Dead is Forever.

This is the second time in less than a year that a teenage friend of my daughters has committed suicide.

The second time that I’ve tried to explain the unexplainable, finally having to settle with ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know’ to their repeated cries of ‘why did she DO that?’ The second time that I’ve hugged them as they cried, second time I’ve wondered and ached at the pain of the dead girl’s parents, and the second time I’ve pleaded with them to not ever do that to me, first begging and then angry-scared, ‘Don’t you ever ever EVER do that to me! Promise me!’

The two teenage girls, unknown to each other, living in different states, neither of them with apparent mental illnesses, neither of them exhibiting prior signs of depression, just 15 and 16 years old- both died the same way and for the same reason: Hanging themselves because their teenage partners wanted to break up.

And now they’re dead. Forever.

What is with teenagers today that such minor, insignificant problems seem that unfixable? Is there no comprehension of death? Are they missing perspective, not knowing the difference between real problems and stupid teenage dating bullshit?

It’s just depressing and it makes me mad and, my God, those poor parents.

Incomprehensible pain.

~~*~~

That’s not all that’s keeping me from blogging, there are other things going on right now, too. Mostly I’m just busy. We spent the weekend working on some odd jobs around the house and I did a good spring clean in the kids’ bedrooms.

Jes’s room is all set up with a crib and changing table and a rocking chair, along with her bed and two dressers. It’s a damn tight fit in there with not a lot of room for extras but it’s her baby. She’s got less than 2 months to go so it’s time to prepare.

There’s talk and rumors of the bad economy finally catching up to us here. The rumors range from lay-offs to company closings and that has everyone on pins and needles and short tempered. Well, I am anyway. In fact, I’m quite freaked out. Master’s more of the “wait and see and let’s not worry until we know for sure” type. Bah.

Oh, and I have pms, too. Just, you know, for shits and grins. There wasn’t enough going on that it could skip me this month.

Anyway, now that I’ve sufficiently depressed everyone, I’m off. I’ll be back when I’m better company.

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All Dogs Go To Heaven

I knew it would be hard. I just didn’t expect it to be this hard.

It was time, hell, it had probably been time for awhile now. But when we’d decide it was time, when he would fall and have to lay there for a bit to gather the strength to stand, when he’d practically lick his fur off in an effort to get at the pain and we’d look sadly at each other and nod and say “It’s time.” – then he’d have a good day and chase the ball or do something cute and we’d think, oh, just a little while longer yet.

A little while longer for us.

Over this last weekend though, we couldn’t keep telling ourselves to wait a little bit more. We woke to find Sutter in the hallway, lying in a pile of his own excrement, unable to move out of it. Anyone who has had a dog will know what I mean when I say that he looked embarrassed and ashamed.

Master had to carry him outside, I cleaned up the mess- and we started saying our goodbyes to him then. It was time.

But, oh man, the guilt. He gets so excited when he sees the leash. Even more excited when he gets to go in the car. “Wanna go for a walk?! Wanna go bye-bye?!” and he’d chuff at you, smile all the way to his ears, prance in place– and where do we take him?

I just can’t shake the feeling that he felt betrayed, that he wasn’t ready at all- that we were.

That feeling isn’t helped by the fact that it took 3 times the dose of what it should have taken, the final dose injected straight into his heart while the vet petted him and remarked that he had the strongest heart of any dog she’d ever met.

And I stood there, his head in my hands, crying, second-guessing the decision, a decision that was just too late to change. I stayed until the end, hard as it was. There was just no way I was going to let him go alone.

Master was a mess. He couldn’t get out of the car, he tried- he couldn’t. He’s had that dog longer than he’s had me, longer than he’s had anything I guess. Longer than most relationships between people last. Sutter was the child he never had. He didn’t want his last memory to be watching the injection. I don’t blame him for that, not at all, and difficult as it was for me, animal lover that I am, I consider this to have been one of the deepest and most sincere services I could provide for him.

After, when it was over, we sobbed together in the car. I cried because he cried, because he loves so hard, and strong as he is, tough as he is, mean old sadistic bastard that he is- the loss of a plain old dog, HIS dog, crippled him. He sobbed, heart-broken and lost–

It was very humbling for me. It’s not often that I see him so vulnerable, so laid-open and raw. It’s not often that I’m in the role of the comforter. I caught a glimpse of how deeply he loves, and it touched me.

He’s not made of stone after all.

I love him all the more today knowing that.

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“Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it”

I was just thinking about how quickly it happened.

On November 25th I was still quite happily entrenched in being a slave, being controlled, being.. me. Had anyone even suggested that I wasn’t perfectly content I’d have laughed in their face.

On November 26th I felt like I was being smothered in a wet blanket and I threw it off with rather shocking ease.

I’m thinking that internal enslavement, the brainwashing, the inability to leave, the destroying and recreating – it’s all smoke and mirrors. It feels real and convincing right up until the very second you don’t want it anymore. And then all of that careful conditioning? Nothing but an illusion, only workable because you believed in it.

Now I feel like I was duped. Or something. Not by Master**, not even really by myself. Maybe not by any one person so much as by the elusive “community”. The ideal that it presents. How easily one is led to believe in the illusion.

Like all those infomercials about weight loss pills.

Just take this pill and you’ll be model-beautiful in just 6 easy weeks! So you sign up for 3 easy payments of $29.99 and you take your pills faithfully, like a good little bee. Somebody says to you, hey, yanno if you wouldn’t eat a dozen Krispie Kreams for breakfast, you might lose weight! and you shake your head and hold up your magic pills. Someone else suggests moving your fat ass off the couch and getting a bit of exercise but you confidently wave your pill bottle in their face. You point at the infomercial which doesn’t even suggest diet and exercise. You pop a pill and prop up your feet and wait for the results that you were led to believe you’d get.

And 6 weeks later you’ve gained 5lbs. You were duped. By stupidity or blindness or laziness or just because you wanted it so bad. 

How damn often we, a collective community “we”, through prose and gifted writing, through cheesy poetry and heated debates, through an unwillingness to show a crack in the facade, we create beauty and bliss. We create a Utopia that doesn’t fucking exist.

Where is the Dystopia version of M/s? Where are the ones facing what happens when “just shut up and do it” isn’t applicable? What happens when your individual needs, one neither more right nor wrong than the other, clash so hard and so strong?

Why, gee, I think I have it right here!

I have a really strong urge to hide. Go figure, right? No wonder you are never presented with the end of Utopia. Those people don’t splatter it all over the place. They gather up what’s left of their pride and get the fuck out of dodge.

I really think there is something on the other side of this though. It may be an extremely ugly road to pass but I don’t think I’m at the end of it by any means. I think what we had was a carefully crafted illusion and that’s a bitter pill to swallow. I think there was a lot of pressure to maintain that ideal.

But I think what we WILL have won’t be. Because now, there’s nothing to save face over. Does that make sense?

~~*~~

It’s been an interesting few days around here, as I’m sure you can imagine. There is SO MUCH to figure out; the logistics of this are mindboggling. And so much, still, is out of my control, and out of his. The economy, uncertainty of the real estate market, employment viability, there are contracts signed, and not mythical M/s ones, but real ones, legal ones, ones that actually honestly and for real can’t be broken without dire consequences.

And in the middle of it, the two of us sit. Unsure and tentative. Both hurting, both wanting, and both wounded. Feeling too vulnerable to make a move.

We love each other though, you know? I mean, it’s undeniable. I can’t stop my hand from snaking over to his when we’re in the car. He can’t not reach out for me when he passes me in the hall. We tried sleeping apart and neither of us slept for shit. Now we spoon and we cuddle, and we sleep well, but our hands stop just short of touching where it’s suddenly private.

And isn’t that a doorknob to choke on.

We’ve talked a couple of times about having sex. Quiet little whispers in the dark. Do you want to? Do YOU? I do, but do you? I do – but I’m scared.

And I am. I don’t know how to do it without…. I don’t know. Without the power exchange, without being the submissive partner. And I think he’s unsure, too, of what position to take. Too dominant, too forceful and will it scare me, push me away? Too far the other way and it’ll fall flat, spoil it, make it even harder to do it again.

I’m very much aware that we’re making this far more difficult than it should be. Why shouldn’t we have sex, make love, or even fuck? We’re married, we’re not *quitting* each other or moving on to different relationships. We’re not divorcing. We still want each other.

The other morning, he sat up on the side of the bed and said, “I almost took you this morning.” and my heart thumped. His voice so quiet, so… sad.

“Why didn’t you?” 

“It’s not my place anymore.”

I said nothing.

Navigating these waters is difficult. In some moments I’m almost giddy with power, and other moments, like each time I walk into the bathroom, I have a pang of longing that reaches my toes. I catch myself asking for permission for things, tripping over words and flushing with embarrassment just as often as he’s stumbled over issuing orders, or issued it, shook his head and then just gotten  up to do it himself. Or added on a “please, if you wouldn’t mind, when you have time, would you do this for me, cu- I mean, Tess.”

It’s sad and it’s painful yet it’s funny, when we can laugh at ourselves. But only once did I try to playfully answer back “Nope. I don’t have to do that anymore! Ha.” because the look that crossed his face – I hurt him. And I won’t, can’t, go there.

~~*~~

I’ll be looking for a job starting next week. And then I’ll be checking into schools and such. The move was going to take place first but because of the aforemention important details that don’t really care what problems are occuring within my relationship, the move is pushed back a bit. So, that’s okay, as it’s only changed the order of things.

But if I don’t do something soon, if I don’t make a move to establish some undeniable independence, I can feel that we’d drift right back into the relationship that we had. His dominant nature will resume control and my submissive nature will resume submitting, and pretty soon, 6 months from now, probably without any real thought to it, we’d be right back where we started.

~~*~~

Some time ago, we were invited to a play party, one that we were both looking forward to. After last week, we’d both agreed we shouldn’t go. But last night, we acknowledged that we’re still kinky freaks, regardless of what title we don. And we should go where we can mingle among freaky friends and try this shiny new relationship dynamic on for size.

I don’t know exactly what that relationship dynamic IS.

I wonder if I could talk him into bottoming seeing as how we’re changing things up so much. I mean, really, I’d be nice (cough). I’ve a few experiences I’d like to share with him. A few…. favors…. to return.

;-)

~Tess

** I’ve tried to stop my brain and my mouth from calling him Master and it’s just not working. Probably I will switch back and forth, using whatever name makes me feel comfortable in the moment. I apologize for the confusion but, frankly, right now I’m not up for forcing any more change upon my person.

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“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”

I used to be a Christmas-loving maniac. It never bothered me that stores had Christmas stuff out before Halloween was over because I was already decorating my own house by then. There wasn’t a Christmas *day* for me, there was a Christmas season. The boxes of decorations were hauled out at the same time the Halloween decorations were hauled in. My tree went up the first week of November, the radio was tuned to the all christmas music, all the time station. I hummed and I sang and I draped gaudy strings of lights and garland over every window, both in and out, every door frame, every shelf.

I’m an aetheist yet I set up a manger scene just because. Because it’s Christmas! Other than the 3 main figures, baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I have no idea where the rest of the figurines are supposed to be placed. I change them just about daily; it’s like having a dollhouse.

As a child Christmas wasn’t a spectacular gift-giving event. Jeez, there were 9 kids in the family and by the time I was even old enough to start remembering Christmases, there were already a passel of grandkids as well. So you can imagine that even buying 2 or 3 presents for each of us totalled up to a lot of presents and a lot of money that my parents just didn’t have.

But somehow they still managed to make Christmas special and fun. My mom baked everything imaginable. She made crack candy and peanut brittle and egg nog. Sometimes they made things for gifts. I remember one year I got a wooden kiss-shaped coat rack for my room that my dad carved out and painted, another time my mom wrote and framed a poem that she’d written especially for me. It was during that awful period of my teen years when I was pretty convinced that life would never be anything but a bleak and useless venture. I still have it. It still makes me cry. It goes like this:

If Love Alone

If love alone could mend your heart of all the hurt inside-

If love alone could fill it with hope which somehow in time has died-

If love alone could rid your mind of the dark and evil things-

And fill it instead with wonderful thoughts of love and magical things-

If love alone could give you the will to live and want to greet each day-

If love alone could do these things we’d have no need to pray-

For both of us love you very much, more than these words can say-

And our special gift to you this year on this quiet Christmas day-

Is all the love we have inside, nothing to see or touch or smell-

But if love alone can do all things, use our love to make you well.

All our love this Christmas and hope for Christmases to come,

Love, Mom and Dad.

Another year, as an adult and on my own, my dad made me a knife – a really sharp and dangerous knife – that he told me to stick under my pillow or under my carseat so I could protect myself if I needed to.  I didn’t stick it either of those places because I could just picture myself stabbing my own hand. But I did treasure the thought in which it had been crafted.

Just a couple of years ago, they made us this.

I erased the names though I suppose I probably didn’t have to. Anyway, my dad carved it, my mom painted it. The matching star ornament has a poem on the back, a poem about God and snow, but still, I think this is just about the neatest thing since sliced bread.

We were poor, me and the kids. I mean really really poor. The kind of poor where often times my dinner consisted of what was left on their plates when they were done (course I was a lot skinnier then too. I might do well to be that poor again.) Keeping the lights turned on came at the expense of letting the cable get shut off or hoping the gas company would hold off another month.

At one time, the kids were going to a daycare and while I never was on welfare, I did qualify for and get accepted into a program designed to help low income families pay for daycare so that they could go to work and NOT end up on welfare. I remember that my babysitter, through this program, was getting paid more an hour to watch my 3 kids than I was getting paid per hour at work.

I’m not nearly as crafty or artistic as my parents are, but I still dived into the Christmas spirit with my own kids. I would move heaven and earth to make Christmas magical and special for them.  I would pick up hours at work, I’d take out one of those ridiculously high interest short term loans that would take me six months to pay off; I’d beg, borrow – but not steal. But I made sure they always had a terrific Christmas.

Christmas day was the one day of the year when I made sure they didn’t feel poor.  They didn’t feel left out or forgotten. Good ol’ Santa, stepping in where mommy couldn’t.  Even my own mother, who thinks my kids poop gold and deserve life handed to them with a pretty bow would tell me I did too much. But all year long I had to deny my kids things. All year I’d have to watch their faces light up over commercials and watch them wander the toy aisle, all wistful and sad.

And really, I’m only talking about $300, *maybe*, per kid. It was only extravagant because I really couldn’t afford even that much. It’s a paltry amount though. I mean, it really is. I know parents who buy cars for their kids for Christmas, who spend a grand or more per kid. But for my kids, after a year of not getting anything, $300 worth of toys was a windfall. A magical dream of a day.

It was worth every single extra hour of wiping old people’s asses to watch them on Christmas morning.

This year though.

I don’t have it in me. Not the money and not the magic. I can’t even listen to the Christmas music that I used to love.

I don’t have any decorations up. No tree, no snowman family. Not a single gaudy light.

I know I’m cheating them and I know it’s not fair. I told them that we might have to skip the Christmas hoopla this year. My kids, those rotten, spoiled, selfish heathens of mine? They comforted ME. 

It’s not the presents. Although there is certainly more to be careful of money-wise, considering what we’re facing, it’s the spirit that I’m missing. None of us are so materialistic that we’re upset over the “stuff” of it. But the magic… I wish I knew how to recapture that.

I mentioned that maybe we should put up a tree, and I think probably we will. We’re still a family, one that’s intent on healing somehow, someway– someday. I don’t think a Christmas tree is quite the bandaid we need but it can’t hurt, right?

Maybe it’ll spark a little magic anyway.

~Tess

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Major suckage

And that’s not a blow job description.

Master is most likely not going to be home until sometime next week.

Normally I try to swallow the disappointment but not this time. It sucks and I’m sad.

I’m going to go clean the hell out of something and wallow in self-pity while I scrub.

:-(

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