Chest of secrets

My favorite piece of furniture in our apartment, besides our bed, for obvious reasons, is a tufted storage ottoman with a hinged lid.

Almost exactly like this.

We bought it brand-new from Goodwill for $40. Apparently Target donates a lot of stuff to Goodwill; who knew?

It's very, very roomy. Inside I have stored hundreds of feet of rope that I have dyed, my scissors, matches, candles, dozens of reels of hand-dyed twine, and two large bags of D-rings. On top of all that sits the more vanilla stuff - two hundred feet of paracord and buckles for making bracelets, a 2-lb weight that I use for holding one end of my bracelets when I make them, and my little one's potholder weaving stuff.

We call it my rope chest. When we sit in the evenings, I often have my feet propped on it. We had guests recently, and one of them spent the evening unknowingly sitting on top of all that stuff, while we laughed and chatted and had a good time.

When you open the lid, the stuff on top gets your attention first, but you move that out of the way and all these glorious, beautiful, glowing layers shine out. My rope addiction aside, the layers are interesting to peel back. A gorgeous bit of rope may be lurking at the bottom, forgotten because of the newer things piled on top.

I think everyone has a metaphorical chest of wonders inside themselves. Inside that chest are all our kinks, our innermost desires, the ways that we best relate to others people within relationships. Some people have lots of kinks in theirs, while some people have hidden talents that they show no one. The secrets inside our chests sparkle, but we're afraid to take them out.

Many people keep theirs locked up tight and never even peek inside, but those of us who have taken that leap and opened the chest are greedy. Taking out the first layer is terrifying and exhilarating all at once, but is hardly ever enough. After the breathtaking experiences that first layer gives us, we want to drag out every little thing inside and decorate our lives with it all. The things inside are too spectacular, too wonderful, too fantastic to shove them back in that chest and close it again, to live our lives without acknowledging and celebrating some of the most amazing parts of us. Some of us want to take the things out slowly and examine them, explore and savor each individual wonder, while others want to just dump the whole thing out and let the items inside erupt everywhere in glorious chaos, dealing with the fallout as it comes.

Both of those approaches are completely valid.

It doesn't matter how you explore your wonders, as long as you explore them.

What happens, though, when you have two people in a relationship, they've both agreed to explore those chests, and one is the more thoughtful, savoring type, while the other one wants it all out now? We could of course complicate this endlessly by adding more partners to the equation, but I will stick with two.

Logic seems to dictate that you go at the slower pace, since you can both keep up with that. Unfortunately, life doesn't always follow patterns of logic. To the person who wants more, more, please just let me see/feel/do/experience more, the slower pace can seem torturous, perhaps even intentionally so, if that person is the s-type.

What then?

The way I see it, there are a few options.

• The partners talk. I know, right? While I don't think this is an issue where compromise is necessary, - especially if a power exchange is involved - if the partner with the longing can be let in, in detail, on the thought processes of the other person, I think that would go a long long way toward relieving some of that need to be on to the next thing.
  
• The slower partner picks up the pace ever-so-slightly. Not enough to feel rushed, but enough to give the other person a sense of progress. Perhaps examine several things at once instead of just one. If you have three or four new activities or ideas to ponder instead of just one, that can let the other person feel more of a sense of progress, more like the bottom will eventually be uncovered.
  
• The faster partner chills the hell out. Probably most useful in combination with the above options. It's never done anyone any good to shove a person where they're not quite ready to go yet. In concert with chilling out, talking more about what's on the other person's mind, perhaps even bringing up something new that is tangentially related to what you're already exploring, is bound to go a long long way toward building that bridge between the two of you.

I love my rope chest. I love that it occupies so much floor space in my living room, I love that it's the most attractive piece in our home so far, and I love that no visitors know what's there unless I choose to show them.

I love my kink chest too. We're still only a few layers deep, and I have no idea where the bottom is. We're having a blast exploring it though - even if I do get a little greedy sometimes.

I've just given new meaning to the phrase "Something to get off my chest," haven't I?

Happy Friday, everyone!

When I quit

I went to bed alone, fairly early, feeling sad, forlorn, and exhausted. My hands hurt; I think I have arthritis in them. There's hardly any time any more for us to just be the two of us, and I'm feeling it. Add to that the cold sore that's kept us from kissing for nearly a week, and I have not been a happy camper. So while my husband worked at the kitchen table I took my netbook to bed - against our long-standing mutual rule, no non-book tech in the bedroom.

From there, I sent him a message via Google talk: "I think you should know that I quit."

Soon thereafter, he joined me because he'd noticed I posted something on facebook. "What you doing with your computer on the bed, girl?" he asked me. He hadn't gotten the message.

"I sent you a message," I said, as I continued what I'd been doing.

He took out his phone and checked his Google messages. "Um, you quit what? Quit me?"

I shook my head, put my netbook away, and started playing a game on my Kindle Fire, sitting on the edge of the bed. We made fun of the game, laughed a bit. My husband went to brush his teeth.

When he returned, his entire demeanor had changed. "Why don't you put the game away?" he whispered in my ear.

"Whyyyy?" I groaned. So not in the mood for this. Not in the mood for him to do things he doesn't want to do to cure the mood I am in. Not in the mood to be that person who requires attention. Not in the mood to be soft, compliant, willing.

"So I can play with you," he answered simply. "You can be the game instead of the player." As much as I wanted to push him away, those words still sank into me, started eating away at my reserve. If it is a game, he plays it too well.

"No," I said firmly, turning the game off, putting the Kindle away, and settling back into his arms. No reason to push the issue. I figured if I did as he said perhaps we'd get away without the theatrics.

"'No?' There's just one problem with that, isn't there? I think you know what the problem is," he whispered in my ear, his voice sending shivers all over me despite my best intentions.

"I don't know," I whispered. My entire body was thrilling to his words, even as my head balked. Traitorous body. One day it will do what I tell it. That won't necessarily be a good day.

"You don't get to say no, my girl."

I sighed softly, resigning myself to whatever was about to happen. Perhaps if I feigned indifference long enough he'd give up and go away. (aside: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, GIRL? Do you hear this man?)

"You seem to think that I'm not interested in you. You're wrong." He had pulled me onto my back, shoved my nightie up over my breasts. He slapped my nipple, hard.

I gasped, bit my lip. "Am I?"

"You are." He slapped my nipples back and forth, alternating, causing me to twist and buck. I sighed loudly, obviously. He ignored me. He shoved my legs open and began slapping my inner thighs, hard. Okay, so there would be no feigning indifference. I was gasping. It hurt. My knees kept coming up, together, and he kept shoving them apart again with a casual flick of his arm, continuing to slap. So much ownership is expressed in that casual flick, like my legs closing was no more troublesome to him than a fly buzzing near his head.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, since I was making a lot of noise indicating such. "What are you going to do? Close your legs? Is that going to stop me? Open them. Keep them open until I say otherwise." Oh, my God. Oh, God. I do so love it when he tells me what to do. It hurt so badly, but I was so turned on by the entire situation, by his words, and my legs lay as if bound. My muscles tried to resist but I forced them to stay down, open, as he continued to rain blows on my already sore thighs.

"Good girl," he said as he finally finished, his fingers trailing lightly over my reddened skin making me squeal with the pain. "Sensitive girl," he observed, and grabbed a flogger from the small pile on the corner of the bed. He trailed the ends over my thighs, letting the knots drag harshly against my skin. I squealed again, twisting slightly but still keeping my legs open. He lightly slapped the ends against my thighs, but that didn't hurt as much as the knots dragging there.

"Huh," he said, surprised. "It almost seems like this" and he dragged the knots against my thigh again, making me squeal, "is more painful than this." He lightly slapped the soft ends against me.

"It is," I whispered, my throat already dry from crying out and open-mouthed panting.

"That's interesting," he said, trailing the flogger ends up my body, letting the knots drag the soft ends behind them, creating shivers of anticipation the whole way. He brushed the ends across my face, and then he tapped them lightly against my face, but it was clearly not just a brushing, not just an application of the sensual possibilities the soft ends bring. He was slapping my face with the ends of the flogger - silky though they are, it made an impression. I felt myself get wetter as I moaned with each soft swoosh against my face.

"How does it feel to be my plaything?" he asked, dragging the flogger down again, between my still-open legs, and lightly flogging my pussy with the ends, much the same way he'd just done to my face.

"Helpless," I responded between soft moans, arching up.

"You like that, huh?" he asked. Talking about the flogging. Yes, I like the flogging. I like the helpless feeling too.

He rested the flogger handle on my shoulder, the falls draping next to my head.

His fingers found my core, my clit. I gasped and arched into his touch. "Oh, God," I whispered. The man works magic with his fingers.

He was on top of me. What? When did that happen?

He lifted the flogger from my shoulder, dragged it over a little. Oh my God, he was pressing the flogger against my throat. First the handle, then the rope, pressing against my throat, draping over it and then the pressure, his hands on either side pushing. I gasped. A little tiny scream emerged from me, all that my limited voice channel would allow.

"Mine," he whispered, looking down at me. "You want me to fuck you, don't you? You need fucking." He rocked his cock against my thigh.

"Yes, yes, yes," I panted, rising up to meet him.

He pressed his cock against me, pressing my folds open. He nudged just the head inside me and I groaned as he rocked barely into me. "But what if I don't?" He pulled away completely, leaving me empty, rubbing his cock against me again, pressing it into my thigh.

I whined.

"Ah, you'll whine. Like a puppy. Or like a bitch in heat." He continued teasing me with his body, rubbing into me. "Whine for me, bitch."

I did. I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to. I whined and I got wetter and wetter as I did what he told me.

"Good girl. You'll get the cock back, I'll fuck you," he whispered, slowly nudging his way back inside me.

I rose up, but he didn't let me engulf him. "Sweet little bitch," he murmured, sinking all the way into me at his own pace, as I kept whimpering, trying desperately to take more of him. "There you go, there's your cock. How's that cock feel?"

"Oh, God," I moaned, rolling my hips into him, squeezing tightly around him. It felt good. No, better than that. Fucking amazing. Words. What are words again? I moaned louder.

He moved inside me, his hand wandering over my body, pinching my nipple, then pressing against my face, pushing my head into the mattress by my face. A deep, guttural noise came from me, lower than a scream but just as long. "Oh God, oh my God," I chanted, my words distorted by his hand pressing the side of my mouth out of shape.

"Mine," he said, calmly, clearly, as he kept pressing into my face, his hips pressing mine down as well. Resting on his elbow, he locked his other hand behind my head, taking a fistful of my hair and pulling it hard, my head trapped between the force of his hand in my hair and his other hand on my face. I screamed as he moved, his body surging into me relentlessly, his fingers regularly tightening in my hair.

He let go, balanced on his hands, looking down at me, driving into me slowly. "My girl likes a nice slow fuck, doesn't she?"

"Fuck, yes," I whispered. I lifted my legs up, bending my knees, opening myself to him even more. I grabbed my feet and pulled up, pressing my knees into his sides. I was rewarded with a deep groan from him.

"Ohhh this is my fuck hole, isn't it?" he asked, his eyes boring down into me.

"I am yours," I answered, moaning constantly. My legs began to ache after a while and I lowered them, driving my heels into the mattress to lift my body up to his - higher, higher, and he was surging into me deliberately, emptying himself into my body and moaning loudly, his pleasure quite obvious. I squeezed him against me. He rolled off me.

"Can I close my legs now?" I asked softly, meekly.

"You may close your legs," he agreed. I did and rolled onto my side, facing away from him. He snaked his hand around my waist and pulled me tight to him, then slipped his hand between my legs from behind, sliding his thumb easily into my pussy.

"Ohhh," I groaned, surprised. His fingers began slowly stroking my clit, and I rolled more onto my stomach, letting him have his way with me as I lifted my hips in the air.

"My puppet. My sweet little fuck puppet," he whispered into my ear, driving his thumb deeper into me, making my body move to his command. I whimpered.

"Oh, you like being my fuck puppet, don't you?" He twisted his hand for emphasis.

"Yes sir," I moaned, my hips dancing with his motions.

"Mmmmm," he said, the simple vibrations in my ear making me shiver. I was quickly approaching orgasm and his words were only driving me faster.

"Come for me, girl," he whispered in my ear. I did. I screamed, kicking, pulling away from him, my leg vibrating as I came for him.

"Good girl," he said, not stopping his movements, his voice continuing to say sexy things in my ear, my body dancing on the end of his hand like the puppet he'd decided I was. "Good girl comes when she's told, and all I have to do is say, 'come for me,' isn't that right? Come for me," he whispered roughly in my ear, triggering another orgasm, more screams, more kicking.

He didn't stop. He kept going. I was a mass of nerve endings, a screaming, writhing mass of open emotions and sensitivities and he just kept touching me there, in that spot that made it all so fucking good, his thumb buried inside me giving me a sense of fullness that made it all that much better.

"Girl likes orgasms," he noted, his detachment somehow making my state of completely helpless arousal all the more arousing.

"I can't.. I can't," I begged, too sensitive, too many orgasms having taken their toll. Wait, did I say too many orgasms? No such thing.

"Yes you can. You know you can. Don't lie to me, fuckhole."

My head took over from there.

Don't lie to him, fuckhole.

Don't lie to him, fuckhole.

Don't lie to him, fuckhole.

I came, screaming, the most powerful one yet shaking my body, my legs going completely out of my control. My head was pounding with the force of the blood rushing through it. "Oh my God," I whispered shakily as I came down from it. As a credit to his empathic abilities, he did stop then, pulling me close to him and rubbing my body, kissing my neck, whispering words of love and praise. He's pretty awesome at aftercare. Hell, he's pretty awesome at most things.

"I love you," he said softly into my ear, as we were falling asleep. "Don't quit me."

For the record, I would never, ever quit him. We go together.

So I am not allowed to quit - at least not without discussion and a valid reason beyond "I think you're not into me."

And me? I am okay with that. Better than okay. Thrilled. I may have started all this, but it is not okay for me to end it.

Flogger Friday 10-12-2012

Yep, so here I'm starting my very own weekly post wherein I feature my favorite flogger of the week along with a little story.

I spent last night and today making this:

I met the lovely Shelby Cross for lunch yesterday, because I am fortunate enough to be in her vicinity. On our parting, she mentioned she likes red - and black. As fate would have it, when I got home that evening I found my order of dye waiting on the steps. While I didn't make this for her, because I quoted her a price that counted on far, far less work than this entailed, she did very much inspire it. Even though I don't like red so much - I'm a blue and purple sort of girl - I'm very, very proud of how well it's turned out. If I could I would show it to everyone I meet.

Only now I've burned out all my creativity and have no idea what to call this beauty. Suggestions from the crowd are welcome. 

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone, and may all your flogging dreams come true!

Sex for sex's sake

"I'll stop hurting you for a while, now."

"Do you have to?" I moaned.

"Well, while you suck my cock," he continued. I had interrupted him; how rude of me. His fingers closed sharply over my nipple, squeezing it painfully. A cry escaped me. "I like for you to be," he squeezed again, making me cry out again as he spoke, "somewhat in control of yourself while you suck my cock."

I turned on my side and began to lick his cock, slowly and gently at first, just swirling my tongue, before I sucked it into my mouth. His pleasured groans filled my ears, but soon his thigh was over my shoulder and I couldn't hear much. I could feel the vibrations of his pleased noises, could feel the heat of his cock jumping in my mouth, down my throat, as I gagged. His hand found my nipple and he squeezed it hard again, making me scream around his cock. "Nice nipple, nice face to fuck," he murmured.

I pulled him into me with my hand, causing his hips to fuck my face as I moved back and forth, and I pulled especially hard after a while, my enthusiasm not happy with my own movements. I pulled hard enough that he decided to just go ahead and rise up over me and fuck down into my face. We both rolled over and I felt him adjust himself, get a pillow, as I kept sucking. I grabbed his thighs and used them as leverage to repeatedly lunge my face upward onto his cock, meeting his thrusts and sucking for all I was worth. His hands found the sides of my head, grabbed my hair, held my head down and still, while he fucked my mouth. My gurgled moans of extreme excitement merged in midair with his grunts. I kicked, but he was still fucking my face.

His orgasm approached slowly, intensely. "Oh God," he grunted over and over as he spasmed. I sucked his seed down my throat greedily, and after a moment of recovery for him, I kept sucking his cock like nothing had happened. It slowly softened in my mouth, and I kept sucking. I love sucking his soft cock, as long as it's clear it's soft because it's just finished or because it hasn't started yet.

Eventually I pressed lightly on his hip, indicating he could roll back over and lie down, but I sucked hard on his cock as he did so it did not slip from my mouth.

We lay there, him on his side and me suckling his soft cock, listening to his moans of enjoyment, for so long that my jaw began to hurt. That is no small feat, since I can suck cock for 45 minutes or so with no pains. He asked me a question, and I pulled away long enough to say "My jaw hurts."

"Well why don't you stop then, silly girl?"

"You told me to start, not to stop," I answered.

He laughed. "You can stop," he said, amused.

I sucked a bit more. He laughed again.

"You can stop!" I sucked him one last time, to the sound of more male laughter. "Stop and come up here, girl," he said. Aha, instructions. I like instructions. I scooted up and rested my head on his chest. His arms went around me, a band of love and comfort. His hands stroked my back as we just relished the excellent company. I sighed softly, enjoying his touch. We chatted. I was drifting in that space between waking and sleep when he moved suddenly, pushing me over onto my back, pushing my legs open.

"Ahhh!" I squealed, awake now, "What are you doing, don't!"

"Don't?" he asked, his fingers already pressing my folds apart, finding my core, drawing out my wetness. "Did you think you were going to get away without being played with?"

"Uh-huh," I whispered, my head falling back, my eyes closing as he drew my lubrication over my clit. I shuddered. Ohhh that feels amazing, that first drag of a finger across that spot.

"Why would you think a thing like that?" his fingers circled my clit over and over, eliciting groans and sighs of pleasure from me.

"Uhn... it's easier," I said. We were almost asleep, and getting me to orgasm is not a simple feat most of the time. He hardly ever wants to play for the sake of playing - he goes for the gold.

"It's easier, huh?" he asked, but words were beyond me. My body was undulating to his touch, and his fingers were filling me up, overfilling me, pressing into my g-spot. If the first touch of the clit is amazing, the first press of the g-spot is some indescribable feeling beyond amazing - possibly because it doesn't always happen.

As I'd suspected though, amazing as he felt to me, it wasn't happening fast. But his words were there, pressing me along. "You suck my cock just like a pro, don't you, girl? You SAY you don't stop because I don't tell you to, but I'm pretty sure you just keep going because that's what you want to do..."

I wasn't in any position to argue. The way he was playing me I could barely grunt my uh-huhs.

My breathing was coming faster and harder, as he kept pumping his fingers inside me. With his other hand, he squeezed a nipple and I squealed, arching up into him. "Come for me, baby," he whispered harshly. And I did. Fuck, I did. I screamed and clutched him against me, barely able to hang on as my body shuddered to an intense climax, whether I'd wanted to go with it or not.

He kept touching me afterward, making my hips buck, until I begged him to stop. I'm not sure if he was just tormenting me or trying for another. But I was completely spent, and soon after we slept, all curled up into each other.

The Wall

I was standing in our entry way, having gone there to lock the door before bed. I stayed to survey the room, and my husband walked into the bedroom without seeing me, because there is a tiny bit of a wall that blocked me from his view.

He came back out and I was just standing there, so he walked over to join me. I shared my ice cream with him, and when it was gone, he murmured "Hm, there is a wall here.."

And I was shoved against it. He took the empty ice cream container from my hand, and pressed me into the wall harder, face first. I grunted, taken by surprise. His hands wandered over my sides, my ass. He pushed the waist band of my pajama pants down, letting them pool at my feet. I felt his cock pressing into me from behind as he pinned me against the wall.

"Turn around," he told me. I did, and his lips settled on mine, his hand pinning my wrists over my head, his other hand wandering over my front, groping and squeezing, unbuttoning my shirt to pinch my nipple, making me moan softly into his mouth.

"Kneel down and suck my cock," he ordered, his fingers spreading against my scalp and tugging on my hair, hard.

I knelt down and took him in my mouth as he took two huge handfuls of my hair, pulling hard and shoving his cock deeper into my mouth, my throat. I gagged and he kept thrusting. He was talking, words were coming from his mouth. "Slut just kneels down and sucks cock wherever she is, doesn't she?" he rasped, clearly excited by the entire concept of using my mouth right in our entry way.

"Stand up," he told me after several minutes, tugging upward on the handfuls of my hair that he had. "I'm sure your knees would appreciate that." Since the entry way is linoleum and unpleasantly hard, he wasn't wrong. I rose to my feet somewhat unsteadily, assisted by his hand in my hair. His hand slipped between my legs and found me incredibly aroused. "Mmm, girl likes doing what she's told, doesn't she?" We kissed as his fingers explored my sex, making me whimper and dance a little. "Now what should I do with you? Bend you over the sofa?"

Yes, please, I thought but did not say. He kissed me again. "Or I could take you into the bedroom and put you on the ramp? Yes, go there."

I was confused. I thought we were doing this over the sofa. What? "What am I doing?" I asked, fuzzy, my ears roaring with rushing blood.

"You don't listen very well. To the bed, on the ramp," he said.

Who knew standing near a wall could start such a scene?

The things that turn my man on. Walls. Who knew?

Browsing the wares HNT

Caution: This post contains images that will incite flogger envy.

As my husband ran our gorgeous flogger over my body, he said "I should get a new flogger."

I sputtered. "You should get one??"

"Well, you should make me one then."

More sputtering from me. "I.. I.. make them every day! I told you if you ever wanted one, all you had to do was say 'I want that one!' I show them all to you, you say 'Very nice, love,' and then give them back to me." I presented him with a pout.

At any given moment, there is a selection of floggers in our closet that have not been listed for sale. I make them faster than I have time to photograph and list them all properly. Yesterday, when he asked the question, there were four.

"That was a long time ago! The ones you make now are so nice... Well, then, let me go look at the ones you have now," he said. We went to the closet, mostly naked. I moved all the ones that were listed to a separate hanger and handed him the hanger with the available ones on it. After extensive debate, he wound up selecting the (amazingly beautiful) one I made yesterday, and placing an "order" for a mini one to match the one we already have.

Leveling up

When I was a child, I watched my mom work hard to support the two of us. She wasn't home much, but when she was we did things together, had a good time. I spent a great deal of that time she was at work with my grandmother, and an even larger percentage of it alone, reading, watching geeky shows, reading, being outside, and reading. I learned a lot about life from books.

I never thought: "Life will be easier when I grow up," because life didn't look like it was very easy from my vantage point. I actually thought I had it pretty good, and I should do all the things possible to delay "adulthood."

Although I did a lot of reading about sex and relationships, both fiction and self-help books, and I was completely fascinated with the concept of sex, pleasure, and power exchange from quite a young age, I never even looked at a real person as a potential romantic entanglement until I found myself online, face-to-virtual-face with a bunch of geeks who were talking with me and engaging my intellect.

Suddenly I was desired. People flocked to me; I had a posse. From that far-flug, digital posse I chose my first real romantic entanglements.

Life was better. Hadn't even seen it coming, but there it was. Better. I was blissfully happy, for a time. Then, disaster. Heart crushed. I thought I would die. I don't know that I'll ever really get over my first real heartbreak. I wandered hopelessly through country roads on foot, achieving naught but sunburn and a few guys in pickup trucks trying to pick me up. I wanted to die; I didn't see what good living would be like that, unloved, unwanted, unnecessary.

On the other side of this deep and yawning chasm of depression, though I couldn't see it at the time, was another hilltop of bliss. I had to trudge through the very, very difficult part of this game to get to the other side, to get to the reward. That particular hilltop was fairly low; it didn't have to be high to be bliss considering how low I had gotten.

All things come to an end, whether they are good or not. The happiness of that low hilltop was soon replaced with another grueling low point.

Then there was my husband. A brilliant, shining sweet white light, and we leveled up together, crashing through the lows, sometimes trudging, but always putting that one foot in front of the other because each step through the abyss was one more step toward the pinnacle. We managed, because we knew the sucking miry swamp would eventually yield to sweet meadows, sunshine and pleasure.

Life with him has been so much better than it ever was without him. But even once we were secured, fastened to each other with bonds that were legal and unbreakable unless we so chose, life continued to throw us curve balls. Our first decade together has been a combination of bliss and struggle, as we worked to build a life, finances, educations, careers, family, a house. Each milestone of our life has been marked with a meadow - a peaceful resting place where we beam with happiness but from which we are eventually torn by circumstance, or fate if you believe in that.

We level up, and the game gets harder. We get a few months of bliss, and then.... stuff happens, and everything changes.

I'm sure we're not unique in this. Thankfully, when I look back, save one or two particularly deep dark holes, all I can see are the gorgeous pinnacles. Everything else fades into the mists.

So, from my vantage point as an old lady, I can say: Life does get easier, but then it gets harder again. If it stays easy.. well, where's the challenge? I love a good challenge as much as the next geek.

As long as he is by my side, I will keep trudging through those challenges, because everything we've done together has just gotten better. I have faith that the decisions we make will carry us eventually to a happier, better place.