Seeing Herself

To begin with, it's sometimes funny what I consider 'personal'. I can write a post about being flogged, but when it comes to writing this, I pause. Perhaps in part because she'll be reading it, but also in that, well, in some ways, it's personal.

But this is blogging my little leather life, or so I claim, and to avoid writing this would be, well, a rather serious "sin" of omission, in no small part because it is what is a very serious part of my 'now', and in part because it's also part of my Leather 'then' as well.

I'm not going to attempt to write any version of the story of us here, at least not now. Suffice it to say, Herself (which sometimes should be more aptly written herself), is what I'll use here to refer to the womyn who was, for a time, my wife. A time that came to a close almost as soon as it began. Not by my decision, but by hers.

We've been apart for over 11 years now, and for all but the last few months, been completely out of contact. Which is its own long story that, no, I'm not going to write here either. She knows, and I know, and that's what matters here.

So we have been back in contact for less than a year now, almost entirely via e-mail, with one phone call, on her Birthday. It was the first time I had heard her voice in well, forever; lifetimes, relationships, marriages.

Clearly, we each have our own 'nows'. I, to my own surprise, have been steadfastly with Sir, and she has had her own relationships and entanglements and disentanglements with both people and the State in relation to such. I've left my beloved midwest to return to the general area near where she and I spent our years together. She on the other hand has left her beloved here to return to a place that she in some ways feels is not hers. Over time, though, my here, or more specifically Sir's here, has become such a part of me that this is my home now. He chose this place and I agreed to come to him.

So now, all these many years later, she has pined for a specific Yule gift from me- the ability to see me once again.

There is of course, much more to it than simply she and I coming to our own end. There was another person, and much pain, and much unnecessary pain, and interference that kept us from even being able to communicate, much less draw things to any kind of civilized close at the time. All of which, of course, is my far too polite way of saying bad things happened, bad things far beyond the control of the two of us. Not that she (or realy either of us) is some form of innocent party in the course of all of this, just in that many things happened that had nothing to do with anything either of us would have wanted or had any control over.

So she has asked to see me.

Naturally, this had lead to a great deal of introspection on my part.

There is the person she once was, and there is the person she is now, and there is everything in between. And there is the person I once was, the person I am now, and everything in between. Mainly though, there is time in between, and more than a decade, much of which was spent not knowing if she was alive or dead.

More than my wife, I placed my collar around her lovely neck, and called her my own.

My obligations to her, to that, did not end at the edge of our time together. A collar is a lifelong commitment for me.

So I have chewed upon this request of hers for some time now. Sir and I have spoken, and pondered, and worked through and through and through this. Oddly, it turns out he may be more comfortable with such than I am.

In the end, despite everything, or perhaps due to everything, I have come out to 'yes, but on my own terms'. That is all I can give.

Our Fetish Flea trip will, at one point take us near her, and come January, for one afternoon, she and I will finally come face to face, a culmination of so much. More than words can begin, really.

I suppose you can see now why I couldn't not at least give this its due. This is my now. And seeing her will be, well, no, not blogworthy, simply a significant, (hell, momentous) occasion, to me anyway.

I walk into this not knowing what I will do. We may cry, laugh, be awkward with one another, prattle on unceasingly, scream at each other, come around to some strange version of restoring the friendship that was there so long before we even came together, or walk out, perhaps never to see one another again. I don't know.

All I know is that in this, I can't deny her her request.

And that is all tangled in with Leather ideas of responsibility, and loyalty, and honour, along with deep sadness, betrayal, and even still smouldering anger.

Mostly, though, I've missed her.

And I'm so damn glad she's not dead.