The Stone Shelter

"It is said that 'a Top is for tonight, a Dominant is for as long as she is submissive, a Master is there until she is no longer a slave, but a Daddy is forever.' Daddy may have to give his girl away to a husband. He may eventually run out of things to teach his little girl. She may ultimately not need his sage advice and his experience any more. Hopefully he will be too old by then to have to deal with it, because when there is nothing left to teach, no need for a confidant, no discipline needing to be meted out, when his little girl no longer needs her Daddy, that’s when he will die inside. The need that Daddy has for his girl is every bit as potent as the need she has for her Daddy." ~ WizarDavid

So, I poked my nose into the forums and saw some things about DD/lg.  And even said a little bit of a piece there about my thoughts on the topic.  However, I (as usual) couldn't stop pondering.

 

Well, for whatever it may be worth, this is the randomness that has been occurring to me.


To me, I should be her biggest fan. I should be her cheerleader. I should know not only all of her triumphs but what she attempts to do that is beyond her. And I should cheer just as loud, if not louder, for the attempts that she makes to better herself. To reach beyond her grasp. Because it means that she is growing. That she is beginning to see herself as I do, how much more she is capable of beyond her fears and insecurities.


To me, I should be her biggest confidant. I should know more about her than anyone. I should know the embarrassing things. Those which she feels are shameful. I should know her secret desires and longings. I should be the one she first thinks of when she needs an understanding ear.

To me, I should be her protection. Her shield against threats that would harm her, both real and perceived, that she is not quite ready to tackle on her own. For her to shelter in the embrace of someone else, even if it is a circle of friends, means, to me, that I have failed in my most important duty as a Daddy. I have failed to be her safe place. The place where she knows that nothing can harm her unless it comes through me first.

To me, I should be her mentor. I should constantly strive to teach her everything I know. Or, when I run out of things I know that she doesn't, I should push her to learn more and be more. As much as she can. Even when that means I have to shut the hell up and let someone else teach her. And, yes. Even when it comes to protecting herself, without a need for me as a shield.

Even once I have nothing left to teach her that she doesn't already know, I should still serve as a guide. As a counselor. I should be willing to go to any lengths I need to support her and nudge her back on the path when her own fears and insecurities scream in her beautiful brain, "I can't do this!" Even... or perhaps especially... when that guidance means directing her to someone else who can teach what I do not know.


To me, no matter what happens, I should be her anchor. Her stone shelter that she knows she can come back to and be welcomed with open arms, no matter how far and wide she might venture and leave me behind. That I will never turn her away. Never turn my back on her. Even when she doesn't need me anymore.


Where I admit I have always struggled is with discipline. My temptation is going to be to spoil her. To love her and accept her whatever she might have done. And it truly does hurt me worse than it hurts her for me to have to call her down for doing something she shouldn't have, and that she knew better than to do. But, it also makes me wonder and look over my own actions and inactions that she might have felt like that was a good idea, or I might not have cared. And, maybe it's a mistake. But, I don't get angry with her. And I make sure to tell her that, each and every time she begs me not to be mad. That I am not and have never been angry with her. That my disappointment, my frustration, and even my anger are directed at myself that I didn't do a better job, that I didn't head her off and keep her from doing such a thing.

I don't know. There are times when I really question just what I am. But, I think it's because a Daddy is only a Daddy when he has a little. And, when she comes to me and those feelings wash over and through me, I know in my blood and bone that this is what I am. I am her Daddy. For as long as she needs me and is willing to allow me to be.

And, yes. When she doesn't turn to me first to have a need met, and I find out, a part of me withers just a little bit. It breaks my heart just a little bit. And I feel like I have let her down.


But, maybe it's no bad thing for me, or for us.


Because I think if I actively want to be all she has and needs, if I actively object to her protecting me from her trigger responses and not letting me see her as she really is if that is what she wants to do, if I actively try to stop her from dealing with things herself without telling me rather than sharing them with me in a timely manner, then maybe I'm not being the Daddy I should be, that I want to be. Maybe I've given her chains instead of wings. And if I can't grow large enough that she doesn't have to shrink in on herself to continue being my little, then perhaps I have served my purpose and it's time for this stone shelter stand empty except for memories.

I don't know. The only answer I have been able to find for myself is that if I am somehow forcing her to be smaller than she wants to be, then I am not helping her so much as controlling her from my own selfish desires and it's time for me to "step the fuck off."


I have no problem with being her shelter in the inevitable storms. I very much desire it in fact.


But, when the skies are clear and she needs a perch to launch herself from to spread her wings and fly, I want to be that too.

And still remain the shelter for her to come back to when she's done spreading her awesomeness for another day.


I don't know. That's probably all about as clear as mud.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that she can choose to be a little to me, but if I am somehow making her become smaller than she wishes to be in order to fit, then I need to spend more time growing larger. However large she needs me to grow.

A few tidbits I've picked up from kicking my tin can down this graveled road for so long.

1) The major difference between Heaven and Hell on Earth is the company facing it shoulder to shoulder with you.

2) If you don't give a damn, who do you expect will?

3) A society, any society, is composed of the attitudes of its individual members. If you aren't part of the solution, you are at minimum a contributing factor to the problem.

4) You may catch more flies with honey, but there's always gonna be some sweet thing with a low taste for vinegar. (What the fuck? Seriously? I wouldn't put up with me!)

5) If you don't take care of you, you probably aren't going to be able to do jackshit when someone else needs you. If you don't care about them, then go right the fuck ahead and ignore your own self-care.

6) The surgeon general really needs to put out a warning that fucking with me about my smoking might be hazardous to your ears (at minimum). (Yes, I know what I said in #5. Bite me.)

7) Listening is important. Unless a woman is doing the talking. Then, you'd better fucking listen, watch, smell, feel, read the fucking barometer, develop ESfuckingP...

8) It ain't about waiting 'til the storm passes. It's about getting your feet wet and flipping the bird at the tornado coming.

9) It's always gonna be smarter to fight from the head than the heart.

10) Loving takes courage. Allowing yourself to feel worth being loved takes time. (More for some than others. *cough*)

 

11)  It ain't a competition.  Or a comparison.  Just be you.  The best you that you can manage to be.  And tell anyone that isn't good enough for to go play sit and spin on a large spike.

 

12)  It AIN'T a competition or comparison!  Expecting any person to be anyone other than who and what they are in order to fit your grand scheme is just plain stupid.  Helping them to find the best version of themselves that they want to be is alright, and even admirable.  Expecting them to be somebody they aren't?  Dumb.  And doomed to failure, eventually if not sooner.

 

Any road, I don't know. When I was a dumbass kid, I made the mistake of praying for strength, wisdom, and patience. I didn't understand at the time that to get stronger, you have to load progressively more on your shoulders until it hurts. I didn't understand at the time that true wisdom lies in knowing there is really very little you do know or the pain inherent in some discoveries. As far as patience... I'm still waiting for that shit.

I admit, I'm probably a tad bit sharper than a box of marbles at the moment. But, eh, what the hell.  If I can't peel back the top of my head and vomit my thoughts on the screen here, where can I?

May the sun be out of your eyes and the wind at your back for a brighter tomorrow.
May all that you give be returned to you threefold.
And may you never forget to live, laugh, and love each and every day.

 

I flit through people's lives for a season and never leave a very large footprint behind when they move on.  It is what I've seen from the moment of my birth, through my childhood, through my adolescence and early adulthood.  It is what I've become.

 

I like it that way.  It is partially through design.  Partially making a positive of what I was born.  Some of it is because I was given a life expectancy of five years eight years ago.  Some of it is a memory of my deceased father's voice telling me that I am meant to be seen and not heard... and only seen when I am wanted.

 

If I have a gift, it is to disappear while standing right in front of you. 

 

I was counted absent several times when I was sitting right in front of the teacher because I wasn't ever one to demand the attention.  If I have to demand it, to fight for it, then what is it worth to me?  Someone else louder and more insistent would always win it away.

 

People say they are looking for intelligence.  But, what do they mean?  A guy named Gardner posits that there are ten different types, and his work is unassailable from everything I know and understand.  Which intelligence is it that one means when they say they value it?

 

Is it intelligence for me to try to discuss the painting "The Scream?"  To explain that it is not the figure in the center that is screaming, but his facial expression is a response to the outcry of nature? 

Is it intelligence for me to fling math and physics puns in the air like confetti? 

To discuss the emotive ramifications of physiological causes?

To discuss biochemistry or computer network engineering in one breath and poetry or music or art critique in the next?

 

Or is it only intelligence if it forms a confluence with the interests of the listener?

 

How many times has a woman I found attractive, whom I have told she is attractive, stood and lamented that she is unattractive?  That no one would want her when I thought I'd made it clear that I do?  That no one would value her when I'm standing right there, next to her, supporting her?

 

I am a ghost.  I flit through a life in a mere season of it, perhaps no longer than an hour, perhaps a couple of months, perhaps as long as a year, even decades for a few, leaving barely a footprint behind to show my passage.

 

And that is to the good.

 

I am glad I am not physically attractive so that no one will want me only for my attractiveness.

I am glad I am smart enough to recognize that people will always be more interested in telling me what they think than hearing what I think.

I am glad I have no wealth to be coveted.

I am glad I have no charm, and only half the wit to impart so that I know that those who listen do so not to be entertained, but because they find some other worth.

I am a ghost.  But, only to those who don't need me to be something else.  Only to those who don't wish me to pause to leave more than a faint footprint in the grass to show my passage.

I absorb the pain of being left so that I do not cause the pain of leaving.

I accept being No One of Consequence to the many to free my attention for the truly interested, and thus worthy, few.

I am a ghost.

Except when I am not.

Then I am an angel of battle.

I am the hell her demons can use for a playground.

I am dragon.

I am wolf.

I am eagle.

I am "Walks with Thunder" and the earth trembles with the purpose of my shamanistic passage.

I am earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.

But, only when I choose to be.  And only when she allows me to become reality.

Then, when the season is over, I am a ghost, a half-seen memory of a forgettable dream.  Leaving barely a footprint behind on the dew laden grass to mark my passage.  Unresponsible for what she has chosen to become beyond that I was privileged to witness her strength in becoming.

 

Or so I used to be.

 

I am a ghost, as ever I have been.  As invisible as the air you breathe.  And as fleeting as the puff let out under the lash.  And few are the ones I allow to be haunted as I fade into history.  Perhaps no other will ever be allowed to see me beyond a flicker out of the corner of their eye.  Perhaps the thunder has stilled.  Perhaps the storm has soothed away into a gentle rain, tears slipping from heaven to wash away even the fading imprint of the footprint in the lush grass behind me.

 

 

Yet... Are any of us really more than ghosts to anyone other than those we choose to be more to, who also do allow us to be more, despite feeling like the star of our own show?

"Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater." - Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer

 

Temporoparietal junction dysfunction and what part it may or may not play in the efficacy of BDSM style dynamicked relationships and LDR versus face to face interactions.

 

 

Of course, the psychological and physiological factors do not work in a vacuum but are prey to being effected by sociological factors as well.  To wit, whether the person in question is part of a collectivist society or a cult of rugged individualism...

 

But, the question on my mind is studying the parameters and concatenations of a person being able to view themselves as separate from other... or not.

 

 

But, yeah.  Some people can read "putting my arms around you to hug you right now" typed out in text and actually feel the arms slipping around them and holding them tightly.  While others can read those words and smile and find it "cute." But, it is just words on a screen to them and holds only a minimal "empty" psychological and possibly emotive effect with no physical impact at all.

I'm not even trying to get into which is right and which is wrong.  The person who can experience societal interaction without blocks and filters separating self from other.  And whether it is the person themselves who is "sick" or the people, the culture, which deems them so.  I'm still back on studying the TPJ interplay and messiness that is only just recently beginning to be able to be studied "scientifically" in such as people diagnosed with Autism, Asperbergers, Shizophrenia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, amnesiacs...

Fascinating.

 

I stumbled across a forum post which the title alone made me cackle loud enough I'm sure the neighbors wondered what the old crazy man over there was doing.  "You are my world... who are you again?"

However, not only did it make me laugh, it also made me think.

 

(We will now pause for the groans and expletives from people who have tried to actually read my previous blogs when I've turned to the keyboard with what passes for a brain in my head a twirl... or maybe that should be "tilt-a-whirl.")

 

Well, rather than hijacking a good forum thread with several good responses from intelligent and well meaning people, I figured it might be better to bring my own long winded (and probably less intelligent... or at least intelligible...) ramblings off to my blog so that it can be ignored by those with better sense than to let their busy schedule be further misaligned by someone who demonstrates if he has any wit or wisdom, it is only by a half.

 

The thing I think is most often overlooked is that BDSM dynamic relationship is, in it's hard kernel, first and foremost a relationship.  And, thus, is subject to the pitfalls of any other relationship.

The forum thread in question was talking about how when life gets too busy, it can sometimes happen that her Person gets downgraded in priority, in effect whether that was the intention or not.  First, her self-care, and then Him.  And several other people have responded that they experience the same.

From kicking my tin can down the side of this graveled road for quite some time now, in addition to misspending some of my time, money, and energies in my checkered past actually studying the dynamics of relationships in college, I can sometimes find myself surprised when other people are surprised that the old bumper sticker from the '70s was right.  "Shit happens."  (And in this case, by "shit," I mean life.)

 

Alright, so backing up the crazy train for a minute...

 

When first boy meets girl (or boy meets boy... or girl meets girl... or any other rendition of the oldest dance) there is a response that is not only psychological, not only sociological, not only physiological.  Instead, it is a whirling pool sucking us in and down as if a toilet were flushed...

Er... wait.  Maybe I should pick a different analogy.  Meh.  Fuck it.  You know what I mean.  Often, we don't have a choice.  Something about this someone (or Someone) captures our attention and then our heart and then our soul.  Whether we want them to or not.  Whether we thought we were open to any such thing or not.

And, all to often, the suction is strongest when it catches us by surprise as their hand twitches the silvery handle!

 

As it happens, yes I do know the names of the chemicals and endorphins released into the blood stream, the glands they come from, and more than a little about just what causes the bio-chemical stew to be released.  But, I'm not looking to publish this in a psychological or sociological journal complete with abstract and sources cited.  So, fuck it.  If you are that curious, you can hit the library stacks just like I did...

 

And fuck, I feel old since it just dawned on me that there aren't really library stacks on college campuses anymore.

***sigh***  Oh, for the good old days when we could take a study break in the stacks, my hand pinning her wrists above her head, kissing her as I pressed her back against floor to ceiling bookshelves, surrounded by the musty odor of old printed books, my hand not trapping her wrists down her...

 

***cough***  Sorry.  What was I talking about again?

Oh, yeah...

 

So, I'm not going to bore anyone with so much as a neuro-physiological quickie or, rather longer, psycho-social exploration.  Anyone who has ever felt that first heady rush of what we term "love" knows enough to know the feeling exists.

And also that it fades.

I have argued, and continue to, that neither the people who argue that the human body is not intended to sustain the production of such bio-chemical processes for an extended time nor the people who argue that it is a question of titration as we grow used to the feeling as exclusively correct.  Instead, I believe, and have sought to prove more than few times the question was raised, that it's a combination.  Just as the people who argue one side or the other of the nature versus nurture argument are both equally correct and incorrect.

The sad part is that there are people who, as that first flush of infatuation fades begin to question whether what they felt was real.  And, more than a few, just as a strung out crack addict, go running to chase their next high.  The next person who can make them feel good.  And, maybe, feel good about themselves.

But, we're not talking about them.  At least I'm not.

No, I'm talking about the people who even when the butterflies in their guts quieten, even after it no longer feels like the top of their head pops off to let their consciousness expand into the aether, even after their mouth no longer feels dry and their palms wet and their vocabulary returns from wherever it went leaving them only to babble senselessly still feel intensely drawn to this person.  Still identify the feeling they have as love.  Are committed to making This One work.

 

These are the people, the relationships, that were on my mind when I read that forum post, and the responses, and once I stopped cackling started thinking.  The people who have moved past the first blush of budding romance and have settled in for a committed haul with each other.

 

Something that was mentioned time and again there was "time management."

And I was reminded of a quote. 

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot."
~ Michael Altshuler

 

At the risk of causing some people to roll their eyes (those that have the endurance to make it this far), I strongly feel that "time management" is a misnomer.  We don't actually ever manage time.  The best we can do is manage ourselves and how we choose to spend (or waste) the time that is given to each of us in the same measure each day.

Stop that.  I can hear your eyes rolling from here.  Hear out the rest of it.  THEN you can laugh and roll your eyes.

 

There is a basic difference in strategy and tactics.  Strategy is what you mark in your planner last night before you slept, or last week, or last month.  Tactics is what you try to think of when you are running to the bathroom to splash water in your face after realizing that the alarm that was supposed to wake you didn't go off and you are already two hours behind in the planned schedule.  Emergencies (or Crises) in most people's lexicons are those things that cause us to have to shift from a strategy to a tactic.

And at this point, I'm going to reach for the acrylic shield to keep the eggs and rotten vegetables from reaching me...

A lot of people, and especially submissives who are self-identified "people pleasers" strategize too much, fill their time with everything that they feel a need to do in order to... Sometimes not even please the people around them, but to avoid disappointing anyone, letting anyone down.  Their day is so incredibly full with all the things they are doing for all their tribe that there is absolutely no give in it when something out of the ordinary occurs.

 

And why shouldn't they plan it all out?  Why shouldn't they care about all these people?  Why shouldn't they try to do so much on a normal basis?  After all, we say it that they ordinarily can do it all because it's rare that something untoward and unforeseen happens that keeps them from being able to do it all!

 

But,...

But, as I say, shit happens.  LIFE happens.  In fact, "life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." (Allen Saunders, Readers Digest, Jan. 1957)

Just because it is out of the ordinary, just because it rarely happens, doesn't mean that it never will.  In fact, it's a sure thing that it will happen, eventually.  The question is, do you allow wiggle room in your strategy for a situation that most likely will not occur THIS time?

I say, yes.  You do.  If you don't, then you end up robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And, those self same people pleasing submissives will rob whom first to pay out the time management debt?  Themselves.  Their self care goes first.  Not just their wants, but their needs are ignored in favor of giving their time and energy elsewhere.  Not even necessarily to please someone, but to avoid disappointing anyone else.

This won't work.  The problem is that it seems to work in the short term.  And it even seems to work in the medium term.  But, in the long term?  No.  It won't work.  If you don't take care of yourself, tend to yourself, you will start to break down and will gradually have a harder and harder time doing the things you are wanting to do for other people as the basic physiological, psychological, and emotive debt comes due.  If you want to be there for someone else, then your first responsibility is to make sure that you are able to be there for them when needed. 

Which almost seems counterintuitive to some miserable little people pleasing subbies.  They feel selfish if it isn't done for someone else.  Well, look at it logically.  If you don't eat, you can't do for someone else.  (And a double handful of popcorn does NOT fucking count!) If you don't sleep enough, you can't do for someone else.  Duh!  If you are less than your best because you are tired, hungry, or otherwise physiologically, emotionally, or psychologically distressed, then your best does not currently exist to offer up to someone else!

 

Then, there is our person (or our Person), the one who is supposed to be our priority, whom we have committed ourselves to.

It doesn't really matter if we are talking about a BDSM dynamic relationship or what is referred to (sometimes disparagingly) as "vanilla" relationship, there is a pitfall hiding amongst the bramble.  Because we trust this person, because we rely on them, because they have proven that we can rely them and trust them to be there for us, we come to take for granted, to some extent, that we will be able to trust them and rely on them.  That whatever else is happening, they will be there.

They become, to an extent, almost viewed as something of an extension of ourselves, subconsciously.

Pause before your head explodes.

What I'm saying is that the person who will shove aside their own wants, desires, and even needs to tend to everyone else before themselves, when that isn't enough to get done everything they feel needs to be done, will then set aside this person that they trust to be there, that they can rely on, because they count on them to continue to be there when the dust settles.

Is that the way it should be?  No.  But, tell me that it isn't what happens, and for that very reason.

They always are there, so we come to believe, on some level, that they always will be.  So, a little people pleasing submissive will take care of all the other shit life throws us, then they will take care of PYL, then take care of themselves when shit (aka Life) gets too overwhelming.

 

Oh, but hold up if you are reading this and are on the capitalized side of the slash.  Don't go getting cocky and rubbing your knuckles on your leather vest.  Stop and think for a minute.  Are you absolutely certain that you are never guilty of the same damn thing?  I readily admit that I have been from time to time.  I'm aware of the danger, I develop strategems to make as certain as I can be that it doesn't happen, and, yet, I still stumble in that pitfall from time to time.  If you don't, then good on you.  (No, I don't really believe you.  But, we'll move on as if I do.)

 

So, how do we do this?  How do we "seek the balance" as it was phrased back over in that forum thread (that I'm certain you can see by now just why I didn't contaminate with my long winded, half-conceived, diatribe).

 

First, self.  Minimal, non-negotiable needs.  Sleep.  Food.  Hydration.  Exercise.  Breath.  Each of these will take time.  Allow for it.  Disallow anything impinging on it.

 

Second, the person who is our priority (or at least we claim is).  Kisses. Hugs.  Touch.  If physically possible, these should never be neglected.  Physical intimacy should never be neglected entirely.  Maybe you don't have the time for the entire eight hours of foreplay, filthy debauchery, and aftercare I would prefer to visit on your body, heart, mind, and soul... But, that is no reason that we can't share a twenty second kiss, a sixty second hug, or even just a ten second lingering touch of our fingers trailing the forearm and hand of the other.

 

But, what about when physical distance makes touch (or taste or smell) impossible?  Communication!  The gift of the sight of you is still possible via pictures.  The gift of the sound of you is still possible via recordings and phone calls.

And words!  Words are most important of all!

Some people like to say that they have trouble communicating.  That they fumble words and don't express themselves very well.  Really?  "I love you" is that hard?  "I adore you?"  "I worship you?"  "I value you?"  "You are important to me?"  "You matter?"  "I miss you when you aren't with me only slightly less than I miss air when I can't breathe?"  "I wouldn't give a flying fart from a finger flinging ferret on a ferris wheel about the rest of this fucked up miserable ball of rock floating through lonely, empty space if you weren't riding it with me?"

Actually,... You know what?  "I love you" does seem hard for some people.  Which I don't really understand.  Does it save THAT much time to drop the "I?"  "Love you" just doesn't... feel the same to me.  Much less, "love ya!"

But, that may just be a personal foible and irrelevant since we aren't each other's prioritized person.

I just think that pausing to even send a text or Skype or email or whatever telling someone "I (insert word of choice) you!" can go a long way towards making them feel not ignored while you are busy flinging your awesomeness around at some other shit going on in your life.

Does it really take all that much time to pause and take a picture of the meal you SHOULD BE stopping to eat and send it?  Goofy as it may sound to some, it can be something special, something that makes your person feel included.  As if you are sitting down together to share a meal.  Seeing what they would see if they were at the table with you.

 

And, yes.  I feel goofy as fuck even saying that!  I mean, I'm one of the people just doesn't get the point of taking twenty-seven pictures of your Thanksgiving Spread and posting them all over your facebook, instagram, or whatever.  But,... Well, this is different.  It's more... I hesitate to say "intimate," but it is.  Or at least it feels that way to me.

But, alright.  That, and other such things, are dependent on you, your person (or Person) and your dynamic (or Dynamic) as much as, or even more than, the time it would take away from what you are trying to accomplish that has dragged you away from them and you are just taking a moment to make sure they don't feel completely ignored.

HOWEVER...

However,... And this is a really big deal.  Any such thing that you do, if you then stop doing it, it will be noticed, even if it's not openly acknowledged.  If, as in the example I gave, you habitually send a picture of your meal so that the two "share the experience," but then you stop doing it... Well, one day, okay.  A week... something might be happening.  A couple or three weeks?  Something has shifted.  Something has changed.  You aren't what you were and they aren't what they were.

It doesn't have to be that.  It could be anything, whatever it is that you do with your person (or Person).  Just be aware that subconsciously the change in what might seem a small thing may cause a shift rather than being an effect of one.  Sometimes,... most of the time, really... the biggest, most meaningful gifts are the seemingly small things.  And when that "small" gift is taken away, it can cause more pain.

 

Any road, as I say, just what these "small" things, these little rituals and gifts are is wholly dependent on you, your person of interest, and the relationship you share.

 

And then, there are words.   Yes, I know what I said about "I love you" and such earlier.  I'm talking about other words now.  Specifically acknowledgements of what they give to you.  Did they send you a picture of some sort?  A sound file? A text file?  Say, "thank you!"  Let them know that you a) received it and b) appreciate the gesture.

 

Words... That's a little harder.  They sent you a message.  You want to let them know you got the message, you read it, and it's important to you that they shared their words to you.  How in the everloving fuck do you do that?!  A lot, again, depends on you, on them (or Them), and your relationship with each other.  They say, "Just finished eating."  I would say something like, "Hey!  Good.  Thank you for taking care of you."

But, again, that's pretty tricky.  And is wholly dependent on the person you are, the person your priority person is, and just what the relationship between you is.  And, naturally, just how crushed and pressed for time you feel.  But, you don't have to write a novel.  Just something to let them know you see what they said, read it, and appreciate them taking the time to make you a part of their life.  'Cause when you get right down to it, they don't have to, you know.

 

Any road, my point is that there are myriad ways that you can keep the person from feeling marginalized and unimportant while you are busy with other things.  The important question is, are they important enough for you to come up with something, anything, to let them know they are?  (And, conversely, do they for you?)

 

Third... every fucking thing else you abso-fucking-lutely just can't not get involved with because someone might be disappointed!  Heaven forfend that you don't make to your yoga/reiki instructor's second cousin's third best friend's combination wake for their goldfish and wine tasting!

Here, the thing I've always thought was important was leaving some space.  Roughly about an hour to an hour and a half where there was just nothing.  Nothing that I had to do.  Nothing that I planned to do.  Some leisure reading would be acceptable.  Maybe watch a movie.  But, nothing planned.  Nothing I had to do.  Nothing involving anyone else.  It doesn't have to be at the same time.  It doesn't even have to be all together at the same time.  Maybe thirty minutes in the morning, thirty in the afternoon, and thirty in the evening.  The important thing is that it gave me a cushion for when (not if) shit went sideways.

 

***sigh***

 

I don't know.  I don't know what else to say. 

I just think the important thing is to take time to make time, make time to be there.

“Life is like a sandwich!

Birth as one slice,
and death as the other.
What you put in-between 
the slices is up to you.

Is your sandwich tasty or sour?” 
― Allan Rufus

A long while back in my checkered past, I actually spent a little time studying linguistics. Don't go getting excited! That major didn't last very long. And I really wasn't all that great of shakes at it. God knows I have enough trouble with my native tongue. If you don't believe me, just check out my long winded posts!

But, this is exactly the trouble I always have in a metadiscussion focused on terminology and communication. We use the words, but does everybody involved in the conversation actually understand them to mean the same fucking thing!


And then, we start pulling in buzzwords and jargon specific to the topic at hand. And, oh my aching head, the fucking acronyms!


Alright, so here's a little story that is totally unrelated to BDSM or even stuff that requires the "over the age of consent" stamp of approval.


I don't really remember just how old I was, but I was still knee-high to a grasshopper. I don't think I'd started to school yet. Any road, I was taking my first "big boy" shower! And that was a big, big, big deal to me, to take a shower instead of a bath. Just like Dad!


Well, Dad was standing just outside, watching me, and calling out directions, to make sure I was safe and doing it right. And... I don't know. I thought it was going well. Maybe it wasn't going as well as I'd thought, though. Because we hit a snag. And Dad got frustrated.


He called out a direction, and I did what I thought he was intending for me to do.


"Get under the water," he said.

 

So, I did.


"Get under the water," he repeated.


Uh, ok. I thought I was. But, maybe I wasn't doing it quite right. So, I did what I was doing, but harder.


"Get under the water, now!" He snapped.


And I could tell he was getting mad at me. But, I didn't know why. I was doing what he said. But, maybe I wasn't doing it good enough. So, I tried harder.


After about three more rounds, I couldn't take it anymore and snapped. (Er, I should probably go ahead and admit, there really hasn't ever been a lot of submit in my soul... Not even when I knew I was going to get my ass whipped for it.)


"I am under the water!" I burst out, near tears. "Look! I'm hugging the wall! The water is going over me! None of it is even touching me! What do you want?!"


It was a couple of months before I dared anything more than splashing around in the bathtub again.

*shrug*

I don't know. But, even just "Dominant" or "submissive" has (and I almost hate to say it) shades of meaning.

How dominant?

How submissive?

"Mine?"

 

Uh, my what, exactly. I know what I mean when I say "mine." But, what do you mean when you say it?

And I think it's probably a pretty rare thing for two people in a discussion to mean exactly the same thing when they are discussing it. But, do they even question it? Or do they just assume they mean the same thing since they are using the same terms?


But, of course, everybody knows the terms. And everybody uses the terms. And I don't know. I've probably already proved I'm just weird as fuck and overanalyze every fucking thing. But, I often find myself glancing around at everybody else and wondering, "Ok, am I seriously the only person that is wondering if what they think they are saying is what I actually heard (read) them saying?"


And, I don't know. I think seeking brevity just makes it worse. Trying to encapsulate an idea, a whole concept and a lifestyle into an acronym or a word.


And as Paul Harvey might say; I guess that's the rest of the story about why I get so damned long-winded with some of my posts.


And, shit. I did it again when I was seriously trying my damndest not to.