This little piggy is playing by the rules...

Hello DR - did you all have a good Atheist Winter Break (AWB)?

I've managed not to gain any weight over the holidays thus far... something about having the nickname 'piggy' echo through my head every time I reach for any of the baking I did is an effective deterrent... so I suppose it's good for something ;) Instead, I brought in all of my baking to work. If nothing else, my coworkers are all very grateful to LD without knowing to whom or why they are grateful.

LD has been away, visiting family, since the 23rd, and is due back on Wednesday. I told myself that I would follow 'the rules' while he was away and not initiate any contact with him - let him enjoy his time with his family.  He started out texting me every morning, which was sweet, but stopped on the 26th. I'm assuming that his family has been kidnapped by pirates and are now in the hold of some ship while the ninjas battle overhead trying to save them.  Then his pet monkey who is secretly a Nazi will betray him to the French (wait, he IS the French... suspicious) and the ninjas will have to break him out of his carbonite prison in order join the other rebel scum in destroying the pirates. Truly Epic  I look forward to hearing the story when he returns home.  (I may have watched a lot of Harrison Ford movies this past week)

I've also been spending this 'break' doing some thinking about our trust issues and how to overcome them, as well as trying to take an 'outsiders' look at my behaviour and reactions.

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I really let myself get carried away, eh?  I may talk the talk about taking a step back and putting my guard back up, but I've failed miserably at it.  I'm just as entrenched as I always was... nothing has changed except that my rational side is stopping me from acting and making a fool of myself - thank god for that.   My introspection this week has helped me come up with a master plan on how to deal with this trust thing though...   

On the one hand, I could stop playing with him all together and insist on 'vanilla' dates to get to know him better and see if that regrows that trust that was lost...  downside to this is that there is so much sexual tension between us, and roles already defined, that I KNOW D/s would leak through... there's no way we could be completely vanilla together, without so much effort that we would be concentrating more on that than on getting to know each other better. 

My other initial idea was to continue with our play dates, and work my way towards submitting as far as I can with him... but only during our play dates.  Once I walk out of his apartment I am "my own woman" so to speak.   The risk of this is that so far we really only spend time playing and I risk my judgement becoming clouded by the submission and stop thinking objectively.

So the more I thought of these scenarios, the more it seemed like the solution was to combine them.  I will work towards submitting to him to the fullest extent possible when we are in his home and I belong to him.  I am also going to insist on time spent together as equals - either out on dates or in his or my home, where we can get to know each other better in a more 'vanilla' setting.  Time together where I don't have to worry about saying or doing something to get myself punished. This won't be easy on either of us - I know that what I'm asking is something that LD is not used to, so it will be a struggle on his part.  In my opinion, this is good - he should have to struggle a little to regain my trust.  On my part, I will have to remember that when we are together as equals that we are together as equals - that I am my own woman and can act as such and that when our dynamic leaks in to our date, that I can choose whether or not to adhere to it.

My hope, is that through this I will regain my trust in him, and will desire our vanilla dates to become less and less vanilla, until over time I reach that point where I trust him enough to become his, completely and utterly.