Obligatory New Year's Day Ramblings...

Yes, well it's practically some sort of BYLAW isn't it? A single post summing up my experiences/ learning curve/ highs and lows and feelings and thoughts and and and...

Okay, so that's probably not going to happen. But someone rather nice suggested a period of quiet contemplation might be a good idea for me at the moment, so in the spirit of that, here is my summary of 2009.

1) A Transformational Year

I changed inside myself. External stimulus effected change in me. I effected change in my environment and relationships.

I began the year, not anticipating the metamorphosis to come. With hindsight, it's all so clear. I have *always* been sexually submissive, and I have always had a very high libido. I buried these desires so deep within me because, what is the point in wanting things you can't have? Married, been together for 14 years, and very very happy except for sexual compatibility. I abhor lies and deception and cheating, I would never ever do that, and cannot imagine being without my husband. So what do you do with these feelings except push them behind a door? I closed it and hid it and forgot the door was even there. I denied the existence of the door to myself and others. But this year was the one in which desire blossomed into need.

Step by tiny baby step, my husband and I negotiated and discussed (and occasionally argued) our way to poly (see below). I probably *should* have taken the same approach to BDSM, but I rather threw myself into it (a friend described my experiences as sounding like someone threw a cat into a minefield...) From where I stand now, I can't say I'm sorry. I had some fucking awful downs as well as some liberating and transcendent highs, but I'm still here, I didn't get broken, or if I did, then I remade myself even better than I was before.

2) Who Have I Become?

I've tried a lot of things in the last year. I liked most of them, LOVED a lot of them, and was bored and/or annoyed by a few of them. I had my infatuation with the scene, then fell out of love with it, and am now embracing it again for what it *really* is, rather than a newcomer's rose-tinted view. [caveat: I'm allowed to change my mind again at any moment, and also I reserve the right to say this time next year, how naive I was and how much I've learned since posting this very weblog]

Prior to this year, I'd spent a couple of years quietly just pootling around at home. My social circle was really small, and generally consisted of chums to hang out with at home over dinner or a nice cup of tea. This year I've got that spark back again, that enjoyment of other people, and I've hugely widened my group of friends. Looking through some photos of a holiday at the start of the year, I'm struck by how....static... I look, just tired and frozen and worn and OLD, like someone who's come to the end of their go on life. I don't look like that now. And I don't feel like that now. I've come back to life again. I've never felt so crazily in love with life as I do at the moment. I feel impassioned by people, by music, by how pretty the world looks. I want to dance, I want to kiss in the snow on the beach, I want to paint and write and tell stories and touch people.

People are beautiful. The world is beautiful. And for the first time, I mean REALLY the first time, in ever so ever so long, maybe just the first time that ever was, I feel a little bit beautiful and desirable and fuckable too. Can't be bad, really.

3) What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

Husband (R) would never have sought out 'doing poly' without the impetus of 'well, you're having a go on other people, maybe I ought to try it too'. He's yet to move from being poly in his head to poly in practice, but I'm encouraging and hoping for him.

It's taken time to get to where we needed to be, in terms of him being comfortable with me playing with, having sex with, others. At the moment it all seems to be good, he's happy, I'm happy, we need to work on his self-esteem and my sense of guilt so that every time he feels down, I don't feel that it's because I'm emasculating him. I've also been working on my discretion. Poor boy really doesn't need or want a blow by blow account, but I keep wanting to tell him more than I should do, because that's just my nature. I'm working on it.

What poly means to both of us is the same, but with different emphasis in practice. He wants emotional intimacy, with a tiny bit of sex and no BDSM whatsoever. I want LOADS of sex, and BDSM, with masses of emotional intimacy too. We both see it as about opening up your heart as well as your body, to others. I don't (can't, am unable to) put restrictions on the way I feel about other people because R is my 'primary partner'. It just doesn't work that way for me. I just feel the way I feel about people, and it's completely and utterly separate from the way I feel about R. They have no relation to each other.

4) Are You Okay?

Yes, I'm okay. I'm still kind of in recovery phase after a relationship break-up which left me reeling. But I think I'm sort of 95% over it. And increasingly able to identify it as a learning experience, rather than one in which I fucked up horribly. Areas of self-improvement however, are:

A) I am not (and should not behave as if I am) desperate. There will always be arseholes out there looking for a bit of a go on me. My task is to learn to identify said arseholes and avoid them, and not go 'what? You like me, you say? Oh, how wonderful! I'm so grateful! Do you want to get me drunk and/or take me home and abuse my trust a lot? K thx bai'. I've been very lucky so far, but some of my more alcohol-fuelled adventures have been edging into self-destructive territory, so that's something to keep an eye on and improve.

B) Self-esteem. Yeah yeah yeah, I know. But if you don't feel it inside, you just don't. I am getting increasingly on board with the 'fake it till you make it' philosophy, though.

C) I am a masochist as well as a submissive. And it's okay to enjoy a safe, sane and SOBER play with someone who doesn't push all my buttons but can deliver the pain I need, without then having urgent frantic sex with them followed by making their dinner and cleaning their flat. Emotionally and sexually detached play is a bit like junk food. It'll do until something better comes along, if you're really hungry. But this doesn't mean I have to lower my standards to MacDonalds or something. There ARE limits, after all....!

D) I'm really getting quite good at this writing porn, palaver. It's fun, gets me loads of compliments, and is a legitimate dumping ground for my sexual and play frustration. What's not to like?! I'm going to carry on, and quite possibly get even MORE vulgar and debauched.

E) I quite fancy getting something pierced. A nipple barbell, or a lip ring. What do you think?

F) I also quite fancy learning to dance something new. I already take bellydancing classes which, as it turns out, I'm quite good at. It's the hips, y'see? I'm very drawn to the passionate latin dances, salsa, tango etc. But I think I'd have to learn from a dom. No normal man is going to be able to lead me.