The Ones Who Do All the Hard Stuff

First, an update of sorts:

• We are fine.  Maybe even good.  That is important to know.
• He has begun to reach out to find other partners to spank.
• The intent is for these connections to be strictly platonic; involving only spanking.
• It is an opportunity for him to play with people at a more high-end level that I feel is beyond me these days.
• I know about it all, and I am mostly fine with it.  For more about that "mostly" bit, you can read on.  I will try and explain.
• There is some hope, from my perspective, that this is a development that signifies a level of healing for which I have waited years now.
• I am also feeling hopeful that, in practicing some power-dynamics with people for whom there is no history, he will find his way into re-engaging in that part of our lives together.  A girl can hope.

There.  The facts as I know them.

Now, on to the mostly part of it all.  Because, of course, I am never able to just leave well enough alone.

Do you ever consider the people who do all the work, all the hard labor, that brings you the things that make your life good and easy and comfortable?  When you sit down to a nice meal, do you see any of those who tilled the soil, planted and nurtured, worried about the rain and the sun and the pests and the market prices?  Do you feel any solidarity with the ones who harvested the crop?  Do you hear the hum of the tires on the trucks and the trains that carried that food to market?  Do you have any sense of the investors who built and stocked and manned the stores where you purchased the groceries that adorn your table?  What about the people who supply the power to run the stove?  Or the ones who laid the pipes that carry fresh, clean water to your kitchen?

I am, at this moment, feeling strongly aligned with all of those who do all the hard stuff.  Who work and labor and go mostly unseen and unnoticed by all of those who benefit from their labors and their efforts.  Because...  I feel like I am in the position of those unseen ones who labor behind the shadows, doing all the dirty, drudge work, so that "we" can just kind of stroll into the local grocer, pick up whatever, and fix a nice meal without so much as a "thank you very much!"

I know that all these "new ones" who will wander in and out of here, getting spanked have no ill intent, and no idea about what they are tapping into.  They do not know or care about the years that have passed while the healing has happened; while I have waited and hoped and dreamed of once again having what they will now just show up and take as their due. I also know that it isn't a zero sum game, and I believe that their presence may, in fact, restore some of what has been lost.  I know all of that; believe all of that -- and still there is the niggling sense that they really SHOULD at least consider what it is that goes into giving them what they are taking out of here.  That is, of course, entirely unreasonable, and I can already feel it seeping away from my awareness.  Saying it here gets it out of the endless replay loop.  That can't be a bad thing.  If it quiets down in my head, I will get through this next leg of the journey with less fuss.  I am sure.