Six years ago…

Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about what I’m currently going through because that’s where I am. In my last post, I opened up and shared what happened a year ago. What I’ve been through takes up a lot of my time as I try to focus on recovering from the past, being okay with the present, and moving forward.

Today, I want to remember some good things. Looking back, May 2014 was a big month for me. On May 1st, I had worked up the courage to email Bonnie from the My Bottom Smarts blog. I had just finished reading her entire archive and it was the first time I reached out to anyone who talked about spanking as much as I wanted to talk about it. From her blog, I found links to several others. As I started exploring, I found a whole community of people who talked about everything from personal relationships to every day life to how they felt about and incorporated TTWD into their lives. A whole new world started to open up.

On May 5th, I wrote my first kink-related blog entry to introduce myself. I had no idea who would read it or what would happen. I just knew that I wanted to share my experiences and maybe find some friends out there. I had fun with it. I shared stories or books that I came across. I shared the fun kinky sex experiences. I shared things that I was hoping would happen. I shared the death of Tom’s dad and his resulting relapse into drug addiction. Then, I disappeared for four years, came back, and have been sharing some of what it’s like to slowly recover from being in love with an addict. I continue to share because I miss this community and because I hope sharing might help others.

On May 23, 2014, I reached out to someone who would end up helping me through some of the darkest times I’ve had in my life so far. At the time, she had already found my blog and commented on some of my first posts! (Talk about being really excited to be noticed by someone so amazing!) I had just finished reading her autobiography and was working through her blog archive when I sent my first email to Erica. I had no idea how important this first correspondence would be. Last year, I only texted two friends the day after I told Tom to move out – Erica was one of them. As my anxiety and depression grew into something I could no longer control and keep bottled up, she was there to virtually hold my hand, calm me down, and walk in circles repeatedly through the things that were consuming me. She encouraged my switch to weekly therapy and helped me open up. She knows everything about me. And would you believe it? She has never left my side. She was there and is still there every day. Our friendship means the world to me.

Going forward, these are the memories that I want to hold on to as I start to find myself again and let go of the past. As this month closes, I am ready for new experiences and new memories. It is time.

Just another strange day in lockdown during a worldwide pandemic.

Today is my 32nd birthday. So much has changed in the last year; but with everything that’s going on right now in the world, I feel like there’s just not much to be celebrating, including the day of my birth.

I do want to share something that has brought me a bit of heartfelt comfort during these tough times. I received a beautiful birthday gift from my dear friend, Erica. When it arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago, I really needed a morale boost, so I opened it early. I have been wearing the bracelet ever since. 💗

I find myself looking at and playing with it often. In some special way, it can even help calm my anxiety a little by reminding me that I am loved and I am not alone. Thank you so much, SIS – I love you! 💞

Like so many of us, I had plans or plans in the making. All of which had to be canceled, so we can do what we can to protect each other and flatten the curve. I’ve been working from home since last Monday and have been trying to avoid going out as much as possible. I’m honestly afraid for so many of my friends because there are so many of us in the higher risk groups. Please be careful and be as safe as you can be out there. Don’t underestimate the power of caring and checking on each other with a phone call, text message, or email. Remember that whatever you are doing, you are doing the best you can. I hope to see all of you on the other side of this.

One Person Feels Less Alone

This is a book review I wrote a couple of weeks ago for Erica Scott‘s Late Bloomer. I posted it on Amazon, but I also wanted to share it here. (I love you, my friend!)

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I honestly don’t know what I could possibly say that hasn’t already been said in other reviews. But, I decided I wanted to say something.

I first read Erica’s autobiography in May of 2014. I had come out as a spanko to my boyfriend and was just venturing into the online spanking community. After finishing her book, I emailed Erica, “I want to tell you that I think you are truly an amazing person. You have overcome a lot of rough trials during your life, and instead of hiding in a corner, you have been strong enough to continue living life and trying many new and different things that make it worthwhile. I am 26 years old and am amazed to find that I am not alone in the world. It is great to find out that others enjoy spanking like I do. I find that you are someone with whom I can connect even across the miles. I really hope that I can be as courageous as you have been (and still are). I enjoyed getting to know you through your book and I am now slowly catching up through your blog archive. I love that you are open and honest and that you put your real self into whatever you do. Seeing that we are all real people with real lives and real problems somehow makes it easier to deal with our own situations whatever they may be. We all have highs and lows, and we can all help see each other through both the good and the bad times. We all have a journey to make and meeting people like you help make it worthwhile.”

Six years later, I’ve gone through a bitterly rough breakup (from the boyfriend mentioned above) that has left me trying to find my way through grief, denial, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. I recently decided to pick up Late Bloomer and dive back into its pages. I find myself in a different place this time around, and I realize I didn’t quite appreciate everything that Erica had shared, gone through and survived, until now. In the final chapter, she writes, “…if any part of it strikes a chord, gives someone food for thought, provides a degree of comfort, or makes even one person feel less alone in dealing with struggles and challenges, then my efforts are further validated.” 

Erica, my dear friend, you have done all that and more for me by sharing your life’s experiences through your book, your blog, and your emails over the years. Getting to know you and having the opportunity to develop our friendship has been so worthwhile and such a privilege. For all of that and for everything that makes you who you are, I am truly grateful and honored to have you in my life.

Browsing through old files…

I’ve been browsing through old photos and notes on my iPhone recently. I have photos dating back to 2011 and notes back to 2013. I thought that maybe it was time to start deleting and/or archiving things – things I didn’t want to accidentally come across that would remind me of my ex.

I guess now is as good a time as any to inform my returning readers that Tom and I broke up on May 8, 2019 after being together since February 27, 2013. A glimpse of some happier days from our time together is captured in the posts on this blog from 2014-2016. You are welcome to revisit or browse through the archive. You might be asking why I don’t just download and delete these old reminders of the past. Well, I guess that’s because the posts do hold a lot of good memories and feelings that I don’t want to forget. In addition to real experiences, I also have a fair amount of stories and scenarios that I wished could have happened. I think I owe it to myself to remember what I wanted then and what I still might want now.

Anyway, on a much lighter note, I wanted to share something I came across that actually has nothing to do with me, except for the part where I saved this particular blog post in my Notes app. It was posted back in 2015. I honestly didn’t remember saving this at all, until I went back and read it. And, wow, I definitely remembered why I saved it! This post has one of my favorite stories in it! So, now, I absolutely must give a shout-out to my wonderful friend Erica and encourage all of you to take a break and go read this. Erica Scott’s “Just Ask Me”

"You started it!"…"Well, I’m going to finish it."

So, after two days of feeling down in the dumps, I’m finally feeling a lot better.

On Tuesday, I was really upset about all the stresses from everyday life…we are having a temporary financial setback , my parents are moving into a new double-wide that we just moved onto my land, work is constantly up and down, and I rejoined our community band (which was ultimately why we couldn’t handle my mood that evening).

So what’s the problem?

Our financial situation is okay, but I really don’t like living paycheck-to-paycheck.  This month is really tough, so I’ve tried to cut out any extra spending to make sure nothing is paid late.  Financial stuff always stresses me out more than anything else.  We can pull ourselves out of this and it will get better because we are learning as we go.  This lull is only temporary.

My parents are moving quite literally 100 ft from where they currently are, but that does not make helping them move again any easier.  I own almost three acres of land.  My fiancé and I live in the middle of the land, my sister will remain in the Northeast corner and my parents are moving to the Southeast corner.  We are all within shouting distance of each other but now have our own places.  Hopefully with this move, everyone will have that certain amount of independence they need yet should anything happen we are all right here to help out.  But, this will be the 5th move in 4 years for my family!  I think we are all tired of moving furniture around but (fingers-crossed) this will hopefully be the last move for a while.

Work…I have this love-hate relationship with being a mechanical engineer.  In college, I loved the hands-on experience, working in the machine shop, working with robots, etc.  I love building stuff, I love trial-and-error projects, and I love puzzles.  A lot of my loves do fit into being an engineer, but it’s kind of hard to see any of that when you are behind a desk staring at the computer all day long. I’ll do a material take-off, send it to purchasing for a material quote, get it back and forward to another engineer for labor pricing, and then I get everything back and write up a quote to send to the customer.  And, I do it all over again – different project, different customer, same routine.  If a quote comes back as a job, then things can get interesting.  I’ll run calculations to verify our quote, draw up the tank/vessel and send both off to customer for approval.  Here begins the process of revisions which can either be very smooth…or multiple revisions, tons of back and forth communication (explaining why we can’t do that because that f@#%ing square will not fit in that round opening or why this has to look like this because it’s what you said you wanted in the quoting phase!), and lots of waiting later, we can finally start cutting material to start fabrication.  Then, I’ll get a call from the guys in the back, “You didn’t cut out this circle piece that’s shown on the drawing.”  “Have you looked at cut sketch #2?”…”Oh, there it is!”  …yep.  Now, I know I’m not perfect and have made my share of mistakes or forgotten something, but you just scared the sh!t out of me because you didn’t look at the sketches I sent.  Oh well, at least mistakes like not looking properly are always good for a laugh after the fact.

R—town Band (local community band) – I’ve always been in music.  I started out on piano for almost 3 years, then I joined band in middle school and I’ve continued playing to this day with the longest gap being about 2 years.  Including the gap, that’s 15 years of playing the clarinet.  Am I particularly good at that?  Not really. I’d say I might be just ahead of the average, but believe me when I say there are a TON of people out there who make me look like I only just learned how to hold the damn instrument let alone where to put my fingers and produce sound.  So, why do I keep going back especially if lack of confidence in my ability to play stresses me out?  It’s because of the people.  I get to see old friends and meet new people.  We are from all walks of life.  In school, that meant you could be a jock, emo, geek, athlete, or someone who wasn’t part of any group.  You could be shy, outgoing, happy, depressed, serious, or humorous.  Hell, you could even be blind (yep, we marched a blind person on field and in parades) or missing a limb (one of our trumpet players only had one arm)!  Today, in our community band, we have engineers, professors, school teachers, post office staff, housewives, college students, retirees, etc.  So what’s your point?  The point is…when you walk through those doors, you become a band member.  It doesn’t matter where you came from or how you got here.  You are not alone, you are one of us.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  You, an individual instrument, can produce beautiful music alone, but when a group of various instruments come together, amazing things happen.

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/7_ToAF46GPQ&source=uds

No, this isn’t my band, it is actually Ohio State Marching Band.  I watch this and feel an amazing amount of pride in my fellow band members because I know what it takes to put on a show like this.

The band community reminds me of a mostly vanilla version of the spanko community.  We are from all walks of life and we accept each other.  …Also, (laughing) most Tops could pull off playing in the percussion line – the gong, the bass drums, or the bongos.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, how did we get to the bottom of the problem and balance the emotional turmoil I’ve been feeling?  Well, my fiancé decided I needed to change my perspective which is most easily accomplished by going OTK and enjoying the upside down view for a while.  Then when I got up, everything was right-side up again!  Viola!  See how easy that was?  If only!

Actually, it was only slightly more complicated than that (sarcasm).  After two evenings full of two different wooden paddles (yep, both the 1/2″ thk. and the 3/4″ thk.) and one leather double strap, I finally feel mostly right-side up again.  On Wednesday evening, I got around 45 with the 1/2″ paddle, 15+ with the 3/4″ paddle, and who knows how many with the strap.  Apparently, I can’t count well in my head while being spanked – I’m just too busy trying the accept and let go.  Did it hurt?  Most definitely and I did feel a bit better afterward and was a little sore on Thursday morning.  But, it didn’t take long for my mood to plummet again.  Granted, I blamed a very tiny portion of that on my fiancé. After receiving my first set of 9 with the 3/4″ he asked, “Why do you look so depressed?  You know your mood affects my mood.”

I answered, “Yes, and your mood affects mine because you started it!”

To which he replied, “Well, I’ll finish it.”  And so he did after much more paddling and strapping.  It was intense and I’m still not sure if I wanted him to stop, but I gave up control and when he decided to stop, I felt relaxed and sleepy.

This morning, I woke up in a much better mood and a bit more sore than yesterday, but I didn’t have the urge to go right back to bed. I’ve also had a good day at work even without all the usual work day buzzwords. 🙂

Edit: My day just got even better! The wonderful Erica Scott is the reason my stats are on the rise!  Thank you very much for the shout-out, Erica!  You’ve helped make my day!♥

"Why do any of us blog anymore?"

This post is in response to Erica Scott‘s post “Rant: Yes, I’m frustrated.”  At first, I had planned on just commenting, but then my comment turned into ~500 words so instead of taking up a ton of room in her comment section, I decided to just post and link back to it instead. 🙂

 

First, let’s answer the question, “Why did you start blogging?” 

I tried for years to keep a private journal, but it never failed to fail – I would write for maybe a week and then abruptly stop. Why? Because in my mind, why on earth would I need to write down my own thoughts as if I wasn’t the one having them? I know what I think so why would I need to write it down?  It isn’t doing me any good.  Now granted, I really do understand that it really does help some people.  To those people, journaling is a way to get out negative feelings and document important things in one’s life.  For me, it just never worked.  When I started my first very vanilla, every-day-life blog, all of my friends at the time new about it and had his or her own so we had our own private online community where we could talk, complain, ask questions, and gain perspective by offering opinions.  We could share our experiences which allowed us to learn and grow by opening our minds to other ideas.  It allowed us to gain perspective.  But in the end, comments started to dwindle, life started happening (for me, college was kicking into high gear and the beginning of a career was on the horizon), and slowly posts/updates started to fade.  That blog lasted eight years.

So, back to Erica’s question, “Why do any of us blog anymore?”  I just started my non-vanilla blog a couple of days ago.  I blog for the exact same reasons I started blogging ten years ago – to share experiences, hear other opinions, and gain perspective.  Sure, some will join us and some will bid us farewell.  The world will keep spinning and life goes on with a heavy heart on some days and skip in our steps the next.  C’est la vie!

 

As for comments, I could definitely imagine new posts getting lost very easily if one is following a ton of blogs, especially if everyone decides to update in one day – that could be a very happy nightmare (YAY, people are posting!  OMG, I have more than a hundred to read before work tomorrow!?).  I’ve been lurking around four blogs in particular since about March.  At first, I didn’t want to comment because I was spending a ton of time catching up so it seemed pointless to comment on non-current posts (though I definitely thought about it).  Now, that I have 1) more or less caught up and 2) a blog and a [nick]name of my own I feel more comfortable delurking.  I did notice it was mentioned that some lurkers seem to get the feeling that they aren’t welcome to add thoughts because everyone seems to know each other already…well, I read through a ton of posts and through the ton-of-posts’ comments, but I personally never felt excluded or offended in any way.  Had I happened upon these posts when they were being posted, I feel I would have delurked a lot sooner.  Alas, I cannot change the past, so moving forward, I intend to comment as the urge arises.  

 

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more welcomed and accepted by a group of people I haven’t even chatted with/e-mailed/met/etc. 🙂