Clean up in Process
I have about twenty or so regular readers, even after over a year of not posting. Man, that’s a dedicated reader.
A quick peruse of the last few posts will tell you, things are going poorly for me on many personal levels, there isn’t much kink here, I’ve been whining a lot, and well…I’d like to change that.
As a result I think it’s time for many of the old emotional pouring out posts to go away. Wiping the virtual slate clean, to match my actual state. I will leave the last 2 weeks posts for about a week or so just so everyone can get caught up, before they go away too.
Kinky posts will stay, and if you had a favorite that disappears, let me know and I’ll find a way to make it available to you.
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Added ten minutes later:
I’m not so sure now. I’ve re-read about half my posts, and despite the heavy inclusion of mundane personal life stuff, most of them do speak to my thoughts and experiences as a growing dominant. And I don’t have any desire to hide who I am or have been. I may need to think about a clean up campaign a bit more before I undertake it. Your thoughts?
This is a little more succinct than my last post – and is on roughly the same subject.
It’s funny how when you access a truth in your life it starts to show up everywhere. This evening I sat with C. and chatted like we do. It’s a big time, for her; preparing to leave for college. We started talking about her friend group and the realizations she’s made about herself over the last few months. About where we’d been together, and where we were ach going. She was telling me how she has finally come to terms with who she is and what she wants from herself and the people around her, and how she could look back and see where she had taken a big detour from who she really was to try and gain the approval of people whose approval really held no importance, and whose judgment really wasn’t about her at all. And she said that she had seen me going through the process of trying to meet the expectations of others by sacrificing who I really was, and didn’t want that for herself. I think all of us find things about our parents that we don’t want for ourselves, and and it must be that no parent is prepared for what that will be. Children are the ultimate mirror to hold up to yourself, I think.
I told her about some of the soul searching I’ve been doing for myself lately, and how I felt like I had detoured from who I really am in order to … please others. She knows about most of my work, now that she is 19 she also understands it. She is fortunately one of the most self aware people in the world, not all 19 year olds would be safe with such knowledge, but she is. I admitted to her that I hadn’t wanted her to have to grow up with a mother who was a sex worker, and she laughed. And told me “but that is who you are, and that is OKAY”. Then she backtracked and said she knew that by sex worker I didn’t mean something trashy but that sex was my interest in life LOL. It must be strange to have me as a mother. We teared up together and hugged and talked about how much we were going to miss each other soon. We will. That’s pretty scary, actually. She’s been my constant companion for 19 years now.
So I started thinking back….when was it that I stopped owning who I am? Because there was a point that I did own it. It might have been brief. And I have realized this point before, I discussed it here on my blog pretty early on- it was when L., my ex-cuck, first told me he loved me, and then told me he could never commit to a someone who had been a sex worker. It terrified me to think that, again, I had made a choice in life that would cause those who really did love me to turn their backs on me. At the same time, C. was going through her pre-teen dramatic power play stage, and brought my relationship with L. into her power struggles with me. The two coincided and I intertwined them. I did lose L., in the end. And then my grandmother and aunt both died and I found that they had really and truly, on permanent legal paper, basically disowned me. And I became very scared that the rest of my family – my mother and stepfather and brothers would follow suit. I realized that they might love me but might not stand by me. I met peter/p2. And fell deeply for him. But then realized, and was shown, that my history would be a barrier to something real and long term. All of these things came together along with the opportunities to purchase a home- the supposed American dream, and to purchase a business which I thought would -and pretty much did- fulfill a lifelong dream outside of adult work. Which separately, were choices I made because I thought I was fulfilling dreams, but in retrospect, I now realize were because I was trying desperately to gain the approval of those I loved- my family and friends and lovers.
It did take going through all of that as a whole to realize this. And it is a profound arrival, one that I am grateful not only that I have found for myself, but that I have been given the gift of witnessing in my own daughter. I am hopeful that she won’t have to experience it at age 35.
In the end, I have none of these things anyway. But all the people in that list I was afraid about are still in my life. Even peter. And isn’t that the kicker.
…back to our scheduled programming here at MsReciprocity.com
Wow it has been an interesting year. As 2010 dawns I find myself on the very precipice of change I’ve been anticipating for many years now; augmented by unexpected events of the past year.
My last update shared how I had, in August of 2008, purchased a vintage clothing store with sparky as my somewhat silent business partner; and how the economy bombing two months later had made the whole enterprise very trying. By the time I made my last post in June of last year I wasn’t sure we’d be able to make it, and was beginning to suffer some severe personal financial consequences…I hadn’t paid myself a salary in almost a year. Summer at the shop was dicey; but we made it. Only to be hit with September sales that were just $50 over our monthly rent, and an October that was at least 40% less than we needed just to survive with the shirts on our backs. After letting our single employee go, I no longer had enough time to work both the shop and web design on the side in order to pay the bills left owing by lacking sales, as I had been in order to survive. In November, I got a foreclosure notice on my home; and had to make a quick decision about my shop. Having owner financed it, I was fortunate to be able to talk the prior owner into taking the shop back and operating it herself. This, at least, meant that a local institution and the little shop that I do love so much wouldn’t be closing- at least on MY watch; one statistic avoided, at least.
A review of my finances made it clear that saving my home might not be possible and ultimately wasn’t in my best financial interest, and I am still in the foreclosure process- with a potential short sale offer. This, at least, has slowed things enough that I did not have to move myself out in 30 days right in the middle of the holidays. My daughter C. has spent the last semester at home at a local community college in preparation for attending one of the state’s best universities this Spring…and she moves into the dorms in two weeks. With her leaving the nest, and the business that required my daily presence no longer mine, I have come to look at this very tumultuous time as an opportunity. An opportunity to really and truly focus on myself and implement change in my life that honors this choice. It was either that, or admit that in the course of about four months I got to see my entire world disintegrate.
In addition to the loss of my shop and my home, and the end of my era as a parent, there was one more destabilizing event of the summer. In July I had reconnected with a boyfriend of 20 years ago. MY first on my own as an adult- I had actually completely forgotten him. We had been inseparable my first summer out of high school, and for about 6 months I was sure he was the one. When he left for college it fizzled out, and I was hurt but eventually realised it was just a summer college tryst. He found me on Facebook. Sent messsages saying how he’d held a torch for me for all this time. We met up, and surprisingly the feelings of 20 years before were there like they’d never left. I didn’t even care that he wasn’t kinky- at all (this was clearly dumb and went against my own advice to others, I do realize). In a very short time I asked him to move in with me- he was living 150 miles away and being almost completely blind was unable to drive. I have never allowed a man to live with me; I really did think that he and I were going to be spending the rest of our lives together, and very briefly was pretty blissful about life. I’d made it through the rough months of summer with the shop and was headed into our busy season, my kid was headed to college, I’d found an uncomplicated and easy relationship that I thought was going to last a lifetime. Three weeks after moving in we had a typical ‘getting-used-to-living-in-the-same-space’ morning fight before I had to leave for work. I came home to find he had packed and called a friend to take him back to his home 150 miles away, and we haven’t really spoken since. In addition to reconnecting with him, I had reconnected with all of my close friends from the time before I became a teenage mother- friendships I had never forgotten or been able to replace- who were mutual friends of the 20 year ex. What made the whole thing truly unfortunate is that he has taken it upon himself since leaving to do his level best to affect those relationships, too; with some surprising success. It was almost immediately after that everything else began to go to shite. The sales month from hell, followed by another. Having to let my employee go. Working the shop 80 hours a week with no pay. A good friend you may have heard about on the news, Leslie- Austin’s famous homeless crossdressing advocate- fell, had an anurism, and almost died. My home got foreclosed on. Then I had to leave the store. I did spend most of the last two months in tears, every day.
Of course, being the introspective type I already am, this has led to much soul searching. Which is still going on. And being the action oriented kind, trying to nail down … ‘what next’. That process is still ongoing, too.
Looking back upon the year and a half of experiences that has risen up behind me, I can see clearly thatf I have been on a pretty big detour from the path I had been on before. I’ve been trying to discern the real reasons I took that part of the forked road instead of the other side….the shop, buying a big house, trying on a vanilla with the intent of it being for life. I think it’s a bit like a big two day cram session at the end of a hard semester you didn’t work hard enough through. It all kinda makes me shake my head. Of course not all of my reasons for all of those things are related, or were when I made those choices. But it’s pretty funny now to look back and see them in entirety; how they thread together to make one path. I am sure I will write more about that.
I have also thought about this blog. The parts of me it represents, why I haven’t posted here the whole time I owned the shop, why I use it for personal catharsis and unburdening. Sure, I share some kink here; but over the years this blog has become more about my personal thoughts than my kink world. That is mostly because my kink world hasn’t existed much. At least not the way I had wanted when I started this site.
I have many domains. I don’t do much with most of them these days- or at least I haven’t yet. I have a ‘personal’/professional site that is my real name. I thought I’d use that for both freelance work and a sort of personal repository- family pictures, personal blog, a place for everything that was personal but not kinky. But I find that there are many things I don’t want to just put out on the web under my real name for just anyone to see. It isn’t that I’m embarrassed, more that there are certain people I wouldn’t want to see those things- my personal ramblings about my personal life. The people who knew me from the shop and might just be randomly googling my name. My ex friends and boyfriends of 35 years- there’s not many but we all know those people are out there. Potential employers. PTA parents, until last year; now, college admissions offices. Sure, I could make it private- the private stuff. But the point, often, for me, is just putting it out there. Writing for myself alone lost it’s attraction long ago. And so I find my first reason for writing about most of my personal life here. There is one other reason, which is the culminating thread in this post. I think it’s most easily brought to light by pointing out that I could have developed another domain name I own as a personal diary, and used this one for kink, and my other for an online ‘clean’ representation of me for the general public. Except that all of my other domains, every single one, is obviously for kink. When I realized this, I realized that it represented something about myself I’ve just been avoiding. There are two very distinct parts of my life. The part where I hide most of who I am and just try to fit in; trying to check off all of society’s requisite boxes for a 35 year old single mom and hide everything that doesn’t fit….represented by the ONE domain name which I struggle to use twice a year. And then there is the other part… the dynamic and creative sexual being, who revels in exploration and admiration, where attempts at success come effortlessly when fully embraced, every time….represented by over ten domains that I have some pretty awesome plans for, and in particular by this one, where I’ve spent the most time sharing about my real self and thoughts over the years.
In all of this tumult, and introspection, the question I have been seeking the answer to most is … what do I want; what makes ME happy…who do I want to be, for ME? I tend to think that it can be easier to see people’s motivations, including my own, by stepping back and looking at their actions – without thier words or thoughts on them- over a span of time. I realize that, as much as I did want my shop, and my house, and my ex, all individually, that as a whole they made me feel pretty miserable and trapped and shut down. That, as much as I did spend that year complaining a lot about the things I was processing, the year that I spent posting here every day and making plans for my, ahem, online adult empire (sorta), was very happy. And the years spent in the adult industry, also pretty happy, comparatively. I have come to realize that much of my adult life has been spent hiding the true me, and that I am now faced with a unique opportunity in that I know the path that is the true me, and the other paths I have been on have all abruptly come to an end.
I am still ruminating and stewing on all of this. And, truth be told, wrapping up the ugly loose ends of dissolving a business, moving a kid to college, and downsizing 20 years of the flotsam of family life I’ve collected. My current plans don’t go too far into the future. The kiddo leaves in a few weeks…I will take her and get her settled. In the meantime I am selling as many of my belongings as possible with no regrets- I am looking forward to living lighter. I will return home to pack the rest into a storage unit, find a home for one of my cats, load the other two and about three months worth of personal necessities into my car, and drive across the country to stay with a good friend in the Northeast rent free for a bit while I catch my breath. From there, I have a few branches to the path roughed out. But not very far.
I intend for this, however, to be my last post like this- trying to culminate 6 months of experiences into a brief but complete enough ‘catch up’ for my few readers left, or for those who might happen upon this blog and wonder WTF? I’ve been updating software and thinking about the direction I want MsReciprocity.com to take. I miss posting here regularly and beginning today, am doing so again. And because the paths I have planned for myself involve honoring the truth of my actions over the last 15 or so years and stop hiding who I really am, a powerful sexual woman, I intend that my subject matter here will be of a more kinky nature than in the past. There will likely be a re-design soon; and I may give myself a separate ‘personal diary’ area to continue cathartic personal writings without a truly kinky bent, and move most of my past postings there. There are also some kinky surprises planned; but they are still in the works and may be a few months.
So…yeah. I think that covers everything. Not nearly, but…enough to get back to sharing the inside of my head with you here. Ooh, yea! Except that, I am now an incredible redhead instead of dirty dishwater blonde. Much better.
Happy Wednesday. Misc. Stuff.
Hiya. It’s hard to think of things to post about when you’re distracted with big stuff you can’t post about. But I am. And no, I’m not sharing, at least not for now. And I’ve been pretty busy. Still…I found time to check through all my stats. WordPress has some new stats plugins that are simply amazing. Wassup and Counterize II are two good ones, there’s another more complex mapping stats program I’m messing with but it’s not working yet. Counterize lets you look at the IP locations of your users.
So it seems I’m a big hit in the middle east. Honestly! I had no idea, but apparently ‘cuckold’ is a popular search term….and several visitors have ended up here from various faraway lands. So howdy and a big wet kiss from Texas to the Republic of Muldova, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Japan, Israel and Jordan…and yes, to you too Germany, Canada, France, Belgium, and all the northern and midwestern states. But to the first group- I see your hits and wonder how you got here and what you think. Feel free to comment…Should I add a translator plugin?
And -at least today, I’m hit #1 on google blogsearch for the term “Cuckold”. Wow. Really? I had to check, and yep. So, where are all these cuckies, anyway? I’d love to hear from some. I need some adoration from men who will never have me. 
 That’s always such an upper. But this will do in a pinch. I’ll try and post some more for you guys.
I decided to stop posting my monthly stats because of some referrer spammers who found me. Kinda funny though, google reduces your page rank for linking to adult sites, so I just laugh at them. And hack around with my .htaccess. Besides, it gets kinda creepy some months. I think that just encourages them.
I found a great online store with fabulous man panties, some really great stuff. Kudos to Bodyaware for a great product line. And their sister store, XDress, has some pretty hot lingerie made for men’s bodies, like this garter set I think I am going to have to buy, just to have on hand for you know- whoever. I am really impressed, and it’s very tastefully and tastily represented. I may share it with my gay stepdad and his partner. For sure, chance should go take a look. Cute skirts. They should make matching lingerie for women. That would be rather awesome in a twisted way. I’m not sure feminization of straight subs is their aim, but I really like the lingerie line. Wouldn’t it be sweet to match your Mistress??
My credit card company first made me call them to verify that I was indeed purchasing panties from a gay man’s underwear site. Actually, not panties, and the site isn’t overtly gay, except that it’s men in panties. I bought a hot leather chastisty belt for when I want to look at it in something yummy. CBT#000’s are hot but in a different way. This is just eye candy for me. And on sale. I hope it arrives soon. I’m also going to have to save for this one before the sale is over…Very Nice. I am going to have to go shower now.
Could you let me know…
Could you all do me a favor over the next few days and let me know if you encounter any weirdness using the site?
My database has hiccupped a few times this week, lost two draft articles, and reverted to old unedited (as in prior to publishing) versions of two articles, and I just got a bunch of mail from this afternoon re-delivered. I’ve got some monitoring on it, but users are the best eyes.
Still, cleaning the garage seems better than looking at error logs at 3:45 am.
Edit at 4:02: Definitely something up. This post was made *after*the insomnia post.