Everything burlesque this week. Two shows in ten days means a very busy Ms. Pepper. I feel invisible right now as a result as I tuck myself away to costume, practice and stay up nights thinking and processing my life.
A successful show this week with many people there I know from many communities, including the BDSM community. I haven't been active in that community for over a year now as burlesque has become more important. My kink side has gone underground. This is where I prefer it. I am not a voyeur and I don't particularly get off on being watched at BDSM events. Burlesque has filled all aspects of being watched for me and now I find myself having the luxurious feeling of being able to indulge in my fantasy life and think of fetishes that make me tingly in all the right places... I am finding that burlesque and fetish are becoming one. This next number I am doing for a Halloween show is a fetish number and my most provocative. I basically fuck a teddy bear. Wouldn't you know it, my co-workers have decided to come to this particular show.
I am waiting for the many tid bits of drama and relationship navigation to slow down and work themselves out. None of it is to do with me, but it effects me in that I take peoples emotions on and have enough education and experience by now that I predict out comes that make me wiggle in my seat. I remain cautious and reminded that I don't know all sides of the stories and its nothing to do with me. Still, I feel and care deeply for those involved and fight myself on making suggestions and comments that they might see as intrusive and controlling. Where is the line between sharing wisdom and attempting to control outcomes so as to experience some kind of relieve?
Still, occasionally I get aggravated that someone thinks they are the only one going through stuff, the only ones with problems and dilemmas, the only ones that have stuff to talk about and get resentful that I don't get asked how I am doing and what is going on for me. Its my own fault. I don't push my own issues in conversations and tend to inquire about others rather than talk about my self. Not with everyone, but most people. When I do finally say something, usually out of frustration, people tend to be surprised that I have my own shit going on and that I am in the same boat as them or have been. They get surprised that they are not unique in all the world at all. When it comes to poly, we have all been through it before. Its not anything new. And if we haven't, we will at some point.
So I have saturated myself in costume making and going over numbers in my head as a way of coping with feeling left out, frustrated and resentful. Meh, it works for me.... on to intensive creativity I guess.
In my relationships there is really just the matter of time issues. As usual. Time and desire. I have lost desire, at the moment, in spending time with anyone and I suspect they all think that I am spending time with someone else and that is why I have been slightly absent. If the plates aren't balance as far as time then I end up with forlorn looking partners that wonder why they aren't getting attention. At least that is what I think in my own head. Truth is, I just don't want company right now and want to nurture my primary relationship. Maybe by the end of this week that will change when my time is freed up a bit more.
I also want some attention too and don't feel I have been getting it. It seems to me that when in I am in a situation where everyone is waiting for me, no one seeks me out, because they think I am too busy and getting attention elsewhere. I am actually not. I spend time and energy giving attention when I can and get little in return most days. I feel like I am clambering at the moment to fill a need that isn't being filled. I know it is me that needs to fill it which brings me right back to my need to isolate and be my own primary... which makes for unhappy partners.... which means I need to spend energy on them... which means the cycle continues.
Actually, truthfully, PN is the biggest giver to me. He takes care of many things I don't have time for or energy. He gets the least amount of my time and gives the most. He really is the most incredible man. I wish he would find someone that would give him more attention than I have time for. He deserves that. At the same time I am concerned I will lose him to someone that has time for him. I would be lost without his attention to the details of our family life. I guess I would adjust, but I don't want to and don't wish for that.
There has been lots of pushes in other areas of my life lately also. We are likely going to go on strike at my work and with the retiring of a co-worker from his position of shop steward, I have been asked to do the job. I am excited about getting some training that I wouldn't normally get in the form of mediation training and excited to know something of what is going on in more detail that the union has come to the decision to strike. I am not excited about the extra time away from my life for meetings and not so much looking forward to passing on info to workers that get frustrated with my lack of detail and care for facts. I carry an understanding of feelings, emotional content and overall sense of what is going on and sometimes that is not what people want to know.
This week at my sons school there is the AGM where I think I am likely going to be asked and voted in to be PAC president (parents advisory committee). The job is a thankless one... as most of these jobs are, and while I like to be involved in his school I have enjoyed being somewhat removed my being the PAC secretary instead. Truth is that I have been more than a little frustrated with the way the president has run things in the last years and have a lot of ideas for change. Last year I went ahead and attempted to make some of those changes and got her back up. Some people liked the changes and this is why I think I might be voted in.
I don't have any time left. At all. Like NONE. I fear I will lose my mind soon. Again. Amongst a week of intensive getting ready for my show, I have some big decisions to make about how to spend my time. Time to isolate and buckle down to where changes can be made.