Spark

So, I know I said I'd come back and write about what I might want. Something happened after work today that brought that kind of full circle in my mind, so I guess it's time to write it :)

I stopped at the gas station/convenience store tonight to get some cat food (because I'm terrible and forgot it at the store last week), so I decided to grab cigarettes (no, I haven't quit yet) while I was at it.

The clerk, bless her heart -- carded me.

Now, granted, I had on a turtleneck and my hair was back in a headband and I looked a little co-edish today, but still. She carded me :)

I don't look my age. I have never actually looked my age. At 16, I looked 19. At 19, I looked 23. At 25, I looked 18. You get the picture. Time works weirdly on me apparently.

But the fact is, I don't feel my age, either. I'll be 43 in a month. I don't feel it. 33? Maybe. But 43? No.

That in itself is a good thing. I'm healthier than I have ever been (despite the nasty cigarettes) and I feel better, take better care of myself.

I think that for too many years, I was pushing it. I wanted to be older. Settled. Have the marriage and family and such that I was 'supposed' to have -at that certain age-. I dated older men almost exclusively for most of my life. C. was my first 'younger' man, and that's by only 2 years.

Fact is though, I have more in common with younger men these days. Gaming is one example of that. I don't see a lot of 42 year old men playing the games I play, unless they're doing it while their wives are off at the PTA or whatever. Married men with children playing as a cheap hobby, yes. But it's a younger man's world for sure.

Men my age tend (and I say tend, because I dislike generalizations) to be wanting to be married, to either have kids, or having a partner to help raise the ones they have. I have no opposition to playing Step-Mom. I've done it before, and those girls mean the world to me to this day. But it's not something I would actively seek out.

Younger men also seem to have the same sexual drive I do. Two or three or four times in one day is not unusual for me at all. As a matter of fact, it's great exercise /wink.

I got called a "Cougar" the other day. I giggled, but the fact is, maybe I am.

My mom said to me that she thinks I should find a man older than me (as M was ten years older than me), that she wants for me that security.

But I'm pretty secure in myself, and I'm not looking for a man to give me that. I already have it.

What I want in a man is someone who can keep up with me, sexually, as well as intellectually. Someone who understands why I game online and maybe enjoys it, too. And someone who is secure enough to let me keep this independence that I've earned and enjoy now, but not so much that I can't feel them in my life.

I don't know if he exists, but I've finally admitted to myself that maybe if I open up the bottom end of my 'age limit' bracket, he'll present himself. I'm not talking any less than 28 or so. But definitely less than the 36 I had previously though I needed.

Screw what society thinks. If Demi Moore can do it, so can the rest of us.

Shattering

...what once was.

One of the things I've been doing with my time since I stopped writing is trying to figure out exactly what it is that I want.

I don't have a clear answer to that yet, but I've been down a couple of paths in thought -- one that I determined I don't want, and one I've determined may be what I do want, but I'm not sure.

What I don't want -- and I think I've actually either eluded to or said outright here in the last year -- I don't want to be someone's 24/7 submissive. I cannot begin to tell you how much that used to appeal to me, and how much I've enjoyed it in the past, but for what my life is right now, and for what I want to do with it, that just doesn't seem to fit, no matter which angle I try.

And I'm all right with that. I wasn't at first. So much of my identity was wrapped up in "Screamer", my writing, my submissiveness. But not anymore.

I'm not even remotely saying that I am not submissive, or do not want to be submissive. I do enjoy it, especially sexually (*grin* too, when the connotation is sexy and there is no actual sex in sight, if you know what I mean), and for periods of time, I want to continue to experience that - an evening, a weekend, an hour - whatever works. But what I don't want - is to be kept, to be a 24/7 slave, toy, pet - what have you. Not anymore.

People change and evolve. And I have to stop and consider the fact that perhaps my deep desire to belong to someone 24/7 wasn't wrapped up at least partially in sub-par self-esteem issues of the last ten years. Those issues are fading, have faded substantially actually, and are continuing to fade away - and I haven't quite determined if the lack of desire for 24/7 is a direct effect, or just a by-product. But whatever the case may be, I'm nearly 100% sure that it's not in the cards for me now, if ever, again.

(And before I get yelled at, I'm not insinuating that submissive = low self-esteem. I'm not. I'm talking about my personal experiences here, not yours)

So that's what I don't want.
What I might want will have to wait for the next post~

The more things change ...

... the more I'm stuck in a rut.

I haven't been writing. Well, here, anyway, and not a whole lot anywhere else, either. I went through a quiet period, where I didn't feel like sharing anything, and now I'm kind of trying to break out of that (forcing it, mostly) because it's starting to get on my nerves.

That's not the only thing that's stuck though.

I noted today, when I went into the restroom at work, that the shirt I put on this morning is too big. Will I put it away? No, probably not. I tend to dump jeans that are too big immediately, but shirts ... it's not so easy. I've always worn my shirts big. Even now, anything that clings too close I'm not crazy about. I go back and forth between chastising myself for that (I wear a size 10 jean now. I mean, do I really need to be wearing clothes I wore 40 pounds ago?), and comforting myself with all that extra material (it *is* cold here in the frozen tundra you know).

It's time for me to get unstuck. In all these little areas I've been sticking in.