Time

Time is precious.  Time is a commodity I feel like I no long have.  I get up in the morning and go to work.  I am there by 6:30 am and end up leaving well past 7:00pm, only to end up in my office on Saturday doing it all over again.  I really wanted to go to Houston this weekend and hag out with a few of my LS friends, however, I had a class that I could not miss.  I love what I do for a living, I just wish work would slow down.  Let me catch my breath.  Play a little.  I have managed to go dancing quite a bit over the last few weeks.  But dancing is not burning off the edge.  I will keep my fingers crossed that I can make it into Houston to play in a few weeks.

I have been avoiding FL.  Nothing on there seems to appeal to me these days.  I don't even look at the Kinky and Popular.  I did get on and post a pic.  In the Halloween spirit that is.  Other than that, I find it full of fodder.  It is not important to me anymore.  I do have an account on CM.  I check it out once in a blue moon.  A few men have caught my eye, but I am too busy to chat, and they loose interest.  Things will slow down at work, or so I keep telling myself.  They just have to.

Saying Good by

Wow, the last few months have been crazy.  I went back to work and have not had a weekend off yet.  Between helping out here on the farm and working from 7:00 am to 6:pm fixing my department,  I have not had much time to myself.   Tonight is the first night in months that I have taken the time to actually sit down at my computer here at home.  There are just places that I can not go on my work Ipad or computer.  

How am I holding up, well I have not had much time to worry about romance or Dominants that is for sure.  I had started talking to someone, and then just kind of quit.  He lives in Dallas, and I live way down here.  I just had too much on my plate with starting a new job in a department that is getting chewed up and regurgitated by the government.  Hopefully, things will slow down enough that I can reconnect with him and see where it goes.

Last month was hard.  My niece and nephew came to visit for just over 2 weeks.  The day that they were supposed to leave, we got a call from one of my uncles and was informed that one of the other ones had a heart attack on the golf coarse and was dead.  We had the memorial service on August 14, 2013.  He had wanted to be cremated, so there was no funeral.  We had the service today, which fell on the same weekend as Beyond Vanilla XXIII, so my hopes for a fun filled weekend in Dallas were a no go, but I do not regret going to the Celebration of life/Funeral.  I have come to understated that family is more important than social events as of late..  It was nice seeing all the family and loved ones that got to share in his life stories.  Uncle Phill was the middle child of 5, only 55 years old.  He actually died on the anniversary of my Great- Great-Grandmother's death, Aug 11, 1963.  

 This was one of his favorite pictures.  It was taken at Circle 8 Rodeo Grounds.  He loved being a rodeo clown, and in this one, he was trying to help out an injured rider, and ended up getting the blunt of the action.  That is him on the right getting bulldozed by the business end of the bull. 

He was an amazing man that left behind stories that would make you shake your head one minute and laugh so hard the next that you would pass out.

WE LOVE YOU UNCLE PHILL!!!!!

I miss him dearly but know that he is having a blast hanging out with my Grandparents in heaven.

This and That

I start work in just a few days.  It feels good.  I have accomplished my dreams, now if I can just keep those dream a reality...

I have had my niece and nephew for the past week and a half.  It has been a whirlwind.  Board games, video games, put put, sight seeing, riding the horses, catching coons in the live trap and setting them free a few miles away...  A never ending parade of entertainment.  It is exhausting, but I am playing catchup for having been away for so long.  I had forgotten just how precocious family really is.  I spent the last 3 years focused on one man and neglected my obligations to family.  Being home these last few months has reminded me that there is more to life.  We all pay no attention to the giant pink elephant hiding in the corner, but at the same time, remember that it is there.  My dad's condition could change any moment, but yet we avoid talking about it.  Cancer sucks.  That simple, it just sucks.  Having his grand kids around is good for him.  My Grandfather died before I was born and I never got the chance to make memories with him like my niece and nephew are getting to do with theirs. 

My daughter would be 21 this year.  Her birthday is around the corner.  It is a relief as well as a sorrow knowing that this year I will have the time to go see her.  I always look forward to the trip, but my heart hurts all the same.  It has been almost 5 years since I made the trip to the cemetery where she is buried.  It is hard to believe that she would be an adult.  I still feel like a child in many ways.  I often wonder at how different my life would have been had she not died.  I often wonder who she would have turned out to be.   I find myself wanting more and more to have children, but I can not.  I think more and more about adopting.  I am getting older, the chances of me finding someone to spend the rest of my life with is getting slim.  It is time I focused on me and what I want for my future.  I just have to figure out what my options are, and what I am willing to sacrifice.

I have neglected my post as of late, I promise to try to write every day.

What is in a Name

About 2 hours after the other one left, he decided that he didn't want to hear her name any longer.  Some where along the way, I began calling her "the other one."  Occasionally, she would come up in conversation and he knew who "the other one" was.  So it stuck.  To me it was a recognition that she had once been an important part of our relationship.  To him, it was avoidance of her name.

I have been reflecting on how I feel, or rather don't fell about my X-fiance.  I am indifferent.  I don't waste any tears, anger, frustration, heartache on him.    However, I think he was done with me long before I was ever indifferent.  He said things and did hurtful things that destroyed part of what made me lovable and love him.  In my mind and heart there is an empty space where once echoed beautiful memories of him and love.  Now that space is a void.   To me he is an emotionless unfilled space or cavity, a dream lacking in real value, sincerity, and substance.  In my mind he is hollow.  

I believe that she will always be the other one.  I will always miss her laughter, and wish her the best.   I can only hope that one day,  I can look back on him and not be hollow.  Remember more of the good and less of the horrible.

Wharton

I have a pet frog.  Yes I know, kind of strange, but aren't we all considered strange?  For a long time, he was in a terrarium that stood across the room from my computer.  Now, he is on the desk, just to the left of my monitor.  He sits at his preferred spot, and watches me at the computer. Today he sloughed his skin.  He does this about once a month.  It is a strange process where he uses his feet to pull off a very thin layer of useless dry skin.    He is now a bright and shiny green.  Almost as if he is starting over with a new skin.  I wish starting over where that easy for me.   

I wonder at how good his life is and how lucky he is sometimes.  Food on a regular basis.  Warmth from the heating pad all day.  Fresh water every day.  Entertainment from watching me and the cats.   Nothings trying to eat him.  All good right?  Then I wonder how horrible his life is.  Trapped in a 13in by 20in glass box.  The same food everyday.  No where to go except the few features in his terrarium.  No adventure.  No female companions....  There are 2 views to his life.  His view point looking out.  And mine, looking in.

There are 2 sides to every story.     When the other one left, she said a lot of very negative things about me.  I ignored them as best I could.  I missed her dearly.  She was the sunshine in our relationship. She was the source of most of our laughter. I understood that she was resentful and angry.  She saw me as an interloper, an enemy.  She walked out that day with out letting me know that I was the reason she was leaving.  She left me with questions.  She left me with out warning.   I didn't find out until later when hollow came home that she left because of me.    I am sure that there are conversations that I was not privy to that led to her leaving.  I am sure that I will never know the particulars.  I only have one side to the story, and that one has many holes in it.   I don't contact the other one.  I leave her in peace to get on with her life.  I do know that she has found happiness, and I am very happy for her.

There are 2 sides to my recent story.  Neither one is pretty.    There is the side of the story that paints a girl fighting to make a committed relationship work.  Then there is a side of the story that tells of how she died a little every day being in a glass box.  

All Wharton has known his entire life is a glass box.  He was hatched in a small white plastic container.  Then moved into a glass box.  Shipped in a white plastic container and put up for sell in another glass box.  He came home with me in a white plastic container and I put him in a glass box.  He does not pine away missing the thrill of hunting his own food.  Or pout at being alone.  He is after all, just a frog.  Lucky frog.

Being Me

I have not been on line for a few days.  I have stayed away from the computer completely.  I have been busy doing other things that I love.  Things that I had forgotten I loved.  Things that I quit doing because hollow didn't do them and I felt guilty doing with out him.

About 15 of us went on a road trip Saturday to go try a different dance floor.  We had a blast.  I danced for over 2 hrs strait.  I am feeling the pain today, but it was worth it!  I have few passions in life.  One is dancing.  I put my favorite past times away, like broken toys.  I forgot how much they meant to me.

I am still beating myself up for what I allowed to become of me. For allowing the person I was to disappear into the shadows in order to make him happy.  So,  I have to decided to fix the parts of me that I allowed to be broken and forgotten.   I will be going dancing at least 3 times a month.  I will be taking dance/exercise classes as soon as I can find something.  I used to go dancing 3 to 5 nights a week.  Not to drink or hook up.  I went to dance.  Grab a partner and do some East Coast or West Coast Swing , Polka, Waltz, Cha Cha, Night-Club, Two Step, Double Two Step....

I am also waiting for the community pottery class to start back up.  I need to start doing my art again.  I lost track of my hopes and dreams of one day having my own instillation.  I will be saving up some money and putting together a portfolio that I can use to apply to galleries.  I have not done a serious piece of art in over 3 yrs.  All of my supplies have gone to rot.  I let it all corrode. 

I will be going on a diet.  I need to lose some weight to get healthy, and to feel good about myself again.  My  BFF has already started and has lost 12 lbs.  The challenge is on. 

It is time I seriously returned to being me, and not the shell and shadow I became for him.

Time at Home

I took the day off from studying files and organizing my office.  I hung around the ranch instead and did the laundry, washed the dog, mucked out the stables, removed pounds of spiderweb from the stalls, helped hang new feed buckets, and did the things I had been putting off.    Enjoyed every minute hanging out with my Daddy.  Work is not so horrible when you are doing it for people that you love and love you in return.

I even edited quite a few photos.  Cleaned up my Facebook photos (removed all the pictures of hollow and me) and did some art work.  It is amazing how much you can enjoy life when you are not worried about doing something wrong or that you forgot to do something in the first place.

I was so caught up in a failing relationship that I neglected my real family.  Now he would argue that I could have gone to visit at any time, but that is not how a submissive works.  I hated asking for favors for myself.  If hollow had been the astute master he claims to be, he would have told me to to visit my family knowing that I do not do things for myself but for him.  He should have assured me that I needed to go home for a visit and that he would be fine on his own.  Well, that never happened.  I have seen my family 2 times in 3 years.  Once for Thanksgiving in 2010 and the second for Christmas in 2012.   Now I am home making up for lost time.  I found out about a week after I got home, that the surgery and radiation my dad went through did not get all the cancer.   I am torn between finding a place of my own and living on the ranch.  I want both.   My dad needs me as much as I need him.  However, I need my space.   I am using this summer to do a little Dad/Daughter bonding.  Depending on how his health holds up,  I am hoping to be in my own little place by December.  As it is, going to play parties and munches is out of the question.

Sad news,  the only dance hall worth going to, closed down last week.  Guess I will be doing more traveling to Houston to dance and go to meetings/parties....Wait, is that bad news?  Or just another reason to get to go hang out with my friends in Houston EROS and attend more play parties...  HUMMM..   Something for me to think on.  Grin..........

Of Slaves and Submissives

My Great Grandparents are buried in a Slave Grave Yard.  I know,  I don't look like I am black!  Well,  keep in mind that biologically I have 8 Great Grand Parents.  One was Cuban Mulatto the other just black, both were decedents of slaves.  The other six were a mix of Spanish, Cherokee, French, and Irish.   In a strange way,  I am proud that I am the descendant of slaves.  I do not perceive the title slave as an insult.

Once upon a time a slave was a person that was forced and sold into slavery.  In BDSM it is a life style choice.   People that bought slaves looked at them as an investment.  Slaves had no choice in the way they lived, no voice in how they were treated.  They were given the minimal of needs.   A roof over their head, clothes on their back, and just enough food to keep them alive.  Masters/Owners kept their investments and treasured possessions healthy and productive.  Had breading programs to produce more workers.  Once a slave became non-productive, they were traded, or sold.  Now don't get me wrong, there were those owners, that saw slaves as expendable.  They would starve them and work them to death.   I find it ironic that even today, there are both good slave Masters/Owners and bad slave Masters/Owners.  I have heard plenty of horror stories about the bad, and been lucky enough to meet some of the good.

Slave:

1. (Law) a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property

2. (Business / Industrial Relations & HR Terms) a person who is forced to work for another against his will

3. a person under the domination of another person or some habit or influence

Submissive

1. inclined or ready to submit; unresistingly or humbly obedient.

2. marked by or indicating submission.

Being submissive does not mean that I have no strength or opinion.  However, being a slave means that you are entitled to neither.  If your Master chooses to let you have a voice and choice, that is his or her allowance.  I have a mind and an opinion.  I have the ability to think and say what I believe to be just, correct, needed, and desired.  Just because I use both my mind and my voice, does not mean that I am not submissive, it does, however, mean that I would make a horrible slave.

Not too long ago hollow asked me to declare myself a slave.  I was put in a very uncomfortable situation, pressured and all but forced to declare the title and I couldn't do it.  I am not a slave.  I just could not do it.  I see the title slave as that of a person that has no options.  In order for me to be a slave, I have to trust that my Sir is taking into account what I would want, what I might need, and how I might feel.  My Master would have to know me so well that everyone in the room would think he was psychic.  

I think that in my past, I was over looked too often. Too many choices have been made that did not take into account what I needed or didn't need in my life.  Too many times I was overlooked in the decisions that were made.   I can see me being labeled as a slave one day.  However, I have to feel safe,  protected, and loved by the person I would be calling Master.  Feel that I am his first priority and that he has only the best intentions for me.  That even in the smallest decisions, he is taking my desires into consideration.   Until then,  I am simply submissive.   I am not submissive to everyone, just like I can not be a slave to just any one.

The Other Woman

I want to be angry,  I do.  I want to be upset, I really do.  At least that would mean that in some way I care about hollow and what he is doing.  But I just can not get there.  I am irritated at my ignorance and trust.  I am mortified that I allowed myself  to be treated the way I was, and wasn't.  However, all my negative emotions are aimed at me.  I am beating myself up for being a follower, a patsy, a tool.  Looking on the bright side, it was a lesson learned, and like most good lessons, it was learned the hard way.

I got an email from an ex- coworker today,  she said that "guy" had posted a picture of another woman already on his page.  She was angry at him.  She is very protective of me.   It took me a bit to really convince her that I didn't care.  Took her even longer to come down from her tizzie. 

All that picture proves is that he used me and more proof that there was no love reciprocated.  He has moved on and is already playing with other people, that is how little I meant to him.  That's cool. Somewhere out there is the right woman for him, and if she turns out to be it,  than I am happy for her.  

I find myself on occasion fretting that I am now emotionally scared for life and that this indifference will effect my next relationship.  Then turn around and berate myself for being silly.  The only thing I did wrong was trust and try.  I didn't sleep around, go to meetings behind his back, search for more than "friends" on line......  I was the best I could be with what I had to work with.  I will be fine.   I am happy, content and focused, although a little restless and wanting to play very badly.   That will come in time.

Lemmings and Lambs

I once wrote a post about blind faith.   I have always seen myself as being to independent to posses such a character trait.  I am however, dedicated to a fault.  I will take care of others to the point of neglecting me and the things that make me happy.   The rant about faith came after reading a post on a blog from an acquaintance on FL.   I will not go into detail, but after reading several of his posts, I was astounded that he had put himself as well as the others through such turmoil.  In essence he referred to his submissives as the slaves he knew they could become.  I would read his posts and my heart would heart hurt for all them.....IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE, YOU LOVE THEM FOR WHO THEY ARE, NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO MAKE THEM BECOME.  That is not love, that is a dream on the future.  I know in the end, that no one in that relationship left happy.  As an outsider looking in,  I felt sympathy for all involved.   I now feel empathy for all involved. 

 I was living under a delusion that it was me he loved.  When in fact it was the idea of being in love that he loved.  In the end,  we all crashed and burned.  After the other one left, the relationship changed.  We only played one time between the day she left and the day I finely walked out the door.   There was always an excuse not to play.  I knew they were excuses, but I ignored that small voice in my head.  I made agreements, hid my disappointment, and allowed the delusion to continue.

I miss the play.  Play, for me, is a therapy, not a turn-on.  Play was something that helped me sleep at night.  Not a precursor to rough sex.  Hell, I don't even like rough sex.  I want a man to worship me after he beats me with multiple torture devices.  I want a Dominant that thinks I am the most prized possession he could ever own.  I want a Dominant that plays hard, then does what ever it takes to protect me form all the bad.  I know what I want, so why on earth did I put up with something that was not what I wanted or needed?   I was such a lemming and lamb, that I followed without questioning myself, until I found myself in a place where following was causing psychological and emotional harm.  It was about that time, that I wrote the entry "Blind Faith".  I had lost all faith and trust in my owner, and was finely beginning to question my position in our relationship and his ability to be the man and dominant I needed to follow.

The more I ask myself the deep disturbing questions and play the "Why did I...?" game, the more and more I realize that both of us were living a dream and a desire, we never really loved each other, just the idea of each other.  

Social at Heart

There once was a time that I wrote on my blog almost daily.   I was happy then.  I had big things to boast about.  Wonderful news and for the most part happy thoughts.  The posts became less frequent and then almost never.  Then I quit writing.  The happier I was, the more I wrote; the less content, the less I wrote.

Once upon a time I was a social butterfly.   I had plans almost every day that evolved being around people.   That changed over 2yrs ago.   I found myself flipping back and forth between 3 web sights all evening.  Pinterest, FL, FaceBook, Pinterest, FL, FaceBook....over and over.  Slowly going crazy.    I died a little ever day, slowly smothered with boredom.   Cabin fever became my constant companion.    I sat alone in the living room with my cats in a silent house.  Always hoping hollow would walk through and ask if I wanted to go to a play party or a meeting,  he never did.   I think in 2 years we went to 2 meetings,  and never stayed for the play party after. 

Why did I stay so long?  I ask myself the "Why did I's" almost every day.    I always come back to the same answer.  Fear.  Fear of not having the savings to go.  Fear of what would come of me.  Fear of being able to survive with out him.  Fear that was unwarranted.   I have family,  I have friends, and I have inner strength and a determination to survive.  I stayed far too long,   I tried far too long,  I hoped far too long,  I dreamed far too long,  I held on far too long and  I stopped living far too long.  Well,  I am living now.

Up Side

My parents are worried.  Why? Because of the absence of sorrow, the absence of his name, the absence of concern.   I am indifferent.  I have no words of anger spilling from the recesses of my mind.  No moments of melancholy.   No dramatic scenes of sadness with tears trickling from my eyes.  Just a determination to get past that relationship and put my life on track.   I got a job in my career field and and love the people that I am working with.  Reconnected with most of my vanilla friends.  Talk to my BFF almost daily, and plan on heading her way in a week or so.  If  I plan it right, will get to go to an EROS meeting while there.  Life is looking up, slowly, but looking up all the same.

I look back on the last 1.5 years and have to shake my head and wonder what the hell was I thinking.  Why did I put up with all of it?  There was no love there.  Just wasted years and lots of frustration.  he destroyed the trust, faith, friendship, compassion, and love that I had for him.   Not me,  I didn't consciously wrap it up in a freezer bag and throw it away.  I fought to keep it for years.  Saying my vows every night, kissing him good by and hello every day.  Asking to help or do things for him.  Hoping every day that he would show some sign of wanting to be my Dominant again.  Crying in bed late at night, when he told me not to worry about saying my vows.  I have no more tears.  I am no longer confused or frustrated.  I am no longer walking on egg shells worried that I will do or say something that would piss him off.   All of that negative fodder is gone.  Left behind is a freedom.  A conscious desire to do things for myself that are not an alternative but a priority.  

Now, I am trying to make up for those years of  dedication I wasted on him.  Reconnecting with people he didn't want me to have contact with is one of my desires.  Getting my feet under me after being left destitute is my priority.   Moving on from that relationship is my objective.  I know that if I go to a meeting, there will be questions.  Questions with expectations of answers accompanied with tears and anger, but there is not any.  He smothered any love I had for him.   I wish him all the best, but I do not care how he is doing, what he is doing, who he is doing, or where he is doing it.  I am indifferent.  It is a strange place for me.  It is in my nature as a submissive to worry and care for the people in my life.  I just can not muster up any emotions concerning him.  

My parents are worried, but right now,  I am fine.

The End

I think on many levels the relationship was doomed from the beginning.   How naive of me to think that my first D/s poly relationship would be a dream come true. Our relationship was based on a poly/play foundation.   Both fell to the wayside.   One of our poly walked away,  and shortly after,  so did the public play scenes and play altogether.  I missed "the other one",  I think we both did.  Truth be told,  I love public play.  Sex is not what I went into the lifestyle for.  We grasped at options, settled on a dream, got engaged and moved in together.  In all honesty, we took things too far and fell in love with the idea of the relationship, and not with each other.   I quit seeing hollow as being the man I fell in love with, and he quit seeing me as the woman he fell in love with.  Our dynamic evolved in the wrong direction.  When you quit being a unit,  and quit doing the things that were the foundation of that relationship,  there is a very good chance that it is going to fall apart.  We fell apart so dramatically, that I no longer want to be in a D/s relationship as a submissive.  That volatile relationship has left a very unsavory concept and definition to that lifestyle.  I do not doubt that I am a submissive,  however,  it makes me wonder as to what really makes my perfect dominant.

I blame both of us and yet I blame no one. I am sure that if we both had possessed the desire to fix our problems, we could have.  At this point there is no reason to play the "What if or Could have" game.  It is over and no one managed to get ahead and win.  He has moved on, actually been seen by some of my friends at play parties, playing....  Something he has not done with me in over 2 yrs.   Evidence that he never really loved me, but the idea of me, from the beginning.  The lack of heartache I am feeling is just another piece of evidence that I did the same.

It is said that we learn more from our failures than from our achievements in life.   Well,  I guess you can say that I have learned a lot in the last 3.5 years.  Hopefully,  the lesson was bitter enough that I do not repeat it.