Introspective and sentimental: haven’t spent a New Year’s Eve like this in a long while. Usually I’m either out or working, but I’m running with it for variety’s sake.
2011 was a year of new connections, adventures, and living the life I’d put off while I was in an increasingly ill-fitting relationship situation. I made incredible memories, got to know amazing people who have become very dear to me, and dove deeper into two – no, three – types of work.
The first: my .
I approached it as a true calling and by the end of 2011 had felt it become a job. Part of this was because I’d switched up my marketing to test profitability, with some success; part of this was because I was , and I’m prone to randomly distancing emotionally when I’m in that stage, mostly to keep myself from succumbing to utter sappiness. (It’s too late, of course; I’m smitten.)
Part of this was because I was still unraveling the threads of the previously mentioned ill-fitting relationship situation; we’d been live-ins for a long while, and it wasn’t an instantaneous unbinding. That took more out of me than I’ve wanted to admit. Frankly it still does; it did tonight. And tonight was the last night, in a way, for a lot of things behind that door.
I joked that I broke off the engagement with SC to become a full-on polyamorous sex worker, and that he may have dodged a bullet. It went unspoken that I was the one who’d dodged the bullet: monogamy, obligations and ideals that would have stifled me and kept me from doing my work (with a capital W). When it became clear we weren’t suited I threw off the idea of trying to cram myself into someone else’s box and then proceeded to do exactly that, with much greater (and juicier) success, by following my strange and twisty path.
That strange and twisty path led me back around to the path I was on when I first dove into sexuality: energy work, magic, woo, what have you. I spent so long carefully leaving my religion out of my work that I completely forgot that my related practices, at times, might be an asset. I’ve had phone and cam clients catch me at it unconsciously from time to time. It’s just a part of me.
That was the second sort of work, and the third. Diving back into sacred sexuality, serving my community, and committing further to education and advocacy. This is just what I do, matter-of-factly, whether I’m being paid for it or not. Whether I’m being credited publicly for it or not. It’s important and I can’t seem to stop myself, so there you go.
I still don’t feel I do enough of it.
As for my calling-that-became-a-job, I’ve found my way back around again; open hearted, within the container of our meeting, and prioritizing the sessions that nourish and inspire me over the sessions that leave me feeling as though they weren’t quite there for what I do. Those will always exist; the clients who simply want to check off another pretty face, a list of acronyms, and don’t feel the comfort level or the desire to genuinely connect. They’ve been rare in my practice, but over time I’ve experienced more of them, of course. I simply happened to get a cluster at an unfortunate time.
I still have fun with even those clients more often than not – but it’s not my work, if you get me.
My sessions this week? I felt myself plug in, charge up, and be there; I felt those I was with do the same. There is such joy in that. D/s isn’t the only form of power exchange. A gift for a gift, they say…
…And I feel I’ve received such gifts this year. From my dear clients, who inspire me, make me smile and enable me to do what I do. From my friends, colleagues, lovers, and beloveds, who nourish me in the most unexpected ways and whom I adore wholeheartedly. From my family, who’ve come full-circle from the initial expected slut-shaming to supporting my work (and me doing it). And from those who I shared love with for a time and grew apart from, for teaching me lessons I would have learned no other way.
I feel that things are moving where they’re supposed to. I’m happy, and hopeful, and wish the same for every one of you reading for the year to come.
(I wrote the draft for this entry in July, two weeks before the Desiree Alliance conference in Las Vegas. I reworked it to reflect the changes I made afterward.)