Let It Fly

There was a time that I watched very little television.

And then there's now, and I watch too much.

Around 10pm, I wandered into my office, without turning the light on, and fired up iTunes and started playing random songs from my list of mp3s.

Music inspires me. Always has. There is very little about TV in general that does that. I need to learn to turn that stupid silver box off and just put the music on more often.

After listening to some Dave Matthews (Crash) and some Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter) and some Bob Seger (Wait For Me) and some Bonnie Raitt (Thing Called Love) and finally some John Mayer (Say), I fired this up.

I needed to. I like needing to write. I've missed that so much.

I mentioned the last song, "Say", in my Return to Blogging post. I am inspired by this song. Again, I kinda think John has a screw or two loose (take a look at his romantic history, you'll understand), but these lyrics are wonderful.

"Say" Lyrics and Music by John Mayer (Quoted in italics below)

Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so-called problems,
Better put 'em in quotations
Say what you need to say

Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead,
If you could only . . .
Say what you need to say

Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You'd better know that in the end
Its better to say too much
Then never say what you need to say again

Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Say what you need to say

You can't take it back. But you can't be free of it until you let it fly.

Making myself vulnerable is not as easy as it once used to be for me. As I said in my post about having an open heart, the self-protective part of me kicked into high gear hard core when my marriage crumbled up 5 years ago (god, it's almost been five years....wow). I can make all the fucking excuses in the world about not dating but that's the whole of it. And rather than losing the weight I lost making that better, I think in some ways it's made it worse. More on that when I am not thinking about other things.

I made myself vulnerable a few weeks back. I opened a door that probably should have remained closed, but it had to be opened so that I could step through it and "let it fly". It definitely spurred some feelings in me that I had not expected it to spur. It was much more difficult than I had imagined that it would be.

I wonder now, if that hesitation to be vulnerable isn't a large reason that I stepped out of the BDSM lifestyle. Because I can't or I don't want to lay myself open to that extent again. I mean, I'm not convinced that it is, but it's possible, and something that I need to consider.

On the other hand, it's also entirely possible that I just had far too many shitty BDSM relationships to believe that one based on that can work. My friend, R, argues with me about that every time we speak. He believes in his soul that I am a natural submissive and that I will not be happy in a relationship again unless I find a natural dominant. I'm not entirely sure anymore that there is any such thing.

Do I sound jaded? I'm really not. But I am realistic and I do base all of this on my own personal experience.

Does the idea of bondage and 'rough language' and spankings/floggings/etc still make me wet? Of course they do. But I'm not sure I can make myself emotionally vulnerable enough again for that. Physically vulnerable? No problem! It's just my body. It's not my soul, for pete's sake.

I'm writing about this tonight, when I was actually considering going to bed an hour ago, but here I am, writing --- because this whole thing pisses me off. This is not me. This is not who I have always been. This is not who I want to be. I mean, okay, look -- I realize that being 100% the opposite way -- the way I have always been -- obviously didn't work for me either. But I don't run scared. I don't hide. I don't do this. And I don't like doing it.

I used to be fearless.

But I think it's a lot easier to be fearless when you don't realize what you have to lose. And I have been shown too many times what I have to lose.

Me.

That's an unacceptable loss.