But, when I’m stuck at my parent’s place, I’m generally stuck here alone with my thoughts for some percentage of the time (i.e. the percentage of the time that I give up trying to be an adult and just go hide in my room like a teenager again).

I really dislike my mother. I’ll write about that sometime. It’s a long story. But suffice it to say that she’s a passive-aggressive, manipulative bitch. Yeah, that kind of dislike! And this isn’t just because I’m stuck being around her – ask me again after I get back to my home on the other side of the country (coincidence – um, no…) and I’ll say the same thing. She is better in smaller doses, but she’s never actually someone to whom I’ll enjoy talking. (Best in no doses!)

Last night we had a wee family celebration – it was my sister Kiona’s fiancé’s birthday, plus we have gotten in the habit of having sushi with an adopted member of the family on Christmas eve, and this year she won’t be here, so at least my family has the correct priorities enough to know that sushi deserves scheduling around. My dear friend Tamsyn has also been adopted by my family (that is, she now gets the joy of finding them almost as annoying as I do – sorry, my dear!) so at least she was there, but it was otherwise an ordeal of an evening which I would have skipped, even if it meant missing sushi.

I won’t go into the myriad complaints about my mother, but a blog-worthy moment was when her overgrown and undertrained monster of a dog attacked my sister’s Boston Terrier puppy for the third time that night. As we hauled the dogs apart, I lost my temper and yelled, “Mother – discipline your dog!”

It sounds so funny because I was somehow managing not to say, “You stupid bitch, I hate you and your stinking evil beast, and if it you let it attack the puppy one-forth it’s size again, I will have it put down!”

I will note that the stinking evil beast was never disciplined for attacking the puppy. Of course, if she can’t train the thing, why would I think she could discipline it?!

This dog is a manifestation for me of so many of the things I dislike about my mother. Possibly, if it belonged to someone else, I’d find some things cute about it – although it drools disgustingly and does truly smell very bad indeed. It also weighs more than I do, and is almost entirely uncontrollable. It has already broken two of my mother’s fingers!

But, despite all of that, she and the beast have developed this entirely co-dependant and dysfunctional relationship that sickens me. The thing worships her, and will defend her to the death against anything, including family members who are just trying to walk to the other side of the room. She has almost no control over it.

She reciprocates the unhealthy obsession entirely. This animal can do no wrong in her eyes (even as it attacks people and puppies) and she makes these statements like, “Oh, he never barks!” which make all of us (who have heard it barking and howling like some hell-hound in her absence) (or in her presence. My mother is never the sort of woman to let a little actuality get in the way of her version of reality) wince and change the subject, because there’s no point in arguing the matter. The thing steals food she has cooked from tables (and from much higher surfaces, indeed) and she never holds it against him if he eats a whole pie she’s just cooked.

She pours her unhealthy love and devotion into this animal – but then cannot be bothered to train it properly. Which is pretty much what she did to me, as I grew up. She obsessed about me, focused on me to an unhealthy (and uncomfortable, for me!) degree … but then did not give me so many useful tools in living my life (from not teaching me to say, “Please,” or “Thank you,” — which she cannot do herself — to not teaching me any self-discipline or self-control. (She’d much rather control me herself, as she did when I was a child.)

Seeing a poorly trained dog makes me sorry for it and annoyed with the dog’s human at the best of times. But seeing my mother fucking up so royally with this oversized, emotionally-challenged creature is driving me berserk. I know I should be happy that she has taken care of her empty nest syndrome, and I should be relieved that she has chosen an animal which at least seems to make the most of her method of dog-owning (although I do think it would be happier on a farm herding sheep, as it was bred to do) but even when I tell myself these things strenuously, it doesn’t soothe my annoyance when the dog misbehaves, and she just calls out it’s name like that will fix everything, and then lets the monster continue.

(I’ve just had the most unpleasant visual of my mother talking on the phone to a friend, saying, “Oh, yes, Zille is quite jealous of Monster. It’s sort of sweet really. She just can’t stand that I’m giving the dog so much attention!” That thought really makes me sick. And I’ll just bet she has concluded that, too, as it would fit into her narcissistic world-view very neatly. What I am is angry – so angry – to see another helpless creature being messed up by her like I was.)

Another unpleasant revelation came when she was talking with me and a friend of hers yesterday. Ever since I’ve realized what was going on, I’ve been discomforted by the fact that I am quite obviously the golden child, while Kiona is rather painfully obviously second-place. I know it has messed up my poor sister (and I’m amazed that she and I actually have as good a relationship as we do have, considering what she had to put up with, growing up) and it actually hurts me whenever I see it in action – I don’t want the extra love/attention/affection. I want my mother to leave me alone. Kiona could have all the attention, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve felt that way since I was 15.

My mother was talking with her friend, and the friend’s sons came up. She was going on and on about her first son, and the second son was simply explained away as a ne’er-do-well. She then admitted her preference for her eldest, quite openly. My mother said, “I was afraid when I got pregnant with Kiona, because I didn’t think I could love her as much as Zille.”

“Well, you always love the first one the most,” replied her friend.

WTF? This should not have been said in front of me! I realize I’m an adult now (which is usually more than my mother does), but there are some boundaries between parent and child which it is best never to cross. A.) She shouldn’t feel that way, and B.) if she must, she should only ever tell her best friend who would never tell another living soul. Or perhaps she could discuss it in a therapy session or group. (Not that she would go to those – she’s one of those who “Doesn’t believe in all that shit,” – “shit” being defined by anything to do with either a psychiatrist or psychologist. The fact of brain-chemical imbalances [or the possible need to talk through negative experiences] makes no impression in her view of the world.)

Of course, I should not be surprised any more at her ignoring a boundary. She’s ignored them all thus far, why should she honour this one?!

I’m sorry for ranting – this ran longer than I meant it to. I just have seven more days of this and I’m not sure I’m going to make it without resorting to matricide….

I’ve been dealing with increasing depression and anxiety for months now, and they have caused unpleasant physical side-effects in my body, which have made life uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I was sick for all the travels in the UK with Mr Defeu and that girl. I even had to miss a lovely weekend with friends due to it, and it almost ruined my doing a spanking shoot.

I was too sick on Christmas Eve to enjoy my usual favourite part of Christmas – sneaking downstairs in the wee hours of the morning, to sit in a room lit only by the glowing, twinkling tree and basking in the magic of Christmas.

I was too sick the next day to eat Christmas dinner with my family – I managed to get through the gift opening, and put on the food I’d promised to make, and then I collapsed in bed, hearing the afternoon/evening’s laughter and conversation from alone in my room.

Having tea with two dear old friends was an ordeal to be gotten through with gritted teeth and Oscar-level acting to keep them from knowing how bad things were for me.

And then, New Years Eve, something I’d really looked forward to, turned into a nightmare as my health combined with other issues to give me a truly terrible start to the New Year.

I’m now up at 5AM – by now almost 6AM, crying and miserable. I don’t know what I have done wrong this past year that I am in this place now, and I don’t know what to do to correct it.

I had thought that I’d done good in dealing with my Master’s accident – that I’d been strong for myself and for others, a good support for him – really, that I’d proven myself as a wife.

Maybe that was hubris?

That was May – before then last year I had landed a good job, and finally started bringing in a good paycheck again. Getting back into work, and learning to deal with things Corporate was a bit bumpy at times, but I thought I did okay – at least, the customer liked the product!

But I know from a lifetime of experience that when I do Correct things in life (make the right choices, be selfless instead of selfish, make bold movements forward instead of stagnating, focus on thinking rationally and approaching life that way, etc.) that I am rewarded with life going well. Looking back over my life, the periods of stress and misery all coincide with periods where I am fucking up in one aspect of my life or another. Maybe hindsight will make this one more obvious, but right now I can’t see what I am doing wrong to be suddenly getting all this “bad karma” pouring out on me. And if I don’t know what to fix, I can’t fix it.

I feel stuck and scared to be stuck in this place.

I guess it’s off to therapy for me. Wheeee. What an exciting and fun prospect for starting this year. And more doctor’s appointments for the rest of what is ailing me.

My New Year’s Resolution: to not be sitting up at 6AM on January 3rd, next year, crying and confused and alone.

While my dad is “alive” (not that it’s much of a life at the moment), my mom is stuck in a holding pattern in her life. While this sucks for her on so many levels, there is one way that it is good for me. (More of the selfish thoughts, here!)

While my dad is still alive, my childhood home remains mostly the same. Small changes will happen, as is normal in a house, but it is still very recognizably the home in which I grew up. And I love being able to go back to it: the bookshelves stuffed with books whose spines I have perused all my life – histories, scientific studies, histories, philosophical works, histories, biographies, histories, more histories – and my mom’s vase collection, my dad’s Japanese statues, the bust of Plato … and that’s just the room I’m in now! All over the house are the things that made up “home.”

After my dad dies, my mom can’t keep this rambling old house by herself. She is going to have my older brother, his wife, and their three kids move in. She will take the small apartment on the second floor where my grandfather used to live, and the house will be theirs to redecorate as they choose. The physical building will remain in the family, which is nice, but the home of my childhood will be gone forever.

Coming back here can be hard. Sometimes I can feel scared that I never left – never moved across the country and started my own life. But even though I needed to leave this nest, and was so happy to at the time, the fact that it has been still here for me to return to, to take little sips of memory, to take comfort in the fixed center that waited for me.

Soon that unchanging anchor will be gone. Each time I come back to it could be the last time. As I walk around the house, I try to drink in the images, the feel, the memory-seeped atmosphere. It will break my heart to loose this – and since that change will come when my father dies, it will be one heart break added to an even deeper one.

So this may be my last time “home.” I am hoping that my dad will keep on through one last family Christmas together, but that is really a selfish hope, because he doesn’t enjoy life day-to-day, and to hope that he’ll suffer through three more months just so I can have a good Christmas is really pretty inconsiderate and insensitive of me. But even if he can’t really enjoy it, it would be wonderful (for me) if when we opened our gifts under the tree, he was sitting in his chair and watching, like he always has been for my whole life.

But what gift do you buy for a dying man (who doesn’t even enjoy his beloved dark chocolate anymore)?

He saw now that you can’t go home again — not ever. There was no road back. Ended for him, with the sharp and clean finality of the closing of a door, was the time of his dark roots, like those of a pot-bound plant, could not be left to feed upon their own substance and nourish their own little self-absorbed designs. Henceforth, they must be spread outward — away from the hidden, secret, and unfathomed past that holds man’s spirit prisoner — outward, outward toward the rich and life-giving soil of a new freedom in the wide world of all humanity. — Thomas C. Wolfe

I’m at my parent’s house right now, and my dad is snoozing in the chair beside me.

But “snoozing” is a comfortable word, something any one of us might do. Looking at my father, I am not comfortable, and I don’t think he is particularly, either.

His sleep right now is not a disco-nap, getting ready for a night on the town. It’s not from an exhausting day of hiking, either. It is an exhaustion caused by his tired heart not pumping enough blood through his body – it is neither restful nor healthy. It is only marginally better than being awake, because at least he is not aware of how badly his mind is decayed, how weak his body is – and how trapped he is in both.

His breath is not even, and his jaw hangs open. His swollen, weak hands rest uselessly on his lap. He used to be such a proud, vibrant man, and to see him thus reduced breaks my heart constantly. I’m only here for two weeks, but it will take everything out of me. My mother is continuously around the man who used to be her husband, but is now just a shell of the man she loved, who cannot do anything around the house to help her (just takes up all her time in caring for his physical problems), and doesn’t even remember vast chunks of their life together. She is still alive, still a part of the world. He is mostly gone – all that is left of him is pain and difficulty, anger and frailty … and an occasional flash in his eyes of the man she once loved. Those flashes make it all the worse – sometimes his eyes lift of their clouds, and he smiles that mischievous and irresistible smile, and that brief glimpse of him makes the pain all the more intense, knowing there is still something of him trapped in a failing mind and body, and unable to give him a final goodbye, since he has not entirely gone.

It’s so terrible to wish that someone was really gone, to hope not to see that spark of them again in this life. Of course, of course you do want, selfishly, to have them back, to have one more lucid meeting. But also of course, you selfishly want the pain to end – your own suffering, that is, and even wanting their suffering to end still smacks of a selfish craving because their suffering causes your own. So nothing you feel is not suspect, not tainted by guilt.

And my guilt is all the worse because I don’t like my mother, and while I know it is my duty as a daughter to support her (and that’s why I’m out here right now) it’s something I must force myself to do, and the real reason that I do it is so that I won’t have regrets later. If I didn’t come out to see my dad while there was still time and he still could recognize me, I’d regret it that opportunity was lost. And if I didn’t support my mom and help her in these hardest of times, she wouldn’t be the only person I didn’t like.

So all my thoughts are selfish, and even while I hate that fact, I still can’t help but feel the way I do. My sister pointed out to me a few days ago that what I needed to do, once I have gone back home across the country, is call my mom often and provide a strong shoulder and understanding ear. “But,” I thought in a panic, “I’ll hate that! I don’t want to do that! I don’t want to talk to her all the time!” And of course, I felt as horrible as I should feel, for indulging in my dislike of my mother at a time when what you need to do is buckle down and put your personal shit aside. But the sad fact is that I won’t be just calling my mom up out of the blue to check on her because she is in my thoughts. I will be calling because it’s been X number of days since I spoke with her last, and I have to check in and give her support, and I need to get it over with.

Heh. Well, at least I’m not pretending to any false virtue! Yay, that’s one personality flaw that I’m not exemplifying!

The fact of the matter is that I am needed here, yet I am still going home at the end of this week. My mom could seriously use the help keeping the house running, and having someone to talk to who isn’t deaf and in the early-to-middle stages of dementia. And my poor father has responded so well to my being home, and has shown some real signs of improvement when I talk with him: if I were to stay here and spend a couple hours talking with him every day, it might have a significant effect on slowing his mental disintegration. I know all this, and still I look forward to this week being over, and my husband coming to take me away for a weekend of hanging out with friends, and then back home to our comfortable life. I know all this and still I’m not changing my plane ticket and just staying out here until the bitter end. And my dad is very bitter indeed, and I don’t anticipate he will “go gentle into that goodnight” in the slightest – it will be hard for him and everyone around him, just as these past few years have been….

More depressing thoughts to come!

As we’ve seen so many times in history, once that spirit takes hold there is little that can stand in its way. (Applause.) And the riots at Stonewall gave way to protests, and protests gave way to a movement, and the movement gave way to a transformation that continues to this day. It continues when a partner fights for her right to sit at the hospital bedside of a woman she loves. It continues when a teenager is called a name for being different and says, “So what if I am?” It continues in your work and in your activism, in your fight to freely live your lives to the fullest.

In one year after the protests, a few hundred gays and lesbians and their supporters gathered at the Stonewall Inn to lead a historic march for equality. But when they reached Central Park, the few hundred that began the march had swelled to 5,000. Something had changed, and it would never change back.

The truth is when these folks protested at Stonewall 40 years ago no one could have imagined that you — or, for that matter, I — (laughter) — would be standing here today. (Applause.) So we are all witnesses to monumental changes in this country. That should give us hope, but we cannot rest. We must continue to do our part to make progress — step by step, law by law, mind by changing mind. And I want you to know that in this task I will not only be your friend, I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a President who fights with you and for you.

Honors are the best example: while it’s nice and all for a President to pin a medal on the chest of a wounded soldier, there’s the slight issue that the man doing the pinning may have been the person who decided that the soldier would be in harm’s way.  Having a monarch is a good solution for this: prime ministers, presidents and politicians can start the war, and the king or queen can stand as the embodiment of the nation in expressing gratitude and appreciation to the people who got caught in the mess.

And then there are the non-military honors.  Who wouldn’t get behind some national token of esteem for Capt. Chester Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who crash-landed his airplane in a river without killing anyone?   When Capt. Eric Moody safely landed a 747 after all four engines failed, he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air (a reasonable assessment, given that 247 people found themselves in an unpowered airliner at 37000…)

But todays point (ta-da!):

Today, it was announced that Alan Cumming, “Actor, Producer and Presenter”, has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, “for service to film, theatre and the arts and to activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian commty, USA.”.

Alan Cumming, OBE.  Sounds about right.

Or maybe Nightcrawler, OBE for thems who likes that sort of thing…

M

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…?

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.

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….

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….