#365Gratitude Day 338:No longer a loan

I've had my awesome, wonderful car, Appa, for five years now.  Appa's a 2010 Toyota Prius.  I first got him back when I was in a terrible car accident, that totaled my last car.  I had wanted a Prius for a long while.  My friend Frankie has one, and uses it to drive all over, these crazy long distance drives, hundreds, if not thousands of miles, one way.  

So, when misfortune struck, I used it to my advantage.  I got a really good insurance payout from the accident, and used it to buy my Appa, used.

Today was a big milestone in my life with Appa.  I own him.  I had a five year note, and thought I was done paying it last month.

As it turned out, I was off by nine dollars and ninety-seven cents, which I went and paid today, in cash.

Beyond the fun of putting a $20 down on the counter and telling the teller I wanted to buy a car, the whole thing is kind of a big deal to me.  I bought the car as a kind of polyamorous investment.  I wanted a car I could drive long distances, on the cheap, to see the people I love.  

And that's an investment that's worked out.  I have regularly driven Appa from Virginia to North Carolina, to western Maryland, and to New York, and Florida even.  He's an amazing car.

Part of why I wanted the car is because I know they last for a long time if you take good care of them.  I'm at this crossroads in my life, where I'm starting a new business, one that might make me do a heck of a lot of local travel as the business grows.

I'm looking forward to outright owning Appa for a very long time.  Every other car I've bought in the past twenty years, I wound up trading in to get something else.  Appa's been different.  I have taken very careful care of him for as long as I've had him, knowing that I intended to hang on to him for a long time.  I made a mature, sensible plan, and stuck with it.  

And now that plan's at its fulfillment.  In the best way possible, I feel like a total grown-up.

#365Gratitude Day 336:Let me slip into something more discomfortable

So, as a morning person, I do a lot of thinking in the morning.  And this morning I got myself into a good old tailspin of some negative thinking.

The particular what's, why's, and wherefores of said thinking don't really even matter. And, they're private.  But a really good thing just happened to me around said bout of badthink.

A good friend approached me offering to lend support, and I sort of judo flipped the offer. I didn't want to discuss the churn in my head.  But I did value their support, and said so. 

Here's exactly how that went down.

My Friend: "Good Morning Mako"
Me: "Morning!"
My Friend: "How are you?"
Me: "So-so.  Just have a lot on my mind."
My Friend: "Do you want to talk about it?"
Me: "No, but thanks.  Hugs."
My Friend: "Hugs."

Funny thing.  As soon as we had had the exchange, I started to feel better.  Then it struck me why, exactly.  It's not a simple why.

Over the course of my many years of meditation and contemplation, I've stumbled across several ideas, several practices, which I find transformative, helpful, and healthy in my life.  

One is being mindful, staying present.  That means being in the moment, even if the moment doesn't feel very good.  You feel in totality what you're feeling.  Then, you feel the next thing.  I had been all caught amidst a bunch of expectations, frustrations, fears, and judgments.  But when my friend messaged me, I was beginning to feel something different: supported, loved, cared for.  I started to feel better in part because I was moving on to the next thing.

Another has to do with some instruction I learned from Pema Chödrön.  It's a meditative practice called leaning into pain.  You take the thing you're looking at, that bothers you, and really focus on it.  If it's a fear about the future, you follow it down the rabbit hole to its potential ultimate conclusion.  If it's a lament about circumstance, or past pain, you look it full in the face, and see what that circumstance really means.  

It's a rewarding but challenging sort of thing to lean into one's pain.  What tends to happen is that whatever-it-is that's so painful to you gets its teeth blunted.  It's not that there's no bite there, but that the pain stops being front-and-center and all consuming, and recedes into a more manageable place.  A mistake you have made becomes just one among thousands you have already, and may yet make.  

Being mistreated by another person gains context.  It's not that you forgive them, or that it doesn't hurt.  But you see that they, just like you, are fragile and imperfect.  

The thing causing you pain still causes it.  But you begin to see that the pain is transient, fleeting, like every single thing in your life, including your entire life.

Third, and this was maybe the key thing, I saw that I was okay with not being okay.  I wasn't running from my discomfort.  I was staying, sitting with it, moving through it.  That's samsara, the "wheel of suffering", from Buddhism.  Often we expend more energy trying not to suffer than the cost of just experiencing the suffering in the first place.  I didn't want to rehash my negative thinking with my friend because it had already happened, and I didn't need to run from it, just through it. 

That actually felt good to see.  Now, about an hour later, I can barely remember the thoughts which were so hot and painful just a little while ago.

I do this sort of processing, moving through things, all the time.  But it's rare that I take the time to mindfully detach from it, and watch it.  I've spent 12 years acquiring and honing these skills, and each time I use them, it's still work, still a practice.  I'm going to be doing this same sort of meditation and contemplation for the rest of my life.  That's inherent to the very nature of the practice - it's not work you start, or stop.  It's work you do.

I'm thankful for it.

#365Gratitude Day 335:Bob McGrath owed me a damn apology.

 Well, not just me. He owed lots of kids an apology, starting with Big Bird.  Bob was one of the grownups on Sesame Street, and Big Bird was kind of the big, yellow, avian stand in for every kid. 

Some history here: when I was a little kid, I didn't find the way no one ever believed Big Bird about Snuffleupagus very funny at all.  In fact, I can remember being six or seven years old, and flying into an apoplectic rage every time one of these moments would happen.

Every time, I would feel bad for Big Bird because his friend made him look stupid. And all the grownups would dismiss him.  It felt callous, cruel, and awful to me.

Today, I stumbled across an article about why the Children's Television Workshop decided to change this, which was for a damn good reason. At the time there was a rising epidemic of child abuse at day care centers, and the producers felt that the joke of no adult ever believing Bird was not only no longer funny, but actually possibly dangerous.

So they did something about it.

I had long past graduated away from watching Sesame Street at the time, so while I heard about this I had never seen it before.

Until today.

I'm not ashamed to admit that even now, at 45 years old, as I watched, when it looked like it was happening all over again, I teared up.

And then it finally happened.  I'm going to say too, that I have never liked Phil Donahue or Elmo more.  I honestly have always found Elmo to be kind of an annoying little git. But not anymore.

See for yourself. 

#365Gratitude Day 334:History

So, I have this thing about my own personal history.

It comes, in part, from some bad stuff that went down because of my dad.  He was Not A Good Guy, in some rather epic ways.  It's something I blogged about before.

Anyhow, because of that, I sometimes struggle with the idea that I'm just here, and didn't come from anywhere, that there's nothing over my shoulder to look at, nothing in the rearview mirror.

It's a lie, and I know so.  It's just a lie I tell myself in weak, tired moments.  But that's easy to forget.

Sometimes though, I stumble across stuff that proves the lie, renders it powerless.  This morning that happened, just a few minutes ago, in fact.

I was checking a post in the podcast's fetlife group, something I had put up to start discussion about a show we're doing in a few weeks.  I don't know about you, but I can't get on fetlife without clicking around some, just oh, wander-browsing.  I went back to look at the first group I had created for the FetFest Ageplay Village, and saw that there's been no activity in the group for about five years now.

That doesn't make me sad though.  It makes me feel good. That was a crazy year, filled with all sorts of good things.  We had a bad manners picnic, food-fight-sort-of-thing, a friend breastfed me, another friend brought his geodesic dome and we put it up as a sort of playspace, another friend helped me make a throw-together-hot-tub out of a camp shower room.

It was amazing.  There are 60 people in that dead little fetlife group.  60 people who came together to have fun.  (Quite literally in some cases.)  People got their freak on in the bouncy castle.

There's so much stuff that happened, I can't even remember some of it, and have to dredge around in my long-term memory to bring it up and cherish it all over again.

That feels good. 

#365Gratitude Day 333:Downunderfeedback

This morning I had a gratitude moment big enough to break my current too-busy-doing-stuff-to-blog streak.

I got this absolutely lovely piece of fan mail, from a listener/reader in Australia.  Stuff like this blows me away, for a few reasons.  

Way back when the podcast first got going we got an awesome piece of fan mail from a listener in South Africa, telling us how when she listened to the podcast, she felt, ever so briefly, like she was home again.  That's about 13,000 miles away.  It boggles my mind that something we did could affect someone so strongly, from so far away.

I knew then that the work we were doing was important work, work that not only could make a difference in people's lives, potentially, but that was actually doing it.

So, cut to the email I get this morning.  It's from M., a listener/reader somewhere in Australia (16,000 miles away roughly, this time, not that I'm counting, although I just did.). I was humbled by what he had to say to me, and asked his permission to reprint his mail here, which he happily agreed to.

“Dear Mako,

Right now I am listening to episode 104 of the BLP about writing ABDL erotica. I am stuck at minute 30 where you ask your guests whether it means more to them to get feedback from a stranger vs. a good friend. In the following you agree to your guest that it means more to you to get feedback from a stranger than from a good friend.

At this point I decided to hit “pause” and write you a couple of lines as a stranger ☺

First of all I want to thank you, Spacey and May for your great work creating the best resource I know about age play on the planet. In your recordings you have collected so much knowledge and life experience that it would have filled a big library with books prio to the internet age. I produce a podcast for my professional life myself and know how much work it is to find and coordinate guests and to edit and publish a show!

Your podcast has changed my life and improves my marriage: From time to time I find an episode that is “safe” enough to listen with my vanilla partner and I listen to the episode again with my wife. Through your podcast the ADBL world is not a tabu anymore and we can openly talk about it. Thanks from the deep of my heart for your work. You guys have helped already countless people.
”

This warms my heart.  And, it's just what brother, Mae and I were after when we started the podcast.  I'm a huge believer in the idea that if you want the world to be a better place, you do the work to help make it so.  This is particularly meaningful to me just now, too, because my life is both really busy and really different from when we started the podcast.  I'm very busy working on a side project in my vanilla life, that, if things go well, will dramatically change my professional life.  

It's eating into my time for almost every other aspect of my life.  I haven't written a word of new fiction in months.  My 3rd book is sitting in a sort of limbo, waiting for me to have time to work on it again.  And the podcast is still going, but we're recording once a month (and sometimes not even that much!).  Yet, the body of work we have done is still out there and still making a difference.  That's huge for me.  I feel like the investment of effort I put forth five years ago is still paying dividends.

M. continues:

“Now let’s rock some feedback:

I am not a professional author and can only offer the view of a consumer.

In the past I never bought anything related to ABDL on Amazon as I was to concerned about “being found out”. Even if I have decided a while ago that my little side is “private but not a secret” anymore - I still feared the step of shopping online. Anyway I did it, I signed up for a new email address, used an older credit card and bought it. Done

I read your book in two days: This might not seem like big staff but it is for me. I am a very slow reader. Normally I don’t enjoy reading at all. I have read many work related IT and coaching books but those are references and I rarely read those books cover to cover. I think the number of books I read cover to cover in my whole life is probably under 20.
”

This too warms my heart.  It's exactly what I want to happen when someone reads my work.  I want to take them out of their head and bring them into the vast fictional world inside my own.  I want to entertain them, arouse them, educate them, and when they're done, have them bring back to the real world things to make their own life better.  Which, as M. tells me, is exactly what happened.

Warning, some of this is slightly spoiler-ish, for Concerning Littleton

“Parallel plots
One thing that freaked me out and at the same time enjoyed so much were your cuts between the different scenes from chapter to chapter. While reading how Christina gets spanked I wondered whether Aidan and David were still angry about each other. So the plot with Christina runs in your head like a background task on your computer. Similar to the Lord of the rings where you wonder how Frodo and Sam are progressing on their journey towards the mountain while you watch Legolas running across middle earth hunting orcs. So I really enjoyed this cuts that you had between chapters.

Guessing the plot
Very early in the books I came to the conclusion that all parallel plots will come together at the end and all people will meet for a huge spanking. I really enjoyed that I was (almost) right – I felt like a private investigator who figured the shit out! My little side is a well trained private investigator. ☺ I liked that I could predict what happens next or at least hope that his or that happens next.”

Wow.  He just compared my work to Tolkien.  When I first read that I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.  Thank you!

Then that teaching thing happened.

“Educate about Age Play
Another thing I really enjoyed is that you educate about age play while you tell an awesome story. You kicked my diapered bum in the chapter where Simon commands Abby to strip her cloth down in front of Christina and Adam’s dinner table. In the following you explain through Abby that Simon and Abby have a D/s relationship contract and Christina makes Adam watch her and says: “Daddy, that is where I want us to go”. What a great thing! You had triggered my greatest wishes and I could so much imaging to be Christina bagging for that.

This type of D/s contract was new to me and I had to tell my wife about it straight away. I stopped reading and told her directly ☺ As she is super vanilla she didn’t understand a thing what I was bubbling about but it actually led us in the following conversation to a great conversation about our relationship.

Through that we wrote down what we learnt from each other and what we would like to learn in the future. We never really did this either before. So even if it was not kink related it was a great conversation with my wife because of your work.

I am looking forward to read your next book!

Cheers,
M. from ******, Australia

”

This whole thing made me feel so good.  I've been struggling a bit lately, because I want to do all the things, and there just isn't enough time, and enough, well, me.  I've had to say a whole lot of no to people and activities, while I focus my attention on just a few very important people and things.  But it feels so damn good to know that my work with the podcast, and my books are out there, still improving lives, still entertaining, still helping, while I focus.  

My friend Moliére taught me the concept of passive income, things you do which can't help but make you money without any further action on your part later.  This is similar.  It feels good to know that my efforts in the past are still bearing fruit today.

I'm so grateful for that.