Names

How hard it is to change an identity? Are we forever trapped by the original name?

My previous name was...IS...a part of me and my identity. One that I struggled with and tried to "put away" and finally found acceptance in. But in my head, I was defined by, legitimized, and inexorably tied to another. My mental identity was really of two-as-one, not two individuals.

That relationship is changing...shifting. We are both discovering a need to be independently known and to explore our own desires.

Exploring and bringing home new ideas and experiences to share has always been one of the aspects of our relationship that is a strength. We are poly, and we embrace the idea that one person cannot and should not be expected to fulfill all needs.

Still...I fell prey to green-eyed jealousy and felt replaced. I wish to shed that bitterness. I wish to rename and thus reclaim my individuality. I wish to feel compersion, to love without limits. I wish to be known as J'aime.

Fine lines

Relationships aren't simple, and poly simply compounds all of the possibilities. And if I wasn't already complicated enough, I add in kink and D/s. It has become a source of heartache and confusion.

In the kink realm, I have always presented myself as Beloved's girl pixie. Because I am at home and have more downtime, I have formulated many friendships and connections as pixie, and Beloved is largely unknown. He is an enigma...someone I worship and am dedicated to, and thus held by others with respect and maybe a touch of awe. Beloved himself has explained it as, people know pixie, but when I am present, the reaction is "oooo, it's Saul," like I a some badass Dominant Master.

*smiles* I like that because it gives me a safety net. I am owned and protected and cherished. I am Beloved's.

But something happened. Sunshine entered the space. It started at Tryst, and I had a complete meltdown. I isolated and withdrew completely, unwilling and unable to share. Since then it has grown to the 800 ton gorilla in the room...at least in my own head, it is no longer Beloved and pixie...people recognize Sunshine and Saul because they are seen together in places that I have shown up solo. I feel replaced, and I ache inside.

Beloved and I have a hard talk about this on Monday, and I said some very hurtful things. I'm not sure that I didn't mean them, but I am also unwilling to say I demand action on them. I recognize that I am in a space of transition in many areas of my life. "Pixie" holds some bitterness that I'd like to shed. After eight years, perhaps "Pixie" has served her purpose.

I know that Beloved will always protect me and cherish me, that he will always have my back. I know I am safe and I know he honors my consistent desire to explore darker play. Yet I stumble on the fine line of needing to be safe while feeling unsafe. It twists me up and confuses me. What am I looking for?

*sigh* I don't know. So, for the moment, it is just me, wandering.

Perfect

Today has been pretty dang near perfect.

I set my birdsong alarm, since Beloved wasn't here. I heard the kids moving around, but they didn't come out until after 7am, and both were in good moods. They had some cereal and then played with an empty laundry basket while I made Pumpkin Oatmeal and a Spinach-Basil Quiche for the village breakfast. I grabbed a shower before everyone showed up.

SSQ made bacon and brought over-night batter for waffles that Beloved cooked up. Rude13, ShadoKnight, and Catch22 rounded out the table, along with the assorted children. We feasted and then cleaned up and EVERYONE cleared out.

I spent the next couple of hours in the yard. It's a beautiful fall day, temperatures in the upper 60s, sunny, deep blue sky. I spent time culling the overgrowth, deadheading, and weeding. There was enough to fill two yard bags, just from the front yard, and planted 100 more bulbs...all tulips and alliums. I have about 100 more to go in daffodils, snow-glowies, and more irises. I was excited to find some hidden blooms in the dense growth, so there is still some color out there. The mums are bursting into bloom, too.

Beloved dropped a text saying he, Rude13, and the kids were on the way back. I got chili warmed up and cornbread in the oven. I'm hungry and they are just walking in the door.

The kids will probably wander off to veg in front of the television, so the adults are going to squeeze in a game or two.

So...yeah...pretty dang near perfect.

Just a thought

I got a text today from someone I admire. Nothing of major substance, just saying hello and checking in on me. It was very sweet and made me wriggle my toes and blush to be even a thought.

With turmoil in my blood family and in my poly family, I have been closing myself off from people. I don't want to be dragged through the mud and I really wish life had less curve balls to throw. I want to curve up in mother-arms and be rocked and held and loved and protected, like a little I suppose.

I expect that will become more of an issue as I start working into some of the childhood traumas. Even when I WAS a kid, I didn't have anyone to take comfort from and in fact took complicated steps to protect the adults from my problems. I don't have that sort of comfort anywhere right now; every physical exchange is tinged with sexual undertones which doesn't fulfill the ache inside. *half smile* I like having that effect and I encourage that effect...but...

I miss my mom. *sigh* Twenty-two years gone, and always near my thoughts. In The Good Master by Kate Seredy there is a story about how, as long as a person is remembered or something they created is appreciated, they will live on. This has stuck in my head for a long time and it usually brings a grin to my lips when I'm in the shower and praising the genius of indoor plumbing and hot water. Other mythos hold that each life is a one possibility of billions that God considers. This too is an interesting concept to turn over in my mind.

While I hardly believe anyone really thinks of me in such innocent terms, I like feeling safe and protected. Today, a deity thought of me, and I was wrapped in the glow. Such is the comfort of being "just a thought."

It is autumn...

Indeed it is the season of change. First the news with my sister, then Girl starting school, and now my aunt and uncle have (finally) sold her home and is leaving the state.

There is some trepidation with Mimi and Zaddie leaving. She had been a lynchpin for the blood family, always there in crisis. Zaddie was instrumental in Beloved's home improvements and he custom-made most of the woodwork in my bedroom. I most certainly do not begrudge them the retirement from the drama, but...but...Mimi and Zaddie ware leaving! *wails*

I haven't done diddle squat on my homework assignments for therapy. I suppose tonight is my deadline. *sigh* I don't know why exactly this fills me with dread, but it does. It is perhaps a lack of momentum; I need change, but staying "put" is easy. Still...I don't want to be in this space for the rest of my life. "Just do it" as Nike says, right?

It is autumn, after all.

Complacency

It finally happened! Girl started school!

Part-time, three days a week. Still...there are 3 hours on those three days that I am completely alone. Right now, I am sitting in the window of my bedroom, the sun shining on my back, listening to insect song, and wondering what the hell I do now.

I'm floundering. I guess I kind of expected the first week to be exactly what it has been...relaxing and coming to grips with my lack of direction. I'm starting to come out of the fog, and I don't know which way to go. It's scary.

I have a box of magazines and a poster frame I've intended to use for a vision board. I spent 40 minutes flipping through the glossy pages and cut out exactly 1 thing... a tip for using 3/4 tablet of asprin on my plants to help ward off pests.

My homework assignments from the therapist are to develop a list of 20 things to do as well as 10 date night ideas. I've been putting it off, even avoiding the computer because I can stay off the Internet and not find things to do. HELLO??? What am I doing???

Am I a blank page or am I depressed? Am I overwhelmed or undermotivated? What is it I want? Why is it so hard to answer that question?

I am afraid of failure. I'm afraid to name desires because I know the way to get them is my own hard work and I'm afraid I don't have the determination to achieve them. I don't have enough self-value to even try. Who said, "He who has lost hope has already lost everything"?

The other morning, I was pondering this blog. When I started this journey, it was searching for complaisance and submission to Beloved, Sir, and a few others I have had trials with. I found myself arguing, resenting, and anything BUT complaisant. I thought perhaps it was because my sense of purpose was bigger than one person, that I am servant to a higher calling and seeking to submit to that summons. HA! That sounds rather egotistical right now.

Learning complaisance. Do I need to change the name? Dissolve the blog and start something new? What do I need to learn right now?

I need to learn to be master of myself. To control my thoughts, my actions, my path. To accept the friendship and love that is given freely by Beloved, by my children, by my friends. To love myself.

What word sums all of that up?

I looked up complaisance again, which lead me to complacency; a calm or satisfied feeling about one's self : SELF-SATISFACTION.

So, maybe the title is still accurate after all.

Haunted

If you put it out to the Universe, the Universe will answer, or so I believe. There is also the mythos that you do not speak the name of an evil because doing so will draw its attention.

I have been digging up my past, and there are lots of things that I have no answers for. Perhaps longing for answers opened the door for the flood of the last 48 hours.

My sister is not evil, but from the moment of her birth, she has been an incredible drama. Congenital defects are like that. She wasn't expected to live to 18, and now she is 34. She has been full of rage and anger all her life, and who am I to blame her? She has spent years severing ties with anyone who got too close to her.

The last friendly communication I had with her was in 2004. There have been more recent exchanges, but nothing that left an opening. I thought I had mourned the hurt and betrayal and had moved on.

Friday night, I received a cryptic message from a high school friend that said " I'm very worried about your sister. Now would be a good time to call her." I left a message on her voice mail and turned to the few people I knew who might still have contact with her. I have been piecing a puzzle together from a string of broken relationships, and my heart aches anew.

I have had text contact with my sister, insisting that she is fine (remember what I think of the word fine?). What I have pieced together from others is that she has become addicted to pain medications, has stopped taking her heart medications ("the doctor said I didn't need them anymore, so I threw them in a corner" was how someone reported it), is presumably homeless (no one I have talked to knows where she is actually staying, but someone said she said "there is running water and I can sleep on the floor"), increasingly erratic, and has started to sever the few remaining connections.

The last person I spoke with was a family friend who has known us more than 30 years and was cursed out of my sister's life only a month or two ago. As I explain all of the pieces I'd gathered, she sighed. "That explains a lot...It sounds like you have wrapped your head around the situation pretty well." Yes, I know what is going on.

My sister is preparing to die alone.

There is nothing I can do, except wait and be haunted by wishes that things could be different.