Warning... Lots of "Feelings" Below... Proceed with Caution

Well . . . the good news is that I'm pretty sure my apartment is the cleanest it's been since the day I moved in.

The bad news is that B is not in my apartment with me.

The other (maybe) bad news for all of you is that I'm about to start typing and just not stop until I get out everything that's on my mind . . . a stream of consciousness post, yes . . . an angsty post, yes . . . a "healing" post for me, I hope so . . . a fun post that keeps people reading, meh who knows, maybe not . . .

This one is really more for me to spill it all out and have it out of my head, and for B to be able to get maybe a clearer glimpse inside my head than I was able to give him this morning.  Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not really worried about the "audience" with this post but you are certainly more than welcome to take this peek into my head . . . and as always, I love comments so any thoughts from anyone else would be welcomed.  Sometimes people can see clearer from the outside and provide some perspective.

B was coming . . . then things got dicey with some vehicle difficulties and we had a pretty hard conversation Wednesday night.  Then he was maybe still coming, he was going to look into renting a car.  Then he had to work late and was worried about how short the trip would be and was trying to get an extra day off work. I got really really vulnerable.  I think you would call what I did 'begging.'  I told him how much I felt like I needed him to come. How much I needed to know that he would do anything, do crazy things like drive all night just to be with me, even if the trip was short.  He said yes, he called and told me he was headed to get the rental car and would be on his way. We're still managing without him having a cell phone and he rebuffed my concerns about that, said he had my address and was on his way.  I started cleaning.  I had been putting off cleaning . . . I was afraid to believe he was coming so I just didn't do things to get ready.  Stupid?? Yes. But anyway, I started cleaning and doing things around the house and staying busy and getting distracted online and cleaning and made a grocery list, etc. etc, etc.

A little less than 2 hours before he should've been here, I got a call from his house phone. I had a moment of panic that something terrible had happened and one of his family members was calling me, but it was him and he was still where he lives . . . not 2 hours from where I live. A medical emergency with one of his family members stopped him from getting on the road and a cousin's dead cell phone kept him from calling me until he could get back home . . . which was the middle of the night. Add to that, he had not been able to get that extra day off so if he came, he would have gotten here in time for us to have maybe 24 hours, maybe not even that much . . . with 18-20 hours of drive time.

It was the middle of the night last night, I was honestly too tired to even react. He agreed to call me at a certain time today and I crashed.  I woke up this morning and texted all the people who we had plans to do dinner/drinks/ etc with and told them that he wasn't able to come. That's when it hit me and all the emotions that I didn't have the energy for last night came crashing in around me and I cried . . . a lot. I hate crying . . . I don't do it all that often. How quickly I cry when I feel hurt by B is really scary to me.  It shows me the depth of feelings that I've built for him, the way that he's turned my world upside down . . . that kind of vulnerability is kind of terrifying.

What's crazy is that as I typed that . . . I saw his side of it . . . I am able to see the way that this whole thing could be totally understandable and unavoidable and completely not his fault. So what's the problem you ask???  I'm gonna make a list and just get all the fears and worries and doubts off my chest.

• Long distance is hard. This one is self explanatory. It lends itself to exaggerated doubts and worries.
• Starting a relationship long distance is even harder. It's harder to build trust and much much easier to break it.
• There's this build up to cancelling. I never feel like B really just says YES, there's always a condition or an exception in his mind. It makes me feel like he's preparing to cancel and wasn't ever planning to come.
• There's no way for me to know if he's being honest or not. This goes back to the second one, the whole building trust thing. I'm gonna tangent for a second on this.  I had a fear before that B was stringing me along or was just toying with me. When I get really emotional, this fear pops back up. But when I"m thinking clearly, I don't actually believe this is the case.  I believe that I know enough about him at this point and we have shared enough and he has committed enough time and energy to this that I don't think there's anything malicious behind all of this. What I am afraid of is whether or not he is really ready to give his heart away, whether he is ready to be committed to this and to make me a priority.  Neither one of us were looking for this exactly when we happened upon each other. I am there, I am committed to this. I think he wants to be, he's said he is, but I"m very afraid that he's not.
• I have learned that I don't handle disappointment well. This roller coaster is exhausting me. This is a weakness of mine that I have discovered. I'm sure there are people out there who could have taken this in stride, but I'm just not one of them. I'm working on figuring out how to deal with that. I actually think being submissive makes this one harder . . . I am more dependent on him then I would be in a "typical" relationship I think, But then, my relationship experience is pretty limited so I'm not sure if that's true.
• There are other things that he is not doing when he says he is going to. I hate him not having a cell phone. I'm not going to get into the why's or how's or whatever because that's not the point. We have learned to function pretty well without him having one and I've worked on not nagging him about it, and it's not that I'm wanting to demand that he get one but the problem is that he has told me several times that it's going to be taken care of and then it doesn't happen. When a pattern builds in any area where he consistently says something is going to happen and it doesn't, it turns into a question of whether or not I can trust him at his word . . . refer to bullet number two. When that question is introduced it starts to bleed over and color everything else.
• If I get upset or start melting down, he tends to withdraw. I believe strongly that this is a lot because of the long distance thing. I think if he could get a hold of me physically and reassure me or soothe my doubts he would, but doing it through the phone or chat is way more complicated. He is a red-blooded American man and "feelings talk" is not so simple for him, so if my feelings start just spilling out all over the place, I think he kind of "ducks and covers."  Two bad things happen with this, first I interpret this as not caring or as it not being important to him that I'm upset. I don't think that's true, I think it's a difference in communication styles and we are already making strides in figuring this one out. The second is that within the whole D/s thing it completely throws us off balance. It's like too much "girlfriend", not enough "submissive." I realized that today. I feel very adrift right now.  I hadn't put this together until a couple hours ago, but I think, if we're going to weather the stress of long distance and make this work, I'm going to need him to MORE Dominant when I'm "spilling emotions all over the place", not less Dominant.

Okay . . . that was a lot . . . if you're still reading you must be really invested in following our journey . . . thanks for caring.

The end of the story is this . . . I offered him an ultimatum of sorts.  When it comes right down to it . . . I want to be his, I love being his, I can picture a future with him and I don't want to give up on that. He's told me very clearly that he wants those things too. (Maybe in a future post I'll put up some of my favorite things he's ever said to me while we were chatting. I wanna get his permission first though because I'm not sure if that's too personal.)  I couldn't end things over this . . . I just couldn't . . . the idea of doing that made me want to curl up in a ball and sob.  On the other hand, I can't stay strapped into this roller coaster for a whole lot longer . . . I'm needing a more smooth ride. I'm not talking about a lazy river here, relationships are hard work . . . I 'm not looking for an easy way out. It's just been really intense for the past few weeks.

I need a time frame on this.  So . . . two weeks.  Plenty of time to ask off work, rent a car if needed, plan everything out so there's no last minute issues, etc. I told him, calmly and with tears in my voice, that if he isn't here weekend after next, I'm getting off the ride.  Thinking about that makes me want to throw up . . . I don't want that too happen, but we have to start moving forward. I need evidence that this is a priority for him and that he is ready to move forward with me.

Okay the real end of the story is this . . . I think offering that ultimatum was the right thing to do . . . I don't know for sure . . . it feels crappy but I think it's a good call.  One of the things I said to him this morning is that if he wants us to be together and he agrees that he can be here in two weeks, then I want us to move forward as "us" . . . I don't want this weekend being cancelled and the worries and fears and doubts hanging over our heads and dominating our conversations for the next two weeks.  I realized when I was thinking later, that the reason I was worried about this is because making "demands" and "insisting" on things made me feel so **not** submissive that it left me feeling very adrift and all on my own.  Is this the way women who aren't submissive to the men in their lives feel all the time?? 

(I want to feel like this . . .

B's favorite pic, I think)

(And I want to feel like this . . .

my favorite pic)

So, I'm gonna ask him if he can balance us back out . . . I don't know exactly what that looks like, and really what it looks like is not up to me . . . as much as sometimes I like to sass that I'm in charge around here, I know I'm not and I don't want to be. My part of it is that I need to make sure he knows that he doesn't have to ask or be tentative . . . for as long as we are on this journey together I am His, period . . . my submission isn't conditional to things being easy in the moment.  

I just know I need to feel his dominance somehow, I need to feel like "his" . . . to reset us and get us back to normal as we move forward.  If any of you have any ideas or suggestions about that, I know there's at least one Dom reading . . . B reads the comments so you can address ideas or thoughts or suggestions or encouragement to him as well.  I'm hoping he'll comment about this and offer all of you his take on it or even do a post of his own, but once again I'm not in charge around here and that's up to him.

I'll post something fun tomorrow . . .  promise . . . I think I'm gonna post a dream I had and then typed up as a story and sent to B.

Until then,

His devoted one

P.S. Spilling it helps . . .I feel better just after typing and proofing this . . . and it's hard to talk to friends, because being submissive to B bleeds into all of it, so even if they have good advice they don't really really really **get** it . . . I'm glad I have this place where I can spill all of it.