Being Strong

Everything has been amazing between my boyfriend and I the last week. We haven’t been together, and we’re in exam period now, so traditionally this would be a time of feeling down and being stressed and not very happy. But for some reason, everything’s wonderful. I’ve felt freer and freer in my dominant role, and happy knowing I can just get what I want. This attitude has rather obviously been reflected in a lot of ways, which he of course picked up on, and went further and further into submission. I think this is the most strongly we’ve both felt our respective roles, and we both love that so much. Especially at the moment, because it has essentially made revising a lot easier, as we’ve felt more relaxed.

But today, just in the afternoon, I ended up feeling really nervous/worried/upset, and just generally weak. It was a combination of things; I’d gone out on an errand in town and the traffic had been a nightmare, there was nowhere to park and it was just really stressful, and I’d also been thinking about exams and revision and started getting really worried about them. Normal vanilla things that most of the time would be fine, but for some reason today really affected me. It’s kind of common to just feel like breaking down at some point during the exam period – at least it is for me ;) So I got back, feeling really kind of upset and like I was on the edge of breaking down, and waited for him to get back from his exam.

And when he got back, I found myself really not knowing what to do. I’d been completely his dominant Goddess for the past week, strong and confident and able to do anything, and it had been amazing for both of us. And I knew I would be, I knew that was who I was and who I would return to. But I also knew at that moment I wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms, or just tell him I was feeling really bad for some reason and ask him to comfort me. And I was hugely conflicted; on one side I knew I could do that, that he’d do that for me in a second and would think nothing of it, but on the other side I sort of knew me. I knew that if I indulged like that I would fall into feeling that, into just wanting him there, into clutching onto him and feeling weak and vulnerable. I knew that would affect both of us and it would be hard for me to get out of it, because as much as it's lovely to know you have someone there who will love and hold you, it’s kind of tempting to stay in that and let them make you feel better and be surrounded by their warmth, instead of getting out of the hole yourself, which just makes you feel desperate for them all the time. I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone, but it’s kind of how I think I feel, I’ve never tried to put it into words before. But writing this is rather therapeutic, as I feel a lot better now (I felt better anyway, but this is kind of clearing it all from my system).

So I decided not to tell him, not to ask him to comfort me; I mean I told him the trip into town annoyed me (which it didn’t actually, so much as upset me) and that I was getting fed up of revision, but that’s kind of nothing new and nothing that would have made him think I wasn’t the dominant Goddess he was talking to in the morning. I decided to pretend and act like I was strong until I became strong again. And as the conversation went on, I started feeling better. His obvious submission to me, and the way he smiled when I talked to him with the same attitude I’d had for the last week, made me happy, reinforced my place for me as well and things got better. It helps when I feel responsible, or like I have to be strong for someone else and do the right thing as well, which was kind of the case as he needed to get on with revision and I felt I needed to suggest that he do so (despite how I was enjoying the conversation). So I told him to, enjoyed his reluctance to leave me and it made me feel good that I was being responsible, and I felt more like I was strong again. And I’m pretty sure if I’d have broken down I would have been there for a lot longer, even with his care and comfort.

So I’m still not sure about all this. In a relationship like this, I feel it’s important to be strong. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m the one that needs to be responsible – because whereas my pet is very responsible, he also doesn’t quite have the authority to make the decisions that need to be made :P – and I’m the one that needs to be stronger, in order to command the respect that I deserve. That doesn’t mean that he can’t or doesn’t respect me when I’m feeling weak, but it puts him in more sweet-loving-care mode than slightly fearful, in-awe slave mode ;) And I respect me more when I’m strong. I think that’s inevitable, really, that you respect yourself more when you’re strong and less when you’re weak. And how I see myself – probably much more than how he sees me anyway – has the most effect on how this dynamic is between us.

So I felt I did the right thing – and it worked out well. But it leaves me slightly confused as to how to handle things going forward. Although this worked wonderfully, I definitely feel that I’m completely entitled to seek comfort and support from my partner when I need it, and I’m not sure how that works with these feelings. I’m going to feel weak at times, and sometimes I really will need his support, it’s inevitable. But this has also shown me that sometimes I might wobble, feel like I need to collapse in his arms, when all I really need is to act like I’m completely in control – which puts me back in control. So I guess the big thing is to decide when is the right time to seek comfort and to be held, and when I can just lift myself out of everything. I think there are probably a lot of times where in the past I’ve broken down and gone looking for support, that it would have been much better to just use this solution. Of course, it helped already having him deep in subbie mode and having him look at me as if I was completely strong and in control, but the way things are now, I think that will just be the natural state more and more.

So, with that cathartic release, I can actually get on with my revision now :P I imagine he will of course see this tonight, hence going against the not telling him and just being strong plan, but I feel fine and back to normal now so it doesn't matter. Though I’d be curious to hear what anyone else feels about all this. I don’t support the nonsense view that the Domme has to be strong all the time…but most of the time? I don’t know. What does everyone else think?

Anonymity, Honesty and Blogging

My boyfriend reads this blog.  I love that he does, it means we can talk about things I might write, it means he knows that inner part of me that comes out when I write, that I can't just reach for in a conversation, he can follow my inner revelations, and read my memories and my view of events and things we share.  (At least this is the idea anyway, and part of my motivation for writing at all, though so far not much has come of it).

But I also partly wish that he didn't.  It means I worry about what I post, I think about what I might say and I wonder if my posts are fair to him, and I wouldn't do that if this was only being read by strangers on the internet, if this was totally anonymous.  And it seems strange to me, and somewhat wrong, that I may be able to be more honest about myself and my relationship with anonymous strangers on the internet, than I can with my partner.  And at the same time it makes perfect sense; of course I can be more honest with complete strangers; they have no investment in my opinions and feelings, it doesn't affect them in the slightest, and if I offend them I don't really care.

I want to be open and honest about my relationship here, and I want to be open and honest about my relationship with my boyfriend too, but some of it is hard, and I feel like some of the things I may want to write here would come across completely wrong.  Like, I thought of a really interesting post a couple of weeks ago, about submissives initiating things, that basically came from the thought "I'd really like him to ask me to cane him, and he never has", which I happened to fantasise about several times in a row.  It seems, however, a bit unfair to write a post about whether submissives initiate things and why they may/may not, based on my one example of him never asking me to cane him, I mean it's not like he hasn't initiated other things.  Both because it could be read as me extrapolating something ridiculous from something small (You never initiate anything because you don't do this one particular thing) and because it seems a bit unfair to make such a big issue out of him not doing something I've never mentioned I would like (which I haven't, mainly because it was just a surface thought/desire that appeared and then disappeared before I mentioned it to him). 

And that's the thing.  A lot of stuff that might inspire me to write a post can be really small, little things, and sometimes little problems that I've just never mentioned to him because they're mostly transitory.  And writing about them in a post would make them kind of solid, big things, when really it's more the ideas and feelings behind them that I start getting interested in delving into, and the actual things that spark the inspiration are not that important to me, or I probably would have already mentioned them to him.  I guess it just feels strange that I might reveal something to the internet, through a post that requires time and effort, that I haven't already told him, but a lot of this stuff just doesn't really come up, I just don't think about it.

The other thing is that, of course, I'm talking about him in a lot of this.  And I may say he feels a certain thing, or thinks a certain way.  And I may be completely wrong in this, and actually he thinks another thing, and since most of the time I would probably be simplifying and generalising his feelings, most of the time I would not capture what he feels that accurately, unless I were to write a whole post about it to explore it properly, which isn't really the way I picture mentioning the way he feels.  I don't actually think he'd have much of a problem if I did say something that was wrong (though I can imagine the whole "How can you think I think that when I do/say XYZ all the time?!" but probably more because I can imagine me reacting that way and getting hurt, in similar circumstances).  But it sort of gets me, the idea that I might be misrepresenting him to the whole of the internet.  Which is a silly feeling, really, but one that kind of makes me hesitate, nonetheless.

To be honest, writing this, a lot of it seems rather silly, which is good.  It seemed like kind of a big thing, in my head, but I think that was probably because I was worried I couldn't be honest about some things with my boyfriend, and that seemed like a very bad way to be, since I do try to be honest about everything with him.  But I don't think it's that.  I think I viewed it as 'I feel I can be more honest with strangers than with my partner?!' and that seemed wrong.  But actually, this is more just my own head, thoughts and feelings within myself, and it makes sense that part of me worries about them being open and exposed.  Writing leaves me feeling open, and vulnerable sometimes, since it allows a window into my inner self, into who I am.  Even when someone reads my fiction I feel that, let alone if someone were to read my personal thoughts.  And I want to expose all these random thoughts and feelings and share them with him, but I think I just don't want it to end up hurting him, or us, because since I'm not talking /to/ him, but about and around him if you will, there could easily be miscommunication.  But I don't think that would be that hard to handle anymore, and I think in many ways it would be good; it may well clear up misunderstandings between us, if he can see what I think about things. I like how writing things down clears things up some of the time.  And I look forward to sharing random parts of myself with anyone on the internet who might be interested, and with my partner.