I got my haircut last week. I’ve been not-quite-completely-happy with the style for a while now. The past three times I’ve gone to get it cut, I’ve consulted  Master on his thoughts about my hair. He’s given his opinion, but he’s more fine with the style than I have been. I think I’ve also been driving him a little bit crazy with the details of how to change it. Ultimately, I know what he wants: shoulder length for easy grabbing, no bangs and overall flattering.

It’s fun for me to send him a pic after my haircuts. I find it playful…everything from me doing many takes trying to get a good self-portrait of myself with the cell phone to getting his response.

When I sent a picture this time, it was – of course – only of my face. We had, however, discussed the length of the back of my hair. When he replied, he said, “Hmmm….I want to see the back now ” Master will be directive – even commanding – when he wants to be, but his style of dominance is more along the lines of stating his preferences or desires and me being aware enough to act to fulfill his desires. So, even though he didn’t say, “Take a picture of the back,” I knew this is what I must do.

I have to admit, though, my instinctive, first response was, “He’ll have to come to my house to see it” – not in defiance but more because taking a picture of my face with the cell phone is hard enough let alone one of the back of my head! But, I also knew that is not what he was saying. He knew he could come by. He even knew it would be difficult for me take a picture of the back of my head. Yet for all those complications, his desire was simple and clear.

So, into the bathroom I go where I used a hand mirror and the sink mirror to take a picture of the back of my head. It was indeed awkward to hold the mirror just right and then hold the cell phone to take a picture of the hand mirror…but it worked! I sent the picture off to Master. I admitted my first reaction to him, but said I knew he wouldn’t appreciate a smart mouth saying, “you’ll need to come over and see it” and so I just figured out a way to take the picture.

He called me shortly after receiving the pic and said my reaction was exactly like he’d expected…that I’d balk at first but then just do it. We laughed, and he said I’d done well.

I felt happy that I’d pleased him, but I also reflect on my reaction and realize there is a part of me that still “fights.” This interaction about my hair was lighthearted but that “fight” also appears in our more serious discussions.

It’s hard for me to imagine outright defying him but there are these moments of resistance – and depending on the subject or aspect of my life – the resistance is deeper than I admit to myself. It seems so ironic since my desire is to be owned and to be owned by Him runs so deep…but ultimately I guess resistance is just human nature shining through. The emphasis on our individuality is so rooted in our culture and even in our primal instincts. As if that’s not hard enough to overcome, though, we also have warped senses of individuality. Our identities get so wrapped up in the way we see ourselves and are complicated by the beliefs we adopt based on past experiences. As much as I may know those warped views of myself are not me and I say I want to let those mis-beliefs go, there is that part of me that holds on because it is the only identity I have really ever known.

Every time I serve my Master – no matter how big or small the task – I feel that old identity breaking down and my true essence shining through. I’ve chipped away – even blasted through – many walls of resistance and mis-beliefs about myself in my quest to be who I AM. Yet as I get closer and closer to the core, the fight and the panic seems to get bigger and more overhwhelming. I hold onto the old even though the only comfort it brings me is familiarity. I fear my deepest desire because I only have glimpses of how I will be. Sometimes when it seems so overwhelming, I question the path…and sometimes I even question Master (even if I do so politely).

In the stillness and the quiet, I take a step back from the panic and realize that I will never reach my heart’s desire if I try to fight every time I meet my own resistance. I will just be forever slaying demons that way. Instead, I know what I want…and I know what He wants…and I surrender.

The funny thing about the journey of self-discovery is that we search and struggle to find the words to describe what we already are.

When we first slept together years ago, you casually yet deliberately talked about BDSM and used a word I’d never really associated with myself: submissiveness. As I’ve told you many times, I can’t even explain the relief I felt at finally having a name for the feelings I had inside. It’s not that I’d never heard the word before, but I finally had a context…and a connection to something profound inside me.

It seems an injustice to sum up the years since that “a-ha” moment in a few words. The struggle to untangle the mixed messages, the suppressed feelings and the beliefs I adopted to make sense of the world I grew up in has not – as you are well aware – been an easy road. Through it all, I’ve unearthed more and more of my true nature and discovered the clues that have pointed to who I am all along.

When I reflect on my life standing on the crest of self-awareness I now have, I recognize that it is not just that I have a submissive nature. My desire to please and my longing to serve run deep inside me. I’m not sure exactly when I identified it, but I do remember realizing some time ago that I am not just a bedroom submissive. My submissiveness is not something I turn on or off. And even though I’ve learned along the way that submitting is not something I do with everyone (or just anyone), encounters where I did submit only left me yearning not just for more but for a fuller expression of who I am. My submissive nature makes me capable of submitting to various Dominants; yet individual acts (or a string of them) cannot and will not satisfy my innate desires.

My heart, my body, my mind, my soul crave to be owned. I want to entrust the raw essence of who I am to the one person who can not only dominate me but possess me. I want my protection, safety and well-being to be a given so that the choice to submit vanishes. I want to follow His voice into what now seems like the unknown, exploring the territory I’ve only imagined in my dreams…a place where limits are few or non-existent and the freedom to be who I am…who He is…and who we are is truly unbounded. I want Him to mold and shape my essence into the form that serves Him, pleases Him and lets His true essence shine through. I want to be His property, His prized possession and a living testimony to all that is possible when we are who we are meant to be.

I am a slave.

Sometimes I think He is more comfortable with my independence than I am.

It’s not really that I’m uncomfortable with my independence. Quite the contrary. I’m very familiar with it. It’s the drive behind actions such as moving out-of-state to go to college and starting my own business. It’s demonstrated in my thirst for knowledge and continual learning. It’s my strength when I know that circumstances around me aren’t quite right, and it compels me to transform my world in search of my desires and ideals.

It’s also what I cling to when I feel out of control. It’s where I retreat when I feel stuck. It’s what I lean on when I think I have nothing else to lean on. It’s in these moments I feel uncomfortable with my submissiveness.

For most of my life, my submissiveness has been something to contain…to manage. Submissiveness is not valued in society in general. Top that with early experiences where one’s submissiveness suffered abuse, and it becomes something you just want to hide.

When I hear His voice, I don’t want to hide. Quite the contrary. I feel a deep sense of freedom when I follow His direction…freedom to be who I am.

Sometimes the way I respond to Him utterly surprises me…not in what I say or do (although that can be surprising in and of itself) but in its naturalness. I respond from such an honest and pure place. There’s no struggle here – no crisis of confidence. I just am.

So, what’s happening when I do struggle? He always says I have a choice. It seems so contradictory. I know it is my choice to submit, but after that am I not supposed to be relieved of the struggle over choice?

When I find myself ”overly pleasing,” I’m either so anxious to be pleasing Him that I think more will be even better, or I’m not sure I am pleasing Him so I start fishing for what will. I also find myself saying in these times (either explicitly or implicitly), “Tell me what to do.” It’s in these moments I feel uncomfortable with my independence.

He told me early on in our relationship that submission is in the mind and doesn’t require chains to enforce itself. I didn’t fully understand what he meant at the time.

My submission is not something that comes from external command. My submission comes from deep within me. It’s not something I have to chase or capture. I just have to connect and allow. What emerges is the clay which He has the opportunity to mold and shape through His direction and discipline, bringing form and substance to my essence. As my essence takes the shape He envisions, my independent choices reflect my submission to Him.

He knows this better than I do, but my understanding is budding.