I once heard it said that we rarely play the villain in our own narratives. The relative anonymousness of blogging under a pseudonym helps me sidestep this phenomenon most times, which is why it’s easy for me to tell you this story and not worry that I come off as an overly bathetic idiot.

“The conversation with [the pwner] didn’t end early, as you had predicted. But it was a difficult one.” I’m having lunch with the Vanilla BFF, my old roommate, and one of our mutual friends. The dialog is between the VBFF and I.

“That isn’t at all surprising.”

“It isn’t? He says I act like my feelings are the most important thing ever.” I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is more important than exactness, at least in my pretty little head.

VBFF just looked at me, as if to say: Was there ever any question?

“You think he’s right?” I’m asking the question, but I already know the answer. I’m just not ready to accept it. But VBFF is a real giver. He’s always ready to break the bad news. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to say it to say it. There’s a small pause, and it’s clear that this is one of those times.

“But I can’t help it.”

We both know that isn’t true. “Alright.”

God, that pisses me off. I want to talk about it. I want to flesh it out and be understood. I don’t need confirmation so much as acknowledgement. And this is outright dismissal.

Besides, he’s supposed to be on my side!

Although, if I were him, I wouldn’t be on my side, either. He’s fallen victim to the torrent that is my feelings more than once, and it’s never pretty. I am bipolar after all. We are damn good at emotional tsunami-ing.

The insidious thing about feelings is that they just seem so real. My perception is that they are not only always justified, but that they are also the MOST IMPORTANTEST THING EVAR.

But they lie. They tell me attractive (and unattractive!) little fibs and I am always convinced by them, despite any evidence to the contrary.

Back to the aforementioned difficult conversation with the pwner.

The conversation was meant to be all positive and constructive, before the uninvited, but ever present, feelings pushed their way in. I’m trying to grow in my submission, and it’s long been our goal for this dynamic to be more about me being there for and pleasing him, than about him “fixing” me. (I’m a broken girl. What can I say?)

And this conversation was supposed to help me see what that would be like. Except I have this small problem. When reality and my expectations fail to align, I have a tendency to shut down. The shutdowns have reduced by orders of magnitude over time, and the goal is to eradicate them completely, but we’re not there yet.

So, when the thing that the pwner wanted me to do was choose rationality over feelings, the feelings asserted themselves rather loudly, and I thought, “What the fuck kind of direction is that? And what does that have to do with anything at all?”

I really do have a point to all of this.

I’m finding more and more that submission is not at all what I thought it was, and oftentimes, the reality of it hits me really hard. And the danger to reject reality in favor of fantasy is strong.

For example, part of our owner/owned dynamic is that my money isn’t mine; it’s his, because I’ve given everything over, and what used to be mine is now his property.

In practice, this is usually more about control than possession. ‘My’ earnings are still effectively mine, though I am given direction on how they are spent.

Back when this was all new, I expressed dissatisfaction with how it worked, because I felt like it was rather fake. I felt like we said it was his, but acted like it was mine. I wanted it taken and spent in ways that he wanted and needed.

And the thought of it made me all warm and fuzzy, until the time came that we used “my” money on something that benefited only him. I struggled for a bit with a touch of resentment that I never actually expressed, because it would have been unbecoming and a tad ungrateful to do so.

I’m glad that I never expressed it (until now), because not just blurting out every thought that I have gives me the opportunity to process things and come to new understanding on my own.

Of course I’m going to struggle with things that are not what I would choose to do. They’re foreign and distinctly other. But they’re what I asked for.

It’s a little absurd to express a desire to be possessed by another, and then reject all acts of dominance. It’s like taking voice lessons, and then asserting that you already know everything at the first sign of constructive feed back.

I guess this is really just a long apology (in both senses of the word) to the pwner himself. I know sometimes it seems like I stand in the middle of the room, fingers in my ears, yelling ‘I can’t hear you!’ at the top of my lungs, but I don’t mean to. I’m learning.

Please don’t give up on me.

I’m going to be awesome someday, but I want to be awesome and yours.