Dear Master
Our lives are books, written in our own blood on the tattered pages of
time
--Ryan K. Miller
Dear Master,
it's a little after five am, and i got up a little while ago, and can't stop thinking of You. after i write this, i will likely head back to bed for another hour or so of sleep, but what is on my mind right now didn't want to wait til morning. i was afraid if i went back to sleep right away i would forget to tell You what i had been thinking of, or that i might forget about what i was thinking altogether.
this was sparked by a dream i just had. it was the middle of winter and there was snow everywhere. it was so deep; it reminded me of the blizzard we had here last winter when we got three feet of snow in two days... or even more so, there was one when i was a little girl. i was three or four and i remember the snow on either side of the driveway after it was shoveled was taller than i was at the time.
anyways, in my dream, i was in a snowball fight. i don't know who with, or why, but it was a laughing teasing sort of one. i actually think it was at this log cabin that i went to a retreat at in the middle of winter when i was about 13 years old, but i only vaguely remember that cabin, so it might have been just... well... that part doesn't matter. anyways, i was in a snowball fight, and i was so cold. i remember i was wearing red mittens. mittens! i haven't worn mittens since i was a little girl, and i don't think i ever had red ones *giggle*. there was snow all over them, and all over me, and i went inside the cabin to get warm and there was a fire going inside. that is when i woke up. i think i had the dream about it being so cold because it was freezing in the house, and i may have dreamt about the fire because of oscar warming me a little (him crawling on top of me under the covers is what woke me up).
but, that got me thinking. i was lying there in the dark and thinking about things i have read that are about how a good, healthy D/s relationship does, to some extent, give the submissive partner the feeling of childhood security again, allowing them to be safe and cared for all the time.
well, what i was thinking about was this; i never really had that as a child. as a child i was mostly always scared. W/we've talked a little about my childhood and my parents, and it isn't a subject i like to go into in any great detail, but my parents did make it very hard for me to feel secure growing up. i was always scared, usually of not doing things right, but often of losing everything i had (this likely stemmed from my mother's propensity, when angry, to put me out of the house - often without shoes or coat, etc - til she wasn't angry any more. this started when i was fairly young). i always felt like i was holding onto the relationships in my life, and to everything in my life, just barely; clinging to it with my fingertips.
i remember when i was about... oh, i'd guess nine or ten, a few years after my grandpa R. died (He had been my best friend as a child, and once He died, i lost one of my few safe places in the world, because i always did feel safe if i was ~with~ him). i was having... i guess they were panic attacks, though i don't know if i was too young to have those or not. i was a latchkey kid, coming home alone every day, and i had been for several years at that point. i would get about a block away from my house, walking home from school, and i would start to panic that it would be empty when i got there, that my parents would have just left and taken everything with them. it never was, of course, but i used to have nightmares about it, too. at night i would dream that i was running to the house to try to get there before they left, but i could never run fast enough and i would see the moving van pull away.
to make a long story short, i just never felt secure as a child, so when i would read that, i wasn't sure what people were talking about, because even on my own in life as adult, i felt more secure than i had as a child. as a child i was almost always terrified... i was anxious, afraid, completely insecure.
but now, i am starting to understand what those people meant.
when i go to sleep at night now, there aren't the lists of worries going through my head. i curl up in my bed and sleep peacefully, "like a baby". i have used that expression in the past but i never really knew the truth to it until now. it isn't just at night either. i feel so secure now that... it is like Your love is wrapped around me all the time.
i tried to express how i felt in the poem "His Love" on Your birthday page, but i'm not sure that even there i was able to express it well enough.
all my adult life, i have had a fantasy that i will move to my little farm in southern illinois and build a home there and live there forever. that was my fantasy because that was the one place in my childhood that was safe to me, the one place that was "home" more than any other. i wanted security, i wanted a place that would always be there for me, a place i would always feel safe from the meanness, the harshness of the world around me. i thought i would find it there, because that was the one place i had felt it the strongest, where i had found sanctuary in my childhood.
how amazing, now that i have found it within myself, instead. now i feel that sanctuary, that safety and security every day. i feel it because i am wrapped in Your love. it has given me shelter from the storms of life, it has given me peace from my own worries, it has given me strength to face each new day, it has given me the most profound sense of belonging, of having come home.
You are my home, Master. You are the rock that anchors me when the wind blows and shelters me when the rains fall.
what i have been thinking a lot about is a poem called "the giving tree" by Shel Silverstein. it actually is published as a childrens book, but is a long, lovely poem. i can't remember it all, but it is about a tree that gives shelter, strength, food... everything to this child. it is supposed to be an analogy for families, but it never was for me, it wasn't much to me til now and suddenly it seems to have immense meaning for me. for some reason i am determined to find a copy of it, but that won't be easy to do. i'm fairly sure it is out of print, and because Shel Silverstein died earlier this year, all his books have become much sought-after. maybe though, i can at least find the text of the poem somewhere; i so want to read it again. if i find it, i am thinking of posting it on my home page. it seems so apropos of the D/s relationship.
and now i'm sure i'm rambling; i'm sorry. there are so many things i want to say to You. You have given me so much, Master. all i can offer in return are these simple words: thank You. i love You.
devotedly,
Your di.