You Never Stop Learning

Master and I have lived together for 12 years now, and we are still quite happy with each other. In the past couple of months we both put a little more emphasis on making the power exchange a bit more blatant in our relationship. It had sort of fallen into the background. It wasn't dropped or anything, but due to my being bedridden for 2 years, with extremely high levels of pain and severely curtailed mobility there just wasn't a whole lot of blatant stuff going on. I mean I still handled the things I could do in the manner that master prefers. I still referred to him and he continued to have final say on everything. There just wasn't a lot of daily requirements such as tasks or him requesting service such as my getting his dinner plate, or a drink of water. This occured because I could no longer stand or walk for more than 2 minutes when the changes in my pain levels first started (summer 2010). Over that first year it progressed to my being able to stand for 5 to 7 minutes, but no longer than that. This was very distressing for both of us and of course the situation brought on one of the most severe bouts of depression I have ever gone through.

In my last entry I mentioned how my doctor had switched me to Cymbalta and how it was positively affecting my pain, depression, and my life. It has continued to help me a great deal which has allowed me to develop a social life again! YAY! I'm still working on the "scene reports" (for lack of a better description) of my experiences as the Fall Ball. I have all the basics down and am working on filling in the details, once it is complete I will post it in a series so it isn't a single entry that is 20 pages long LOL

I made new friends with the leaders of our local munch group (as well as some of the members) and thanks to the lower pain level (which increased my mobility again) I started going over to visit Skyclad Mistress a few times a week. I went swimming in her apartment complex pool multiple times. We went shopping together for dresses and lingerie for the Fall Ball, and lots of other fun things. Basically I started having a more normal social life again and it feels fantabulous!

With the relief of much of my depression's symptoms, and the lowering of my pain levels, master and I started talking about ways to once again make the power exchange more blatant in our relationship. As my symptoms improved, I am once again able to do more things around the house without hurting myself or causing a pain crisis. Master is choosing to move slowly with re-implementing service, tasks, play etc. so my physical strength and tolerance can grow and I'll have less chance of a setback. Two years of being mostly bedridden does a number on the strength of one's muscles. Anyway part of this includes writing in my journal again, the written notebook, on a daily basis.

As a result of writing in the journal, and having talks with master we have grown a bit over the last few weeks. It crossed my mind a little bit ago that we have both discovered new things about each other in these last few weeks. This realization caused me to start thinking of how people say things like "you learn something new every day" and other phrases in a similar vein. Master and I have had our issues and rough patches over the past 12 years, just like any couple will have, with the last two years being fairly rough due to my health; but we still have a close bond with each other and can still discover new things as well as continue to grow. What I am finding is that my fear that those two years would result in us growing apart did not come true. Instead we have grown closer together and have learned better means of communicating with each other. I think this is just wonderful because communication is so necessary for bdsm relationships (well any relationship really, but definitely with a bdsm one). With good communication disagreements or arguments don't occur as often and the people involved in the relationship get their needs met more easily. There are apparently always ways to increase good communications skills within a relationship, even one that is 12 years old. :)

I find it nice that even after 12 years together, we still aren't bored with each other and continue to grow as separate people AND as a master and slave and as a couple. We have had some really great talks in the last few weeks and have demonstrated that growth with each other. So now I have another thing to be very happy about thanks to the Cymbalta easing both my pain and my depression. Not only do I get a social life back, go out at least a few times a week, attend parties/munches/events, but I also have a deeper level of trust and intimacy with master again, like we used to have. Some of it kind of stalled during the last 2 years while I was bedridden most of the time. We are once again able to share our thoughts, feelings etc. with each other more readily and openly because the depression is a great deal less severe in me.

I am grateful for the return of a social life, but I am even more excited about and grateful for the ability of master and I to begin growing with each other (while enjoying each other in lots of ways--including the deliciously evil ones LOL) and once more having our m/s relationship be more active and thus grow as well.

Of course being able to play again and make love more frequently doesn't hurt either *wink*

Things are looking much better!