Reflecting, mulling, pondering, considering, contemplating

All words for what I'm doing right now. There are stresses, both internal and external, in my life right now and I'm trying to figure out how I want to engage with them. As strong as is the desire to hide, I just can't do that in good conscience. 

It would seem that it would be nice if our lives always went according to plan. I do get tired of "the unknown" and wish for calm and predictable. For a bit, anyhow. I know I'd get bored real fast. But uncertainty is also a hard place to be in.

I've spent a large portion of my life trying to be someone other than who I am, trying to be something I want to be but am not. I am emotional. I get way too wrapped up in inconsequential things. I'm always questioning and doubting myself. I've been told I have good instincts, but when I go with them, it seems that the whole world comes down on me for not only going with them, but for having them in the first place. 

This post is about personal stuff. My family. It's always unsettling to me when my children don't get along. I come from a very dysfunctional family and so I think I desire something more for my own children. I want them to pull together and see past their individual differences. 

Before I had children, I'd fantasize about family get-togethers when they were grown with children of their own. Me as grandma. They'd all have their own lives, as individual as they've all turned out to be. But there wasn't any of the antagonism and lack of understanding that there seems to be in reality. 

I'm trying to reconcile that in myself.

Some quietness

It's evening. The birds are settling down, no longer busy in the mulberry outside my window. It's rained a bit today and the sun never came out, so everything is damp, dripping. A crow calls from far off, probably heading to the rookery. It's cool, but humid. Later the fireflies will come out. They've been beautiful lately, making the trees glitter. For now, I'm quiet. Contemplating what my heart can hold.

Mixed feelings

Nowadays my husband sends me blog fodder, and in this case took this picture while he was at an event for business. He saw these paddles and the saying on the middle one, and knowing me, he had to take a picture. Not that I'm into paddling. In fact, I've never been spanked since I was a kid and I get a little strange when I think about it. Which sometimes makes doing things like reviewing erotica that involves spanking or doing blog posts like last Tuesday's a bit ... hmmm, difficult isn't the word ... I guess I just get a little ... weird. It's quite complicated.

But back to these paddles. His impression was that the guy making these was serious, they were designed with corporal punishment in mind, and maybe did not know that they might be used for the very thing they were designed to discourage (Mr. E thought this because of some of the other items this guy had displayed). 

So, okay, paddles don't do anything for me. This I have discovered about myself. But, show me a leather flogger, and something happens. This came up because tomorrow we're going to one of those renfaire type of things (how I want to spend part of Mother's Day), and one of the vendors makes floggers (that's  not the vendor) and I still remember how I felt the first time I saw one at their booth years ago. And I feel a little exposed here admitting this. Hahaha. But anyhow, I doubt that hubby will buy me one tomorrow. But one of these days I want one. 

Where do things like that come from? Those visceral magnets that draw us to them from someplace deep and cob-webbed. Maybe from images from books or movies or television shows. Maybe from dreams. Who knows. 

It's been a trip and a half discovering my kinks. And I'm sure I'm not done. This is probably a lifetime journey. 

Yeah, I'm introspective today. My various selves clashing and clamoring for control. Who to be today? Mom, writer, homemaker (I have a shitload of cleaning I haven't done), gardener, cook, totally wanton slut?  Do I  have to choose?