Undating

I've concluded that I'm virtually undatable. Whatever "dating" is these days, I'm just not there. While I am separated I spend lots of time with my wife. There is no sex connection. No shared kink or ignition spark of the erotic. But my time with her is profound. Even as I struggle with the uncharitable feelings of the "resentful caretaker" I am a vastly better man for giving myself to her protection.

With each woman I've "courted" I've been totally honest. Separated yet undivorced, I care for a dying woman. She is number one. You are a distant second. Unless I'm her distant second, it doesn't work.

So then I appreciate my relationship with She-Who-Visits all the more. We're connected but lead totally separate lives. It works in its almost total and complete absence of expectation.

I'm entering another change phase. Will I move back in with my wife to care for her as the inexorable cruelty of her disease continues to destroy her body? And I've got to get real on a financial level. Things are not "turning around". The new reality is survival. Not a time to support four homes. Warren Buffet I ain't.

It is again time to let the feelings wash over me and try to enjoy the ride down the rapids of the mucky, dirty, chop of a river that is my life.

Compartments

One of the themes of my writing has been how I've struggled to live as integrated a life as I can when it comes to my kink. For so many years I hid it away in a dark closet and it only really came out when I snuck around to buy the latest issue of Screw Magazine or DDI and then obsessed on when and where to see which domme I was for the moment enthralled with.

Now, while I certainly don't broadcast to everyone in my social and professional circle that I'm a shoe licking submissive fetishist, most people who know me, both vanilla and scene, know I'm a perv. For myself, I much prefer this less compartmentalized, "one-life-to-live" sort of approach. Sex and what I do, or more accurately what I'd like to do, in the bedroom are private things, not secret shameful things.

But over the course of being more "out" I realize that there are all sorts of lines people draw in their own lives around who knows what about their kink. Or for that matter, how much any given kinkster will reveal to another fellow traveller about their vanilla life. I totally get it and how much anybody choses to share is totally up to them. But even accounting for the need to be discreet because of the "ick factor" of a kinkster lifestyle, I wonder is there something appealing about compartmentalizing for its own sake.

It can be fun to create different persona and be different people in diverse social circles, right? A fantasy role lets you escape the day to day grind of life's mundane responsibilities. It's a mini-vacation or a form of freedom, isn't it? Plus, you get to reveal or protect aspects of your personality as you see fit, which is often a good thing, no?

I suppose I could agonize over where someone's lines in the sand are. Will I offend them? Have I already messed up said something or written something I shouldn't have? Will they ever speak to me again? Can I tip toe through these tulips and not lose my balance?

I try my best to respect other people's boundries and appreciate the compartments of their lives that they feel comfortable sharing with me. And while discretion is said to be the better part of valor, revelation under the right circumstances is an optimistic act of hope.

If Heaven And Hell Decide

I think one of the hopes many of us have is that this year will be "better" than last. We'll make more money, we'll get healthier, we'll go to the gym, we'll be all around better people. My wife is on the phone as I write this and just said to a friend, "what I know is 2012 will not be better than 2011".

For her and the inevitable physical toll her disease will continue to take there is no clean slate. Just a certainty that the downward spiral will continue. But as I listen to her voice, she's so connected to this person on the phone. She's really living the life she has. And that's inspiration enough to me that maybe my life will be richer if I muster the courage to be there to help her.

Last week I had lunch with a domme friend who suggested I read a series from the New York Times Magazine about regular people who died this year. I recommend it too. My wife and I read the series together this morning. She cried so much at the first couple that she couldn't make it through the series. Each highlighted how death can strangely provide hope. We all face it. Our own and the death of those we love. As the article suggested, death is the most democratic of experiences.

So my hope is that I can be there and go the distance. Since I hope it will be a long haul, I have to figure out how to take care of myself as well as take care of her. Shrink has a care giver group for me. So far I'm not moving back in with my wife entirely; so I have my bachelor digs in the West Village. And I've got friends.

So in the midst of the reality that for my wife 2012 will not be a "better" year - for me - it may be awful enrichment.