#gratitudeNow: Thanks for Nothing

So stick with me here, because this one is a bit inscrutable. It’s Father’s Day as I write this. And what I feel about that is… nothing.

The symbol for nihilism.

Let me explain what I mean here. I guess the first place to start is my relationship with my own father. It was complex.

He was alternately a mythic hero, and a despicable villain in my life. He was largely absentee, often emotionally unavailable or abusive.

My dad was a sociopath and a narcissist. He was a very wealthy and successful businessman for much of my life. He was serially unfaithful to my mother, gaslit and emotionally blackmailed my entire family too. He embezzled an incredibly large amount of money from my grandparents family business, and faked having leukemia.

I know, horrible. Yet at one point I admired the man I thought he was.

All of this is Very Old News™️. He’s been dead at least a decade.

I saw a Facebook post from a friend earlier about his realization of what day it was, and how he was going to absent himself from social media because it hurt too much.

I feel that. Or rather, I did. There was a time in my life when I was so hurt, raw, and angry from the feelings of betrayal I had about my dad. I used to weep bitterly at this certain coffee commercial during Christmas.

But I am long past it. I think about the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, and I went through all of them.

Plus, some astounding good has come into my life because of the villainy of my dad.

Because of his machinations I am not encumbered by the yoke of guilt, secrecy, and shame many kinky people feel. I evaluate every emotional relationship I have on its own merit.

That in turn has helped me to help so many others to learn to love themselves, both inside the kink community, and elsewhere.

Which brings me back to today, to Now. Those old wounds have long since scabbed over and healed. They’re still not happy things for me, but in the context of my life, they have a place I’ve become comfortable with.

I’ve made them my own. I’m going to show this post to my friend and give him my heartfelt wish that he can work his way to a similar sort of peace.

#gratitudeNow: B Obedient

So this morning I asked Mama how I ranked, letter grade wise, in being obedient to her.

She gave me a solid B.

Then she told me why. She said that most of the time, I am a really good boy, very obedient. But that sometimes, I delay in obeying, or try to offer a better suggestion in a manner that can often be obstructive, and downright irritating.

What’s more, she said that sometimes, when that happens, she wants nothing more than to take down my pants and underwear and spank my bare bottom.

This made me feel quite a heady mix of emotions, as you might imagine.

I felt a degree of genuine shame over being disobedient, resolve to do better, and I must admit, some degree of arousal about the entire situation.

But more than anything else, I felt heaping boatloads of gratitude.

Among the things Mama told me are that she values and desires my obedience and respect for her authority. And that she expects me to largely be subject to it most of the time. Let’s say, 95% of the time.

Every so often, she needs us to be equals, or even for me to take the lead. Which I’m happy to do, because I’m not just her baby boy, I’m also her husband.

But, unless she specifically tells me otherwise, she’s in charge. Period, end of story, done.

Let me tell you, dear reader, how very meaningful that is to me. It fulfills me in a deep abiding way, that is as much about being emotionally supported and validated as it is about sexy interactions. Really, truly, way more of the former than the latter.

Growing up, I was a typical type-a success driven gifted kid. No matter how well I did in school, I could always do better. No matter how excellent my social graces were, or knowledge of the arts, there was always room to improve.

It was exhausting. And it’s an inner narrative I still carry with me to this day.

Yay.

I asked Mama if she would train me to be more obedient and she gave me an absolutely enthusiastic yes.

I just don’t have words enough to describe the depth of my love for her.

#gratitudeNow: Perspective Changes

So here’s the thing.

I’m a grown-up.

But I forget that all the time. I don’t mean that in an age play kind of way.

I’m 50 years old, and I’ve been working for many years. I’ve been married twice. The second time it took, we’ve been together almost 16 years.

And in my day job I’m a programmer and a pretty good one. Plus over the years I’ve done some stuff. I created the age play pride symbol, wrote two novels, and with my partner Spacey created a pretty good podcast.

But a lot of the time I forget all that stuff.

That’s not a bad thing. For one thing, none of that stuff makes me deserve special treatment. I’m just a guy doing what matters to him. I’m no better or worse than anybody else.

For another, it keeps me fresh. While all those things inform who I am right now, none of it closes me off from change. I know the truth, that life is filled with possibility.

But still, every once in a while, all the stuff over my shoulder sort of jumps into my field of view. That happened this morning, during my usual meditation.

And I’m grateful for it. I like what I’ve done, and who I have been. It makes me feel mature.

I think that just like anybody else I often feel like a kid in an adult body. Like I’m making it up as I go along, waiting for that time when I’ll know I’m making good choices, that I’ve got my shit together.

But I don’t have to wait for that.

I am grateful for my maturity.

#gratitudeNow: The heights

So I’m a busy guy.

This morning I was cleaning the kitchen, as Missy tasked me to do before work. (Task is an interesting word in this case. She told me to do it, while asking, so even though it’s not really a portmanteau, I’m treating it that way.).

As someone who is very goal-driven, who loves serving his dominant wife, and who craves the simplicity of being tasked, this worked out well for me.

I did in fact, get the kitchen cleaned.

So I grabbed my phone, and I wrote it down in WeMinder, and even snapped a photo and texted it to her.

She was pleased.

I however, was not.

Because as I was entering the good behavior into WeMinder, I noticed something wasn’t right with the look and feel of the screen.

After a bit of thought, it came to me. The height of the card wasn’t right, when the “behavior chip” of my 1 new good behavior was showing on the card.

It pushed everything down, making my brand new bottom navigation icons push too far down.

So I sat and reasoned it out for a few minutes.

I realized that a good fix for this problem was to reduce the height of the behavior list from “40vh” down to 25, 30, or 35vh respectively depending on if I were showing 1, 2, or no chips whatsoever.

Without getting too deep into the weeds of technical details, I figured out exactly how to do that, and got a hot fix ready, tested it, and deployed it into production in WeMinder.

It’s out there now, working just fine. I know, I checked just before I started writing this post.

But this post isn’t really about viewport-height. It’s about the heights of owning my own business, while also having a full-time job, while also serving my wife, while also being polyamorous, while also… the many other things I do.

It’s often really challenging. I have a lot going on in my life.

But honestly, that’s a blessing. My mind is pretty sharp. As long as I take good care of myself, I can maintain and even increase that sharpness.

This means I need to get decent sleep, allow myself rest, maintain good boundaries by often saying no to the things I can’t do, and practice copious amounts of self-compassion.

By and large, I really do, do that.

I’m 50 years old, and while sometimes that seems like a lot, it really isn’t.

I feel wonderfully in touch with who and what and where I am. I like the me I am, and the way I’m stretching myself to be more.

It feels good.

#gratitudeNow: The Reboot

This morning I rebooted several things. The kitchen desperately needed attention, so I did that. The cats’ litterbox drawer was full, so I emptied it, and wiped it down with some special wipes. I started tracking my calories again in earnest, too. I started tweeting again, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I caught up on a few episodes of Love in Brief (One of my favorite ageplay podcasts.)

And I rebooted… me.

Which I do each day, but sometimes with very careful deliberate action. I was talking to my brother Spacey last night, as I usually do most Tuesdays. We were talking about health things, and life in general.

And it got me thinking about What I Am Doing™, just my life in general. There’s a lot going on that I’m really quite happy with. But some things I’m not. The pandemic hasn’t been great for my health, specifically my waistline. I heard someone jokingly refer to pandemic weight gain as the “Covid 19.”

It’s not inaccurate.

I talked to my wife/mommy/bestest-friend-ever Missy about it last night too. And agreed that today is a new day, and I’d be starting fresh.

So this morning I carefully recorded my calories, using an app. That sort of journaling and staying under my caloric budget, combined with regular exercise has consistently worked for me before. I’m at it again.

I’m just a person, like anyone else, so I often lose sight of my mindful practice. I’ll get bogged down in regret, or worry about the future. But the awesome thing is that just like, say, cleaning the kitchen, or dumping out the cat’s litter, that departure-from-mindfulness can be undone, with a mental snap of my fingers.

Being in the moment, fully embracing it is a simple, profound, powerful act. I forget it often, and I’m always utterly gobsmacked by how good it is when I find it again.