End of an Era

I realize it’s been over a year since I posted here.  I’ve been busy.  I have a new job, though it’s now a year old.  Today was the last day of the year, it’s summer break. I’m having a rough night from the drop… and from anxiety.  But it’s happy anxiety in some ways.  I trusted someone I work with.  I’ve trusted him all year, he’s been kind and compassionate, fun, and always felt safe.  Safe in the ways that… are intangible but so necessary to someone like me.  He’s always felt safe.  I doubt he knows or would understand if I told him, what that means or what it means to me… but I still feel compelled to document it somewhere, for some reason.

I don’t know why, but it took me all year before I confided in him.  This past two weeks it feels as if I’ve made a sudden jump towards being honest with him, being my true self, sharing my life and my reality… all of it… Sir and sub brother, my collar, my exes, my father… everything.  And he listens, and asks questions, and doesn’t judge, and is still… my friend.

He’s leaving, though.  This was our last day working together.  He’ll be moving out of state in two months.  Maybe that gave me the courage to open up.  Or maybe it gave me the fear to open up – that this would be my last chance to walk this ground with someone kind and… safe.

He is not “one of us” in the scene sense.  He has some knowledge but not a lot, mostly what most vanilla people have, but he isn’t judgmental which… somehow seems to let people who aren’t “us” still learn who we are much more easily.

I trusted him enough to even share my websites with him.  I have no idea if he’ll ever look at them, but that alone is a huge anxiety.  And I don’t know why.  As he said last week, I know he won’t judge, so why not tell him?  And I think it isn’t so much a fear that he will judge (a rational fear anyway) but an irrational fear of exposing this part of myself that I have, all my life, felt was so much a “dark” secret, at least to anyone in the vanilla world.  And in many ways, that’s not an irrational perspective.  There are MANY people who would judge who I am if they knew.  And that is a constant pain in the back of my heart… knowing that simply being born the way I am, I am… deviant, frightening, a stain on good society… in so many minds.  It’s hard to stop hiding with one person with so much of the world is an authentic threat.  But I stopped hiding for him today.  I gave him both my websites.  And now my stomach is in knots wondering if he’ll look at them, if he’ll read my writing, if he’ll judge (not my kink which he already knows about, but my writing, which is utter crap much of the time…)

Anxiety.

But it felt so sweet to be free… to be honest… with someone… and not in a dungeon surrounded by half naked people (not a place I ever felt at “home” but where I knew I wouldn’t be judged, so I forced myself to spend time for a portion of my life.)

Today, I felt home.  I felt like myself.  Not latex and leather and cuffs and collars… just me… in a T-shirt and jeans and tennis shoes, my collar I guess was outside my shirt, but other than that, just me… no trappings… just both of us sitting at work… totally vanilla… ME… work.  Just sitting at work and talking about… who I really am.

I am sure I didn’t convey to him how much that meant to me.  I couldn’t.  I could barely articulate to him how much his friendship has meant to me this year.  When I told him he was the reason I didn’t quit my job this year, he acted surprised.  I was surprised he was surprised.  Perhaps he’s just so naturally kind to everyone he doesn’t even think about what he’s doing…

But this was a hard, hard year.  I doubted myself more than I have… in some ways maybe more than I ever have. This year challenged many of my core beliefs. It shook my foundations, it challenged my faith in my choices and in myself and my abilities… But this co-worker, this friend, he was… always there when I was doubting myself most saying something about how great I will be at this job… what a good teacher I am… always making jokes in sympathy with me over our crazy boss…  inviting me to work in his classroom, coming into mine… making me feel comfortable, and welcome, and valued, and… helping me believe that it would get better.  Sometimes just by saying hi and seeming genuinely happy to see me in the morning… sometimes it was just that that helped me face another day.

Sometimes by coming in and sitting down and letting me vent about my day.

Sometimes by joking.

Sometimes by being kind.

He was the first person I saw the moments after I got the call that my father died.  He guessed it as soon as he saw my face and he wrapped me in a hug and held me for such a long time, I felt… even in that shattered moment, I felt that there was some small shelter, some small comfort, just in his pure expression of compassion without any judgment or awkwardness or discomfort that so many people have for someone in grief.  He was just fully and authentically there, hugging me and holding me and… I will never forget that kindness.

He came into my classroom the first day of school before we went out to get our students and very seriously told me that I was going to be a great teacher, he could just tell.  I will never forget that kindness.

When I was hitting some of my lowest moments he came into my room and very earnestly urged me not to give up teaching… told me it isn’t always like this… to not let this year… and certain situations happening this year… drive me from teaching.  He said I’m a good teacher and don’t let this year convince me otherwise.  I will never forget that kindness.

And when I pulled the necklace that I wear every day from my shirt and said, “This is a collar…” he didn’t hesitate.  He may have inwardly flinched, I don’t know, but none of it showed in his body… he broke into a smile and said, “That’s so awesome!” and then asked me more about it.  I will never forget that kindness.

And today he pointed out that I made it, despite all the times I wanted to quit or kill myself, and I told him that he was pretty much the only reason I made it through… and he actually sounded surprised when he said, “Really?”  And I realized how badly I’ve let my fear and my walls keep me from even letting this very kind person know his kindness mattered… mattered profoundly, and unforgettably.

I regret that.

And maybe in a way I hope that he WILL come explore my websites and hopefully find this post someday and know what my fear that keeps me behind a shell of humor – sometimes good-natured  and sometimes very dark, but always a shell – kept me from telling him, from showing him, in honesty this year before we ran out of time for honesty.

I regret this shell.  I don’t know how to shed it. My therapist says I made steps these past few days, in sharing with this man I work with, but I still felt that… I kept parts of it up, I don’t know, I guess, how to be anything else.  I don’t know who I am without it.  I guess I’m who I am in this moment, in this honesty made possible by a screen and a keyboard.

I’m sorry for that, friend.  I won’t use your name here in case you ever do read it.  Names are special and I won’t presume to share them or associate them with my deviance without the permission of their owners, but if he reads this he’ll know, and I truly do consider you a friend.

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