Some Sort of Slow Evolution

I'm sorry I left the previous post at the top of the blog for so long, because things aren't as dire as all that. And the challenges that face me and my beloved in this process seem to be as much of my making as anything else.

There are weeks when I don't want to do this at all. That's a simple way of saying it, but it's actually much more complicated than that. It's not like "I'm cured!" (that wonderfully ambiguous last line from the movie version of A Clockwork Orange). It's more like I have no desire at all - sexual or for whatever passes for "fun" or much of anything. It's more like being dead (or deadened) than being cured. What it is, actually, is being depressed - I know, I've been there.

(Certainly the economic news doesn't help; certainly the rush of family obligations around the holidays don't help, surely the distraction of the political news doesn't help, but in the final analysis, I think what's going on inside is more important than what's going on outside.)

Normally, though, in the context of a dysfunctional sexuality, that's a good thing, because it means that I'm not lusting after what I can't have - whatever that satisfaction is (or I think would come from) being in a deeply submissive relationship. But now that my beloved and I are exploring what this relationship might be for us, it's very problematical.

I am, for sure, NOT going to say to her, "Could we put this all on hold for a minute, I'm not in to it right now."

No, instead, as a discipline, I kneel beside the bed every night because I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed in without her permission. I do it for my self as a symbol to my self of the fact that I am committed to doing this thing, even on those days when I don't exactly know what "this thing" is, or why I'm doing it, or whether she even cares or notices.

And that minimal level seems to keep things alive enough for me.

No fool, my beloved, she said early on, "What are we going to do when you don't want to do this?" She's known me for a long time. I replied that I hoped that what we were doing was at a sustainable level, even during those times, or even enough to prevent those times from happening. Sure enough, it was the former rather than the latter, but that's by far good enough.

Now desire revives, which I'll take as a lifting of whatever depression was upon me. And a couple of comments by my beloved and a bit of unexpected play from her makes this all very much (and mostly gratifyingly) alive again.

Oddly enough, feels good to be back.