I slept for 11 hours last night, which has helped my emotional stability. I feel less fragile today, although still not great. I wish it wasn't New Year's tonight because I want to stay inside my bubble but unfortunately there is a fabulous party tonight that I don't want to miss.

The plan for the moment is to go to the party around 10:30, suck it up until just after midnight, and if I'm still not having a good time, come home.

The plan for today is to go for a long walk. I need to get some exercise and yesterday I downloaded almost 100 new songs to my i-pod so I have no excuse.

I also need to get my dreams out of my head. I have been dreaming about S non-stop for quite a number of nights. I told Guns that this reminds me of A - I dreamt about him for months! She wondered if that was a red flag against S but I said no. They wear the same cologne which threw me a little, and I have become emotionally involved extremely quickly with S, just like with A (although as I told her, I will deny that last statement if things end up badly). There are similarities in the situation but they don't have anything to do with S as a person compared to A as a person so I don't feel red flags.

However, I'm getting a little sick of it. In last night's dream, S was himself but also kinda Graeme - you know how that works in dreams - and S and L were teaming up on me to smack me around. I was loving it and getting really turned on but then I started to feel claustrophobic and had to not to be touched for a few moments. I remember that feeling very clearly - it was a "red" moment of "get the fuck off me and let me breathe!!"

Who knows what that means!

My New Year's resolution is simply this: to no longer lie to myself. I mentioned that in a post from a few days ago; I have a tendency to hang on longer than I should in relationships because I am afraid or I am desperate for it to work. I don't want to be that person any longer. I was single for 5 years between Mike and T. I know what it's like to be alone and for the most part, I really enjoyed it. It's not anything to be afraid of. Therefore, if things go badly between S and myself, it's not a catastrophe. It means that we weren't meant to be together and I will go back to the solitary life that in many ways I prefer.

And just for the record, he still hasn't called or emailed. He's now been gone a week. It's been 7 days since I saw him, 6 days since he said he'd call, and 5 since he emailed me. Just in case anyone wants to keep count along with me.

Sometimes other people's words say it better than your own

Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's fallen from grace.
She's all over the place.

Maybe everyone has trust issues.

Either that or I have managed to meet all the wrong guys in my 20-something years on this earth who have given me a trust complex.

Because I don't have any.

~~~

Hmm. Now that I've thought about it a little, I think it may be abandonment issues instead. I have no trust in the fact that I won't be abandoned emotionally. Instead, I'm waiting for it. I wonder - am I putting that fear out there and making it a reality?

Sometimes I wish I lived in a place where no one knew me and I had no social responsibilities at all.

I barely slept last night. I couldn't get my brain to turn off. Oh, the joys of being an insomniac. The best was getting up at 3:45 to get ready for work. Bleh.

After I got off work I thought I would take a nap but all the coffee I had swilled had finally kicked in, so I lay on the couch and watched tv all afternoon instead. I planned to go to yoga at 6:30 but the class was cancelled so I did a 45 minute routine at home, followed by 30 minutes of upper body sculpting, followed by a 30 minute walk. Hopefully the exercise and the fresh air will combine to make me sleepy when I get to bed.

Also, I'm trying to avoid thinking about him. I emailed him 2 days ago and haven't got a response yet. All I asked for Christmas from him was a phone call and when he emailed on Christmas Day, he said he would try to call me the next day. Still haven't received one. Still, patience. It is what it is, and I feel better about myself that I have been somewhat busy this evening and haven't spent the whole time moping and wishing for some contact.

I'm trying to convince myself that I won't phone him on New Year's, especially since when we hit midnight, it will be 3 am for him, but somehow I think that the booziness will kick in and at the time it will seem like a great idea. I could leave the phone in the car but ... what if he calls me? I can't take the chance! The goal is to not call or email him for a week and wait and see if he initiates any contact. It would be nice to think that he thinks about me when I don't do the initiation but my expectations are low. It's better that way - lower expectations mean that I don't get disappointed.

I'm trying to be a rational adult. Logical. Non-judgmental. Non-emotional.

I'm trying to be a grown up. Teenagers are the ones who are supposed to obsess over every little thing - "Does he like me? Why didn't he call?" Aren't we supposed to grow out of that eventually?

I'm thinking to myself, "What would I be doing if I had never met him? What would I be thinking about? Would I be sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself because some guy hadn't called me?" Hell no. Just to type it makes me feel pathetic. If it were turned around and my brother were moping around because a girl hadn't called him in four days and she was away, visiting her family for Christmas, I would call him pathetic to his face.

I would tell him to get his ass off the couch and go do things that he enjoyed, that make him happy, and that if she is truly interested, she'll call. And if she isn't, then it isn't worth wasting energy on anyway because as we've all found out sooner or later, a relationship cannot be forced. As Guns keeps telling me, a person's actions generally don't make a difference if the other person is interested. For example, if S is interested, me calling him two days in a row isn't going to make a difference. If he's interested, me buying him a CD that he really wants for Christmas isn't going to make a difference. He's interested - bottom line. It's only if a person is sitting on the fence that actions can make a person more, or less, interested.

I can't get the read on this, though. S did tell me that I won't be able to figure him out. I know that he's wrong. I figure everyone out, sooner or later. I catch all the little things and file them away under that person's file and it doesn't take me long before I know exactly how a person will react and, with that, how to manipulate them. I took a personality test a while ago and one of the things that it says about my personality is my ability to remember things that are important, to the point of being able to recall conversations nearly word for word, years later, if they were important enough to be etched that deeply into my memory. I know that if I can spend time with S that I will get a read on him too, and I am determined not to lie to myself about this relationship.

I mean really, I knew that T and I had to end, long before I got around to having that conversation with him that set the ending in motion. I knew that R was only going to be good for a fuck and a conversation. I knew that Alan was never going to be interested in me and I knew that he was dangling me for his own pleasure. I knew that Mike was an alcoholic and I knew that Andrew and I would never be compatible. I knew that Graeme would break my heart. But in all those relationships, I allowed myself to fool myself. I allowed the lies to stand because I was so afraid of failing. Again.

But isn't it time to grow up? If S is interested, then he's interested. If he's interested, then it doesn't matter that he hasn't called me yet or emailed me back yet, because it's just that stupid memory of his coming into play. He doesn't seem like he has intimacy problems and he definitely doesn't have commitment problems - although, now that he's (almost) divorced, maybe he has them now.

But I don't know. I haven't had the chance, except for that first night when we talked for hours, to get to know him. He's cooked for me twice. We've shared a bunch of laughs. We shared our martial art rumble on his bed, which showed me that he can beat me six ways from Sunday and I won't ever be able to put one over on him, physically. God, I love that.

It's so hard. The pool of eligible men has gotten smaller and smaller for me. First, it was that he would have to be able to beat me physically, martial arts nonwithstanding. Then, that he would have to be kinky. Now, add intelligent, driven, and naturally dominant to the list. Enter S. Has all these things - but no time, and no memory to at least make me feel like he's thinking about me.

*sigh*

This is where the emotional stupidity comes in. Like I said above, if I were giving advice to someone else in my situation, I would be telling them that it hasn't been enough time to freak out, and that it's not worth it anyway. Wait for him to come back to Vancouver and see what's up then. No point wasting time and energy fretting about something that is probably all in my head. After all, he did tell me that he is the type of person who simply will tell someone the truth straight up. And so far, I haven't gotten any vibe except good, interested, attracted vibe. So what's the problem?

Part of it is that I have no idea when he's coming home. It might be next week, it might be the week after ... if he gets a job in TO while he's there, he would probably take it and stay for the duration.

And part of the problem is that his (not even yet) ex is there. They have been separated for almost a year. I got the impression that January or February is when the divorce becomes finalized. He told me that he was celibate for seven months after they separated, so I know that it's not his wonky time frame coming into play. It has been a few months, but it was also an eleven year relationship and a five year marriage. I don't get the impression that he wants to go back, but it's difficult to tell. He told me that they were best friends, they did everything together, and he thought she was his soul mate. But then he said that they could have stayed together longer, continued to have problems, and still ended up splitting up but hating each other at the end. This way, they ended things when they were still friends.

I was asking a few questions because I wanted to know where he stood in relation to that relationship, and I dunno, he gave me the eye, the questioning eyebrow, and I said, "It's just that she was your wife. It's different, somehow." I've been honest - I've come right out and said that I'm interested. But it's not an ex girlfriend that I'm dealing with - it's an ex-wife. Now, maybe there's a silver lining here, because he's already tried to build a life with her and he knows that it won't work. There's no pull of the unknown. But I want to build a life with him, and it may be shitty timing to have met him because talk about rebound!

I need to chill the fuck out, is what I need to do. I need to relax and let it be, while still letting him know that I am very interested. But because I can't get that read on him, I feel like I can't get too relaxed or he'll think that I'm not that interested after all and move on. The thought of him with someone else, and having to see him in the scene - it makes me want to throw up.

I want a promise of monogamy. I want to say that we're dating. I want to have a little reassurance that this isn't just a sex thing. I do remember him saying, that very first night when we were at his house, that he doesn't usually bring girls home the first night he meets them. He said he likes to get to know them for a few weeks before getting intimate. I remember him saying, when we were still at the party, that there haven't been that many women for him. I wish I had picked up that line when he said it but I was sidetracked by something else in the conversation, and I don't want to pry and straight out ask him how many women he's slept with because that is tacky. And then I would probably have to tell him my number and frankly, I can't remember the exact number and I'm not sure that I want to count it up. And it's all ancient history anyway - I don't need to know the ins and outs of his sexual past. But it would help to give me a map as to what kind of guy he is - maybe he's not out there to fuck everything that came his way. He did go upstairs with D and P at the party but ... by his account, her account, and her account to Y, he wasn't exactly pulling her up the stairs but the other way around.

And so then we get to the next problem that I have - trust. I should trust that what he has told me is the truth, until proven differently. That doesn't mean that I should jump with both feet. It means that he has given me no reason to doubt him (except the Saturday before he left fiasco but we dealt with that and moved on) and therefore, I should take him at face value.

It's just tough with him there, me here, and who knows what going on around him. And I have no idea what's going on inside his head because he's not giving me any indication.

And now I'm going around in circles. Usually writing makes me think linear but apparently, not tonight. So. After spewing all my emotional ramblings onto the screen, I will try to act like a mature, rational, logical, non-judgmental adult and not freak out.

He will email me or call me eventually, even if it's just for a ride home from the airport. This is a lesson in patience. I always say that it's not one of my virtues - I will make it become one.

Xmas 2006

This goes down in history as one of the worst Christmas' ever.

For the past two days, everything I have done has been wrong, according to my mother. Last night I decided I wanted to go sing carols at my parents' church. I am agnostic so I don't go to church but I really wanted to sing all the carols that I remembered from my childhood. My dad went with me and we had a great time. Got back to their house and he invited me in for a cup of tea. Then my mother said to me, "I got up at 4:30 this morning to look after your dog and it's great that you got 8 hours of sleep and are all wide awake and everything but I want to go to bed!"

I looked at her in incomprehension, then said, "So you want me to leave?"

"Well, you're being really inconsiderate, dusk," she replies.

"So do you want me to leave?" I ask again.

"Yes," she replies, glaring at me.

"So why don't you just say so?"

"I said it in the best way I could!" is her response.

I went upstairs to finish my tea and I heard her saying to my dad that she can't sleep when there is company in the house and she wants to go to bed, but now of course everything is her fault and she's the bad guy. I was in shock. That is her idea of the best way of asking her daughter to leave so that she can go to bed? By making me seem inconsiderate because I am wide awake and apparently making her feel like she has to entertain me? And let me add for the record - this was at 830. It's not like it was midnight. And yes, I was awake because I hadn't gotten up until 2, because I drove S to the airport at 5am that morning and we hadn't gone to sleep, but I was hardly rubbing her face in it or keeping her up if she wanted to go to bed. My father and I were hanging out - she wasn't necessary at all.

Of course, that could have been the problem. She gets jealous when my dad and I hang out, although she would never admit it. But I think because we had gone to church and then come home and made tea together that she wanted to break up our little party.

Then this morning she called at 11 and informed me that she hadn't slept last night because she was feeling sick, and she would prefer it if I cooked the dinner today. Fine. No problem. She wasn't asking very nicely and her tone left a lot to be desired but it's Christmas so I was polite and nice and agreed.

When I got to their house, at 1130 on the button which is when my brother and I had said we would arrive, I hear them talking about me as I am downstairs taking off my shoes. My brother was wondering when I would be arriving and my mother said, in the snottiest tone possible, "Well, I woke her up at 11 so who knows when she'll get here."

I announced my presence and heard her continue to talk but too quietly for me to hear anything she said. Great. What a way to start Christmas morning.

We did stockings and presents. We don't go in for much materialistic stuff in our family so there wasn't that much to do. I was in the kitchen, getting my mum and dad and brother refills of the cider my mum makes - I wanted a refill too but there wasn't enough so I gave it all to everyone else - and Mum asks if I was staying for lunch. "I suppose so," I replied, because my brother and I always stay for lunch on Christmas morning.

"You'll have to make it yourself then," she retorts. Fine. Then she goes into the living room and sweetly asks my brother if he's staying. He says yes and she says, "Dusk's going to make it." Fine. Not only did I make dinner last night for my parents', and not only am I making Christmas dinner, but let me make lunch for everyone as well.

After lunch my dad was on the phone with one of his siblings when Mum decided she wanted to get the turkey ready. That's my dad's job, so she calls from the kitchen, "Can you go tell Dad that we need to do the turkey now?" My brother says okay and she says, "Dusk?" Fine. I go, ask my dad if he can call the person back in a few minutes because the turkey needs to get done and Mum is freaking out. He gets off the phone and goes to take care of business.

I called my best friend and told her I needed to get the hell out of my house. We met for coffee and I was almost crying, I was so upset. There is absolutely no reason for my mother to suddenly be treating me like this. We usually get along fairly well, although her communication skills are hugely underdeveloped and as I get older I realize just how stunted they are. I find it to take a huge amount of energy on my part to act a particular way around her that will not result in her taking offense or getting angry. However, there was nothing that I had done at this point to warrant her words. It doesn't come across well in print but it was her tone of voice - the sharpness, the muttering under her breath that I'm not supposed to hear but I can get the jist of.

I tried to bolster myself when I went back but it was still terrible. She wanted me to do the potatoes, peas, gravy, and brussel sprouts. I asked when the potatoes should go on, time wise so that everything would be timed to the turkey. She said that 415 would be good. It was 345. I sat in the living room for 20 minutes and read a magazine, but finally got up and went into the kitchen to see what all the banging was about. She had already put the potatoes on and made the gravy. When I asked her why she had done that, she retorted, "Well you were just sitting in the living room doing nothing and it had to get done!" It was 405 at this point - 10 minutes before she had told me that I should start cooking. But whatever. Fine. She took the potatoes off and put the brussel sprouts on to steam and then finally left the kitchen, asking snarkily over her shoulder if I know how to make the peas. They are the kind that come in the bag, you put a slit in the top and put in the microwave. Yeah, Mum, I think I can handle it. She had simply said to take the brussels off when they were done, so when I considered they were done, I took them off the heat.

Carving the turkey with Dad was fine. We always drink wine and giggle and eat the stuffing with our fingers and nibble on the best parts of the bird. Finally we sat down to eat and I didn't talk to my mother that much. Really, at this point, I didn't have anything to say. I did respond when she took a bite of her brussel sprout and remarked, "You must like your vegetables al dente. I would have cooked these for longer, but I suppose they are all right."

I said, "I like crunchy vegetables." My brother actually chimed in and stuck for me and said he thought they tasted fine. Which they did. It was just another thing to pick at me about.

After dinner Dad and I were dealing with carving the rest of the bird and putting the leftovers away. He was trying to make me feel better by joking around. I said, "I don't understand though. I didn't do anything to deserve the way that she has been treating me today. And ... it's sad. It makes me sad." And then a few tears escaped from the barricade that I had been holding up all day. He understands though. He gets the same treatment a lot of the time. He was trying to give me memories of times past when she wasn't like this, but it's hard to remember them. It's hard to remember a time when she wasn't judgmental or picking at either my father or myself. Never at my brother though. Even though he is completely unreliable and selfish, even though he would not do anything for my parents if it seriously inconvenienced him, even though he only uses my parents and me when he needs us but is never there when we need him - she still spent the majority of the evening chatting with him and there was no snarkiness or picking at him. I don't understand that either.

Mum came in to put some stuff in the fridge and looked at the plates of leftovers I had put together for myself and my brother. She snifffed, "I didn't realize you were taking stuffing." I gave us each a little bit of everything that was left over, and she hadn't said not to take anything in particular.

I did the dishes, even though my brother had said that he would. However, it's difficult to do the dishes when you are not in the kitchen, so I just did them. He did come in and dry, but really. Please don't put yourself out at all.

Dad and I disappeared downstairs so I could show him Dinosaur Comics on the computer. Oh I love that comic strip. Then we looked at maps of Ontario so I could see where S has gone to for Christmas, and we talked about trips that we had taken when I was little and had gone to Ontario to see family.

When we reappeared upstairs, Mum wanted pictures, so there are two pictures of my brother, Mum and me. I'm not happy to be in either one. Dad and I got a picture together and that one is going to be a better memory for me to carry from today.

And then, after everything, after her making me feel like I was stupid or incompetent or both, she hugged and kissed me goodbye like everything was fine, wished me Happy Christmas, and reminded me that we are going to see "Charlotte's Web" together this week.

WTF???

She spends the last 24 hours making me feel like I'm not welcome in her home or that I can't be trusted to do anything more complicated than putting water on to boil, and then suddenly butter won't melt in her mouth.

Thank goodness for Dad, who cheered me up and hung out with me. Thank goodness for Guns, my best friend, who let me rant for an hour and tried to give me solutions to make the situation better. And the best part of my day was finding an email from S, apologizing for not phoning me today but he had left his phone at his apartment and he was at the family's house all day so he emailed instead to say hi. I had told him that the only thing I wanted from him this Christmas was for him to phone me while he was away, but I didn't expect a phone call on Christmas Day. I figured he would be so excited to be back with his boys (his nephews) that he wouldn't give me a second thought. After all, we haven't been seeing each other for that long and he does have memory problems. But he did think of me and he emailed me, and it made me feel special on a day when I didn't feel special at all.

The memories that I choose to keep from today are:
- the philosophy magazine that Dad bought for me
- that first bite of moist stuffing, scooped up with my fingers amidst giggles with Dad
- love from Guns (always)
- looking at the maps with Dad
- the email from S and the thrill I got when I saw his name in my inbox

The rest of it - gone. This is my therapy: writing it down for anonymous strangers to read. And now that it's written, I don't have to keep it any longer. Whatever the reasons my mother has for treating me like she did today ... I don't need to carry any of those remarks or emotions. I know who I am. I know that I am a good person, a person worthy of being treated with respect, especially by my family. And I refuse to let her attitude or her problems negatively affect my life. I will rise above it and be the bigger person.

When I was 15 I met a man of 23 who had it. We were together on and off for 3 years.

When I was 24, I met a man of 30 who had it. We eventually slept together but his words of wisdom have been more important to me than our sexual adventures.

And now, at 27, I've met a man of 38 who has it.

What is it, you ask? I'm not sure. It's the way they are, their personality, that evokes a certain response in me. I call myself submissive but really, when it gets down to obeying someone on a regular basis, outside of sex or play, I have no interest. The idea of rules and punishments and rewards and all that jazz sounded incredibly attractive to me - until I tried it and realized that unless the guy is going to run my life exactly the way that I want it to be run, I'm not going to pay the slightest attention. Unless he knows the ins and outs of all the decisions that I make and why I do things a certain way, I'm not going to listen if he tries to "lay down the law."

And yet, I am submissive, to the right person. And so far in my life, I have only met three men that can evoke that automatic response that doesn't set off the "fuck you" instinct of non-obedience. Maybe it's because they are dominant naturally, and they enjoy being in charge of their surroundings. I'm not sure.

I do know that with G, it was his way or the highway, and even when it sucked to pick his way, it was better than the alternative. There were very few instances of disobedience from me, and it was never a conversation or negotiated or anything like that. I knew that I liked him being in control and I knew that I liked it when he hurt me physically. I had no idea that there was anything called BDSM or that other people acted this way or enjoyed the same things that I did. I was innocent of all preconceptions and had no problems submitting myself to his will. It just came naturally.

With R, it was different because we weren't in a romantic relationship. Rather, he was saving me from bashing my head against a wall that wasn't ever going to come down and in the process I allowed myself to be seduced. But it didn't really make a difference - before and after we slept together I still felt submissive to him. I wanted to obey him and the situation didn't allow for it. I'm not going to get into all the details here but suffice it say that I had to make a choice eventually and the pull that he exerted on me meant that I chose him. Thank god, in retrospect, but at the time I was being pulled in two different directions. Rich and I had many conversations that had me feeling that pull, feeling that whatever that evoked this response.

And now, I've met S, and it's the same feeling. He's a naturally dominant man who knows what he wants and it's taking no effort on my part to want to follow his lead. With him, I feel submissive without ever feeling like I am giving up who I am, or abandoning my own strength. For a long time, my signature line read: Meet my strength with more of your own. I never wanted to feel that I had to become less to fulfill that submissive side, and yet with these dominants that I met, that's how it ended up. I had to sublimate parts of me to fit into their box. With S, I feel like all parts of me can be at full strength and yet I can still be submissive. It's so easy to follow his lead and to fall into that place that I occupied with R and G.

And it scares me, because this is what I have been looking for. This is the type of personality I need to be with in order to feel happy in all parts of my life. I have only ever met 3 men who can do this, or be this, and only S is the right timing that it could even be a relationship that lasted. I was too young with G, and there were other complications with R that meant that what we were was all we could ever be together. Here I've met a single man who has everything I could have ever thought of wanting in a man, all rolled up into one package, and it's scary. Because what if this is just a teaser and it's not meant to be? I can handle the demise of relationships where I knew it had no future. But here ... this is what I want.

"I don't know that I can put it into words, the characteristics that my Sensei has that I want a Dom to have. Maybe it's more of a feeling, or an evocation. Maybe I'll just know it when I come across it. I have known one other person who commanded my obedience in the same way although we were not romantic and he is certainly not into D/s. He is just naturally the way he is and it evoked something in me that didn't allow me to be any different when I was around him. Maybe that is what I need to try to find. Maybe it's not so much about having compatible kinks or limits but finding the person that I fit with.

This from the girl who a few days ago decided that love doesn't exist for her. But that is another entry on another day, because I gotta go to bed. "

This from an entry written back in March, before I met T.

It's interesting. I may have met the person with whom I fit. We met at a party and spent the whole time talking. He invited me back to his house afterwards, cooked me gnocchi, and then we had the best sex of my entire life. I had bite marks on my neck and one on my thigh that didn't fade for a week. Yum.

His work schedule and my exam schedule have meant that we haven't seen each other since, although we've talked on the phone a bunch and emailed. Hopefully I will be seeing him this weekend.

I woke up on the Sunday, in his bed, and thought to myself that this is the man that I am going to marry. And I have never had that thought about anyone before.

But once again, I need to go to bed, so this entry will have to be cut short.

Can you keep your fingers crossed for me that there will be little or no "closet asshole" in this one? I want to feel optimistic about love, even if it's just for a little while.