Day 1 - A Letter to My Mother

Dear S,


You taught me so many wonderful things as a child; to believe, to trust myself, to follow my heart and trust my gut, to lead and not follow, not to be unafraid, but to feel the fear and face it anyways, you taught me the value of education, the beauty of being true to oneself, even when it wasn't popular, to treat every person as I wish to be treated. Those lessons have guided me on a life journey I never could have imagined all those years ago. They have become the core of my person, they lie at the heart of every action I take.

I know that, often, we do not see eye to eye. that while, in many ways, we are very alike, our views on the world are very different. I know that I do not conform to the ideal you have hoped for and expected from me since I was born. I hope, for you, that one day to come to accept me as I am and stop comparing me to who I "should have" been. I hope this for you, because I believe it would give you peace. I have come to accept, that I will never be the daughter you wanted, but the daughter you ended up with. I have come to accept, that no matter what I do, it will never be good enough - that who I am, will never be good enough, in the face of who you wish I was. a mini you. and having understood this, all I can do, is be good enough for me.

the religion you so disapprove of, the faith that pushes me on in the face of sometimes overwhelming depression, teaches me to 'hurt none'. it supports those values you instilled in me as a child. it asks me to evaluate each action, each word, and ask if it will harm someone in some way. the Buddhist philosophy I have studied asks me to stop, to think and to act instead of reacting to the people and world around me. while I never claim to be perfect - or to always life up to this, I always try. we are of different faiths, but we still hold values in common. I was not tricked into devil worship - or some evil cult. I heard the voice of my gods and followed.

I am queer. I am attracted to men and women. I suffered in silence for so many years, listening to you talk of people like me as confused, greedy, mentally ill. I am not confused or guilty or ill. I am loving where my heart lies. I seek the beauty of people, not their genitals. I'm sorry it hurt you so when I came out to you, but I could no longer say quiet. denying who I was was killing me. to have been unable to introduce you to so many wonderful people who have been a part of my life made me feel hollow. by telling you, I was trying to fix part of what has been wrong with our relationship for such a long time.

it hurt like a hot knife when you accept your sister as gay but when I finally worked up the courage (and it took a lot) to come out to you, your reaction was "not my daughter". to know that you believe I love where my heart lies, because I was damaged somehow by being "a Goth" as a teen is like a punch in the gut. it hurts when you dismiss my faith as something less than yours simply because it is different.

when you dismiss the pieces of who I am as mistakes or the result of corruption - that hurts. what's more, is that it robs me of any agency I have. it infantilizes me to you so that you cannot see when I have acted carefully and purposely. I knew, as a child coming home from school - I knew someday I would be able to escape the children who bullied me for being different. I just never knew that the woman who got me through those times. who taught me the coping skills and the strength to be myself - no matter what, would take their place. for so long I lived in terror that I would never please you. I tried so hard to find a way to bridge that gap. to make you proud of SOMETHING I had done or was. it lead me to some very poor choices in life.

I cannot live my life for you, I cannot become the daughter you want - because that would mean putting aside the values you taught me. to believe, to trust myself, to follow my heart and trust my gut, to lead and not follow, not to be unafraid, but to feel the fear and face it anyways, you taught me the value of education, the beauty of being true to oneself, even when it wasn't popular, to treat every person as I wish to be treated.

I will not let myself turn my back on those values, even in the face of disappointing you. I will not follow down that path of hypocrisy. I cannot forget who I am or where I came from - it is these life lessons that will help me build a future, my future.

you can choose to be a part of it, you can choose to support me, accept me as I am and love me for it or you can choose to let go and think I am a confused child who will go to hell. I say OR because these are not compatible outlooks and I will not have the latter in my life - it is too destructive and dysfunctional. whatever choice you make - I love you, I always have and I always will.

Your Daughter, KT

Ten Days

I have been meaning to write a letter to my mother. for a long time. its a letter that has been in my heart, lying dormant. waiting. recently we spoke and she said some very honest, yet hurtful things about what she thought of my life and who i was. many of her conceptions of myself were and are incorrect. this made me decide that it was time to sit down and write. i dont know if i will even ever send her this letter, but my hands are trembling at the thought of even putting the thoughts and feelings to paper (or screen as the case may be). i have been considering for some time, trying the 10 day letter challenge. today, the first of the year, seems a good time to face this and perhaps, grow. looking online, i have found no solid outline for this challenge, so i decided to define my own. i will write one letter a day for ten days.

1. My Mother
2. An Ex Lover
3. My Siblings
4. Someone You Miss
5. The Person You Wish You Were
6. Someone Who Had A Huge Impact On Your Life
7. A Stranger
8. Someone You Don't Speak to as Often as You'd Like
9. Someone Who Has Passed On
10. The Person You Are now

Emotionally Drained

There has been building works going on near my flat for almost the last two weeks. This has caused my migraine disorder to wig out. I've been in intense pain for days. I've also had trouble sleeping, due to the pain as well as my cats. They've been greatly distressed by the noise and vibrations of the work - they don't know whether they're coming or going and have been up all hours of the night. I'm physically and mentally exhausted.

As the time has gone on, I've been more aware of an increasing pressure to return to uni. I know I'm behind on so much work and I've missed so much class - I'm terrified of how this will affect my grades as well as my relationships with my fellow students and my lecturers.

At the same time, I am preparing to say good bye to my father. He is returning to America in the next few weeks, for good. Logically I know that this is for the best, he needs to be there to support our family and for his own mental health. He's been very unhappy here for so long. At the same time though, I feel as if I'm losing something. I will miss him dearly. It will be so scary to stay here without him. While I am sure of my ability to live my own life, I will greatly miss biz support and guidance. My father has always been one of my best friends and this will be the first time since I was 13 that I will be so far from him. Maybe indefinitely. Its harder to face emotionally than I had anticipated. I will still have friends and family ( the kind you choose) here but it seems Scotland will be a dimmer place without him. As much as he drives me nuts sometimes. It will take a while for me to get used to being unable to just go to his house to bug him.

I had two panic attacks last night. Thought, apart from them, I did sleep and without the noise I feel somewhat rested. I spoke to a uni advisor today. He will contact the lecturing staff on my behalf and assuming no further complications - I will be returning to class tomorrow.

I have a feeling that the melancholy that has set in will last for some time.

Fear

We have not engaged in bdsm activities in a while. A long while. I would say that while we started our relationship based on attraction, mutual interests and a common need for bdsm "play" (I hate that term), we have been unable to indulge more than light kink during sex for some time. There are a number of reasons for this;

• Illness
• Lack of privacy
• Stress
• Life

My partner has even admitted that he has become afraid of hurting me or causing me to trigger. This was really hard for me to hear and I'm somewhat at a loss on how to remedy the issue. All I can think is to talk about the fears he has, to talk about the best way of handling it when I do trigger and to just take things slowly and see.

I confess that while I am happy to listen and talk and do my best to help him. It does little to assuage my own fears. Of which I have many. I fear that I am not what he wants, but what's convenient, that my style of "play" is not what he likes, that my need to submit is not as strong as his need to command, that I will or already have fucked this up or that I am simply not worth the effort in his eyes. I know they're only insecurities.. but they haunt me all the same. I don't even know how to voice my fears to him without him feeling "at fault". I don't care so much who is at fault, I am more worried about fixing the problem. I know there is no quick fix as such, but how do you know when your back on the right path again?

I need so much to feel that possession again, that control.

A Year Later

The way fate deals our hands is an odd thing. We smile at the dealer, watching the other players and pick that hand up. What makes us choose to throw cards back and draw a few more or stick with what we're already dealt is a mixture of experience and gut instinct. I have redrawn my cards more times than I care to admit. Sometimes it was for the better and sometimes.. well, sometimes you throw the baby out with the bath water.

Making those decisions are hard. Its never as clear cut as we'd like and often I've found myself kicking my ass years later. No regrets is a lot easier said than done. Its hard to know when fighting for what you love turns into beating a dead horse - or to see clearly when leaving a difficult situation is simply running away. The important thing, is to walk or limp away from each experience having learned more of yourself and the world around you. If you manage that, you never really loose - even when it still feels like you did years later.

I have never been a woman to sit idley by, watching. Neither have I been one to stand still when action is called for. For right or wrong, the fear of misstepping has rarely immobilized me but egged me on to better myself. I find those who lack this quality confusing. Certainly there are times that require thought or deliberation before action - but inaction is anathema to my personality. I also find those immobilized by their fear difficult to follow, to serve and to obey. My drive pushes me forward and if i do not have a D-type with a similar drive, or one who can understand and harness that drive.. I find that I quickly begin to top from the bottom without intending to.

I try very hard in my current relationship not to do this and right now, we're taking a break from the d/s dynamic to work on us. Its difficult and I wish it weren't an issue but I believe this relationship is worth the effort. Without the d/s dynamic, I find myself in charge, nagging, demanding... it exhausts me but, without someone pushing back or dominating me - I don't know how to stop, how to let go. My depression is acting up again and it all begins to pile on top of me. Perhaps that's what it is - without a top, I have to become a top to make myself able to deal with things on a day to day basis but once it starts, I never know when to let myself stop. I'm afraid of where I'll take myself if I have that mindset again. I become very cold and self isolating.. very distant from the people around me. Its a mental state I'd rather avoid. Yet, without it I am struggling for motivation.

I feel somewhat adrift.

Trust

I find trust a difficult thing. Many life lessons have taught me never to trust the people around you, especially those who profess to be your friends. I even limit the trust I give to those I consider to be family, through blood or some other bond as equally abetrary. At times I even find it difficult to trust myself as it seems my ambition has no real regard for my sense of personal happiness.

While normally I am an all or nothing type of person, I view trust differently. I view it in layers and while I might trust someone not to steal my pint, it doesn't mean I'd trust them with my home address. I tend to keep those I call friends at a healthy distance. I share some details of my life with them, perhaps sharing indepth information surrounding a topic of shared interest, while leaving other areas of my life completely unspoken for. This limits any damage they could do in future, should they betray what trust I have extended to them. I am a little more free with my details when speaking with long distance online friends, however in these cases I keep my location al details vauge and only ever go by an assumed identity. But then, I come from a time when the internet was cool because no one knew who you were.

While I do have friends that i have known for years, I see them only infrequently and I trust them no more than I would trust any other at that level of trust. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

This makes it very easy for me to make friends but at the same time, it makes it very easy for me to also discard them. Not to be malicious, but because I simply find I cannot build trust with a person, even on a superficial level. It seems more that what I call friends, are what other people call aquaintences.

Really, my friends, the people I open up to and depend on, are my lovers. Perhaps that is part of the reason I lean so heavily towards poly. For me to feel comfortable pulling back the veil I need to be emotionally involved with someone and with my issues surrounding trust, I cannot be emotionally invested with the people I hang out with while still expecting they will break that trust. That seems to have some ring of truth to it.

This trust structure does pose problems. I often feel isolated and I rarely feel I have someone to talk to about problems that I'm having. Should i lose a lover for whatever reason, i also lose a close friend. Perhaps the only one i have at the time. However, I like spending time by myself and it reinforces self-relience. I'm more capable than I realize when I'm having such moments of weakness. Also, so far, its been nice to have to freedom to move on when i think its time. Not to feel tied down by emotional connections. Though, I do perhaps wonder what it would be like to have them.

Right now, I don't really need to wonder, actually. I am in a relationship that ( without going into details here) has several built in. This ties my partner and thus myself, to the local area, where as previously I had been preparing myself for employment on a global arena. The ambitious super-ego, she fumes. The ego, she is of two minds about the situation and is busy with new logistics planning. the id, she doesn't care so long as well, so long as the needs for pain and control are dealt with. Though she is rather partial to him. So, I guess the answer to my question is conflicted. Though really I try not to think about it. I figure its a we'll-cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it situation. Oddly, that's a pretty big trust I'm extending him.

Actually, I trust him a lot. He worked hard to earn it. I would say i trust him almost implicitly. I say almost because the instinct to pull back, to keep things to myself, to disbelieve him is still there. Those are still my first reactions almost every time but after that knee jerk reaction, I make myself relax, I make myself tell him what I wanted to keep quiet, I try to absorb his words. Trust is a process. Every time we go through that process, it gets a little easier and the distrust becomes a little less instinctive.

Physical obedience is easy. The emotional obedience is a lot harder.

A Ramble on Stress

In times of great stress, I feel the need for submission more keenly. Well, perhaps 'submission' is the wrong term. What I feel the need for is control. I need to feel my owner's control more keenly or my own "inner-dom" kicks in to try and provide the feelings of control that i am not getting externally. This can be quite distructive to a relationship as my "inner-dom" has some pretty specific views on how I should be behaving and structuring my life. As none of those views involve a partner, I end up under further stress as i try to justify to my super-ego why I am allowing such a "distraction" in my life.

This voice will ocassionally rear its ugly head and cause me to resist (and perhaps resent) my enslavement. Using any tactics it can, it will attempt to "set me back on track" as it were and push me away from my loved one. This happens in 'nilla or kink relationships. I find that kink relationships work better as being owned makes it harder to "Just leave". It also makes an end goal of internal enslavement realistic.

I would like someday, to silence this voice. I think it is ultimately a distructive voice as much as it is able to get things done in the short term. The way in which it goes about it is always negative and harmful in some way. I think that this is why I fight it so often and so hard.

It is a voice I am stuggling a lot with just now. There has been a whole series of stressful events that have left me feeling very out of sorts and my super-ego has jumped in to rescue me. Dealing with it all is leaving me warn out and very, very tired. I know that if i just stop arguing - if i did as i was told, it would all be OK.... but I would loose so much. I've been that person before. I don't think its worth going back. I don't think its worth not feeling again. Better to fight on... and wait it out.

I suppose I am rambling here. For that i am sorry. I needed to vent and to let go of these frustrations. I think that when we are stressed it can almost feel like as well as battling to deal with the cause of the stress, we are battling to remain ourselves while doing so. This is what I am trying to document and express. For those of us in D/s or M/s relationships... there is also the drive to be available to serve. Juggling these conflicting needs is not easy and not something I am succeding at just now apparently. This is something I need to work on. Luckily, it appears that my stressful situation will be going on for some time, so i shall have plenty of time to practice.