Hahahahahahaha! 

I feel like all I’m doing these days is self-care. The work I do, while incredibly rewarding and for the public good, is exhausting and I have been more and more drained, especially since the Inauguration. The emotional toll is sometimes just too much to bear. 

So while this challenge is needed, it’s also a bit redundant because at least an hour a day is being consumed with self-care that isn’t changing anything for me. 

So what could I do for self-care that is radical and different and body positive? 

Sex as self care

Yesterday was difficult. I knew I was walking in to bad news. Not devastating but I knew I would have to absorb the damage at work. Had a panic attack before work, cried all the way to work. Self-care seems almost impossible when you’re caught in the spiral of anxiety. All of my normal coping mechanisms were just not going to cut it.  

So about midday yesterday I decided that something had to change. I needed out of my well worn groove of stress, isolate, sleep, repeat. What if doing something for me, without worry as to what my partners would think, what was needed of me at home, was the way out of this. 

So I texted a newer potential, a gorgeous, submissive boy in his mid 20’s to see if he was available later that night. I had seen him only twice before. The first time he became super detached and I kind of spiraled, assuming it was a rejection of my body. The second time was right before my trip to PA and I was rushed and feeling guilty because I had told Warrior to stay home that night. 

I had no agenda. We usually talk a bit over text. He usually wants to be called a cute little boy. I usually resist too much humiliation. He loves the idea of me using Whispr to collect pictures of cocks that are bigger than his. I can’t wrap my mouth around the lie that his giant dick is somehow small and sad (because it really isn’t. Nope, it’s big). 

We have some kinks that we share (Slut-celebration, pussy worship) and a few others that we’re both stretching to be with each other (him: slight pain–hair pulling and scratching, me: sissification, pegging). And inevitably once the fantasy is realized on some level we go our separate ways. Not a whole lot of overlap of other interests, just a willingness to explore the delicate tendrils of a dominant/submissive dynamic together. 

A quick trip home for a shower, shave and a kiss to Husband. I was there 10 minutes later. And while I no longer publicly do scene reports, I was impressed that he read my body language and knew I would need a shoulder rub. And later a foot rub. 

I don’t often ask for what I want which is why dominance can be such a hard thing for me. Hard to give myself permission to be make my own needs primary. It’s hard with him, even with his eagerness to please, serve and remain in his place until I tell him otherwise. I’m susceptible to begging and I don’t want to ever disappoint him–but last night needed to be about what I wanted and needed. 

And he gave me so much of what I needed. Whether it was affirmation by taking pictures of my body and his or riding the wave of lust of a moment. The juxtaposition of his body, lean and toned and fucking beautiful, against mine, large, soft and cuddly, always gives me a moment of pause. 

But the moment that really took great care of me is seeing him let go just a little bit. I have a knack of always connecting with him in the midst of transition–exams, interviews, family deaths. Which probably suits my calling as the hands of the Dark Goddess, shedding light at he crossroads. But he gift he gave me last night wasn’t just his submission, always valued, it was the gift of seeing him…his desires…his emotions…his patterns. That feeds my soul more than a bubble bath ever could. 

And last night’s self care was to find my own desirability in someone else’s eyes. Trusting that if I was invited over that I was wanted. Believing that I would be wanted the next day. 

Radical self care begins with finding inherent value in yourself 

I came home from last night’s adventure a little lighter, a little giddy (due in part to a stint at a local bar for Hendrick’s & tonic). I didn’t explicitly tell my partners the details of what transpired last night because this was for me. This was about doing something for me. 

And it’s so fucking hard. Being an empathetic woman, who absorbs so much of others’ pain and trauma to transform it into something beautiful and sacred. And somehow in all of this time I’ve been doing his I haven’t found the ability to find myself deserving of the same.

So this is another step in recovering my deservingness. To find myself worthy of being taken care of. And to find someone that even in a short span of time is able to give of himself to do the same. But the key is I have to find myself worthy first, sacred and deserving of having the spotlight on me. 

Even for an hour. I am worth being taken care of.  And this too is sacred.