Harder days Sunday, May 17 2009

Some days, it’s easier than others. some days, it’s like the injuries are so over-come-able, and nothing has really changed at all. But today my Master is in a very bad mood. We’ve mostly avoided him taking it out on me, which is wonderful and I appreciate it very much, but I still am entirely synched in with his moods, and so I am miserable too — I cannot be otherwise.

Of course, I was a cranky bastard yesterday, so maybe that influenced his day today…?

We’re finally back in the US. Tuesday and Wednesday were miserable — because the stupid travel insurance company had decided that even though I was his carer, and he needed me for multiple reasons during travel, I was entirely surplus to requirements, and they would not be providing me with a plane ticket.

When pressed, they were going to consider putting me in coach, with him up in first class. (For his broken leg — because he needed it to be able to extend out the whole way, flat.)

You know, I’ve done my best during this whole thing. I’ve been 100% flexible, supportive, as helpful and reasonable and I’ll-make-this-better-just-tell-me-what-to-do as is humanly possible.

But the idea that I’d get stuck back in cattle while he was far away on the other side of the plane just made me too miserable to handle it. My response was crying — and that was the best it was gonna get!

There’s a back story to this: some years ago, when we were still very intensely Master and slave — things having mellowed

——————————Amusing ironic cut——————————
Of course, just as I type the above, my Master called to me from the other room.

“Sweetie?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“I’d like help sleeping now.”

He meant, a pre-nap blow-job.

I immediately got up and gave him one — no thought of saying, “I’m writing a blog post — I’ll come and do it when I’m done!”

He may now call me “Sweetie,” instead of “Girl,” but some important things remain!

——————————End amusing ironic cut——————————

Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted [grins] — things having mellowed somewhat since then — there was a flight where, for obscure airline reasons, I was offered an upgrade on my ticket, and he was not.

There was no way I was going to lord it up in business class, knowing his 6’1″ body was hunched miserably in a tiny seat in cattle, drinking free champagne while he had to buy a mini-bottle of mediocre wine. But before, since he is an Executive Platinum member from all the travel he does for work, my upgrade had meant he got an unofficial last minute one, as my partner, so I went along with things ’till right before boarding.

But I guess business class was full, because he didn’t get offered the upgrade. And I didn’t want to fly with him in another part of the plane — I don’t like flying at the best of times, but it’s much worse with him not there beside me!

So we went to go talk to the lady at the desk. And somehow, I backed myself into this corner, because I offered to switch with him, instead of him coming back into cattle with me. I really didn’t want him to have to be in cattle for 10 hours when he could be in business class, but I sort of didn’t think that he really would take me up on it. He offered several times to come back to cattle with me … but I’d gotten in this head-space where I couldn’t just say, “Yes, that would mean a great deal to me”; I got overwhelmed and all I could say was, “No, I can’t ask you to do that when you could be comfortable up in business class.”

I really didn’t think he would go ahead with it … but after I’d assured him several times it was fine, he went ahead with it. I know it was all my fault for not saying what I really felt — for playing one of those stupid female games where I “test” whether my partner “really understands me” (a game you always loose, and I know that!) — but I ended up alone in cattle, deeply miserable. I cried for pretty much the whole flight: angry and hurt that he really would just let me go sit all by myself — that he could enjoy the indulgences of a better cabin while knowing that I needed and didn’t have his hand to hold for take-off and landing, or when the turbulence got bad (and of course it was one of those flights, where it’s bumpy and scary for hours).

It was one of my worst fails of the relationship. But at least I knew it was all my fault, and by the time we got back to our flat, I’d managed to shed my built-up hurt and resentment, and just move on from it — that’s the only thing I can look back on from that pathetic incident without shuddering and feeling bad all over again.

So when this happened, I was just taken right back to all those mixed-up, miserable feelings. And of course, this was the week I had my period, and, unsurprisingly after all the stress of the accident and since, it was a bad one. So when it came time for me to be reasonable and rational and say, “It’s okay, I don’t mind being back in coach…” I just didn’t have it in me. I knew that was the right answer — but all I could do was cry and be incoherent. (Because I didn’t really want to say what I was thinking, which was along the lines of the unreasonable and irrational, “Don’t desert me again! Don’t do this to me!”)

Well, happily, my Master referred the stupid travel insurance people to our lovely doctor, who’d put on the “Fit To Fly” form (yes, they are called that!) that my Master needed his carer with him in the first place, and she didn’t take too kindly to being second-guessed, and told ‘em just what they could do with their idiotic decision.

So I got to fly first class with him, but after two days of terrible stress on my part, I was really just an emotional wreck. I tried to enjoy the experience as much as possible (“Why, yes, I’ll have a glass of champagne — thank you !”) but I was really too worn out from the past couple days — and physically worn out from doing all the packing and most of the suitcase wrangling….

Yesterday, the day after we got home, I was just totally crashed out and felt not just like utter shit, but actually angry at everything for no good reason. I warned my Master I was having “moods,” and so we avoided any serious unpleasantness, but it still was just hard and entirely un-enjoyable. (I did manage to escape for a number of hours by starting reading Watchmen, which is an excellent distraction, if not quite as mindless and brain-candy-iferous as the doctor might have prescribed!)

Now it’s 7:30 — I should start dinner (my version of a “mixed grill“: grilled tomatoes, big juicy portobello mushroom tops, and lamb sausage, with sautéed red peppers and courgettes beside — it would all be grilled, but our flat’s oven is pathetically small, and I can only fit so much under the broiler! — served over some herbed risotto) and then wake my Master up. The cool of the evening has started, after a brutally hot day, and I have a pitcher of sangria waiting to accompany dinner. Maybe we can have a nice Saturday night and salvage this day…?

5 Responses »

 

Gaining my religion… Wednesday, May 6 2009

I don’t know how many of you know of the SNL skit “Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey,” but it’s painfully funny. Below is an example….

I like to laugh at myself (exercises in humility being a good thing at all times) and so when I find myself wandering internally in deep philosophical journeys, even as I continue with such thoughts, at the same time I keep such “Deep Thoughts” in mind, as:

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: “Mankind”. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words – “mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.

(Before I went into any discussion of the profound deliberations I’ve been up to, I felt it important to know that all of this is seasoned with the above grain of satiric salt!)

So, from the moment my Master was hit by that fucktard who just had to try and overtake three cars so he could get home a minute faster (which, obviously, was a total fail on so many levels) I’ve had serious ruminations happening in me brainpan. I’ve worked them all out to my satisfaction, but I thought I’d write them down anyway. Maybe to remind myself of them someday, or maybe they will actually help someone else somehow/somewhen.

My first thought in my “crazy train” of contemplation was actually on the way to the hospital to see my Master before his emergency surgery. The drive seemed to take forever, and my father-in-law was trying to help by being very British and keeping the conversation light, and so he was telling me about the places we were driving through. I couldn’t scream, “Shut up and drive, faster, my husband could be dying, or about to die, and I don’t care if that church was built in 1491!” so I said, “Ah,” and “Really?” at appropriate places, meanwhile trying to deal with the thoughts that were racing through my head.

The one that started off the chain was, “I can’t deal with this! How can people deal with the uncertainty of life?! The person you love, your other half, can be killed by someone else’s carelessness in but a second! How do people deal with this?!”

Two answers flowed in over the hours and days that followed, and I’ve refined them since by talking to my Master (who really is my moral compass*), and some friends.

Answer the first: There ain’t nothin’ you can do, baby, so you just make the best plans you can, and when shit happens, you roll up your sleeves and muck the shit as fast as you can to keep the boat from sinking (yes, into the metaphorical stream of shit. I enjoy mixing metaphors…).

That’s the most basic answer: you deal with it because you have to, and there’s nothing else you can do, except fall apart and be useless – and I don’t consider that an option.

Now, I’ve had lots of help from lots of amazing people over the past couple weeks, and I’m not downplaying that in the least. One of the ways that you deal with problems is by accepting the help that you actually need. Pride and self-sufficiency are lovely, and they are why I got out from my father-in-law’s to the guest house as fast as I did, but you need to be able to let go of them when they would just get in the way of the best possible outcome.

So, the way you deal with things is by not running around, wringing your hands, and crying, “How do people deal with this?!”

However, if that just isn’t enough for you – and there’s nothing wrong with that, because, honestly, it’s hard as fuck – then there is religion. I don’t care what kind of God/s you subscribe to, from the Three-In-One package deal, to a cadre of incestuous Gods-with-flaws-that-make-you-look-like-a-saint, to a big amorphous-yet-benign “Universe” – this is the answer if you just don’t like the idea that life comes down to “Shit happens.”

Religion gives you a reason – and since things like loved ones dying, or natural (or unnatural) disasters, or simply those awful days where everything you do goes horribly wrong, are so damned hard to accept and understand, getting a reason for them that you can derive some comfort from, or give you a place of strength to work from is not a bad thing.

So it can be “God’s Will,” or “This was Fated,” or whatever you like, and whatever gets you through the crisis and the day.

And that is half the point of religion. When things get so hard you feel like you simply can’t deal with them, you have the faith that you are getting help from Someone, or that at least, despite all seeming evidence to the contrary, things are supposed to be going this way (you’ll just find out the reasons later – later being possibly in this life, after death in Heaven or wherever, or in your next life). It really is much easier to deal with a problem if there is more to it than the random and chaotic “Shit Happens.”

(In case you are interested, the other half the point of religion, in my ever-so-humble opinion, is community. You get a group of people who care about you, and help you, and who share in important transitions in life. And they can help confirm the comfort of the first point of religion, since you generally join a community who believes similar things as you do.)

So, driving over to the hospital, I saw my choice was “Shit Happens, So Deal,” or to reach out to religion of some sort.

Being me, I chose “both of the above,” because I like having my cake and eating it, too.

I rolled up my sleeves and got on with Shit Shoveling – and, without actually feeling any need to believe in God, I got out the cross that was given to me at my Master’s and my wedding (it was his grandmother’s) and put it on. It was a physical comfort – and it actually helped me a lot because when I went to go think something superstitious and stupid over the following days, I’d hold onto the cross and say to myself, “If you are going to resort to that sort of thing, you have to be consistent and just stick to this one!” which kept me from a lot of self-torture (“What if I could just have hugged him for a few minutes longer before he left for work, and he would have avoided the fucktard altogether…”) because, as I am not willing or able to accept the basic tenants of Christianity, there is no good reason why I should allow myself to wallow in any other sort of superstitions. (This is not to be taken as an insult to any Christian reading this, BTW. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all….)

All this rambling may not seem like I’m covering any new ground, thought-wise, but it’s very big for me because it means I’ve finally found the way (for me, personally) to deal with the hard stuff in life, which I’ve really been kinda unclear on before this. I’ve tried on various forms of religion, starting actually when I was about twelve years old, and I’ve spent a long time looking for the comfort for which everyone longs.

Sadly, of course, and it’s just so me, but in the end I don’t actually choose that comfort at all. I’ve chosen the “Shit Happens,” doctrine, and all my years of studying and thinking about religion have led me to that, so it’s an entirely informed decision. (Well, if you can call “nothing else makes sense to me,” informed!)

In the end though, letting go of the feeling that there must be an answer, a reason, or even at least someone/something who’s got a handle on this (even if I don’t understand it), letting go of that feeling is a comfort of it’s own. The release of the thought, “What can I do to understand this,” to the understanding that, “I can’t understand this, but I don’t have to understand it to act in such a way as to get through this as best as possible, and be satisfied, looking back at it, that I did the right thing,” well, that’s a comfort in it’s own right. It’s not the easiest path, but it’s the only right path for me.

Ironically, it’s a wonderful phrase with the word, “God” in it that sums this up best for me. It’s from the Cadfael series, by Ellis Peters, and it goes a little something like this:

Expect the best, and walk so discreetly as to invite it, and then leave all to God.

To me, “and then leave all to God,” means “don’t cling to fears for the future, or even the idea that you have any real control over that future.” The whole quote reminds me that I just have to make the best plans I can, wait for those plans to not “survive contact with the enemy,” and then try and win anyway.

*It is really important to me that my Master is someone with whom I can discuss theology, philosophy, and matters moral and mortal, and he always teaches me something, shows me a point of view I had not considered, etc. I needed a Master who I could look up to in that respect, as in all others.

11 Responses »

 

Toast cooling racks and nice walks and inferior pubs Sunday, May 3 2009

Today was pretty easy and painless, so I get to do a light post with some observations, which is nice because I’m sure there will be some heavy ones to come….

The guest house we’re staying in does a Full English Breakfast (which, apart from the proximity to the hospital and the free wifi, was a deciding factor for me!) and every morning we rouse ourselves well before we are ready to get up, and stumble (or in my Master’s case, hobble) over to the breakfast room for our eggs, sausages, (proper English) bacon, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and of course toast and marmalade! Then, most mornings since we’ve got here, we just lurch back, replete and perhaps a bit rounder, back to bed to sleep off our morning excesses! (This is all part of my plan to help him heal fastest, of course!)

The English do this odd thing, where they make toast, but then they put it in what I call a “toast cooling rack.” The concept of butter melting as you spread it over hot toast seems entirely foreign to them.

Since I’m allergic to wheat, I always have to bring my special bread with me, and usually they bring it toasted on a plate, which suits me because I’m quite fond of warm toast. Today, the server very proudly brought my special toast in a toast cooling rack, and after smiling and thanking her for this special inclusion, I quickly yanked my toast out, buttered it with alacrity, and then stacked the slices so as to keep warm the longest time possible, shoving the poor neglected toast cooling rack to the side of the table.

I love the British, and it didn’t take very long at all for me to “go native,” in any number of ways (tea with milk being a panacea for all ills, beans on toast, calling trash cans “rubbish bins,” enjoying watching rugby, etc.) but I simply cannot take to cold toast. I don’t care how horribly American it makes me … and as sad as it makes me to disdain the adorable little toast cooling racks … it’s just too late to change that taste for me!

Today we didn’t get our post-brekkie-gluttony nap because we had to get my Master ready for Sunday with the family (or at least a small bit of it’s rambling endless third-cousin-twice-removed extent). This involves various amounts of prep, since if it’s not a bandage-changing day, he can’t take a shower and so I scrub him all over with a washcloth, carefully avoiding the multiple bandages. Then it’s helping getting dressed, and finally fitting the huge leg brace over the right trouser leg.

By the time I’d gotten both my Master and myself ready, his father was here to pick us up, and whisk us off for a nice roast lamb supper out at his home in the beautiful English countryside. (I will add that mint jelly is another Brit-thing I haven’t quite gotten the hang of, either….)

After my second huge meal of the day, I needed both air and exercise, and so I grabbed the camera and went for a long hike on a local beautiful long-distance footpath. To ensure that I managed to get any exercise, I didn’t let myself start taking pictures until I was on my way home. I think I walked out for about hour, and then took two hours to return!

I really wished my Master could have come with me. I love both hiking with him, and shooting with him. I don’t want to have to be exploring the English countryside without him!

I actually managed to be hungry again by the end of this, and my Master was up for trying a short walk to the local pub, so when we got back to the guest house, off we went. He did amazing! Perhaps he’ll be hiking with me in not such a far future…! The pub, sadly, was a fail. They didn’t have what I first ordered, I didn’t like my second choice, and his dish of gammon, eggs, peas and chips consisted of a really fatty ham slice, flavourless peas, and chips that were the opposite of “crispy.”

Ahh well, two out of three meals were lovely! And there’s another pub two doors down, so we’ll try that one next!

This wasn’t quite the vacation we had planned, but I am glad we are still managing to enjoy life despite such a serious set-back.

Tomorrow’s a holiday, so we can’t do anything with doctors, lawyers, or police (all on the table for Tuesday!) so we’re planning to have the best holiday we can have, despite all odds….

3 Responses »

 

Why this new blog? Saturday, May 2 2009

This new blog was born out of tragedy, however, I’d been considering doing another blog for some time.

My main blog,Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies is focused quite tightly upon spanking and fetish, upon the Master/slave relationship I’m in. People coming by that blog tend to fall into two camps: 1.) people lookin’ for hot spankin’ action, and 2.) my friends who are interested in what Zille’s been gettin’ up to.

Since my friends will generally be willing to click an extra click, or add an extra RSS feed, I think it makes more sense to create a new blog for my ruminations and ponderings of the less sexual/fetishistic in nature.

The reason why I’m starting it now, is because I’m probably about to enter a period where I’ll have lots of thoughts about things, but they may be less kinky than usual.

My Master was in a car accident.

The asshole in the other car tried to over-take three cars by driving in the on-coming traffic lane, and seeming not to notice my Master driving in that lane, smashed head first into him.

Their combined momentum upon impact was 180 kpm.

It is amazingly lucky, miraculous even, that my Master is still with me. But he is not without injury: his right leg has a new knee, and his right arm has a seven-hole plate running from the elbow to wrist (for what the doctor called a “fascinating” fracture. It’s never very good when doctors use that word!) Add to that a cracked rib, his other knee cut up so bad that with the stitches in it looks a bit like Frankenstein’s knee, and multiple and impressive contusions and sore places. Oh, and the cut on his head that bleed the way you are always told head-wounds bleed (copiously) but you are still never prepared to see that much blood pouring from someone you love’s head.

There were many other pieces of luck surrounding this accident. We were in a country where he is a citizen, and in an area where some of his family lives. He got taken by helicopter to one of the countries best hospital trauma units. And I could go on for a rather long list.

But there are also the hard parts, as well. I cannot fully express my emotions when the call came in (I had been sleeping, and for a few seconds I desperately hoped I was just having a very bad dream). Even more, I don’t even want to go into the six hours of waiting in the trauma waiting room, to find out if my husband and Master had survived surgery, and if he had, what the full extent of his injuries were.

And now, the man who normally is my Master, who cares for me, is now in my care. He is on crutches, but even then he can’t get far without getting weak and dizzy. I did things for him before, but that was part of our M/s dynamic. Now I do them because he cannot do them for himself.

And I have to step-up, be strong and independent, support him and, since he was my support, support myself as well. (Although not financially, at least, another way we are so very lucky.)

I have been his slave, his little girl, for four years now. Now, suddenly, I must be the big, strong, take-care-of-things one. This will change our relationship, our us, forever. I’m sure in the end it will be for the good, but I still haven’t even had the proper time to mourn the end of who-we-were.

In short (well, not-so-short, I will ramble on…): in the space of the time it took for that thoughtless stranger to make a very bad decision, my life (and my Master’s) has just changed immensely, and the only warning I got was in the form of the shock of being told your husband has been in an accident.

So, you see, I’ll have a lot of thinking and writing to do, here….

23 Responses »