Here goes....

I can not take credit for this but I wanted to share it because it’s exactly how life feels sometimes. 

This lifestyle thrives on rules and protocols but sometimes things just need to be simple.

It’s ok to keep it simple sometimes.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.

"When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.
Something more profound.
But I didn’t.

So I told him, "Honestly? The dishes. It's stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown-ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But, my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later, I folded my laundry and put it wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But, at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!"

Author unknown

#pandemic2020 #depressionawareness

In the sand.

it has come to my attention that the ostrich in me is alive and well.  However, I find myself unable to ignore some home truths about myself.

I need to make some changes, face up to the truth and fix a few broken things.  Why is pride so damn effective at standing in the way of honesty?

All it serves to do is get you to your lowest point so that a gargantuan effort is required to pick yourself up.

I hate being too proud to be honest with people I care about and yet here I am, feeling bad, wishing I had done things differently.  

When is it going to sink in?

I had supper with my parents last week, it was a really fun evening. We had a take away curry and a just the one vat of wine (each). I’m not saying that we are a family of old soaks but more a gathering of soused herrings. 

it was good to laugh, really good! 

Mother has a way with words, she rarely misses the point. I’ve grown up with it so I know it’s not meant harshly. The topic of age came up as it often does, which is when it was pointed out to me that I was ‘looking at 50!’

Of course I did the dutiful shock, aghast reaction. But then sitting at home this morning it occurred to me that 50 is the gateway to piece of mind!

i can have a sun life over 50 plan to cover my funeral costs

i can join saga and get cheap insurance and holidays...with other over 50’s! (I know...rock and roll or what!)

I can join that dating site for over 50’s.

I mean...with all that to look forward to, who wouldn’t want to be 50?

“I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot.

I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.“

Anaïs Nin

This woman has written so many insightful words and I have read lots of them. I think the above passage has always been closest to how I feel about my place in this lifestyle. 

As part of my re-evaluating and reflecting I feel I needed to have these words pinned to my ‘do not forget’ board as a point of reference.

I am committed to this, how ever long it takes me. 

I fear that I am stuck on a level of a game, working to survive it and kill all the beasts, out run all the dangers and dodge the painful wounds so that I can move to the next level.  Excruciatingly I get so far and something comes along and kills me, I miss the jump or I run out of ‘health’. It’s like Groundhog Day, until just once you take a different route and hey presto! You get a tiny bit further. Sometimes you make the same damn error and you swear and shout at the world while you wait for the level to reload and start over.  

You have to put in the work, You have to keep walking until you work it out and all the essential parts slot together.  Cheat codes and walkthroughs may get you to the end, but if you don’t make all the mistakes that are meant for you, how will you ever learn to be proud of your progress?

I wonder if Ingenue has any doughnuts left, I’m feeling late night peckish! 

Maybe I’ll go for tea and crumpets. 

The last few years have been very emotional and life changing which has made me look at and try to address who I am and who I want to be.  I don’t really know the answer. 

I spent a lot of time this week reading some of the awesome blogs and forum posts here on The Cage.  There is such a wealth of knowledge, experience and advice in this place that one can’t help but find something that will make you think, evaluate, cry or laugh.  

I've landed at a crossroads here, it’s been coming for a while. The options are not totally obvious, apart from the one that involves ‘carry on as you are’.  The thing is, I can’t be who I was,I did like the person I was (most of the time) but I have no idea what my potential is right now.

It’s frickin hard to keep your head above water when you don’t know which direction the dry land is.

😔

So...I’m hurtling head long into a painfully life changing anniversary.

I have decided it’s time to explain what some may think is a deep dark secret, when really it is an honest and really quite innocent truth.

My life, my love, my soulmate and my Sir, died. 

Suddenly with no warning, quite catastrophically, He suffered a sub arachnoid brain haemorrhage. Despite efforts from amazing doctors and nurses, hours of desperate hope and prayer to any entity that would listen, 26th July this year is the third anniversary of the day I had to let the medical staff turn off His life support.

It was and still is tragic. I was not prepared to lose Him.  

When He died, half of me died with him. I lost not just Him, but our life, our future.

Its been a hard road, but I am starting to see that, despite my feelings, I am still alive.  I have to carry on with life and make my own happiness and my own future.

How the hell do you do that?

I am alive, I feel, I need, I want....

Naya x

It can happen to anyone, even me, a long time sub.  

Take your time, don't reveal too much until you feel comfortable. It's not a sprint it's a marathon, a long steady process getting to know a Dom with the potential of something. I have said this hundreds of times as a mentor.

i carefully followed all my own rules, it was going very well, my endorphins were coursing through me and I felt giddy.  Bearing in mind that I have been on my own for quite some time, it was a really nervous excitement, craving messages and little snippets, talking about art and books and flirting. Talking about me....the me that I am now.  Talking about Him, listening to Him set out his style and dynamic.  It was like stepping outside on the first sunny day of the year, taking a good lungful of fresh air after being cooped up all winter. Gentle warmth on your face as the sun gains its strength.

I left the gate open, metaphorically speaking that is. Invited him into my secret garden. I opened up, shared my mind in the direction of submission, even considered that I might give it to him at some point.  Like trying on a new dress or shoes....is it a good fit?

An afternoon, an evening passed, then a day.  No messages, no contact.

I understand that things happen, 24 hours is the benefit of doubt. 48 hours is slightly worrying, after all who would tell me if something had happened, other than him.

Five days passed and I realised I had been 'ghosted'.  No explanation, no apology, just silence. I felt like one of those blow up dolls when the seam splits.  Sudden and irreversible deflation.  Dropped to the floor and left in a heap.  So, I picked myself up, brushed myself off and carried on, Older and wiser.

Its about six weeks now.

I saw his profile online yesterday, and again this morning, still nothing.  

Just a note would do, a thanks but no thanks, even 'it's not you, it's me'.  Surely I deserve that?  But silence, that's the killer, like a slap across the face, foolishly embarrassed.

At at least I have my friends here, this stuff is hard to explain to vanilla friends

Naya x

Stumbling through lost emotions
Hiding from tormented anguish
Abandoned from my soul mirror
Wretchedly hopeless and closed
And yet reluctantly lingering
Aching to be found
Enveloped and understood
Nourished with quiet formidable dominance
Reunited with hope, once more…

Whole…

I wrote these words from a challenge, three words where one has to make a poem using each word.

I'm not a great poet, but sometimes I do find my own words and thoughts quite starkly emotional, often times when I least realise it.

There are elements of my personal life both past and present that make me feel a little like history just keeps on repeating itself. The realisation of it comes and goes with smiles and chats, but then, the house goes quiet and I find myself wandering the vast labyrinth of my thoughts looking for something to make me 'feel'. It sounds like a sad existence, even when I read back now and try to edit my thoughts I'm tempted not to be completely honest, to paint a smile on it instead and make out like everything will be alright. But that is dangerous.

I look around my friends and see joy in all of them. There is love and hope in their lives and it's good. How can I not feel joy for them when I can see and feel their happiness like a radiant beam? Why does this radiance only seem, at times to perpetuate my lacklustre? I have my share of things to look forward to, but still inside I feel sadness about things that should have been, might have been and clearly now will never be for myself and despite my efforts, it dominates my mind.

Has this made any sense? I doubt it; a lot of my thoughts don’t these days. Therapy comes from putting it down on paper, trying to make sense of the random clutter that seems to emerge everyday. Is it a journey? A midlife crisis? Who knows?

So here I am, looking for something....

Naya x