Most nights I don't know...
I've been really depressed lately. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of school pressure, wedding pressure, and SADD. I always thought that my abnormal abhorrence of autumn, when everyone in the world seems to love it, was awkward. I never fully understood everyone's awe of everything dying. And I always felt that I was using the cold weather as an excuse as to why I feel so down all the time.
I figured out I have a hard time admitting things to myself and seeing things that are staring me right in the face.
My father has SADD, and the fact that my father and I are basically the same person, makes me believe I have it too. And the fact that I had A DREAM last night about warm weather and I woke up feeling as though I had a dream about my dead brother. It's fucking insane how much it affects me.
D put a bunch of daylight bulbs in all the lamps, turned them all on, and cranked the heat for me. It made me feel a little better. But I still feel like there's a hole inside of me.
I've always felt very connected with nature. It really is a very spiritual thing to me. I find peace in the sound of raindrops; serenity in the warm breeze on my skin. I ache when I smell the sweet summer air and could cry at the beauty of the stars. I have never felt such immense happiness, such tranquility in anything else in my life. There are many things in life that I enjoy...many things. But my absolute favorite thing in the entire world is sitting on the beach, hearing the waves crash to shore, feeling the warm sun, and just being.
Winter takes every piece of it away from me, and I feel disconnected. All of the happiness gets sucked out of me like the warmth from the air. It seems so petty....like, "get the fuck over it, summer will be back"...but I can't just get over it. It's so hard for me to just be happy.
So it's affected many parts of my life as of late. Every time I've written in the past month or so it's been depressing as fuck. I want happiness...I ache for it. But I think I can find it if I stop looking.
D and I are actively working again toward a 24/7 dynamic. If it doesn't work this time, we're done.
So this is what I've learned in the past few days discussing this stuff:
I am irrationally worried about how others perceive me and often hide parts of myself so I don't come off as (place negative adjective here). Because of this, I feel like I don't know who I am. I don't know which laerie to embrace. I know who I want to be...but I need to find the strength inside myself to stand up and be that person, damn what anyone else thinks. I also put my own desires, needs, fears, gripes on the back burner to keep others happy. This builds resentment and in turn makes me unhappy because I feel under-appreciated for whatever reason.
I guess it all boils back down to communication. Sometimes I wish we could leave some wonder in our relationship, a little bit of mystery to keep it exciting. Other times I know that this is what we need to help me find myself. I thought I knew, but I am the most confusing person in the world. I can't even make sense of my own thoughts, how the hell am I supposed to let someone else?
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Shit D says
So, things are better. It really is amazing how writing can really center us both. It brought the issues to the front so we could solve the problem together. This is a long road. The longest road, it seems. Anyways, I wanted to share this thing that D said to me:
"We are a perfect match if we cut out all the social norms crap. You are a dreamer and wonderfully impulsive, but you need someone to rein you in and keep you pointed in the right direction. You're a kite and I'm the guy terrified of heights marveling at the beauty of you flying."
He just has such a way with words. It made me happy.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Power of Perception
Standing here, looking at the smoldering ash of our d/s dynamic, and wondering if the core of the relationship can be saved, it's easy to wonder how things got so out of hand.
The answer to that is, quite simply, perception. laerie and I used to pride ourselves on being effective and efficient communicators, though in retrospect it appears that we are anything but. Over the last six months, as stress has mounted from graduate school and wedding planning, things have gone from bad to worse and then some. I've tried everything I can think of to keep the peace, but my results have yielded nothing but abject failure and our relationship is on the rocks for it.
I suppose I might as well tell my side of the tale, though I'm not sure it will be to any avail. Things were great at the beginning of summer when we were fresh out of classes. They faded to good and ok as laerie's summer classes came and went and we started wedding planning in earnest with the fall semester looming on the horizon. The ok period only lasted about a month, before we started to head into bad territory.
Graduate school quickly overwhelmed laerie and she spent most of her time stressed about schoolwork or working at her three part time jobs. Despite being swamped with my own dissertation work, I did my best to pick up the pieces behind her and soldier on. Over time, I found myself doing more and more of the work around the house, until it was all on my shoulders. I largely stayed out of her schoolwork unless she needed help, but as her panic mounted, assignments took longer and longer to do, leaving us with even less time to spend together at night. Eventually, it got the point that she would be nearly catatonic with stress due to the pressures of work and school, so any time that we could salvage to spend together, she didn't want to do anything but stare at the idiot box or idly browse the internet.
I tried to step in and take the reins a few times over the last few months, but perhaps it was too little, too late. I thought she'd be appreciative of everything I was doing at home and realize that I was trying to step up to the plate and handle more and more, to ease the burden off of her. Admittedly, I did at times encourage her to cheat on her diet or stray from her goals in order to get her to do something fun and put some life back in her eyes. I thought that if I could get her to follow my orders and do something fun, then she'd be willing to follow me when it came time to doing the hard things as well. I had grand plans to train her to handle pressure better and develop a sense of grace under fire, but first, I thought I had best get her out of the depression.
Unfortunately, that never materialized. After reading laerie's recent blog post and discussing it with her, all she saw were failures on my part. Rather than appreciating my efforts to clean as taking pressure off of her, all she saw was an inept man "half-assing" things. I have to say I found this personally insulting. While I do take many shortcuts through life, I have never done anything but my best as far as laerie is concerned. Any failings on my part were a result of ineptitude and idiocy rather than a lack of purpose. Sadly, all that she saw were the apparently piss poor results of my efforts instead of seeing the value that I thought I was putting into the actions.
So here we stand today, at the edge of a precipice. Our very relationship hangs in the balance and I'm honestly not sure if we'll be able to get past the bitter resentment and frustration, coupled with the continued pressures of work and school for both of us, to do what is needed to save this relationship. I have no idea if truly embracing the d/s relationship, for better and worse, which we've never been able to do, would help us. Or maybe we're better off shelving it for now and existing as two separate entities for the next few weeks until the semester ends and we can better assess our future. Personally, I believe that a strict d/s dynamic might be the only hope we have of beginning to make ourselves functional, but until we can find a way to address (and from my perspective, correct) the fundamental misperceptions that have run rampant through our relationship, that road holds nothing but more problems.
I'm not sure what I hoped to accomplish by writing this. On some level it's cathartic to let out the emotions. On another, I'm hoping that laerie can take more from my written words than she has my impassioned pleas to help make our reality different. At the very least, this will stand as a testament that hope remains for a better future if we can change the way we see the past.
I wish I had some wise words to end this post with, but I'm tired inside and out. I'm struggling to keep the fight alive.
And it's time for pizza.
The answer to that is, quite simply, perception. laerie and I used to pride ourselves on being effective and efficient communicators, though in retrospect it appears that we are anything but. Over the last six months, as stress has mounted from graduate school and wedding planning, things have gone from bad to worse and then some. I've tried everything I can think of to keep the peace, but my results have yielded nothing but abject failure and our relationship is on the rocks for it.
I suppose I might as well tell my side of the tale, though I'm not sure it will be to any avail. Things were great at the beginning of summer when we were fresh out of classes. They faded to good and ok as laerie's summer classes came and went and we started wedding planning in earnest with the fall semester looming on the horizon. The ok period only lasted about a month, before we started to head into bad territory.
Graduate school quickly overwhelmed laerie and she spent most of her time stressed about schoolwork or working at her three part time jobs. Despite being swamped with my own dissertation work, I did my best to pick up the pieces behind her and soldier on. Over time, I found myself doing more and more of the work around the house, until it was all on my shoulders. I largely stayed out of her schoolwork unless she needed help, but as her panic mounted, assignments took longer and longer to do, leaving us with even less time to spend together at night. Eventually, it got the point that she would be nearly catatonic with stress due to the pressures of work and school, so any time that we could salvage to spend together, she didn't want to do anything but stare at the idiot box or idly browse the internet.
I tried to step in and take the reins a few times over the last few months, but perhaps it was too little, too late. I thought she'd be appreciative of everything I was doing at home and realize that I was trying to step up to the plate and handle more and more, to ease the burden off of her. Admittedly, I did at times encourage her to cheat on her diet or stray from her goals in order to get her to do something fun and put some life back in her eyes. I thought that if I could get her to follow my orders and do something fun, then she'd be willing to follow me when it came time to doing the hard things as well. I had grand plans to train her to handle pressure better and develop a sense of grace under fire, but first, I thought I had best get her out of the depression.
Unfortunately, that never materialized. After reading laerie's recent blog post and discussing it with her, all she saw were failures on my part. Rather than appreciating my efforts to clean as taking pressure off of her, all she saw was an inept man "half-assing" things. I have to say I found this personally insulting. While I do take many shortcuts through life, I have never done anything but my best as far as laerie is concerned. Any failings on my part were a result of ineptitude and idiocy rather than a lack of purpose. Sadly, all that she saw were the apparently piss poor results of my efforts instead of seeing the value that I thought I was putting into the actions.
So here we stand today, at the edge of a precipice. Our very relationship hangs in the balance and I'm honestly not sure if we'll be able to get past the bitter resentment and frustration, coupled with the continued pressures of work and school for both of us, to do what is needed to save this relationship. I have no idea if truly embracing the d/s relationship, for better and worse, which we've never been able to do, would help us. Or maybe we're better off shelving it for now and existing as two separate entities for the next few weeks until the semester ends and we can better assess our future. Personally, I believe that a strict d/s dynamic might be the only hope we have of beginning to make ourselves functional, but until we can find a way to address (and from my perspective, correct) the fundamental misperceptions that have run rampant through our relationship, that road holds nothing but more problems.
I'm not sure what I hoped to accomplish by writing this. On some level it's cathartic to let out the emotions. On another, I'm hoping that laerie can take more from my written words than she has my impassioned pleas to help make our reality different. At the very least, this will stand as a testament that hope remains for a better future if we can change the way we see the past.
I wish I had some wise words to end this post with, but I'm tired inside and out. I'm struggling to keep the fight alive.
And it's time for pizza.
Trouble in paradise
When I wrote this summer, I abandoned the blog sounding like D and I were smooth sailing and everything was hunky-dory.
It's hard to admit to you readers (at least one of you still exists, I think) that it's not, but even more difficult to admit it to ourselves.
I mentioned that D and I are under a lot of stress lately with the wedding and school, but everything has come to a head since my last post. There is palpable tension between us and neither one of us is happy. We barely speak to each other. It's just sad. I hope that everything gets better after finals week because I literally have time for NOTHING right now. D tries to talk to me about stuff and I just can't take the time to have a real conversation with him because I have so much work to do for school. I literally should not even be writing this because I am supposed to be working on two projects that are due tomorrow.
So, the fact that we're stressing hard about school work and wedding shit isn't making things easy. The fact that we have no time isn't making things easy, either. And then there's the fact that I sieze control from D when he's trying to make it easier on me. I've been doing this forever...and I finally figured out why.
I don't trust D to run my life. Weird that I trust him WITH my life, but don't trust him to run my life. I will explain. If I were hanging off the edge of a cliff and had the option to let go with one hand in order to grab his, I would. I trust him to save me. But I don't trust him to make choices that are right for me. Let me give you an example.
D and I have been trying to lose weight for years now. We finally got on track this summer and since then, I have lost 20 pounds. It might not seem like much, especially since summer, but it's a victory for me. Since then, we've been on and off and derailed by everything. I could be down 40 pounds if I had stayed on track. Don't get me wrong, I am proud of my accomplishments thus far, but I have a long road to reach my goal weight and the days til the wedding are slowly ticking away. So I find my inspiration and work really hard and stay on track with my diet. Then, 3 days in, D asks me if I want to go out to dinner. "I don't have enough calories to go to dinner". I only trust meals that I've prepared when I'm dieting, except for one "celebration" meal per week. I don't know what's added to the food or how many calories it is, and I just don't want to spend the money. I am so in debt from this wedding. But D just says, "trust me." And I want to, so I do. And then I get derailed again. I fall off my diet wagon and maintain weight instead of lose like I should be. And he doesn't push me to get back on the diet train. It's so frustrating because I CAN be strong on my own...but he doesn't want me to be. I want to make him happy but every time I do, I don't succeed. I WANT to trust him with my life completely, I want to believe he can steer me in the right direction. I just don't, especially when it comes to dieting because D doesn't know shit about nutrition. This guy knows A LOT, but I definitely know what I need to do in order to get in shape and he just doesn't.
I don't want to rag on D this entire post. I love him and I know he's been down because everything is so shitty between us. I feel bad and want to fix it but I don't know how. I want to make it clear that I am not blaming him. I am not angry with him. I just don't want him to keep trying to take control from me when he can't handle it or when I don't trust him to handle it. I guess I need to get over that hump and just trust him and help him do right by me, but I don't know.
Rant over. Time to work.
It's hard to admit to you readers (at least one of you still exists, I think) that it's not, but even more difficult to admit it to ourselves.
I mentioned that D and I are under a lot of stress lately with the wedding and school, but everything has come to a head since my last post. There is palpable tension between us and neither one of us is happy. We barely speak to each other. It's just sad. I hope that everything gets better after finals week because I literally have time for NOTHING right now. D tries to talk to me about stuff and I just can't take the time to have a real conversation with him because I have so much work to do for school. I literally should not even be writing this because I am supposed to be working on two projects that are due tomorrow.
So, the fact that we're stressing hard about school work and wedding shit isn't making things easy. The fact that we have no time isn't making things easy, either. And then there's the fact that I sieze control from D when he's trying to make it easier on me. I've been doing this forever...and I finally figured out why.
I don't trust D to run my life. Weird that I trust him WITH my life, but don't trust him to run my life. I will explain. If I were hanging off the edge of a cliff and had the option to let go with one hand in order to grab his, I would. I trust him to save me. But I don't trust him to make choices that are right for me. Let me give you an example.
D and I have been trying to lose weight for years now. We finally got on track this summer and since then, I have lost 20 pounds. It might not seem like much, especially since summer, but it's a victory for me. Since then, we've been on and off and derailed by everything. I could be down 40 pounds if I had stayed on track. Don't get me wrong, I am proud of my accomplishments thus far, but I have a long road to reach my goal weight and the days til the wedding are slowly ticking away. So I find my inspiration and work really hard and stay on track with my diet. Then, 3 days in, D asks me if I want to go out to dinner. "I don't have enough calories to go to dinner". I only trust meals that I've prepared when I'm dieting, except for one "celebration" meal per week. I don't know what's added to the food or how many calories it is, and I just don't want to spend the money. I am so in debt from this wedding. But D just says, "trust me." And I want to, so I do. And then I get derailed again. I fall off my diet wagon and maintain weight instead of lose like I should be. And he doesn't push me to get back on the diet train. It's so frustrating because I CAN be strong on my own...but he doesn't want me to be. I want to make him happy but every time I do, I don't succeed. I WANT to trust him with my life completely, I want to believe he can steer me in the right direction. I just don't, especially when it comes to dieting because D doesn't know shit about nutrition. This guy knows A LOT, but I definitely know what I need to do in order to get in shape and he just doesn't.
I don't want to rag on D this entire post. I love him and I know he's been down because everything is so shitty between us. I feel bad and want to fix it but I don't know how. I want to make it clear that I am not blaming him. I am not angry with him. I just don't want him to keep trying to take control from me when he can't handle it or when I don't trust him to handle it. I guess I need to get over that hump and just trust him and help him do right by me, but I don't know.
Rant over. Time to work.
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