I promise not to write about running very much but I want to start on the topic of running today because that is what I am thinking about at the moment, well that and this other interest we share.
I don’t want anyone reading this to think I am a good runner. I am not. I don’t do it to be good (clearly, I don’t do anything to be good!) I do it for another reason. I am not sure what that reason is yet.
On Sunday I was running along being slow and rubbish and hating myself every single step and I realised that I am at a bit of a crossroads.
Normally when I run I don’t feel bad, I feel ecstatic. I am slow and I have no technique and I wear a tee shirt rather than a sexy running top. I don’t have a pre-run series of things to do and eat, those little ceremonies I was introduced to on Sunday.
I have to decide why I run and what I want to get out of it. Do I want to try to get better and be faster and get a decent time when I am in a race? I may enjoy that in time and I may enjoy improving because everyone likes to improve. I may enjoy the crowds and the drama.
Do I want to do it because it makes me happy and makes me feel good? Do I want to push myself and take myself to somewhere new? I liked the feeling of pushing myself. I liked doing something new. I liked being sore the next day because I had run harder than normal. It never used to be this complicated.
When I was thinking about why I run this morning I remembered how it used to feel when I got spanked.
Before Himself (a while before Himself) I was in a relationship where I got spanked occasionally. It was nothing like it is now, nothing at all.
I used to be afraid all the time. I was never afraid of the man that spanked me (he was a good man, he would never have been unkind
to me) but rather I was afraid of everything else around spanking.
I had so many questions-
What does he want?
How should I be?
How do I let him know what I need?
How can I feel what I need to feel (fear, being annoyed with him) without making him stop?
I spent my emotional life second guessing everything and trying to orchestrate everything to make it work. I was tense and exhausted. Not once
did getting spanked make me feel complete, taken care of or sorted out. I was loved but I couldn’t feel it. I was going through the motions. I was putting one step in front of another. There was no passion or release.
I don’t have to be happy about being spanked now. I do not have to work out how I should feel or how to make sure he feels confident about spanking me or telling me off.
I don’t have to do anything to make my submission possible for him- all I have to do is be me, tell him how I feel.
I can relax and let go. I can just be. He doesn’t need me to work out what to do. He doesn’t need me to feel something.
It reminds me of when I was fitter than I am now and I ran. I could run faster and I could pick my pace to fit my mood. I loved it, I loved my hair flying behind me, I loved feeling utterly free and at one with everything, nothing mattered, nothing could ever make me feel anything bad. It felt like childhood should have felt, it felt like music, it felt like joy.
I don’t know who I am writing this for.
Maybe I am saying thank you to Himself.
Maybe I am writing it to the girl who has not found the man that makes this right for her yet.
Maybe I am writing this to tell the Tops how much their way of being helps us.
Or maybe I am just writing this for me, because I can.
Poppy, Running and TTWD are not all that different. They're both sensations in the body that are felt primarily in the mind. I don't run, but I do work out hard and regularly, and there is a similar release of tension and stress, the same that I feel when the boss in my house tells me just how things are going to be, and I feel myself relaxing. Both trigger a little bliss, and maybe both make you a bit sore the next day. I'm so glad for you that you have a life that works!
Poppy, you write so well.
You manage to find such appropriate pictures, you must be very patient.
Running releases similar endorphins to spanking, with some of the same effects.
I was never a runner, but I was a long distance cyclist, I often think that getting your second wind is the endorphins kicking in.
Poppy I am happy that you are more settled and contented in your life, this is probably an amalgam of you and Himself, whatever the cause the result is good for both you and Himself.
Keep up the running, it will serve you well in later life.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Poppy, you may say "I don’t do it to be good…" but you do many things well, very well actually, and at the top of that list is being a good person. Also a good friend – brilliant in fact – a good writer, and so much more. Best of all you do all the IMPORTANT things good.
To whomever it's written, it's a very sweet post. And as the commentators implied, you aren't good only by accident.