If I Knew Then What I Know Now

It's funny when I look at my child. I was nearly the same age when I learned I was submissive.

My kid is far more mature than I was at that age.

But I think it was a formative time for me, because the discovery was so profound...to finally have a name for what I was. There are still certain triggers that can suck me back to that time, those feelings, the thoughts I had, the fears, the confusion, the mistakes, the regrets.

But I also look at it from the perspective I have at my current age, near the same age as the Dominant man I was with at the time.

How different it is to be who I am now; older, wiser. So much more sure of who I am and what that means. So much more perspective on the journey and the elusiveness and the realities of everything that back then was so unknown, such a mystery.

There are things I wish I could tell my younger self, mistakes I wish I could save her from, pain I wish I could keep her from inflicting on others, ideas that seemed so plausible because of her inexperience that led to wasted time and energy on figments of her imagination. She was so sure in her perspectives, just as my child is today...the wisdom that comes with age sees the foolishness but that can't be told, it can only be experienced.

Then I pause and I ask myself, could I appreciate you the way you deserve now if it weren't for her mistakes and the hard road she made me take? I don't know.

Would I be as sure of what I want and don't want if she hadn't made such a mess along the way? I don't know.

I try never to regret, to always value every experience, if for nothing more than the learning I gain. So I carry that perspective for myself, and the prices I've paid...I chose my path and it has brought me to where I am. It is bringing me to you.