MARCH 23, 2000

     i actually started this post yesterday, but didn't get past fixing the hyperlinks and selecting the quotes.  So here i am today, trying to get it done before scooting off to visit the doctor.  (No, i'm not sick ... just need a checkup.)   

     Well, i might get this finished before i leave, but i am still trying to train myself to write while Master is on His own computer  beside me.  It is easy to jot down chatty, unimportant things, but i still find myself grinding to a dead stop when the thoughts drift toward anything personal.  i don't mind that He reads them, i just don't like having them read while i am typing them.  But then, i am also not used to so much verbal and emotional communication with a male of the species either.  

     Heh!  Why do i think a counselor would have a heyday with that comment?

     It's true though.  This relationship is so unlike anything that i am used to.  Sometimes i snuggle down into the deliciousness of sharing.  Yet other times i find myself skitzy ... wary of all this niceness.  i stop communicating and begin to hold "me" apart from Master, a survival tactic which is much too easy, after all these years, to indulge in. i wish the adjustment was easier, yet i know i have to work with myself, shed the past in order to enjoy what is right here before me.  

     And learn how to communicate, with more ease.  The general day-to-day things are easy.  It's the deeper discussions, and the differences of opinions that seem to be the problem.    i do one of two things; either start to cry or become defensive.  i feel the familiar rush of frustration as my thoughts scatter about, causing me to become inarticulate.  It seems i have an inability to steer the ideas in a direction i need them to be.  Then there are other times that i become so overwhelmed with the depth of caring and love that i have for Him, that i feel i might drown if i don't back away from anything that is a "deeply- emotional" sharing.

     i am now continuously reminding myself that the relationship patterns i learned before were not good ones for me.  Master and i have had discussions on how we "listen" and "hear" one another, and have come to the conclusion that we aren't always on the same level of understanding.  For example, sometimes when i get carried away with an opinion ... i am so busy trying to get the thoughts in order, so that i can say them ... that i don't notice my voice rising right along with the anxiety of getting it all out.  Master in turn, interprets this rising of my voice as me becoming defensive or aggressive or argumentative.  Which is in fact, not the case at all.  Now that we have recognized this particular problem, it has become a relationship pattern that can be worked on and changed.

     i have to learn to relax and accept that i deserve this happiness.  i think when i accomplish that, a lot of new patterns will fall into place on their own.  For both of us.

                shadoe