Re-writing reality

I'm very creative. That's why I fell into the clutches of my caning curator. But it's more than a question of talent. It's almost a compulsion. My brain works overtime.

It's not something I do deliberately. It's more as if they forgot to install an on-off switch. If my mind isn't engaged in some other activity that forces it to connect with the solid, present world, it is concocting poems, stories, scenarios...

This post took form as I transferred the laundry from the washer to the dryer. It continued as I prepared dinner, and acquired a title then as well.

This is not always a good thing.

When I arrive at work in the morning, I sit down at my desk and turn on the computer. At this point a responsible employee would settle down to work. And in a way, I AM being a responsible employee. Except not to the people who twice-monthly deposit my salary into my bank account. And I'm not acting as an employee exactly. I'm fulfilling my duties as a literary service slut, a wholly-owned pet poet, a modern-day Anaïs Nin creating on command for the erotic pleasure of my cruel collector. I sit down at my desk and poems rape my brain until I have to free them onto paper - or directly into an e-mail. Then I get in trouble because I rush them out and miss typos in my eagerness to say "Look, Sir! Look what I made for you!" like a child rushing home from pre-school with the day's finger painting, hoping to see it enshrined on the refrigerator.

My poems don't get hung on the refrigerator.

But it is not these creations that get me in trouble. I create scenarios. Fantasies of how I wish things to be. Fantasies that are so real, so plausible, so desirable, that I am disappointed when life has its own ideas.

You can, of course, see where this is going.

I wanted to believe that I could have a "real" relationship with the philosopher. I wanted to believe that he could be John, my boyfriend, as well as the philosopher, my party in playful perversion. He gave me almost no reason to believe that could be the case, he fought it every step of the way, he fled from almost anything that would be a step forward, and I adamantly, needily refused to see what was being shoved in front of my purple glasses. I hung on for dear life to the things that did speak of a real relationship, and took them to mean more than they really were.

He has a very hard time with the distance. If I lived nearby, he says, we could just be together, commune without speaking, get through the hard times on the strength of our uncanny connection on an almost soulful level. And then it might have worked. But there would have been another option as well. He could have come by for a few hours. We could have done our D/s thing, our whole scolding, punishment, redemption thing, gotten out of it what we each needed, and then he would have gone. We wouldn't have seduced ourselves with the perfection of the time we did spend together as... as together. As so close together. As so comfortable together. As so right together. Those rare amazing visits that made me think it was real, that made me write scenarios in my head, that made me expect, assume, WANT him to say he'd come down more often, he'd let me have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law, he'd resume our relationship on Labor Day...

I can't stop. I can't stop the fantasies. I see possibilities that seem reasonable and then I let myself in for disappointment when they don't come about.

I see him coming down for New Year's Eve.

I see him coming down for the Inauguration.

I see his mother, who was half-way to talking to me on the phone during those many long calls on Election Day - I see his mother saying "John, why don't you invite your friend up for Christmas?" And he goes pale, and gulps, and then says "Sure, Mom! I'll call her right now."

I set myself up for getting hurt.
I do it every time.
It's not his fault.
There is no one to blame but myself.