipped the canoe of our life over. There are going to be some feelings we have to deal with. I’m ok with that. I’m not enjoying this process but I see it as necessary.

I’m not afraid of conflict.

I’m afraid of not getting my needs met.

I’m afraid of not being who I want to be because I am afraid that someone else doesn’t want me to be.

I’m afraid of making myself small and unthreatening and never doing anything with my life again because I have decided I don’t deserve to ask for what I really want.

What does necessary even mean?

I’m sure I don’t know.

Am I fucking everything up permanently? Well. I guess we will find out. There is the non-zero possibility.

It is hard when I feel like I’m absolutely the bad guy here. I’m the one insisting on change because the status quo wasn’t working. I feel like a fucking asshole for not making it work. For not deciding that it was just good enough because that was all I agreed to this life.

I did not promise sexual fidelity in my marriage vows. Yeah. I slammed the door four years ago when we were having screaming fights about lying and … shit don’t rehash it. It wasn’t well done.

I feel like everything bad must be all my fault. I feel like I am a monster. A selfish, disgusting monster.

Day 38. Still no bleeding. PMDD means that right before I start bleeding I tend to have intense spikes of depression and anxiety. My suicidal urges go through the roof. This is a well documented phenomena.

I need to be something other than a cum dumpster who can’t cum. This just… isn’t working any more.

I wish I didn’t feel so fucking bad about that.

Sometimes people ask why I write such whiny melodramatic stuff. Aren’t I embarrassed? I’m documenting what living with an acute stress disorder is like. The kind that results from brain damage. If you think I should be embarrassed that says more about you than it does about me. No, it’s not fucking smooth. Yeah I’m a lot of fucking drama. Lots of ups and downs.

That’s what brain damage does. Pieces of it are absolutely my fault in an ongoing way I really don’t deny that. But I’m also trying to deal with my problems. That means I’m going to flail and do things that don’t work sometimes and I will document those fuck ups so I don’t forget and have to make the same mistake over and over.

I’m not writing for you.

I’m writing for me.

Catharsis

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I need to start getting my thoughts in order to talk about catharsis. I’m sure that what I actually say will vary from what I’m writing about. Such is life.

Because I’m me, let’s start with a definition:

ca·thar·sis

kəˈTHärsəs/

noun

1.

the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

synonyms: emotional release, relief, release, venting; More
2.

MEDICINErare

purgation.

Strong or repressed emotion. I have buckets of that. When I think of catharsis I think of a flood of things all at once. I think about beating my friends until they cry because it is hard to cry on your own. I think of being beaten until I genuinely sob. Not many people have ever done it. I think of being crucified. I think of atonement. I think of freedom from the burden of carrying these emotions forever.

I have two female friends in particular I think about when I think about cathartic scenes. One is my Sarah and another is one I don’t have permission to name. With Sarah a lot of what I work towards is helping her feel ok making noise and taking up space. I do that very deliberately because I have known her for a long time and she has good reasons to make some fucking noise. It’s ok for her to cry about the stuff that is happening and has happened. But that’s a hard thing when you are punished throughout your childhood for having negative feelings.

My other friend had a hard time safewording or really saying no to anything, ever. What is a safeword some of you sweet people ask. A safeword is a word that can end the scene. For most people red stops a scene and yellow means “please check in”. Traditionally speaking safewords can be any significant word or phrase that wouldn’t occur naturally in a scene. In really heavy sm scenes… sometimes a safeword is the difference between a scene and abuse.

So I asked my friend if she wanted to learn how to say no. I hit her for a long time. A really long time. It felt like hours. I was vicious and terrible. The whole time I told her, “I want you to decide when this stops. You have to tell me to stop. You have to defend yourself. You have to know you are worth that.” And on and so forth because fuck I talked for a long time.

Eventually she did crumble and sob and beg me to stop.

I hear she’s done much better with boundaries ever since. I’m glad.

Sometimes you can’t really understand the size and shape of your boundaries until you go all the way to the other side of them so you can get a good look at where they should have been.

I think of a lot of my rape experiences like that. “I should have done ____.”

I didn’t know.

Positive stuff. A few truly stand-out scenes as a bottom. The first crucification was the most intense. When you don’t know what to expect, it is more intense.

Without getting into details about why I told my then boyfriend/top/later Owner that I had a lot of sins I needed to atone for. He joked and said he could crucify me. I said that sounded great.

We built a padded backboard together. Full of hardware and gizmos to make the gearhead happy. I was grateful for all that time in the wood shop learning skills. Yes, I can help you construct equipment. I am a useful tool to have around.

There was obviously a crossbar for my arms. He tied me to the backboard using polyester rope. That was his preference at the time.

I’ve been suspended in a lot of positions. I’ve been suspended by enough people that I think I have a good idea of what the different positions are like. They are all intense in different ways.

The crucification was early in my scene career. I didn’t have much experience then. I was shocked by the breathlessness. That was what made the scene so intense. It hurt, yes, but it was the constriction of my lungs and diaphragm that caused me to see stars and hallucinate and feel like I was talking to dead family members.

I remember feeling a sad benevolence. These people absolutely could not love me while they were alive. The love they feel now is hollow and empty and useless but present. What does it mean? It means they don’t hate me.

It’s ok that I was born. It is ok that I chose my life over theirs. It is ok that I forced retribution on my father for hurting me.

It is just how life goes.

I talked to my boyfriend a little bit about what I felt and experienced. Not long after that he told me he didn’t want to know more about my past. Heh.

I really desperately needed the experiences he gave me. I think he kind of sensed that and couldn’t do it if he knew just how badly I was abused. Especially considering how recent it was when I met him.

I met my future Owner less than a year after my father killed himself.

Now, as a 34 year old that kind of blows my mind. Wow. Less than two years after my father sat in a garage with the motor running and a note saying everything was all my fault… I became a 24/7 slave. Now it was half my life ago.

I didn’t have a normal college experience. I had weird ritualized sm and no alcohol or drugs and I was shoved through doing homework and learning responsibility and household management experience.

He was a parental figure as much or more than a boyfriend. He taught me about loans and interest. He taught me about different levels of protocol and etiquette and appropriate behavior for different settings. It took a while before I was civilized enough to go to work stuff with him.

We spent a lot of god damn time on behavior training. I needed it. I needed to have someone pay attention to me and help me learn those skills just about like ABA therapy.

Do you know what I find funny? Most every boyfriend I’ve ever had is thrilled I married Noah. Because he pays the kind of attention to me none of them ever wanted to pay. They are happy I found that.

I like my life.

Another stand out scene: that scene with the couple in Portland the weekend before Noah asked me to marry him. I love going to Portland. I do so much fucked up shit there.

In that scene it was the first time they had ever co-topped together. It was intense the way they would stop addressing me to focus on one another and talk about what they wanted to do as if I were just kind of a toy then they hurt me fantastically. This is the stand-out most painful scene of my life. He picked me up by my pectoral muscles and shook me like a dog.

That pain made me almost completely lose my mind. It felt like my body was about to be shredded apart. Given that I have previously had the bottom quadrant of my face ripped off by a pit bull, that was an intense experience.

And when I came down to the ground again completely flipping out his partner slapped my face.

I think I collapsed to the floor.

I honestly don’t remember at all what happened after that.

It was a casual pick up scene with folks I barely knew from the rare parties I attended in Seattle.

Why was it cathartic instead of traumatic? Consent. Bitches. There are scenes that once you are in them… there is no way out but through. There are life experiences you must endure that are traumatic even though you want them.

Childbirth comes to mind.

Why did I trust this man to do this to me? He had extensive training by my government on how to torture people. If anyone was going to be able to do it and walk me right to the edge of the line of what I was going to be able to walk away from… it was him.

He did a fabulous job. Good man.

And his partner? God damn. I love a mean woman.

Why was this so positive? Partially because for the whole rest of my life I have an established 11 experience when it comes to pain. Unmedicated childbirth is not the most painful experience of my life. Having my face torn off wasn’t more painful.

Holy fucking shit.

Being in that much pain lets you appreciate all the days you sit at a 6. It’s not so fucking bad.

Would I be so into Noah if I hadn’t had such a shitty life? Probably not. But I am who I am and it is working out pretty well.

Catharsis.

I need to talk about how Noah creates safe space for me. That’s a big deal. That’s kind of the foundation for a lot of the good that has happened.

Noah was ok with me coming out to the garage every morning for months and months and sobbing hysterically. He didn’t react like I was a weirdo and I should stop making him uncomfortable. He said, “Ok. This is where you are right now. What do you want or need from me?”

The process of training him in how to be support has been long and layered, but there is improved trust with every year. That makes everything easier. He does what he says.

Goodness I trust him. The ability to trust someone is… huge.

My cathartic experiences with other people have been primarily one-off releases of emotion in my body. I’m not usually supported before or after. I had a great deal of structural support but just about zero emotional support from my Owner. He had very specific verbal boundaries around this and I really think he behaved ethically.

But I want something different from my forever and it’s ok because I have it.

A lot of my cathartic experiences with Noah have been more gentle and about building connection and intimacy and attachment and trust and care taking and…. It’s different.

And then there are the drug experiences. We’ve had some fucktastically good drug experiences together.

But uhm, that’s not what the show is about.

People are weird.

Masochism

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Maybe I can’t sleep. I woke Noah up for sex (like a nice girl) and that wasn’t enough to make me sleep again.

Masochism has been a very central pillar of my life. The degree to which I submit my will to someone else’s will is much more variable but if you include emotional masochism… I’m always a masochist.

I’m going to sound a little snotty. I don’t mean it that way. I’m trying to figure something out.

Last night it was fascinating being in a triangle between Noah, Deity, and Cupid. I say this because Noah is somewhere between Cupid and Deity in interactions at this point. Realistically I shouldn’t judge Deity’s sadism because I get the impression I’ve just seen the first hints of teeth and I haven’t seen the real thing yet.

But I went from sitting in front of two mean boys who wanted to hurt me to being hit by a sadist.

In the past few months since I’ve shown up at the bar I’ve gotten to relearn I fucking hate pinching. I am having a hard time not slamming my skull into peoples noses as they pinch the shit out of me. It makes me angry. I want to fight back. I’m trying really hard to go along with it because clearly other people are enjoying it.

But it makes me feel hateful and angry.

Sometimes some grabs with a full hand aren’t as irritating… but the small grabs… fuck I feel mean.

It feels like I’m dealing with mean boys again.

This is a weird thing. Because I sure do like mean men. But I feel differently about mean boys.

This is hilarious because I am the youngest of all of these people. So what. It’s an energy thing not a statement about age.

I don’t know why the pinching makes me so mad. I try not to get angry. I try really hard to be pliant. I feel fucking angry.

My brothers pinched me a lot. My father pinched me a lot. You are displeasing. Shut up. No one wants to acknowledge you. Take this reminder that you are not worth actually acknowledging and shut up.

In order to take it I have to go to a fairly dissociated place with regards to feeling it in my body; I have to choose to shut down my fight response and accept.

Noah was asking me questions on the way home. He could read my facial expression during the pinching and backed off. He switched to punching. Yeah, that’s how you can butter my biscuit.

I feel like there is this line between masochism and submission and I’m stumbling on it right now. What is the difference between pain you submit to because it is pleasurable to your partner and pain you submit to because you like it?

I like being punched. I can be punched for hours and I’ll just make appreciative noises. The bruises can be massive. I’ll purr like a cat in between shrieks and bellows and orgasms. I like punching.

Pinching… it takes me right out of headspace. It makes me feel like I need to prepare for a fight. It is intensely triggering to my fight reflex. Which makes submitting to it an interesting challenge.

What bothers me is it never feels like people are challenging me on this incredibly sensitive boundary because they want to have power over me and they want to cause me to work through it. I usually feel like people are pinching me absentmindedly. Like a fiddle toy.

I hate that.

Am I submitting or bottoming? Am I doing this for you or for me?

I don’t know.

It’s like hair pulling. It’s one of those things that people just do because they have this schema around rough sex that it is a mandatory part of things. But if you yank on my hair absentmindedly I will not be able to focus my eyes tomorrow from pain.

My body is in a fair bit of pain under normal operating conditions. I showed up at the bar tonight feeling like I was at a 6. Then I got pinched. Then beaten.

This god damn tile work is killing me. My neck hurts. My back hurts. My arms hurts. And now my ass hurts too. Glorious.

The ass is the only part that’s fun.

How will I be hiding my bruises? Well… I need to develop some habits around dressing in private. Ahem.

I feel like the bruises are coming in harder and faster this time than they did the first time I played with Cupid. Well done.

Noah asked me how I managed to process the hits because they came quick and hard and he’s used to me getting overloaded and shutting everything down.

Instead Cupid hit me hard and quickly and when I collapsed to the floor to squat because it was too much he put his arm around my chest, leaned me back against him, and kept hitting.

My cunt is still throbbing because that was so hot.

I was overloaded but I didn’t feel panicked and I’m not sure why it happened that way. I panicked more and made him back off more at our first date at his house.

I suspect that a hair of it was that I was completely surrounded by people and if it really got out of hand I had help available. It was safer to let it go farther.

I don’t think that was a conscious decision but I think it factors in somewhere.

Where is the line between masochism and submission for me? I felt like part of the reason I could go deeper was because Cupid was managing energy well. He was being aware and barely callous in just the right ways. I’m pretty sure he could tell I was making some noise but not exactly what came from me or what came from the other folks making noise. So he thoughtfully leaned in and let me know that he couldn’t hear very well and he’d be looking for other signals that I couldn’t handle it.

That let him push right through most of my masochist-not-submissive early warning signs. All the “I’m not sure I like this” noise he could just ignore. That’s what I mean by callous. But he did it by being very responsive to physical signals and just… interpreting them how he felt like. He kept going because he read enough yes in my body.

I am so incredibly not upset. I will be spending time in my bunk today thinking about this again. Probably a few times.

It isn’t that I want to distract you with kissing and get you to not beat me. It is that when you intersperse kissing with hurting me I want to give you so much more. Because you are hurting me. Because you are connecting with me.

I was listening to an old episode of the radio show that I’m going on. A woman was expressing her strong preference for not kissing early on.

That was funny to hear just now. I want kissing. I want kissing and kissing and kissing and kissing. Don’t fucking hurt me if you aren’t going to kiss me too. If you aren’t going to kiss it better I don’t fucking like you very much.

But I do sometimes play with people who don’t kiss at all. But that’s because they don’t kiss anyone and they know how to connect anyway. We also don’t go as deep or as hard with the play.

WHY IS THIS SO CONFUSING?!

(I’m totally ok with that person not wanting kissing during first time sex. Whatever floats your boat. It was interesting to feel how I feel about that.)

If you want access to my body it starts with my mouth and my mind. Otherwise go fuck yourself.

I don’t think it is that pinching is a hard limit. I think it is that pinching is a serious kind of play for me. It’s a really big mind fuck and I don’t think people understand that in general. Pinching requires some serious fucking submission from me and playing with that idly is… complicated. Like, I need to talk to Daddy about this. He’s a pinchy motherfucker. (Which I’m not mad about.)

But I need to talk to him about this. Words. I need to find words. I want you to understand that when it comes to my body pinching it is a much more serious activity than hitting me with a mallet.

I like the mallet more.

The mallet doesn’t make me feel like I want to take my finger nails and rake them across your face.

I feel mean when I’m pinched. I don’t feel sexy. I don’t feel wanted. I feel angry. Trying to tamp that down and not explode all the fuck over people is an act of conscious, serious will.

We all come from very particular life experiences. I’ve dealt with a lot of mean boys.

I’m trying to figure out what I feel and why. I don’t figure this stuff out very well unless I’m bouncing off of people. I don’t think about why pinching is such a thing because I’ve just managed to mostly scare Noah out of doing it.

Then I go hunting like a fool.

Fucking pinchy bastards are everywhere.

How do I feel about pinching? I feel like I hate you. Just for a few seconds. Just as long as you are pinching me. I get over it. But I have to decide to. That kind of thing takes a toll. How many times I have to decide to stop hating you in a night adds up.

It is a very different kind of submission than accepting that when I resist someone beating me they will just slam me back down on the table so they can keep hitting me. God that was hot. Ok, I’ll relax and just accept that this is happening now.

Ok.

I’m sitting on a very comfy lawn chair. My ass hurts.

Thank you. I’m grinning.

Why are some kinds of pain enjoyable even when I don’t enjoy it. I promise you that I didn’t enjoy most of what Cupid did to me last night. It fucking hurt. But I really liked that he wanted to do that to me. I liked that he wanted to take that enjoyment from me even when it was really hard for me.

Why doesn’t pinching work that way?

It can. With the right set up and frame and acknowledgement that this is a huge trigger you are pushing on.

That’s not how it usually happens though.

Why don’t you pinchy motherfuckers push on a trigger point or something. Much less effort on your part, more pain on my part, less feeling like I want to rip your fucking face off.

Everybody wins.

Somehow I think that an incredibly small fraction of the pinchy motherfuckers will listen to me. That’s both why I date them and why I hate them.

Fuck.

IT WOULD BE OK IF YOU ACTED LIKE THIS WAS A BIG THING. IT WOULDN’T MAKE YOU LESS DOMLY OR SOME SHIT.

It isn’t that I have a problem with mean people hurting me in this way if it is done right. It is that it is hard to do right and most people won’t bother.

That’s a thing.

Being picky sucks.

And then when we got home Noah put his cock in me and it hurt like I was being fucked with a knife. I stopped the sex. No. Just… no. Actually, I’ve been fucked with a knife and it didn’t hurt that bad. The person wasn’t trying to puncture my uterus.

I have no idea what was going on. I woke him up for sex this morning and it wasn’t orgasmic for me, but it didn’t hurt. I think I was so afraid of it hurting that I wasn’t really going to relax that time. But I wanted sex anyway.

I wanted sex specifically so I could talk to Noah about how much I like him and want him and need him. He is being ridiculously supportive as I’m being kind of a pain in the ass. It makes him happy when I demonstrate my gratitude with frantic, clutching sex where I talk the whole time about why he is important to me.

Noah is kinda my world. I need him to feel that or I’m doing something wrong. His primary way to feel loved is to have sex. Not just have sex, I need you sex.

But who doesn’t want that?

I’m just glad he is amused that I enjoy kissing other people so much. I’m glad he is interested in watching other people hit me because he learns more about me as a creature to be studied. I’m so fucking glad that Noah spends this much time wanting to look at me.

He’s been doing a lot more writing for me lately. I like that. I like that so much. He’s been writing scene reports so he can learn from them. He’s been writing about his insecurities and that’s letting us talk about what we want in the future from an unequal power dynamic. The day he proposed to me he told me he wanted me to be his wife and his slave. I said I could do that but it would take a very long time to get to the slave part.

It… was mixed last time and I don’t want to have to walk away from our relationship because that part crashes and burns.

So Noah appreciates chances to watch me interact with other people because he sees how I react to things without his own internal filtering going on. We can talk about why I leaned in to some things and why I grimaced at other times.

Noah wants to look at me. Noah wants me to do whatever the fuck I want just so he can watch.

I love you Noah. Even if you are a mean boy sometimes.

Thank you thank you thank you everyone. Thank you for giving me these opportunities to learn more about myself. I am grateful.

My arms. My arms. Oh my arms. Must stop.

Promiscuity and permission

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I had a thought. And even though I’m trying not to type much this weekend I want to write this down.

The difference between me doing what I’m going to do and feeling good about myself and me doing what i’m going to do and feeling bad about myself… is mostly about how I’m perceived.

I’ve been a big slut chasing sex since I was in preschool. Rampant promiscuity is part of my life.

This time… I’m coming home to a safe home. With a partner who grins at me and who wants to hear every filthy detail. He’s concerned about my safety and my rate of adding partners. He’s concerned about me stepping outside my carefully vetted pool because in the past that has been a mixed bag for me.

He’s not telling me to stop fucking my friends.

He’s not sure what he wants and that is a slow process we are talking about a lot together. He’s not entirely sure what he thinks will be sustainable in terms of my behavior but we are talking.

There is no shame.

I need to say that again because it is so important: There is no shame.

There are uncomfortable feelings. There is a tinge of sadness on both or parts. We wanted the fantasy of monogamy. We liked it. We wanted it to work.

It didn’t work well for us. We are going back to stuff that has worked well for us.

But we are doing it from a framework of a very happy and supportive marriage. We like each other. It is a little weird going back to dating from the point of view that I’m blissfully happy at home and I love my marriage… I just do better with a variety of sex partners in my life. I like bouncing off of people.

It really helps that since I started fucking around Noah is inspired and he’s been fucking me more and better than he has since the first year of marriage. We are getting close to our pre-kids sex life.

Which is fucking awesome.

We are getting back to the sex life we had when I was dating Spot and…. I can’t remember who else. It’s embarrassing how bad I am at remembering who I dated when. I can remember that I dated someone, but I need to really think about it to figure out which period of my life. (Actually… it may have been just Spot and Noah because I was teaching. I was real busy then.)

“Which slut period did you overlap?”

But I remember Spot. He’s one of the few who made it to 9 months. I liked Spot a lot. He was… a nice break from the assholes I had been dating. Ultimately he was too nice for me and that’s ok too. I’m one of those terrible people who likes assholes.

I need you to have brick wall boundaries because I am going to throw myself at them. I don’t want them to collapse. Usually only assholes can do that. Assholes know “I go out this far and this is where I stop. Get the fuck off my wall.”

But this is what I was thinking about this morning. Permission. Noah gives me permission to exist in a way no one else ever has. I’m not sure it would have occurred to anyone else. I’m not sure anyone else would look at me and think, “Oh there’s a person quaking with fear because no one has given her permission to act how she wants to act.”

Snicker.

But it’s true. I do. I do what I’m going to do anyway. The difference is whether I feel ashamed of myself afterwards for acting in a way I think I’m not supposed to act or whether I feel fine because I was told I am fine.

Noah does that.

Noah gives me that.

He tells me I am fine.

Sharing complications

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I am… a tremendous asshole. I know this. I know this so terribly well. Noah and I have been talking a lot. I wish I had the spoons to record lots of it but I don’t. Ow.

This is the very first song I ever stripped to. There are things I’m still not going to discuss that have me singing this song to myself lately.

I gotta say, sex with Noah has been off the hook lately. We’ve been playing with erotic hypnosis stuff. As a result he is grinning so widely he looks like he is about to split his face. It’s going well. I am, uhh easily suggestible. I also have lots of experience in my background of what was essentially hypnosis orgasm training. Because my life has been awesome. So I’m physically capable of orgasming repeatedly on command. And we’ve been playing with erotic hypnosis.

*fan self*

It’s going well.

WHY AREN’T WE INSPIRED TO DO THIS SHIT WHEN WE ARE MONOGAMOUS?!

Neither of us know. And we feel sad about it. Because even though the sex has been intermittently good throughout the monogamy…

Sustaining heat like this is hard and it… mostly happens when I’m off fucking other people and I come home ready to sit on fire hydrants.

I want sex.

It isn’t because I’m not getting it at home. I’m getting it at home. I’m getting it fucking awesome at home. But it’s a symbiotic thing. We’ve been together a while now through several cycles.

Heh. This isn’t our first rodeo.

But I’ve clearly changed in what I want and in what I’m looking for and what this is going to mean. I’ve done a flat 180 on a whole bunch of things just about overnight.

WTF?

I don’t know.

I don’t want to miss the fun I could have in my 30’s. Being alive is so awesome.

I could work harder. I could work more.

My body is tired.

I don’t just “relax” very well. I never have. I’ve been working really hard for a really long time. I mean, I build a lot of playfulness into my work so I have fun being a workaholic… but that doesn’t mean I relax well and my body really needs me to relax.

I need to be able to do it without the pot.

No. I want to not need the pot. My lungs hurt. Other methods are so expensive.

I don’t know what I want from the future. I don’t know how much involvement in the bdsm community I want. I feel so conflicted about dragging Noah. He doesn’t feel much need for community around his sex life. He doesn’t feel weird. He doesn’t feel like he needs validation. And he’s less drawn to hunting.

For the rest of my life hunting is going to feel…. different. Now that I have cut someone open as they fuck me so I can suck the blood…

Holy fucking shit.

Cough

Sweet Jesus what is wrong with me? I have no self control lately. Things that have been off the table forever are just… interesting. There was a hot 24 year old. But he deleted his profile so I’m phew not going to get more pushing from there. I was having a hard time saying no.

Thank God he deleted his profile.

I wasn’t that temped only I was. Cause holy shit if you saw the pictures. But he deleted them.

I’ll just keep fucking my delightful old man. No hardship.

Why isn’t it enough?

It depends on what you mean by being enough.

For a long time now sex has been kind of a chore. I had a quota to fill and I put in my time meeting it whether I was interested or not.

Honestly I think it is kind of hot that I really did that for years. Just like I think it is hot that I did a whole lot of things that I genuinely didn’t want to do when I was a slave for years. I specifically like doing sexual things I don’t like to please my partner.

But there’s a cost. And a weird balance to find. Because I have to be pleased too or… I wilt. It is harder and harder not to cut.

I can clearly look back and see how how it is promiscuity or cut. That’s been a huge pattern for me. It is like I can choose to do what I need to do to stay small and shut up or I can go symbolically choose life. (Err, let’s be preventing those babies–shall we?)

This has been true since I was in grade school.

It’s complicated.

Noah told me he doesn’t do more cutting on me because he is worried about it taking the place of me cutting myself.

I wonder what cutting my submissive will mean in a grander scale. So far it makes me feel like a hyena, not like someone who should be small and quiet.

I mean, I’m manifesting this by being nice to little kids and making art in my house. I’m not acting more vicious anywhere else. (Err… I don’t think. I’m getting specific feedback that I’m doing well by a variety of observers. Forking everyone is commenting on me looking so happy.

Goodness gracious I’m getting laid well. You don’t know what it means.

So I’m not getting it everywhere I’m invited. I’ve been saying no. But I’m feeling more able to feel adored. Which sucks. Why can’t I get this from Noah? It’s not like he has changed how he feels.

Daddy and my submissive are both my friends when we aren’t fucking. Why is this so much more validating? It just is.

So much for once a month. So much for once a month per person. I’m having four dates with the deity this month and uhhh I should *cough* admit that.

I can see why my shrink is yelling at me. Yeah. Daddy and my submissive have both stayed in their boxes. I do see them more, but not in a way that is inconsistent with a very long relationship. In consistent settings.

Oh fuck.

Ok Noah Ok Noah Ok Noah. Yeah. That. Nervous. Yeah.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Yup. That’s what I’m going to go do. Fuck him. Yup.

Not my normal type. Nope. That’s why it is so dangerous. Yup. What the fuck is my type now. I don’t fucking know.

But I’m going to go do some fucking and find out? I’ll report back. I promise.

And then Cupid is writing me dreamy stories about where he is going to put his hand and I just can’t stop squirming.

It is about the expression in their eyes. I pick people for how their eyes come alive. That is what I look for. That connection. I want that. I’m getting it in spades and I feel… so very much. I feel so alive.

I’m not drowning in the river of want. But I’m not sated. I recognize that I’m being shit at boundaries and that can’t continue. Noah’s right that six months of this would be a problem.

What is sustainable?

I want to find out.

What is respectful?

I want to find out.

What is fair?

Oh get the fuck over that shit. Life ain’t fair. There is no fair. Fuck fair with a 2″x4″. (*phew* I did it right that time.)

If I am doing these things in service to loving myself, which I… rather think I am… I need to think about sustainability from the point of healing. I’m working on healing a whole bunch of different things. What does it all mean?

On that note my arms burn and my neck is sore from looking down. Goodbye oh laptop of doom. I love you. Kids are waking up. I get to go be present with the vanilla reality of my life. I choose this. I want this. I have fun with this.

It’s festive dealing with my Bonus Kids as they grow up. We hit speed bumps. They don’t like me every moment. I hold a lot of lines they don’t like but I’m happy to explain why I have the principles I have. “I put these things in front of you and tell you to do them because I have put a lot of work into knowing what is good for you right now. Please cooperate darling.”

They don’t always like me. I make them eat chard. Clearly I am from the devil.

You’ll live, beloved. And you’ll grow up feeling better in your body than I do.

Love is complicated. Sharing traditions and beliefs and desires is complicated. We all want different things. How can we get along? What is fair? Oh don’t even start.

What do we want? Since there is no fair. What do we want? Because there is a we and an I in this. I don’t even mean me and my intestinal parasites. I mean that in order to have what I want I need to have people in my life who want the intensity of connection I want.

I’m really kinda done with casual for the now. I mean… ok I’ll fuck people at a swingers party because that’s fun. But it’s a different kind of intense. First dates with strangers suck.

I’m spoiled as fuck. I’m good.

I have such lovely options available to me.

By the way, Deity and I were really good last night. I don’t think I let myself flood with oh god I like you when the kids were around. We didn’t kiss at all until the kids were asleep and we didn’t do anything even vaguely raunchy. We talked.

I’ve been wanting to talk to him like that for a long while. I uhhh doubt we will talk quite like that when I go over to his house. I think our mouths will be more distracted. And I am interested in these topics. And I need to god damn stop typing.

How can someone feel so lucky and so stupid and so happy and so nervous and so giddy and so relaxed at the same time? Well I kinda think anyone would feel relaxed after how much I came last night.

Holy shit, Noah.

Thanks.

I’m well done.

Punching is so awesome.

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Last night was a punching heavy night. I was punching a lot and then I got punched a lot. Life is fair sometimes.

I played with the Professor. He plays with a lot of new people and he is good at helping people explore sensation. I told him I didn’t know what I wanted to be hit with because I genuinely don’t know what I like at this point, but I know I’m on the thud end.

He brought an assortment of toys and hit me for a while with them before switching to punching.

I liked and hated most of the toys. I loved the punching. Loved the punching. Got off on the punching. That was fabulous deep thud. That rocked all the way to the center of me.

Surface pain on my skin is harder. The flogger was a lot of surface area of skin. I feel like I like/enjoy/can tolerate floggers exponentially better now than I could when I was younger (I am apparently getting older and less sensitive) but they are still hard. I feel panic when a large amount of surface area is hit at once.

And holy shit for shoe shine do I dislike any hits on my low back. Mother fucker. That’s always been true.

Once, when I was 19 I was on a date with a friend and he was passing me around a party. I complained so much about specific kinds of hitting that he found a marker and made a big X on my low back and wrote “NOT HERE” and on my ass he wrote “NO STING”. Then he had way more people hit me.

It went better at that party after that.

I feel like things have drifted but those are still fairly accurate warning labels and I should figure out how to explain them better on my own.

My low back has been problematic since early childhood because of a vicious assault. No, I don’t like it when I’m hit there.

It isn’t sexy. It isn’t easy to process. It hurts.

Thank you for the lesson.

The flogger on the upper back wasn’t like that. That was horrible and painful and mean and… hot. I felt like if that came with a story I could really get into suffering like that. As a stand alone sensation it wasn’t my favorite but I could see the appeal. Which is a huge shift for me. Thank you for the lesson.

I felt kind of ridiculous for liking the Nerf thing. I shouldn’t like being hit with a Nerf toy. That’s perverted.

It was a great warm up toy. Oh man. He did a warm up. It was like magic. I remembered correctly! Warm ups are awesome! Yay warm ups!

He was very good at the reassuring-from-the-back-hug. Some tops nail that and some… don’t. He was really good.

Last night was a night of SM like I used to do. Lots of violence and my genitals were not in play at all. It was a stark reminder of how much I have drifted. Oh yeah. That used to be my life.

It isn’t any more.

I have a tremendous quantity of feelings to process. I’m going to put them in this nice neat box I have here and deal with my day. I don’t have any other play scheduled after today and that will stay true for a bit.

I need to process these bits. I need to integrate what I need to say differently. I need to think about what to say about play for it to be more of what I want.

I need to figure out more about what the fuck I want. I have inklings and that’s not good enough. I need to think about this.

Why don’t I feel comfortable talking during play sometimes? I really don’t. I don’t feel like anything I could say would be ok. So I don’t say much. I don’t like that. It isn’t useful. Just making noises isn’t good enough feedback.

I feel like I need to figure out the difference between playing to suffer and playing to have fun and playing to get off. I think they are different. I think I need to figure out the limits on the suffering I can offer at this point.

My low back needs to be off the table. That’s going to need to be a hard limit. Fine, maybe someone else won’t be damaged by light hits there. I can be. It needs to be a hard limit for me. I don’t need to talk about it and I have to figure it out before I bottom again because… someone is going to cripple me.

Words. Words are hard. I like typing. I like typing till my hands cramp and ache and this is so definitely my current favorite form of self harm.

Words are harder. Words are scary. Speaking is hard. I need to work on more scripts. Ugh.

Just being able to make the noises is huge progress for me. I know it doesn’t seem like that to people. I know it just seems like some obnoxious thing I do. It has been hard for me to be in my body enough to connect with what is happening. I have tried hard to do that.

I have spent a lot of my life dissociated. I go back and forth between dissociation and hypervigilance so that I either don’t know what is happening around me and to me or I’m freaking out about everything near me.

It’s fun.

The hypervigilance has improved dramatically over the last few years. I have consciously worked on a number of my tics and they have improved. I still don’t have a comfort zone but I don’t feel crawl-out-of-my-skin-anxious as often. I am also far less dissociated. I can’t be and take care of the kids. I have to be present. I picked the high-intensity version of parenting. I can’t phone it in much. They won’t let me.

Maybe my comfort zone is fucking people. Every other part of interaction is harder and more complicated. It’s why I’m pushing people for fucking with play.

I think. As I look in retrospect at my behavior over the past few weeks. I think that is what is going on. Ok. This is why I talk to myself. Because I’m trying to figure out why the fuck I do what I do.

I think it is healthy for me to sit with the discomfort that comes from people not asking for access to my genitals. But it is hard.

Ok maybe I am lying. Yeah. I do have a comfort zone. I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all when Cupid or Deity or Daddy were fucking me. Not when I fucked my submissive. Not when I picked up a random at a sex party.

That felt comfortable. Other aspects of our interactions are not always comfortable for me and I stick them out anyway. But…

It’s part of why I’m pushing so hard for kissing. Kissing feels kinda like that but more available in public.

Ok. Well. I’m figuring some stuff out. This is kinda fucked up. I need to find some way of feeling comfortable that doesn’t involve soliciting sex. Well… ok, I do feel comfortable around the kids. Most of the time. Except when I’m triggered.

So it isn’t only during sex.

And it is variable with Noah. Sometimes I feel comfortable and sometimes I don’t. We’ve had a lot of sex over a lot of years and we often do it whether I am up for it or not. Because that is our deal. I’m not sorry. But it means that I have had mixed experiences of the sex.

I need to update the users guide again. Hilarious. Well… this is a changing time.

Hunting lessons

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Exhaustion is a real thing. When I’m over tired I can’t read tone to save my life. I’m whiny, over-sensitive and I’m going to spend a lot of time crying. It’s not about a person saying something… it’s about being tired. I didn’t respect that yesterday. Given how much… pushing it I’ve done on sleep stuff lately I need to build better boundaries around this. Don’t respond to messages when I’m that tired.

I wrote about 7 pages in a word document yesterday. Notice how I’m not posting it? I don’t think I was even a little coherent. I was tired and scared.

I live with a kind of existential dread most people can’t understand. On one hand I’m one of the asking-ist people you’ll ever meet. I ask and ask and ask for things. On the other hand I live in mortal terror that I will rape someone again. That I will ask for something and someone won’t feel comfortable/safe saying no and I will be an evil monster as usual.

This is complicated for me. Because if you can’t say, “Hey do you want to do x?” and get a yes/no answer…how the fuck is life supposed to work?

I don’t know.

Folks tell me that I’m doing a good thing by giving people opportunities to refine their boundaries and decide what they do and don’t want.

I feel scared all the time that I’m on the verge of hurting people. I feel like I should withdraw a lot because I’m pushing too hard. Noah says this may be a bad time to assume that my bad reading of one persons tone means I should stop asking other people for things.

For some reason he seems to think that individual humans should be judged on their own behavior.

Whatever.

So it isn’t going to be a rule (because how the fuck well do I follow rules?!?!) but I think it should be a guideline to not respond to ambiguous messages at all when I’m tired. Once I’m not tired I can say, “Hey I’m not sure I’m getting your tone of voice here. Can you clarify?” Cause wouldn’t that be useful.

I don’t feel like I did yesterday. Glorious 8 hours of sleep. I hate sleep deprivation.

Many folks in the scene have been asking me, “Oh do you remember Mistress ___? She’s coming around more again.”

Goody. She likes to tell me that I’m a bigger bitch than her because I don’t handle sleep deprivation well. Can’t wait to run into her. weeeeeeeeeeee

I’ve gotten off overly lucky this hunting phase. Things have been going too smoothly. I’ve been getting too many ‘yes’ answers. Too many people telling me I’m doing it right. When I hit a bump it feels… big.

It isn’t. I’m going to get over it. But yesterday I couldn’t read tone and I spent a lot of time crying. Like I do.

Sleep. Dear goodness, sleep.

When I was a kid my sister used to tell me, repeatedly, that if I have the same problem over and over it is my fault and not other peoples fault.

I push boundaries. I do it globally. That makes it seem to me like it is all my fault and I’m a bad person. It means that when I feel spooked that I came too near a boundary with one person I want to globalize it and use it as a reason I should stay home and stop hurting people.

I want to use that experience as evidence that I am a monster who is unable to stop hurting people. I want to use the hint of possibility that I pushed too hard as evidence that I should stop asking for anything from anyone because I am not deserving.

I want to tell everyone that I know they don’t really want me and I should stay home.

I kinda got yelled at for that yesterday. Not “YELLED AT” but forcefully reminded that it isn’t my place to tell people what they think or want.

Yeah.

I’m sorry.

I feel bad for wanting you. I feel like I am placing a burden on you that I shouldn’t be placing. It isn’t fair. It isn’t appropriate. Just because I want you that means nothing about what you want and I don’t know what you want.

I don’t know and I’m not sure I’m good at reading people.

Noah makes sure to do over the top physical gestures to highlight how delighted he is by me constantly. Because otherwise I walk through my life feeling like an anvil of disappointment is about to drop on my head because I am not good enough to please anyone.

It isn’t fair to need people to be so demonstrative of their approval. I should just believe.

But I don’t. I’ve had too many years of wanting to die because I am not enough. I do need to feel like people really want me to be there.

Or I should go home and snuggle my kids. Because my kids really want me to be there.

I’m not saying I want to die right now. I don’t. I’m doing alright. I feel… whiny not suicidal. That’s fantastic progress for me. I feel sad and anxious and like I really want to figure out how to do this right some fucking year.

I want to stop messing up negotiating. I feel like there is no valid excuse for fucking up this way at this stage. I’m not a kid messing up out of ignorance. I’m a grown up who fucks up because I’m sloppy and I don’t dot all my i’s and cross all my t’s.

I feel ashamed of that.

But I don’t know how to find a happy medium on the herpes shit. It is… complicated. So many people have it but the few people who don’t know/haven’t been specifically told they are positive… it’s a thing. Should I tattoo “I have herpes” on my forehead so I don’t ever fuck up that bit of negotiating again?

Kissing is a big deal. My Owner didn’t kiss me. I’ve dated other guys who wouldn’t kiss me but who would allow me to provide some kind of service (sometimes sexual and sometimes not) for them. I can’t do that any more. I just can’t. Maybe that section of the users guide should be rewritten.

I like kissing and I know I’m diseased. I’m sorry. I feel bad about existing in this dichotomy but here I am.

Thank you for not caring, Noah.

Kissing feels connecting and bonding. Kissing feels like the difference between just being an object and being a person having an intense shared experience. I need kissing at this point or I really shouldn’t be playing with someone at all.

I’m not negotiating this well and I need to change that.

Lessons hurt. I hate learning lessons. Fuck opportunities for growth. FUCK THEM WITH A POGO STICK.

Do you know what would make all of this easier? If I were less fucking hypersensitive. But if that were true in one area I’d be a lot less sensitive in other areas.

I don’t actually want to stop being who and what I am. I like being sensitive. I like that I react strongly to my perceptions of peoples feelings. That often goes well. But sometimes I’m tired and I read something wrong.

Yeah. That happens.

Uhh… I do better in person. Where I can look at facial expressions and eventually feel comfortable asking millions of questions. I do have to warm up to the questions though. I am actually kind of shy at first.

I don’t want to scare you off. I want you to volunteer stuff. No one ever tells me enough about themselves.

Oh they tell me more than enough about their hobbies. I want to hear about you.

I know it is kind of weird how much I actually like people. But I’m not playing. I do.

I don’t want you to be in a room with me so you can act out my fantasy. I want to be in a room with you so I can see you more fully developed as a character of your own. If you talk fast the whole time I get more of a picture of who you are. (I like turns to talk too. Don’t worry. I know how to talk fast.)

I’m high maintenance. I want understanding and that mandates intense communication. I’m not comfortable. I don’t exist near people to feel comfortable in their presence. That is not how life goes for me. I am not comfortable.

I am with you because I want to understand you. Because I find you compelling. Because I want to know you. Because I want you.

I may not understand what that means. I probably don’t. I will ask for things. I wish you would ask more so that every step of verbal negotiation didn’t come from me.

That is true so much and it scares me because when I am always always always the leader how do I know I am doing what people want instead of dragging them through things they may not be completely on board for doing?

Trust people to be grown ups?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Sorry, gotta catch my breath.

Phew. Laughing that hard is dangerous. I’m going to bust a rib.

People laugh at me when I say “when I grow up” in reference to my future research. They ask me if I’m grown now. No. I’m not.

I don’t know many grown ups. And I don’t know many people my age or younger. I chase an older crowd and I always have. Guess what. Most of them are not grown up. I mean, they are grown. They are “adults”.

We are all fucking up and growing.

We aren’t done growing up.

I know… a few. They are inspiring and intimidating as fuck to me.

Hands hurt too much to go into that.

Hunting lessons…

Wanting is hard. Wanting is scary. The rejection isn’t the scary part. The scary part is the terror that I will hurt people. I will hurt people. Not because I will hit them (though I will) but because I will say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing or ask for something in a way they don’t feel comfortable refusing and they will feel regret and I will feel shame.

That’s gonna happen.

That is part of hunting.

That fuck up. It is inherent. Other people minimize their risk by looking for one lifetime target and calling it good.

I… like to learn lessons. I have so much to learn. There is so much I want to know. There are so many situations I need to be able to have absolute control over my reaction no matter what physical or emotional stress is going on that I have to perfect this.

I have to. This is going to be necessary for me as a grown up. I am going to need to have 100% control over my reactions. I will need to know “I don’t open my email until I’ve had at least 20 hours of sleep out of 72.”

I need to know myself.

Noah didn’t think the messages sounded the way I read them. It took a lot of explaining and whining and telling back story before he went, “Oooooohhhh… ok. I can see how you read it that way.”

So it was a stretch that was only possible because I’m so awesome.

God I’m ridiculous.

No. I just have a long and complex story and I’m reacting as if all if it is true in every moment of every day and those filters are better and worse based on factors like sleep. Ahem.

Other people can handle sleep deprivation. Great for them.

I can’t.

But there is so much fun to be had in the middle of the night.

I have five solid nights in a row where I’m staying home and getting sleep before our next night out.

But then a different party is the next day.

Fuck. Ok. I need a break after that. I iz at capacity. Ow. I found it. Noah told me he thought I would.

I wanted to see where it was now. I found it. Ow. I’m old.

Why didn’t I want to go to a dark place? I don’t know. It wasn’t that the pain level was beyond my capacity. I never got near an 8. I just…

I don’t know.

It didn’t feel that way. It didn’t feel like that was what was appropriate in the setting? I don’t know.

I need help going on a journey. If I’m going to stand somewhere and just… do what I do… that…. uhhhh… varies.

It is wildly unpredictable.

I also have a really hard time with feeling like I am topping from the bottom. Noah and I have had a hard time figuring this out. I… don’t know how to gracefully lead as a bottom. I suck. So either I shut my fucking mouth and smile as the top decides what is going to happen next or… things get kind of awkward and tense and I spend the rest of the scene feeling bad.

So yes. Sometimes I don’t know what to say.

Even me. I get tongue tied. It is true. I feel like a jukebox waiting for someone to pick a song to play. I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any idea of what would be pleasing. I have such a short window of time in which to try to be pleasing…

I’m afraid of picking wrong.

It isn’t that I’m trying to make up a story to tell. It is that I don’t know which version of myself to start with. There are so many. The order in which I present them matters. It can lead to increased intimacy or it can lead to things like, “I need you to stop telling me about your background. I don’t really want to know.”

This is why Noah and I spend so much time during sex talking about previous sex we have had either with one another or with other people.

I know that I will only learn how to read these things better by running into these walls at full speed so I see all the signals all the way up to long past when I “should” have stopped so that in the future I will understand that danger signals much earlier and have a stronger need to distance myself fast. I know this is “safe” practice.

But I’m so tired of being disappointing. I’m so tired of having people forcefully shove me away because I am wrong.

Asking, wanting, desiring always means risk. It always means possible rejection or unmatched interest or pain.

Always.

Is it worth it?

Even though I’m still tired and even though I still have turbulent feelings…

Yes.

All of it. All of them. Every lesson. Every experience. I’m not sorry I asked. I’m sorry if me asking was done badly. I’m sorry if I asked in a way that did not support people telling me no when they should have or if they really wanted to in the fullness of time. I’m sorry that I will keep making mistakes.

But I’m not sorry enough to stop.

I want to learn this.

I will make mistakes. So will other people. I will get up. I will try again if they are game.

I want.

But first I want more sleep.

The hard stuff

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There is a lot of stuff about Noah I won’t write. It’s complicated why. He says that he feels like he shouldn’t write it if I have chosen not to write it and I think that’s silly.

There are ways I don’t write about Noah because doing so would make him a supporting character in my story who was failing to live up to expectations. That’s not who or what he is though. He is a main character who is choosing to live with me. I don’t know how to write his story as it deserves to be written.

Part of the reason I don’t write more about him is because I would misattribute his actions all the time and I don’t want to do that.

I would paraphrase and misremember and go in a whole different direction and create a character for me to be at odds with.

I don’t want to do that. I do not want to take away Noah’s right to define himself and I think if I did substantially more writing about him… I would kinda do that to him. That would be wrong.

I asked him if he feels he knows everything about me. He shook his head emphatically–no. I asked him if he feels I know everything about him. He said not quite everything… but basically.

I have to believe he is wrong. That is very important. I have to believe I don’t know everything.

Because whatever it is I know so far… he’s going to change. People do. He will make new stories and if I file him away as a supportive character and I already know his backstory so whatever…

No. That’s just not going to work.

Our conversations hurt right now. In that way that growth and change hurt. I’m trying to see which words from this conversation are going to stick in my head. I’m not going to write down the one I’m trying to not remember.

Boundaries have shifted all over the place. That means things feel very unpredictable and that’s scary. Yes. That’s true.

I have two very busy weekends in a row. Which was rather rude of me to schedule. But I really and truly cannot express how deep this hunger goes.

Let’s see how I feel after that. I’ll probably have a better idea of what I need. I know that this is not sustainable.

But I’m going to explode.

I am very not sure I am going to be able to talk any one person into hitting me the way I want to be hit right now. These are all newish play experiences. They don’t know me as a bottom so they don’t really trust what they can do. I have to respect that tops have their own limits. (I’m not sure I could deliver a first time scene to someone at the intensity level I want so I’m not mad at anyone. It’s fucking hard to trust someone like that. Topping is risky in a way bottoming isn’t.) So I’m kinda hanging my hopes on a culmination of pain. Please oh please let me get hurt enough.

I saw a doctor yesterday for std checking. She was adorable. I love Planned Parenthood doctors. She was very curious about the bruises on my breasts (of course starting with worried) and I said, “Don’t worry. I had to ask nicely to get that bruise.” She looked startled. “Wait, what?”

“I’m a masochist. I had to ask one of my slutty friends very very very very nicely to get that bruise.”

She laughed. “I can’t believe you call them your slutty friends.”

“Well, at some point it is truth in advertising.”

She laughed more.

She’s thrilled I come in often for checks when I’m active. Come on back. She agreed that sterilization sounds wise but they don’t do that. I’m looking into options near me.

It would be somewhat hilarious to do a gofundme “Do you want to ensure that Krissy never gets pregnant again so that she can be alive long enough to fuck *you*?”

I’m kidding. I’ll pay for it. But it’s funny in my head.

I feel really mean. I feel like I should just go back to monogamy and decide that it is good enough.

But I can’t. I hit a wall. This isn’t enough and it is making me crazy. It’s not enough. I feel like a selfish fucking asshole.

Noah is not enough.

I’m feeling almost giddy at all the possibilities that are available to me right now. All of the things I love to do that Noah… doesn’t even know I’ve done. That isn’t part of who he sees me as.

He sees me as someone to be available for the things he likes.

But I have so many other likes.

Noah is relatively simple and I am fucktastically complex. That’s hard. Well he wanted a crazy girl for excitement.

I made a tiny bit of progress on tile yesterday. I’ll do more today.

Oh! Tile is here. I should email the folks who said they could help. Not 100% of it arrived, but most of it. Enough that I could finish the tree if they were taken of the backing.

Right now I’m working on spring. It’s perty. Grass and flowers.

I’m sorry Noah. I wish I could be just the supportive character of your dreams. I really can’t. I am so many things. Just you wait and see. I don’t want to leave. I mean… I want to go play. But I want to come back. I want you to see these parts of me. I want you to know me. I want you to want me. I like how you want me. I like how you snuggle me to sleep night after night, year after year.

It isn’t that being with you is bad. It is that you don’t hunger to hurt me. I’m not actually angry about that. I have been seriously partnered with people who had that hunger. Notice how I’m here? I don’t want to live with that. I don’t want to live with someone who wants to hurt me that much on a regular basis. Not really.

But I do want to beard the lion in his den. Why?

Because losing is so fucking hot.

I feel less antsy.

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At bed time last night I got dressed up (like up) and went to a munch. The kind of munch that happens at a bar so people play quite a bit. Less like the munches I grew up at where play was inappropriate. But I can adapt!

I asked my other Daddy (I have one in Oakland–the one who told me he doesn’t really have time but maybe; my other Daddy lives in San Jose and is currently slightly less occupied.) what he was doing and he pretty much responded, “Going to the munch with you” so I decided that was a sign and I drove south.

My back tells me today that I was dumb for that bit. But I had so much fun.

I spent two and a half hours kinda egging my friends on to hit me. This was fascinating because I did it differently than I’ve ever done before. I’m a negotiator. Usually I want to negotiate so much that I bore people before the scene starts. I just… didn’t negotiate much last night. After Daddy was dragging me back and forth by my hair for a while I finally interrupted and said, “I should warn you that enough hair pulling leads to a migraine and my head is getting tender.” He switched to holding me forcefully by the throat.

My boobs are gorgeous. I don’t mean because I have nice breasts (although I do) I mean that they are colors and colors and colors.

Thank you Daddy for all the slaps, punches, and pinches. I was grateful to beat off in the middle of you doing it, then I beat off at home, then I begged Noah to fuck me.

Life is so good right this minute.

It wasn’t just Daddy fucking with me! I’m not sure how it turned into a 3 on 1 without any negotiating but some nights are just awesome? Folks missed me? Well I missed them too…

My former Owner and another long-term friend thought it was hilarious to stand there (at different times) and say, “Hit her harder” so I kicked both of them in the shins.

I saw so many people I met right at 18/19. I feel I have come a long way. I feel like I am not very much the same. Even the way I like to be hurt is different.

Ok, I kept saying I am a wuss and you need to be gentle with me… but then Daddy would wind up and hit my breasts about as hard as he can hit. My response was to moan and lean in. The police baton on my ass was quite… motivational. I’m told there is a bruise there too.

Fucking a I had fun.

Ok, this is 0-60. AT LEAST I DIDN’T FUCK ANYONE. I coulda. I saw some invitations on peoples faces. But they would have been strangers. I just… I am not up for that dynamic right now. Anonymous people at a party where my husband is, that’s a small risk. Anonymous people when I’m hunting solo are dangerous at this point. I should stick with the known quantity folks so I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I will be sent home in good shape for doing my job because my friends care about my children.

This Daddy is one my kids spend more time around. He’s a very relaxed, mellow sort of dude.

Until he gets that look on his face and he winds up just to watch me lean into the blow. It’s nice watching how he shudders in satisfaction after a particularly nasty hit.

He says I taught him how to punch and kick. Oh sweetie, really? I’m so glad you’ve been practicing those lessons in the last 10 years because you’ve gotten pretty damn good. I am impressed. Do it again.

One of the tops I was playing with–frankly I didn’t know he was a top. He and I didn’t play more in the past because I didn’t think he topped and I’m not that motivated to top men. I make very few very special exceptions. (Pretty much I have to be wicked in love with you to want to do that to a man on an extended basis. It takes a fuck ton of energy and I don’t have much desire to pour that into people who won’t properly appreciate what it takes out of me.)

So this top… oh baby he just about made my night. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “All those years ago I told you ‘no’. I regret it. I’ll never tell you ‘no’ again.” Swoon dead away. Well I’m glad you’ve learned your lesson.

Now you’re going to have to ask me. Because I’m that kind of shithead.

And the third friend who ended up hurting me for a while…. also someone I think of as a bottom who just felt motivated to jump the fenceline. What the hay!?

It worked. He’s learned a lot about pressure points. He thought it was funny to pick two different spots on my body and apply pressure and ask, “Does spot 1 or spot 2 hurt more?” As I answered he counter balanced by upping the ante on the opposite one over and over till I was screaming.

Oh what a lovely night.

And all without having to ask or be asked or negotiate. God damn it’s good to be experienced.

I did stop the scene once to yank my dress up and show off my underwear and say, “Ok that last hit landed up here (point). I need the rest of them to land lower than here (point).”

Daddy said, “Ok Princess. That’s a good point.” Then he slammed my face back down on the table so he could hit my ass again.

Oh my life is so wonderful. Happy Sigh.

On that note. I need to go masturbate again. Today is going to be a beat off ten times kinda day.

I have chores to do this morning. Then I get to go find a bra with the Professor.

I hope it’ll be another good day.

Feeling more complete

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At the conclusion of Cranky Day I went up to Wicked Grounds and had dinner with two wonderful women. We had a great conversation. I felt seen. I felt like I had friends. I felt like I know these peoples stories and they know mine and they want to know more. I know I want to know more about them.

It isn’t just about hunting. It is about needing something bigger than a four person nucleus family with a babysitter.

My submissive walked in, surprised to see me, on a date. I was tactful I think. Barely grabby enough to remind him that I can but not stepping on the toes of his date. I think. I hope. *cross fingers* (No complaints from him.)

I think it is funny how I’m kinda putting people in boxes they didn’t ask to be put in. I don’t know if those are boxes they want to be in.

I am sorta doing with my submissive an intensified, deeper, adult, more intimate version of what I barely hinted at with my best friend in junior high. My poor best friend. I spent so much time hitting him. He told me that it didn’t hurt that much and clearly I needed to be hitting someone so it was ok. But I never kissed him. I never got even close to being sexual with him. That was completely off the table. (I actually went and stayed with this friend on the road trip. His wife is awesome and he has a darling baby boy. I’m so happy for him.)

I’ve never really soaked in wanting without hurrying up to sex. I don’t even really know how to do that. I feel like I’m signing up for the most torturous science project of my life. How does one sit with desire and coax it without indulging it completely?

I don’t know and I want to find out.

When I am grinding on your crotch and you can smell me the thing isn’t that I lack desire to fuck you.

I want to fuck you. But much more than that I want the power to decide not to fuck you. The first power like that I’ve ever really had in my life.

That’s a kind of intoxication I don’t know how to describe.

I love that I can lay on you and kiss you as much as I want to and you will gasp and moan and pant and start crying… but you won’t grab me and force me to do more than I am ready to do.

This is an utterly novel experience for me.

It is gross and creepy and yucky but I feel like the seeds of wanting this came from being a parent. I kiss my kids without escalating. But it isn’t passionate. It is loving and tender without being remotely sexual.

It really taught me a lot about the variety of love I can feel. I am curious about the extent of that variety in a way I was not before having children. How many ways can I love?

Am I physically capable of passion without hurrying to get it over with?

And it will be complicated to figure out the dynamic of pain and tenderness. When I say that I haven’t really dominated you in the past, the tenderness is a huge chunk of what I mean. I have tried very hard to give you the kind of pain I thought you wanted. I wasn’t there just being selfish. I like that kind of play and I thought you only wanted a specific thing from me.

If what you want is to do what I want, then this is going to be a whole lot more gentle. Because you don’t understand what I want as much as you think you do. Yes, I want to hurt you. I’m going to fuck you up severely. But that will be like 10% of our relationship.

I’ve watched you for a decade and a half. I’ve watched you be a man of integrity, honesty, character, and dedication.

Why in the world would I want to spend the majority of our time together degrading you?

Just got off the phone with my shrink. That was a lovely phone call. I gave her an update on the folks I’m pursuing. She said, “Oh I know these names.” That makes me happy. She thinks it is a good thing that I am taking my sexual satisfaction this seriously. “If this is what it takes and you can do it… do it.”

She also said that the thing I was cranky about is something we’ve discussed in therapy many many many many many many many times and yup I’ve been cranky about it for a long time. That is an accurate perception on my part. I’m not being hysterical. This is an issue.

I described my April and said, “Ok that is 0-60.”

I said, “IT IS ONLY ON 3 DAYS!!!!”

“Oh. But it is so much emotional intensity… it feels like a lot more than three days…”

Deep sigh.

You don’t understand. I used to do this 5-6 nights/week.

Three nights in a month doesn’t feel like 0-60 for me. And two of those nights I’ll be with the kids for most of the day anyway.

So it doesn’t represent that much time away from my normal life except in the form of lost sleep.

So it feels different to me.

I’m being real careful to catch up on sleep first.

My shrink said yeah, just use Lorazepam every night for a while. Catch up on lost sleep. Just doooo eeeet.

None of this, “But I’m overmedicated” bullshit. I’m not.

I think I have decided to try the Gabapentin. I’m scared shitless. But I seriously need a break from smoking. This is killing my lungs. Edibles are so expensive.

I would much rather give my money away than hemorrhage it on pot. Realistically: I’d rather pay chiropractors.

I’m not sure I will ever stop completely. I like it. But I don’t want to need this much of it. At this point it is hurting me.

My lungs are so pissed.

I won’t be on the computer today. K is bringing the Bonus Kids over. We haven’t had a visit in a while. I’m really happy about it.

Last night two wonderful women decided to come talk to me just because I said in a public way that I would be out of the house.

I feel so lucky.

Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for loving me.

Arms hurt. Love you so much. Bye.

Control, sex, identity

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I’ve been a kinky motherfucker all of my life. I officially entered the bdsm community at 18, but I was doing kinky stuff before then. I’ve been giving oral sex for 31 years. I’ve been having PIV (penis in vagina intercourse) by choice for 22 years. This summer marks 16 years of my life in the bdsm community. In two more years I will have been in the bdsm community (to some degree or another) for half of my life. I feel very confident saying that being a pervert is part of my identity. Part of my identity I’m thoroughly comfortable with.

But things shift over time. The kind of pervert I am changes. The kinds of things I like has drifted considerably, especially since having kids.

In all these 16 years I have resolutely shied away from pursuing any kind of ongoing interaction where I was to be Dominant. That’s been a line for me. I like being toppy. I’m sadistic as fuck. But I’m not a Dominant. Nope, that’s not me.

I’m a serious control freak and I manage a lot of that by being the submissive/bottom/slave because then I’m the one who does the vast majority of the work and it goes how I prefer. I date lazy tops. Perfect.

But my life has changed a lot. I feel like I have changed.

There are a lot of people and situations in my life where I could railroad people and control the shit out of them. I’m home schooling my kids. I could micromanage the fuck out of them. I could require them to be submissive to me. Legally I have the right. Yesterday I read this post that reminded me of why I really don’t want my children to be submissive to me in any way.

I don’t know about you, but I fall into being a bully real easy. I have to be careful not to control people inappropriately. I have big opinions and big feelings and people who aren’t rock solid in themselves like being influenced. I could be a serious problem for a lot of people.

I try so hard to not be that. I keep my boundaries fiercely. I don’t boss people beyond very specific, small, limited places where I ask for consent. “Hey we want to organize this event, can I boss people around to get things done quickly?” At this stage of my life 9/10 times when I ask that people gratefully say, “Oh please do.” I’m good at figuring out a plan. I’m good at bossing people.

But I’m scared of it. I avoid it. I don’t seek it out in an ongoing way. I do not want a job where I have that kind of control over people. I am not stable enough. I am not kind enough. I make such bad assumptions.

I act without thinking and I hurt people when I do too much of that.

It isn’t safe nor appropriate for me to be too bossy with any of my friends or family members.

But lately I want to boss. I want to control. I want to have influence in an ongoing control-tastic way.

I got this email from my friend. The one I topped the other night. The one I’ve been thinking about a lot for a while now. The one who likes the really super intense play that I like.

I’m thinking about him way more than is good for my overall balance of life. Holy shit. What do I want from him?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So much. So little. Such specificity. I don’t want to try to meet all his needs. I want to negotiate a very small slice of his soul and control the ever loving shit out of that. As I hurt him really badly.

Anyone who tells me they really want to see me come up from biting them with blood dripping down from my mouth?

Shit. We need to get tested.

Cause I can’t draw blood until we have both been recently tested. I have kids. I have to care. I have too many friends who have contracted Hep C.

Cause if you have been dreaming for years about having me hurt you like that and I have been dreaming for years about hurting you like that and my husband doesn’t mind and your partner thinks it is hotter than the sun?

Uhm…

Why not?

I have worked very hard to cram all of the “me” that is a pervert into a very small box that I keep in the closet. I take it down for very rare special occasions when my kids are far away and kept safe with someone I trust completely.

I know that many people in the community are ok with somewhat fuzzy boundaries with their children. I am not comfortable with that. I need boundaries between them and my sex life constructed with steel beams and concrete reinforcement. This is a no-information/no-fly zone kiddos. Nope.

No, I won’t swing in the house with the kids.

Just no.

Not because I’m judging you. Because I’m trying to deal with the body and brain I have. I’m trying to deal with the highly traumatized DNA sequence I passed down.

Why does sex with Noah behind a closed door feel fine as long as we are quiet? Because I’m really thrilled that my kids think that sex is a natural part of growing up and finding a partner. I’m ok with modeling that.

I can’t model promiscuity. Not given my background.

You know what? My kids have flat told me they don’t want me to date. They know that we have friends who date outside their marriage. They don’t care about what other families do. They told me flat out that they don’t want to give up more time with me.

They are little for such a short time. I’ve already been a pervert for so long. I have already been a slut for so long. Those things will still be there when my children no longer want me like this. I have one shot in this lifetime to nail the kind of parenting relationship I want to have and that means giving my children far more than I want to give. It means giving up things I want really badly for a while.

Life is always about choices.

Noah could tolerate a lot more promiscuity and boundary pushing and dysfunction. But then I’d be teaching it to my kids.

No.

It isn’t that I think that modeling dating is inherently wrong. I truly don’t. Other people have very different lives.

I think I don’t know how to model long term stable relationships. I like picking up strangers and fucking them once or twice and moving on.

I don’t want to model what I like.

Even if I don’t want to stop liking it. I just don’t want to like it in front of them.

This feels so complicated. I don’t like being in the closet. I don’t like feeling like a liar. I don’t like feeling like I am being anything other than 100% brutally honest.

You know what? I am with my kids. I still have boundaries. They sometimes ask probing questions about my history or my experiences and I will either say something matter of fact like, “Yes I dated lots of people before I got married because I wanted to figure out what things were important to me” or “That’s something private that I will not discuss with you during your childhood. You need to grow up without having that information in your brain. You can find it out later.”

So I’m not… lying… but I only answer selectively.

Part of how I have kept these divisions is “I did a lot of stuff in the past I’m not doing now and I have no shame about any of it” and “Right now I’m doing the mom thing.”

But the “mom thing” isn’t all of who I am. Even the (incredibly hot) sex I have with Noah feels like part of the mom thing and…

It isn’t all of who I am.

I’ve gone through a lot of evolution of perception of self. Especially with regards to the word whore. (Small disclaimer in case anyone is new: I’m not talking about sex work. I’m talking about personal associations from formative abuse. Specifically I have to figure out how to get my brain to work around shit my father did. It’s complicated. I’m not knocking anyone or any careers.)

I’m going to need some way to refer to this person I’m playing with. I will need a code name. I’m not ready to make one up yet so this is awkward. I have blanket permission to write about him, but he values his privacy.

For a long time I genuinely saw myself as a kind of sacred whore. I had sex with a lot of people, many of whom… weren’t getting a lot of other play. I feel like there is a lot of emotional healing that comes through sexual intimacy and you can absolutely experience that with strangers. There is a validation and affirmation that doesn’t exist in other kinds of connections in my experience. But it only happens with a highly, highly experienced partner who knows how to read intricate body signals and ask the right questions.

I’m really good at it. I’m told. By an exceptionally long list of people. So I have to believe it is true.

This person I’m playing with likes a lot of degradation with his submission. He wants to be called a whore and I get that. There isn’t a lot I find hotter during sex than having someone grind into me and call me a whore… so I get it. Better if I’m being hurt while they are calling me a whore and fucking me. I’ll usually come right there.

I’m having big feelings about degrading him. He asked me a lot of specific, leading questions leading to his desire to be degraded. Oh my.

I want control so badly right now. I want to be able to boss someone around a lot. I want to really play with someone’s mind. I want to headfuck someone until I can tell them that down is up and up is down.

I know how.

I’ve taken lots of classes. I’ve practiced with lots of people who are considered experts. I trained for this.

But I’ve never actually gone and done it. I’ve always been terrified of this. I don’t have the right. I was a Wiccan too early in life. What you put out there comes back to you times three. Be very careful what you wish for and make happen in your life.

I want to crawl into someone’s head and change parts of how he feels about himself. Not in bad ways. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to… tweak him. Because it’s hot. Because controlling people is so fucking hot.

I don’t want to hurt his life. I don’t want to interrupt his relationship with his partner or his kids or his job or his other play partners or…

I just want this. This piece of control. That I can’t explain yet. I don’t know what it is I want so god damn badly right now.

Thinking about the fact that he has to wait for a letter in response to his email because I feel like making him wait …. I’m going to masturbate quite a few times today. This is hotter than fuck.

(Yes I have appropriate boundaries around it. Don’t worry, I can come quick. I only need like three minutes of privacy.)

The email he wrote me is earth shatteringly hot and I can’t quite quantify why. The depth of longing. The number of years this longing has been sustained for.

I met him when I was 19. He likes to say that I had him from, “And who the hell are you?” Apparently that was the first thing I said to him and he was done.

You know…

I feel like this is a bad rom com justification for intense longing wearing people down.

In this moment I all of a sudden understand one of my friends much better. She has a marriage in which they do not discuss politics because they are on opposite sides of the fence. This man and I… have very differing views. We are going to need a hard and fast rule that if one of us notices that we want to have an argument because it is veering near politics we will need a Shiny Change Of Topic. Because…. I know his views. I know his views about a lot of things don’t align with mine for very complicated and diverse reasons.

He isn’t someone I could have married and had kids with for a laundry list of reasons. Guess what? That role in my life is filled and I’m fucking thrilled with how it is going.

But there is this stuff that I really fucking like to do that I can’t do with my husband because holy shit is he not interested.

Noah’s ok with some biting and scratching because it indicates enthusiasm and he likes that. But he is not a masochist and he has decided limits and he gets mad if they are crossed. It isn’t hot.

He has offered, over the years, to do some bottoming if I feel like I just absolutely have to do it and I just… can’t hit him. Not like that. He doesn’t like it. I topped him once because he wanted to feel what it was like to go through a hook pull and he needed help from endorphins and it sucked for him.

I can’t ever do that to him again.

But I really really really like hurting people and it is much easier to control that impulse on a regular basis if I have occasional times when I get to feel like, “Yes, This Is The Right Time And Space”. It is easier to understand what boundaries feel like when you get to have lots of them in different places at different times for different reasons.

I’m horrified by the idea of putting mild pornography in front of an unknown vanilla audience. But I will take all my clothes off in a room full of strangers, crook my finger at a person I don’t know and proceed to fuck right there. I will go to Folsom Street Faire and tie up any person who wants to get tied up because I know I am safe and competent and I won’t hurt them and they will get to have a sensual experience.

Boundaries, motherfucker.

Some time ago one of my children was being friendly with a random other child while we were waiting in line somewhere. The kids were going to have to just stand there for an hour or more. After a few minutes of Eldest Child trying the mother looked at me and said, “Your children have no boundaries, do they?”

Whoa.

What a global statement. We are friendly in a way that is highly unusual outside of California. We are enculturated to being part of a place that treats everyone warmly and like we could be best friends and we just don’t know it yet.

This is where we have always lived. This is how we know how to be. It isn’t that we have no boundaries. I’m wary about going into peoples houses. The kids have a lot of boundaries around going into secured spaces with people they don’t know. They are only allowed to be taken in the cars of very specific people and we have passwords around that.

No boundaries, holy fuck.

We like to pass the time in line by being friendly. Some of those random chats have turned into beautiful friendships. You know what? On the road trip we stopped in Michigan to visit with a man I met in a grocery store. Because he was wearing a pervy t-shirt and I needed to ask him to join the Mountain View Perverts Society. (We weren’t a real thing, but there was a shocking density of pervert households in a small area; we knew each other.) At worst it usually means standing in line is less tedious.

No boundaries. Jeeez.

You know what? My husband neither wanted nor asked for sexual fidelity when he married me. Nor did I.

I said I would be faithful to our relationship. That doesn’t mean anything about who I fuck or beat. If I am faithful to what Noah wants from me… You know what? I’m better able to be present with Noah if I have other needs met by other people. It means I spend less time being frustrated with him that he completely fails to be a queer masochist. I mean, what the ever loving fuck did I do wrong in this life to end up married to a hetero top?

But you have to take the hand you are dealt. He wanted me. He wanted to do the kids and home schooling thing. He has been up for everything I want to do in life. He isn’t someone who has as much strong direction as me. He’s thrilled to have someone with a stronger rudder around.

But I can’t control him. I don’t boss him. And I can’t hit him.

I have someone I like, someone I love even, walking into my life and telling me that they want me to hurt them as much and as deeply and as harshly as I want to because they think I deserve to have that release in this lifetime.

Holy fucking shit. God that’s hot.

What do I mean when I say I don’t want to date? Because clearly that means something to me. I think it means: if my children have already known you as the kind of person who comes to one big party a year and maybe one dinner a year… that’s probably where it is going to stay. I don’t take much time away from my kids. I need a lot of alone time and that dominates the time I take away from my kids. If I start seeing someone else on my own time frequently… it would cut into how present I can be with my kids and that’s not ok. But I want to see him so much.

And I’m making him wait for letters before we negotiate more. Oh, he’s probably reading this. But that’s different, you know? There are a lot of things I’m not saying here. A lot of things that are going to be private negotiations and may not ever be written about because I’m not 100% sure I want my kids to be able to find that in the archive.

I want to do some pretty fucking evil things.

And he really wants to let me.

Why is that so bad?

I don’t know.

I’m having a hard time talking myself out of it. I don’t want to talk myself out of it. I want to ………

Oh god.

Yes, when we played last weekend it was not anywhere near what we’ve talked about so far. Yes it was sexier. Yes it was more gentle. I was trying to not squick the vanillas, ok?!

Boundaries, motherfucker.

God. This scene is going to be so hot I should sell tickets.

Hey, maybe it would be a way to get enough money to pay to rent a play space during a time when my babysitter is actually free… Ha.

No pictures though. He has privacy concerns.

Yes. I want to take you. Yes. I want to take you.

God the sex is complicated. I think…

I think that is going to have to be part of what makes this so fucking hot. I think my pussy won’t be involved. I’ve never had a stone relationship before. I have never before in my whole slutty life been interested in having a stone relationship. I don’t know what the fuck this means.

It isn’t that I think I won’t have sex with people other than Noah. He kinda holy-crap enjoyed the swinger thing and… yeah I can do that.

It isn’t “what I want” in the same way. But it is close enough and fun enough and sure.

I want to use you and use you and use you and fuck with your head and build you up and help you feel a whole lot more cocky about how wonderful you are with everything you have to offer. I just want this tiny piece of it. But I’ll talk a lot about how much I enjoy all the other parts of you. I want you to be whole.

I want you to be a whole you. I think I can feed part of you.

I think you have already given me something.

I’m sleeping a lot better.

I told the woo Dr I need a month off from these supplements. I need to figure out how my body is doing after what we have been doing.

A lot of my pain issues are improving. I can feel that most of my current ache is because of current unfamiliar strenuous labor. My hands are getting wrecked. I really ought not be typing.

But I can’t say all of these things to Noah. And I need him to know that I’m thinking them. Because I need to be as absolutely transparent with Noah as I can be and in most of our lives… we just can’t talk about this stuff.

I don’t want to “date” in the next ten years. I want my kids and Noah to take up pretty much all of my time. I need that safety. I need it. I don’t know how much time I can carve away from that in order to come out with the relationship I want to have with my kids.

Don’t worry, I’m going to launch these puppies. Then I’ll have more, ahem free time. But a lot of that will go to Noah as his reward for supporting me and providing for me so well for so long.

I don’t know what is left.

I kinda want to find out.

I feel so alive.

Deep sigh.

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Noah points out that we really shouldn’t go to another party until the remodel is done. I got a bolt of energy. Now I need to take that and spend it on the kids, who have otherwise been getting short changed. Damnit.

But I like the telling part…

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I went to a party last night. The kind of party where you aren’t supposed to talk about what you do. But how much do I respect those boundaries? Only by the skin of my teeth. Which has no skin. So I totally don’t get that expression.

It was hot. I had a lot of fun. It was interesting to manage my feelings and expectations. Noah had more uhm contacts than me (this was intentional) and we both left feeling like we had a really positive experience.

I do have explicit permission to write about one of my partners. He has given me blanket permission to write about him. But that’s complicated. You see, a lot of folks I know… also know him. I’m having big feelings. They come in waves and layers and they impact many different aspects of my life.

Who am I? What do I want? Am I good or am I a monster? Can’t I be both? Is it ok?

I’m not sure I want to stop being a monster. What I want to do is go bite him right on top of the bruise he has from me biting him last night. That’s what I want to do.

He said that for that night it was a 9 but in the future I can treat it like a 7 because he really wants to let me do what I want to do.

So. Hot. Explosively. Hot.

Well I had my first fuck since Muse. Not with my friend I am hurting. Why not?

Why not?

Why do I need that to be a boundary? I’m still thinking about it. It’s complicated. It has to do with a sense of obligation, about boundaries, about my own limits around energetic output, and of course it’s about the fact that when I’m being super slutty… I wanna bottom.

Even though it is explosively orgasmic to fuck your throat, it is hard for me to turn around and say, “Ok now I want you to fuck me like this and like that and do it this way and harder and…”

When I’m fucking I want to drop like a rock.

That was part of the trouble with breaking the rule in Portland. I wanted to break so many rules. I wanted to cheat. Because he likes flipping people.

That’s where I get in trouble. My friend, who lets me hurt him so exquisitely, has absolutely no drive or desire or impulse to flip me. Not an ounce. None. I’ve looked in that well. I’ve dug out the bottom praying for brackish sips of toppy energy.

I love you so much. I want to drop when I fuck.

I feel bad for wanting that and I don’t want to feel bad for that.

I can do enough feedback to tell a stranger how to avoid land mines and encourage them to hit the tempo I want. That’s easy. I can’t tell a submissive how to fake being forceful enough to fuck me. I know folks who can. My hat is off to you. Sounds fucking hot. I can’t do it.

That was the thing with my Owner. He liked to submit to me. But when he was done he wanted to flip the table hard and have me go down.

I like that.

If I don’t feel a strong challenge, if I don’t feel like someone kind of wants to crawl inside me to eat my neck from the inside… meh. I’ll go find someone else to fuck. Don’t worry. There are more out there. Dick is the most plentiful thing on earth. As Feminista Jones recently pointed out, dick is more plentiful than drinking water.

And if what I want is someone who will fuck me like an animal then go away and not talk to me anymore?

I’m in a god damn buyers market.

This is part of why negotiating boundaries with Noah is so hard. I’m so touchy. I’m so sensitive. I need so much attention and energy and maintenance. We aren’t going to be polyamorous any year soon if ever. I have no desire to share that big of a piece of him.

But how does it work to fuck your friends? How does it work to keep people at a distance? I don’t know.

My kids are my secondaries. That sounds creepy. I don’t think we have an emotionally incestuous relationship. I think we have a lot of boundaries around what it means to be support for one another. I don’t think I am overly enmeshed or overly dependent on them. But I am really seriously teaching them how to take care of themselves. And I’m doing that by figuring it out (kinda) in front of them.

I believe with all my heart and soul that much of this journey needs to be off-screen for them. Sure, I write about it publicly and some day they may discover just how skanky their mom was/is…

I can live with that.

I believe I am allowing them to grow up in a world where sexuality is normal, healthy, private, and personal. People do it in a lot of different ways for a lot of reasons and there is no one way that is right or wrong. We have friends of quite diverse family arrangements. And I’m matter of fact and shame free about all of it. I explain why things I tried failed because of defects in my personality. It isn’t that those ways of existing are wrong.

I just can’t do them.

I don’t know why sex can be biting someone and slapping him and fucking his throat with my strap on and that’s enough. We didn’t even kiss.

But sometimes that is a complete sexual experience that needs to be respected within the boundaries that apply to it. Sex isn’t what you think it is. Sex is a lot of things.

I kissed his body. I kissed his neck. I licked him. Do you know the most contact I had with his cock? When he was wearing pants I kneeled on his crotch and jerked him off with my knees. I was still fully dressed.

Sex can be a lot of things.

Sex can be a lot of things it can’t be with Noah. That’s feeling interesting to me right now. And then the pick up sex.

Gosh. Feeeeeeeeeeeeelings. Where do these all fit in my heart, in my loins, in my life?

I asked permission for the pick up sex. Absolutely no cheating happened. This was all highly negotiated and safe and what not. Lots of condoms and covered oral sex. Ok we didn’t use gloves for fingering.

I swear to goodness driving across the country with my kids was more dangerous than fucking this dude.

Why didn’t I hunt for a woman?

Complicated.

Because there are more feelings involved. Squishy feelings. Feelings I have a harder time keeping at arms length. Because I want to fall in love with you. Because I miss women so much. Because I would want to… not have the boundaries I’m supposed to have. Because I do want to come over and bring my kids and all of us can cuddle because surely that’s not a problem, right?

A long time ago I went home with a couple after a wild drug fueled orgy. I shit you not. In the morning the three of us were lying in bed naked doing more drugs. In walked their eight year old kid.

No one blinked. This was just normal.

I left very soon after. I didn’t really keep dating them. I couldn’t do that.

My kids know I smoke pot. My kids know I have had sex. My kids see my casually naked because I genuinely see nudity as not a big deal.

My kids don’t walk in on me smoking pot with my lovers in the nude. Nope, nope, nope.

Do I think I’m better than them? No. Not really. Because you can go down a list of this for that wrong for right and… I’m not. I’m not better than anyone. I don’t have stones to throw. But I have decisions to make about where my boundaries need to be.

Isn’t judging kind of a necessary thing in life? It doesn’t have to mean someone else is in the wrong. But you have to judge anyway. You have to judge if something is right for you.

I asked very careful permission before I engaged in any sm play because this was not a bdsm party. I asked the host, I found a semi-private room. I asked the other people playing in the room for permission before I got started. When other people wanted to join us in the room I asked them if they were comfortable before things got going.

I want it to be ok for me to be in my place in the weird ass world and I want it to be ok that sometimes other people need to be protected from my baser urges. My baser urges are pretty wicked and I know that. Whoa.

I kept it light. I knew I was at a vanilla party. I’m told I only got up to a 3/4 for the hitting. The biting I got more fierce because that doesn’t scare people who are watching. Uhm, not as much?

No punching. No kicking. No serious choking.

I kept it kinda sensual mean.

aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I’m going to beat off like a fiend for weeks thinking about this. I need to go to a real bdsm party with him so I can fuck him up. I feel like I’m fiending like a junkie. I like this feeling.

This used to be my life. Ok, I didn’t top that much. Enough. I topped as often as other people could talk me into it. Because people who really crave being hit can tell what I have hiding beneath my smile.

How am I going to keep boundaries around this?

I’ve already loved you for way more than ten years. I’ve known you for more than fifteen years. If this changes, what will that mean? How much of me is going to go to a relationship that has been… super low key for a long time?

That’s the rub. That’s where the negotiating comes in.

Last night I was teasing him and I was teasing me. I know what we both really want and I couldn’t give it to him there. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.

See: I can be taught.

He told me, “Many years ago I decided that even if I didn’t know what you wanted from me, I want to give you everything I have.”

Danger. Danger. Danger. Soooooooooooooooooo much temptation there. That could be so much fun. So much intoxication. So much excitement.

Crap.

It’s magical. It’s appealing.

I have at least ten more years before I will consider seriously dating. Realistically I’m not sure our marriage would survive a serious outside relationship for one of us. We are enmeshed mother fuckers.

But I don’t mind when he goes and does x with someone else.

Cause it isn’t cheating. I walked into the room. I saw what was happening. I saw who it was happening with. I grinned. I walked out.

I like watching other people but I honestly don’t like watching Noah have sex with a stranger. I like watching him fuck my friends because then I can tell them both what to do and be a bossy shithead. That’s kinda inappropriate when he’s banging someone I don’t know. Boundaries, bitch.

And the very best part is when we got home he wasn’t ready to get a hard on so he put on a strap on and fucked me till he was ready to get hard again. Because I wasn’t done yet and if you aren’t hard that’s fine, we have equipment for that. I’m not done yet. And then we woke up and had frantic sex again in the middle of the early morning.

Because we feel cocky, snotty, insatiable, and completely and totally lucky that we get to come home and fuck each other.

I think it is hilarious that my shrink is shocked by how much sex we have considering how long we have been married. “Krissy, you know that people just don’t do that, right?” Meh. I know people who do. Maybe you don’ t know the right people.

It’s all about where you stand.

Noah likes to make fun of me. If I can find people who are more extreme at something I will loudly and prolifically say that I’m not that good at ________. Doesn’t matter what the topic is.

If there are fifty people alive who are better than me, clearly I’m not that good.

Uhhhh, right?

Depends on your scale. I’ve never ever tried to be a specialist. I’m a generalist. So what the fuck does that mean?

I don’t know yet.

Let’s find out.

Peace

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This morning I had a peaceful moment. One of those true, Zen moments of “I am happy and this is where I want to be.” Eldest Child woke up to use the restroom too early. I was awake doing chores, like usual. She asked me if I would climb in bed with her so she could sing me a lullaby. Twinkle Twinkle was the song of choice. Then she spent a while talking to me about why she likes me.

This is kind of a habit I have with the kids. I don’t put them to bed all the time, probably not even half the time these days at home. Maybe a quarter of the time? But we had the road trip and all the years before that of shared bed times. At bed time, what we do is we cuddle up close and spent 15-20 minutes talking about all the reasons we like each other. “You did ____ and I was so impressed with your thoughtfulness. You did ______ and I was shocked to see that you have made that developmental jump. I thought that was a (age inflation) thing and I’m really wow’ed. You said ______ word today and that was surprising because I didn’t know you knew that word!”

We bookend that with waking up to morning snuggles. During morning snuggles we talk about what we need to do today and how the schedule will work.

I can understand why my children insist I’m not an asshole and I just have bad moments. I don’t understand it so much from other people. Sometimes I feel like my children get to have a relationship with someone that no one else even gets to meet.

Sometimes I am capable of seeing myself as kind, giving, and loving.

That doesn’t change the fact that I’m an asshole.

Contradiction is necessary for life. For survival. You can be kind and an asshole.

Why am I so convinced I’m an asshole? Because I lawyer up fast when my contractors give me trouble. Because I find that swearing at men really harshly is one of the best ways to convince strange men I’m not interested in their attention. Because I find that sometimes it is necessary to kick people really hard to get them to let go and I’m willing to do it. Because I’m going to keep talking about why the word whore is eating my brain even though people with sex work careers twitch and feel really upset about it.

Want to hear something wild? Yesterday one of the most famous sex workers of our era gave me permission to use the word whore however I need to in my processing. She says if anyone questions me again I can send them to her.

That is… incredibly validating. Wow. Thanks.

I’m not sure I’m ever going to pull that card. But I may print out that tweet and cut it up small and put it in my wallet next to the permission slip from Noah. Just so that I think about it.

I have permission to look at this however hard I need to in order to get over it. She said so.

I am so fucking weird about permission. I’ve spent my whole life cringing, crying, and hurting myself because I felt that was the only thing I was allowed to do without permission. I need permission to stop. I need permission to feel something else about myself.

Why does that have to be the default? I mean, blame your parents yada yada, why does that have to be my default?

Why do I have to assume, in every moment, that I am the least valuable person present and if someone should die it should be me?

Not that I want to get to the point of wanting to sacrifice other people for myself.

Wait, maybe that is it.

I have never known a white person with really high self esteem who isn’t willing to throw other people under the bus for their own advancement. I have known people of color with high self esteem whom I have never seen sacrifice a friend. I know people of color who are exploitive assholes, too.

I’m trying to think through my white friends… y’all make very self absorbed choices. I do too. I’m not sitting on a high horse. I’m sitting flat on the ground. I’m not high and mighty here. I’m trying to figure out how this works.

I am willing to throw people under a bus if I feel I have to do so in order to be effective.

That’s why I’m an asshole. I need accurate labeling so other people know they have to protect themselves from me.

I want to help you. I will try to help you. But if I feel I have to be effective in some area for Reasons…

I’m a selfish piece of shit. That’s why I’m alive. I’m willing to say that Safeway doesn’t matter as much as me, I’m stealing food. I’m willing to say, “Being around people who make choices like x is so problematic to me that I will bug and bug and bug people who make choices like that until they don’t want to know me any more.”

I’m an asshole because I make a lot of assumptions about people and I don’t check my privilege nearly often enough. I’m trying to get better. This is hard.

My life has been kind of hard to adjust to.

I spent my childhood moving like a ghost through different communities. I never stayed long enough to belong. I lived in a lot of neighborhoods where we were the only white family. I grew up feeling like being white was a bad thing. Know why? White people don’t care about their kids very much. That was how I experienced it as a child. I don’t think that is literally true across the board. That was my experience. In white neighborhoods there were always packs of unsupervised children doing horrifyingly inappropriate things. In neighborhoods of color there might be much older teenagers or 20-somethings causing trouble, but the kids were god damn watched.

I was chased out of so many homes for having bad behavior. I was told I was a bad girl dozens, maybe a hundred times.

It’s funny how my memories of these things change and drift. I remember them very differently as my understanding of the situation changes.

When I was 21ish I honestly didn’t remember all those lectures about being bad. I had kinda blocked them out. I knew I was bad but it was a fog hanging over my life. I didn’t have all those disparate voices going through my head.

As a parent watching my children be children (by which I mean breaking rules and fucking up) I hear those people in my head over and over more and more clearly. Oh. That was why they said that.

Click.

Now I get it.

Shit.

I have always felt like I was living in many ages at once. But I feel like my future selves have changed a lot over my life. My ability to perceive who I could be has changed.

These days I can picture having grandchildren who scornfully tell my children that they should be more patient, like Grammie. I will giggle. My children will say, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS LIKE TO GROW UP WITH.” I will giggle.

Do you have any idea what having that vision in my head means to me? I have the belief that I might be able to arrive at having the kind of experience of being in my body that I want to have. I believe that I might get to the point of being actually regulated and calm.

I have hope for something I was not capable of dreaming up 20 years ago.

It’s amazing what ten years of safety can do for a body. I see it in myself. I see it in my children. That is something that home schooling does for me that isn’t necessary for almost anyone else I know.

I require this specific time to be set aside in my adult life where the entire point of my day is to model how to have big emotions, get them under control, deal with them appropriately when they come up, and then keep working.

Not suppressing. Not denying. Not minimizing. Not avoiding until it comes crashing down on you at some inappropriate time in the future. Your feelings matter. They live in you and they serve a purpose. If you ignore them in the moment you will pay a price later. There are times and places where emotional displays are not appropriate, but get that stuff out as fast as possible so it doesn’t become a poison.

I am grateful every day for the life I am leading right now.

I have the safety, the money, the access to care providers, and the education to do something about the trauma in my body.

That is magical. This should be available to everyone who has experienced trauma. We would be a better world.

People deserve to be seen in context and understood. Most people who seem “crazy” to you wouldn’t seem so crazy if you knew more about their story. I tell my children all the time, “Weird just means you aren’t used to it yet; eventually it is just normal.”

My mom used to say, “The only norma people are the ones you don’t know very well.”

One of my neighbors is stepping up the offer of maternal-nature-friendship. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Thank You Oh Universe, You Sure Do Like To Hear My Calls, Don’t You?

On the other hand… I’m scared of blowing up what we currently have if she finds out more about me. I’m not exactly the uhhhh conservative type and she is quite shy, scared, and sheltered. I don’t want to hurt her. She will need a lot of boundaries around the kinds of things she can handle hearing and I’m not sure how to find those boundaries without fucking up pretty badly. Once you say something it can never be unsaid.

We have a really solid, positive relationship. Losing it would be brutal. This feels really tricky. Our families are fairly strongly connected at the level we have now. I feel really like this is a big risk. Much bigger than telling all the strangers on the internet about my raunchy sex life and habit of beating people up for fun.

I’m kinda weird.

My superego is fucking developed at this point, ok? I’m growing up.

I’m an asshole and she is not. She wants to mother me. What will she do when she finds out I have approximately 500 x’s as much life experience as her?

There is a thing I think about. When I was in the bdsm community I was really serious about learning all I could as fast as I could. I played a lot with a lot of people. Basically I spent more time on bdsm than I spent on my college education, which I was pursuing simultaneously. Much Much Much more time on bdsm.

I was a serious slut and it was really fun and I have no regrets. I learned what I wanted to learn from that experience. I’m shocked at how often I find ways to apply the lessons I’ve learned, not in ways you’d expect.

I had more life experience at 25 than many people have at 50. It isn’t hyperbole, it is simple fact. I say yes to almost anything that comes up. I know very diverse people in many communities. I’m a moody bastard with a short attention span.

I’ve done a lot of things. It is something I notice when I meet new people these days. I sound like a lying braggart. Nope. I got receipts. I did all that. Why? Because I never felt like I had a better choice than to do what I was doing so I did it all in. As soon as something stops feeling like the best choice in the moment I break down, fall into a deep depression. Go home. Hurt myself until I figure out that the boundaries required in that community are not things I can maintain long-term. Then I heal. Then I try again.

It goes faster and faster as I age and get boundaries carved out of granite. It is harder to change them. I am less tolerant of my internal, “I need to conform by doing x in this environment” sensor and I just flee.

I have a home now. I have less reason to tolerate your bullshit rules. Wanna know why I know they are bullshit rules? Cause this ain’t my first rodeo. Don’t worry, I think the rules in my house are bullshit too. They are all weird and arbitrary. They are made to suit the moods of whichever asshole in the vicinity is loudest.

I know.

I used to know a man who liked to say, “I’m the only psycho in this relationship” or maybe he said he was the only one who gets to be crazy? I may be misremembering. I’ll cop to that.

I need to be the biggest asshole in the space I’m in. So Noah is an asshole, but I know that I’m much more likely to be the one to bulldoze than him.

It works for us. Picture a heart emoji here, but I have technically banned them so this will have to do.

He doesn’t think I’m an asshole. That’s part of why this works. I think we are both assholes and I’m just a bigger one. But he’s all mellow and tolerant so it works out. Do you however you need to, ok?

I’m going to be kinda passive aggressive here and say: if you are one of Noah’s friends… this is a great time to ask him to go out some time. He needs to talk. To more people than just me right now cause life is like that sometimes.

I can’t fill his tank as much as he needs me to right now. Because I’m dealing with the remodel and and and. His job is kinda hard.

I need to go beat the shit out of people. I don’t know what he needs. But right now, he’s wilting like a flower and that’s a serious bummer. I don’t know what it is that is missing right now, but clearly all the right nutrients aren’t in place.

This is the kind of micromanaging, paying attention that I want in my life. It is why I appreciate the people who have stuck with me and really got to know me so much. Because I’m more pushy like this by the year. Because people do it more with me. It’s a careful balance. How much controlling and influencing other people should we do?

I really don’t know where those boundaries ought to be. I’m not pulling up Noah’s email account and making plans for him. That’s over the line.

Where is the line?

Everyone is different. I want you to get to be who you need to be. I want to figure out who I need to be and I want to just do the shit out of it.

This feels like baby steps towards self love, doesn’t it? This morning feels good. I have to say that these piles of tile are inspiring. I may be jaunting off to get more sparkly tiles today. I’m really excited about the snow wall. I want to build that first because I have so much white and it would be nice to get it mostly used up and out of the way so I see how much I need to still buy in terms of tile for the rest of the bathroom. I really can’t tell yet.

It depends on how high up the walls I want to go, right? We’ll see!

Youngest child’s half bathroom is spring. Other half bathroom is summer. The bathing room is going to have autumn and winter. I can’t wait to look at the sparkly snow while I take baths in candle light at night. That will be so beautiful.

I’m serious my friends, if you want to come take a bath… let me know.

I’m thinking hard about how I want to make the tree of life that will climb up the wall over the bath tub. I need to look at more pictures. That will probably be that last bit I design because much of it might be painted, I haven’t decided.

I know that “traditionally speaking” you want flat walls. I’m not going to have flat walls with perfectly level tile. It’s going to be pretty rough and it will be on purpose and structured and artistic. I think it will work.

Oh please God let this work cause this puppy is going to be expensive if I fuck up.

Go big or go home, bitch.

Oh goodness what did I get myself into?!

Have I told you that the floor will have a stone path lined with green tiles to look like grass?

I’m having SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN.

If only the roof weren’t uhm, being tricky. We are still negotiating. I’m blathering on Twitter but I won’t rehash it here. Just… gotta keep walking on. I’m trying to not be angry. At this point all of the guys in the company have apologized for making decisions without me when clearly they made the wrong choice at a critical juncture. I had preferences and they didn’t ask. Even though I’ve told them over and over and over I want to be asked.

Ok. Trying to move on. Have to get this shit finished. If it’s beautiful… I will still write positive reviews with caveats about how I had to be fierce in advocating for myself.

I made it very clear that from here on out the crew was not to dump their lunch garbage all over and leave it here for weeks. Saw blades are all over the ground and that’s not cool. My lawyer was at this meeting. I should stop talking about it for all kinds of reasons.

I wanted to write something down here for documenting purposes. Instead, I hit cut’n’paste and sent it to my lawyer.

That seems smart just now.

Past self, you picked this woman out based on proximity and hope. Well done!

Today will be a good day, I think. I hope. I believe. Oh yeah, a friend asked if she could come over to dinner. I should tell Noah. Ha. Surprise. We have six people coming over for dinner.

Roll with it. Life flows like that. If people ask to come over for dinner the next night and I have no plans…. I’m weak. I have no willpower for that kind of rejection. Because you hit my sweet spot. Basically no output of energy and lots of input of attention. Yeah, you can do that. Sounds awesome. I have to cook anyway. Don’t worry. I always have enough food around.

You never know who might be coming to dinner.

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: having limits

Full head, full house, ouchie arms

Shame is complicated

Words and asking

Selfish asshole

Boundaries on and off screen

The hard stuff

Deep sigh.

Peace