His girl, no matter what

Dear Friends,
I awoke with submission on my mind, and thought back to a letter I received from my ex when we were together.  He was uncomfortable with my desire to go deeper into a sub/dom relationship with him and preferred that we keep spanking and his dominance within the realm of our sex life.   I remember feeling misunderstood when I received that letter.  He didn't "get it."  Somehow he had the impression that I wanted him to be mean to me, to shout at me, and to "make me" do certain things.

I suppose he got that impression because I did ask him to do that stuff, but my purpose was to give him the freedom to express what he really wanted from me.  I couldn't figure out how to fit into his life, so I thought if he used his military voice to boss me around I'd know what to do to please him and I'd feel safe.

Now, some two and a half years later, my husband Gus and I are approaching our first anniversary of our wedding.  He has never shouted at me, has never been mean to me in his demeanor, and has never made me do anything, but I always feel safe with him.  What is the difference?  I fit in his life.  He made room for me.  In fact, he literally set aside his entire normal daily life and moved from one state to another to marry me. 

His grown kids and grandson are back there, in his former town, and he travels there often to be with them.  In fact, he is there now.  The life he had there, with them, was very important to him, and he maintains it as well as he can from four hours away, but his home is here, with me.

At some point in my childhood I ran across the metaphor of the "black sheep of the family," and adopted that view of myself.  I saw that everyone else in my family seemed to fit together, and while I was clearly a part of that family I just didn't fit.  I lived there.  I shared the same name.  My siblings had the same father I had.  But I wasn't like them and he saw me as different.

Recently Gus and I watched the movie, "Skin."  It is a portrayal of the story of a girl who was born into a white family in South Africa in the days of apartheid.  Her appearance was black, even though both of her parents and her two brothers looked white.  She was her parents' "natural" child, but she didn't look like them.  Her father went to great lengths to get her registered as "white."  Her parents told her over and over that she was white, but the rest of the world still saw her as "colored," or as "black."

When she grew up she fell in love with a "black" man, and when she chose to marry him, to live with him and to have a child with him, her father disowned her.  He felt betrayed because she didn't live up to his expectations of his "white" daughter. 

She felt the sting of the loss of her family, but she was so happy to move into the much poorer village of people who looked like her.  She felt like she finally belonged.  The problem was she didn't grow up in that place and their customs were very different from the ones she grew up with in a "white" home.  She didn't fully fit in that world, either.  Sadly, in her case, that marriage ended.  The film ends with her seeking out her mother in her old age.  She never really fit in any family.  It is a profoundly sad film.

My story is much less dramatic than hers, but I identified with her.  I am close to my mother, but she and I don't really fit together in the same world.  I never fit my father's expectations of me, no matter how hard he tried to make me into someone he could recognize as his daughter.  He tried to put his brand on me, but it just didn't work.  In my childhood I eagerly tried to accept his expectations, but no matter how hard I tried the world just didn't see me the way he wanted it to.

Finally, in early adulthood, I left his world for the one that seemed to recognize me, but I didn't fit there either, because I hadn't grown up there.  I was always a stranger in a strange land, whether at home with my birth family or in the world with my chosen family.  Like the woman in the film, my marriage also ended, and I struck out alone with my daughter and son.  Like her I loved my children fiercely, and made sure they both felt like they belonged with me and with each other.  But, of course, even though I think my kids have found ways to fit in the world, I still didn't.

Now I fit.  I belong to Gus.  A year ago I asked him all the time, "am I your girl no matter what?"  No matter how often I asked him he always replied, "yes, you are my girl, no matter what."  Those words made my little submissive heart soar.  For the first time in my life I fit in a family where who I am is pleasing to the  man of the home.  I am okay just as I am.  I have never been loved like this and I am profoundly grateful.  I am his girl, no matter what.  That is my true joy.  I am loved.
Happy spanking, everyone,
Maryann