Life is tough. Relationships are tough. This last week has been tough. There’s no better way to explain it than that. Decisions are tough, sometimes. The choices I make can put me in tough situations. Eventually, at the end of it all, there has to be some escape.
My relationship with devin has been all over the board lately. From protesting to arguing to accepting to yelling to leaving to hurt feelings to acceptance to apologizes to understanding to requesting release and then back to Ownership again. Oh, okay, I never relinquished Ownership but the request for me to do so was submitted and retracted at one point. Being a slave is tough. Being someone’s property is tough. Figuring out who you really are? It’s tough.
Learning how to communicate effectively with another person is tough. Finding the right words to convey thoughts? Tough. Issuing an apology that you don’t feel you should have to make? Tough. Issuing an apology you know you absolutely have to make? Very tough. Knowing that you hurt someone you love because you were careless with your words? AS A WRITER? Tough, tough, tough.
Compromises are tough. Sometimes, finding your way is tough. Sometimes, leading can be tough. Sometimes following is tough! So much of what we’re all doing right now is tough.
I get frustrated at times. Frustrated that he can’t just follow me where I’m trying to lead him. Frustrated that at every bend there’s another question. Why am I doing this? Why can’t I see how he feels? Why don’t I understand where he’s coming from? Why don’t I understand that to him I can be scary? Why don’t I see that this relationship could be detrimental? Why don’t I see what everyone else around him sees? When is enough enough?
Sometimes I just want to throw it all at him. Sometimes I want to tell him that despite feeling in the bottom of my heart, in the heart of my soul, that this is right for him, that this is good for him, to just go. Stray for a while. Discover that you’re no better off over there. That no matter what you think is best for you, what everyone else thinks is best for you, they’re not seeing the whole picture. You’ll be back. This time though, I won’t be waiting. Sometimes I want to explain that I do know where he’s coming from, that I see how hard it is for him, that I’m watching his struggle. When it was just a sexual relationship, where it felt like no more than an extended scene to me, it was so fucking hot. So hot. Because I knew he wouldn’t be suffering for long because the scene wouldn’t last for long. But he’s struggling with more than chastity, with more than when he’s going to get laid next, more than when he’ll feel his next orgasm. He’s struggling with being owned. He’s struggling with the very premise of our relationship. He’s struggling with knowing who he as a person is. That is not the hot kind of the struggling. It’s the kind of struggling where I just want to yell and tell him that if he’d just follow me we’d get there faster and then there would be silence. There would be no confusion. Everything would be as it should be. But the louder I yell and the harder I stomp my feet, the more he drags his heels. So I have to take a deep breath in and a deep breath out and gently guide him and hope that he’ll take the next step. Clear the path and hope he’ll take another step. Explain why we’re going this way and hope he takes another step. Recognize and address the fact that we’re going somewhere scary, that the path has disappeared, reassure him that I still know the way and hold my breath and hope he takes another step.
Two steps forward and one step back. We finally touch acceptance and then we step back into wondering if this is right. We finally touch selflessness and then we step back and accuse me of not having his best interest in mind. We finally touch trust and then fall back into failure to communicate.
Our dance is very elaborate. Very few would understand it. Sometimes I lead and he follows; sometimes he leads and I have to follow. Sometimes there’s no dancing at all. Sometimes we’re standing face-to-face, eye-to-eye, staring one another down.
Today was a day of trust and communication. Withholding information is lying. Trusting something that he said made me untrustworthy. The circles are everywhere. We’re walking in them, around them, through them, stuck in the rut sometimes. Eventually we get out and we move on, but sometimes, to get out, it’s tough.
Sometimes I forget. I don’t forget that this is tough for him. I put him out by himself, seemingly, and throw new ideas at him over and over again. Just as he’s finished processing one idea, I throw another at him. As soon as he grasped the concept of being a slave, I issued a protocol. As soon as he learned protocol, I issued some idea of what property is. I put him out there and I focus on him. Try this on, learn this. Think about this. Evaluate this. And all he can do is respond. He responds to one idea after another after another. Sometimes he responds well. Sometimes he responds in anger. Sometimes he responds by withdrawing. I forget that to him, he’s out there by himself. I forget that to him it sometimes feels like an attack. I forget this and then wonder how he ends up seeming so selfish and then I remember: it’s because I’ve put him in his own little world where he’s expected to only focus on himself. How could he not seem selfish? All of our attention is on him right now. And it’s tough.
Because he’s busy dealing with everything that I’m throwing at him, he can’t see that I’m working hard back here to recalibrate every plan according to his response. He can’t see that I’m altering all of my plans according to how he answers my questions. He doesn’t get to see that I grow frustrated sometimes, or sad, or even angry. He doesn’t get to see it because I don’t throw it at him. I’ve limited his world, what he gets to see and know, and my emotions are not a part of it. My emotions are not conducive to his learning, to his finding himself. I have to control myself as well as him and sometimes it’s tough.
Sitting back, I’m looking at him and thinking we should be the two of us against the world. That’s what O/p looks like to me. Aki and devin, standing united, against whatever the Universe has to throw at us. But right now, it’s Aki versus devin. Aki versus devin and devin’s friends. Aki versus devin, devin’s friends, and devin’s perceptions of how things should be. For him, it’s devin versus Aki and every idea she could possibly throw at him. devin versus Aki and her ideas and her protocol and her expectations. It’s tough.
Worst of all though, I think both of us forget that we’re both in this together. For as hard as I’m pushing him, I’m pushing myself. For as hard as I push him, he pushes me. Today I wondered if maybe the problem isn’t that I’ve given him too much to do and think about, but that I haven’t given him enough. Oh sure, he’s got his plate full by having to figure out what it means to him to be a slave, to be property, to be owned. But he doesn’t know what it is to figure out how to console me when I’m sad. He doesn’t know what to do if I’m angry. He doesn’t know how to take care of me because I don’t allow him to. I’ve robbed him of the very basics of a relationship, the simple joys of a vanilla relationship. I realize that at some point I’m going to have to trust him with my emotions and that’s tough.
I’m going to have to trust him with my memories. That’s tough.
I’m going to have to not only love him, but trust him to take care of my heart. That’s really tough.
I’m going to have to put myself out there for him the way that he’s done for me and that’s very, very tough.
And I realize that through all of this, through all that we do, through all the trials and tribulations, through all of the stubbornness and obstinance, through all the emotion and the anger and the sadness and the accusations and the fighting the reason why I love him so much is because he is tough.
Life is tough. Love is tough. O/p is tough. But it won’t always be. There will be moments where it’s so easy we won’t even remember the struggle we went through to get here. There will be moments where we’ll think everything is easy. Someday it won’t be so tough.
