All posts in category fetish
Tombstone
Posted by David on 2018-09-16
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2018/09/16/tombstone/
Ugh, …, opening a way through
In those last two posts I sounded like a whiny spoilt teenager. They are now “private” but I can bring them back if there’s demand.
The “remorse” phase was starting to creep in yesterday even while I was handing over the cash. I worked hard yesterday (as well as “playing” hard) and after a long miserable phone call with my wife W I realised I was utterly exhausted. The phone conversation didn’t cause the exhaustion, though some realisations I made during it hammered the remorse and the exhaustion home. Real exhaustion is a strange full body feeling. I crawled into bed as soon as I put the phone down — I made some decisions first — and let the realisations sink in and work themselves out.
Headlines:
- W is lonely.
- I have to throw out all that stuff I bought, all #110-worth — before I get on the train back home.
Also:
- Self-care is important. Real self-care must (a) be really care for self, not indulgence or “giving in”; (b) include care for the bodies of which I am a part.
- I have been hiding away some of the parts of me that W likes, that attracted W in the first place (e.g., sensuality, not-being-like-other-men, especially-men-of-her-generation).
I worry about ending like this (like that!) again. I must:
- Turn the yoga/running/cycling up to 11 — not to tire myself out, but to place my sensuality in the public space (I mean “not secret”) (I would include wine, whisky, and delicious food in the sensuality category but W is less interested in all that nowadays).
- Encourage a shared sensuality with W. Establish a shared sensuality. This is probably the most important local peak.
- Nip this weirdness in the bud if/when it arises again. I don’t feel any more it is a special central part of me. It was a very early development in me to be sure, but I feel now it was an infection of the world. I think gender and fetishes are devil work that blind people, or blinker them, box them in, tie them to anti-human structures.
- I really mean nip it in the bud. I think a blast of strong porn (as a means to an end) would be preferable. I don’t want to lean on porn, but if a foghorn through the system is what it takes so be it.
- Have a strong, rejoicing sense of myself in Jesus (that is part of my current reading of Ephesians, in Beth’s Worthy Reading Group on FB). I am a genius, I have special insight (so does everyone else) — that sounds proud perhaps but I don’t feel it is. I don’t feel proud. I want to rejoice myself, and feel I can do that and be humble at the same time. Key is (a) rejoicing other people too; (b) rejoicing myself as part of something bigger and more worthy of rejoice — i.e., Jesus. Feeling myself as part of the body of Christ is a wonderful joy.
Posted by David on 2018-09-15
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2018/09/15/ugh-opening-a-way-through/
Resisting temptation for the wrong reasons. Does it matter?
Let’s say someone has a craving for chocolate. They are beset by temptations in shops and cafes. They do well to resist these temptations. However, the reason they are resisting temptation is because they want to be skinny like the models in the fashion magazines. The person cuts down on unhealthy food — good — but this very success allows their deeper motivations to remain unexamined.
I am like this with lingerie.
I threw out all my dressing up things at the end of August last year (see Total Purge) and since then have not dressed up or bought any new lingerie. I have felt the temptation, more than once (e.g., Passed a test), but I have successfully resisted — but, perhaps, at least partly, for the wrong reason.
My “wrong reason” is that I don’t like the new crowd, and I don’t want to be associated with them.
I first ventured online as a crossdresser in the mid-2000s. There were various sub-cultures of crossdressers, transvestites, sissies, transgender fetishists, transexuals, etc., and I soon found my place among them.
The “new crowd” is a new subculture that has emerged in the last five years or so. I’ll call them trans activists or TAs. They seem explicitly (though superficially, imho) political, and I think they are belligerent and ugly. I disapprove of them politically, psychologically, philosophically, morally, aesthetically. I find them repulsive.
I think my judgement of these people is correct, especially when judged as a social movement. I have been working on curbing my resentment.
At least part, and perhaps all, of the reason I haven’t gone shopping is that I don’t want other customers, or shop assistants to think I am a TA.
So, I haven’t bought any more knickers, and I can’t see myself shopping while I feel like this — good. The TAs are doing me a favour by being so repulsive. I am using them to get what I want (freedom from this fetish/habit).
On the other hand, … I know I would still like to dress up occasionally. I know if I hadn’t thrown them all out I would have slipped into panties and bra a few times this year. Just recently en route to/from Dad’s I felt a pang of nostalgia walking past Accessorize, gazing longingly at their display of special Christmas knickers.
Perhaps having the reason “I don’t want people to think I’m a TA” is allowing my deeper motivations to remain unexamined. Perhaps that doesn’t matter, and the deeper motivations will fade away. Perhaps those motivations are not so deep after all.
Does it matter that I am resisting temptation for the wrong reasons?
Posted by David on 2017-12-11
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/resisting-temptation-for-the-wrong-reasons-does-it-matter/
1 Peter 3:1-4
Second in a two part series! Part One is here: 2 Peter 2.
1 Peter 3:1-4
1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
(ESV)
This is one of those passages that has always made me come over all lefty and feminist. This time approaching the passage I was determined not to read in the same old way. When I read this time, I was struck by the idea of providing an example, rather than giving verbal admonishments — words were like the superficial decorations mentioned in verse 3, while conduct was like the gentle & quiet spirit of verse 4. I didn’t think of wife vs husband; I thought of myself being an example to my wife (and to myself).
Then I read the reading notes, which drew attention to the “even if some do not obey the word” in verse 1:
However, I think Peter might’ve had a specific group of women in mind when he was speaking these words —– wives who were married to unbelievers —– though every woman or man can learn from his teachings on submission here.
I am married to an unbeliever!
Going back again to read the passage, reading verses 3 & 4 broke a wave of upset and confusion over me:
3 Do not let your adorning be external — the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing — 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.
(ESV)
3 Your beauty should lie, not in outward adornment — braiding the hair, wearing gold ornaments, or dressing up in fine clothes — 4 but in the inmost self, with its imperishable quality of a gentle, quiet spirit, which is of high value on the sight of God.
(REB)
I didn’t realise it at the time, but each time I returned to the text I was reading it more and more “as” the wife. And then I hit the end of verse 3: “the putting on of clothing”; the REB actually says “dressing up” which is the phrase I use on this blog.
My thinking (if you can call it that – emoting) went like this:
“… the putting on of clothing”, “dressing up in fine clothes”
- what kind of clothing would I be putting on, as a wife? That is the clothing I’d like to be putting on;
- the language “the putting on” seems to focus on the activity itself: stepping into the “fine clothes”, and the relief and safety I feel;
“Do not let your adorning be external”
- for me these adornments are not external, they are carefully hidden and private, and associated with a secret (snowflake) “inmost self”
I don’t think I ended up with any message, but the reading I was constructing was so obviously at variance with any “correct” reading, I found it very upsetting — out of nowhere.
I think perhaps I was primed for something like this to happen as I’d been doing a lot of online “window shopping”: some business trips, and some wife & son absences, were coming up. (I didn’t buy anything in the end.)
Why do I want to recount all this here?
- I was surprised and still am at how shocked and moved I was by this confrontation with Scripture.
- The power and the shock only happened because I was reading the Scripture as part of a group.
- The strength of this response shows me, I think, how this “dressing up” habit is much closer to my heart, more a part of me, than my other Bad Habits.
Posted by David on 2017-07-04
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/1-peter-31-4/
Passed a test
I’ve just spent a few days visiting my father. I visit him every so often for a few days to see how he his: he is getting on and lives alone since his wife / my mother died three years ago. Dad is well and we enjoyed our time together.
In the past these visits have provided lots of opportunity for shopping and dressing up:
- The train station where I have lunch on the way out has a branch of Accessorize, where I have often bought knickers
- I would not take any extra male underpants with me and I would wear knickers every day
- It’s a cold rainy part of the country so on shopping trips out I would often wear a bra as well
- I would wear knickers and bra on the way back. The train journey breaks at a county town with branches of Accessorize, New Look and Marks & Spencers and I would enjoy shopping. I would change out of the bra before arriving home
In fact, shopping and dressing up was an integral part of the visit (although one that only I knew about). So, having said goodbye to my dressing up habit last August, this visit was a bit of a test.
I certainly felt pangs, especially walking past the Accessorize on the way out. On the way back I went to Marks & Spencers and bought some men’s clothes, and felt the same pangs as the escalator took me past the lingerie department. I think the pangs were more of nostalgia than actual temptation. The appeal of dressing up is still there — but that appeal reminds me of the despair and even panic I felt last August, so it doesn’t develop into temptation.
I got back home without taking that detour. I passed that small test. I don’t feel like I was under the yoke of a new rule. This post is a little celebration.
Posted by David on 2017-02-28
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/passed-a-test/
Total Purge
At the end of August I did a Total Purge of all my Bad Things. It wasn’t a single event as it took a few days to find and extract everything and dispose of it safely. Everything went out.
- I threw out all my knickers and bras, my strappy nightie.
- I threw out my toys: a dildo and a set of butt plugs.
- I threw out all the “product”: lubes and cleaners, a tube of hair removal cream.
- I threw out all the packaging I’d saved, and the one French book.
- I deleted all the porn from my computers and my iPad
- I deleted all the selfies I’d taken of myself dressed up.
- I deleted all of my online personas – on twitter, flickr and wordpress.
Last time I did a big purge like this was at the end of 2013. It was triggered by sudden shock at seeing how much I’d spent on this secret “hobby” over the year (nearly £300). I threw out a lot of lovely things. I kept back a pair of red cotton shorties that were special for me. I didn’t delete all of the porn or any of the selfies.
This time there was no sudden shock like that – although I probably clocked up a similar amount this last year (haven’t counted up yet — didn’t want this to be about money).
[update: I have counted up:
- 2015: £194 (25th May — 8th Dec)
- 2016: £92.60 (17th Jan — 17th Aug)
- TOTAL: £286.60
So about £20/month.
Previous years for comparison:
- 2012: £98.64 (19th July — 10th Oct) = £25/month
- 2013: £217.25 (12th Feb — 31st Oct) = £24/month
Odd that I don’t have any 2012 receipts until July. I started keeping the book in September 2012 so possibly before that I wasn’t keeping all receipts.
Have only one receipt from 2011, which is the earliest.]
In mid-August I went on a bit of a shopping spree in Northern City — I can remember the tug-of-war in my head: detailed internal debate over whether I “needed” another bra; “should” I buy those crotchless panties I’d been fawning over online.
The clincher was that I was going to London on business the next week and if I went shopping here now I wouldn’t need to go shopping in London. Of course after I’d been in one shop, the others easily followed. Decided I didn’t need a bra after all, bought five pairs of knickers, then saw a bra that I just Had To Have … but the lady couldn’t find one in my size.
I was unhappy since that day, with a kind of nameless anxiety mounting.
I nearly did go shopping in London — I was fully intending to go buy a bra & panty set; had even checked the shop had my size … but on the way to my hotel I passed a Large Church (High Church of England).
That completely ruined my mood.
Another Large Church (Wesleyan) on the way to the client in the morning.
A very anxious week after that, especially tortured when trying to get to sleep at night. Not so much about sin or “addiction”, more general worries about work and money and all the bric-a-brac of life. I think at some point the dressing up had stopped being an effective refuge.
At the begining of the next week (30th Aug – 1st Sept) I systematically went through everything, throwing out, deleting, closing down.
During, I felt calm and even strong, refused to get upset or reconsider (no, “but /this/ one I can keep?”).
Apart from my accounts book, which has records of all my spending on this going back to 2011, I have kept nothing.
In the days afterwards I have felt slightly sick. Such extreme violence. I feel like I have razed the city to the ground and ploughed the land into fields. I have made it very hard for myself to go back.
Posted by David on 2016-09-09
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/total-purge/
God put it in front of my eyes
** current status
My wife has been away for a while — a fortnight perhaps — looking after her mother, who had had a fall and is recovering. It wasn’t supposed to be a fortnight, but these things have to be given the time they take.
Back here at the homestead our son is anxious — because of the age he is, because of his school work, worried about his grandmother, worried about his mother (who is working hard). I focus on keeping the household ticking over — food, cleaning, bedtimes — somewhat to the detriment of my work — which creates anxieties of its own. And then my wife calls every evening to “offload” after a day’s caring (and a day’s well-wishers and fecklessness from sister).
I have been going to the office some days, and even travelling locally for business. I think every one of those days I’ve slipped into panties and bra first thing. A rush of relief as I feel their magic wrap around me, and a background signal of comfort and reassurance through the day. That must sound so pathetic.
I would take my bra off at the office or in a meeting with a client, or at home. I have stayed away one night (son is 16) and gloriously panties and bra were first thing on in morning and last thing off at night.
One day late last week I mislaid my office key. Not elsewhere in the building, not in an “other” bag/coat/pocket, not in the wash.
An extra thing to do; an extra quantum of anxiety; a reminder of how anxious and frazzled I already was; a guilty prod that my dressing up probably makes me even more frazzled and absent-minded.
** meanwhile
When I learnt my wife would be away I ordered Thomas Keating’s “Open Heart, Open Mind” (recommended by Lisa) and I’ve been dipping into that (it is very rich); I’ve found time to post the review of “Wearing God”; I’ve started reading Lisa Notes and Messy Marriage again; I’ve finally joined Facebook, so I can join a reading group (run by Beth) on 1 Samuel.
** the cross
With a new week coming up, I remembered the cross necklace I bought (and haven’t worn for ages). I thought about wearing it under my shirt to work. Monday morning in the shower I started to feel a tension: bra and panties OR cross necklace. To wear both seemed very wrong and even mad.
As the seconds ticked away towards getting dressed the tension and the internal debate mounted. Not just intellectual debate but emotional tension and real uncertainty. I get the chance to dress up so rarely, I can wear the cross anytime (completely unobtrusive under my shirt). I didn’t want to set up a “panties = bad, cross = good” thing. I managed to talk myself into into by talking about making a decision and sticking to it, self-control, self-discipline: can I rely on myself to make a decision and carry it out, or am I always at the mercy of erupting desires?
It’s surprising what a wrench it was, not to step into my beloved “Nude Rose” bra & panties, but my silver cross necklace was the first thing on that morning.
The magic relief feeling I get when I put on this little cross is exactly the same as when I put on my nice lingerie. Exactly. It was when the lady put it on me in the cathedral shop. It is every time. The similarity between the effects is the main reason I think it’s appropriate to go into my dressing up here. It recalls Shannon Eldridge’s remarks in the Fantasy Fallacy that sexual fantasies and “perversions” are kind of inarticulate or confused yearnings after Jesus’ truer love.
Once the deed had been done I feel quite calm and happy and at peace.
** bus stop
Mooching about at the bus stop (there’s a 15 minute window during which the bus might appear) my eyes dropped to the grass by the side of the road. There, just where my eyes fell, was my office key. I couldn’t help laughing. I couldn’t help thinking God had put it there, right in front of my eyes, as a little thank you.
That was yesterday. My little silver cross necklace was first thing on today as well.
Posted by David on 2016-03-22
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/god-put-it-in-front-of-my-eyes/
“Wearing God” by Lauren F. Winner
Book details
Wearing God
Lauren F. Winner
2015
Harper Collins
Overview
I liked this book a lot. It was just right for me in two ways:
- I had spent 2015 reading the Psalms (two complete reads through, some learnings, some favouritings). I was (and still am) interested in learning more about the Psalms and all the different ways of talking about God. I looked around for books but many seemed far too academic. I came across Wearing God by chance on (or via) Lisa Notes. It’s about metaphors for God in the Old and New Testaments, and about how they can help us think about God and enrich our relationship with God.
- I had just come out of a bleak couple of months (see Two Pivots: Pivot 1 & Pivot 2). I found this book soothing and cheering — occasionally in that weird Christian way that mixes comfort with challenge.
Wearing God was a nice mix of “learnedness” and practicality. There’s a Further Reading section which has a few books I’ll look up:
- “Seeing the Psalms: a theology of metaphor” William P. Brown
- “Getting involved with God: rediscovering the Old Testament” Ellen F. Davis
- “Consider the Birds: a provocative guide to the birds of the Bible” Debbie Blue
Wearing God was my bedtime reading and I remember at least two occasions when it seemed to speak directly to the problems of my day:
- Our son has had glandular fever and/or anxiety syndrome and we have taken him out of school. It is very difficult trying to coax him to study without tripping him into panic, biting my tongue when he’s surly and always being positive and loving. After one especially bad evening of this I found myself starting in on the chapter on God as labouring woman: the unavoidable suffering and pangs God goes through to bring humanity to the light. I could see myself suffering like God there, and God suffering like me.
- The chapter on God’s laughter (which I didn’t much like, as God’s laughter seemed often to be about putting women in their place) spoke to my weaknesses. I forget the details now, but I’d spent some time in the evening browsing either lingerie or porn on my phone and ended up annoyed at myself, and slightly exasperated. Lieing in bed next to my wife the reading I remember that night was of Sara’s later laughter, laughing at herself and her situation. So I was able to laugh at myself, which seems better than being angry or exasperated, as laughter seemed to open a way to the “long view”, to hope.
God as clothing
After noticing that Wearing God had spoken to me so often — which was a surprise: I was expecting an interesting book on metaphor — I then became sursprised that the first chapter, on God as clothing, hadn’t spoken to me. So I read the chapter again, this time listening out carefully.
LW mentions God making clothes for Adam and Eve when they leave the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:21) but the main metaphor is of people being clothed in God, or clothed in Christ (e.g., Galatians 3:27).
LW mentions the normal attraction of dressing up (p. 38 “… every time we change into a different kind of clothing, we can play at being a different kind of self”), she says she finds “the notion of God as clothing endlessly suggestive” (p. 37), she even says “To understand Christ as clothing is to understand a certain holy gender-bending” (p. 49). But, all her clothing examples are decidedly “appropriate”. The “gender-bending” is really about /women/ wearing androgynous utilitarian clothing.
LW asks what would it mean to imaging God as a warm winter coat, as a cardigan sweater: “What does it mean to imagine God as a warm winter coat? As a handmade bespoke suit? As a beloved cardigan sweater, purchased in Galway on your honeymoon …?” (p. 37).
I ask, what would it mean to imagine wearing God as a strappy satin nightie?
What would it mean for LW — a woman — to imagine God as a strappy satin nightie?
What would it mean for me — a man — to imagine God as a strappy satin nightie?
As an elegant blouse and long swishy skirt with white stockings and frilly French knickers underneath?
As a dainty bra that fits me — a man — just right?
Perhaps these imaginings seem repulsive or sacreligeous. Why?
Perhaps “God as clothing” shouldn’t be “sexy” clothing. I think there’s room for investigation there generally — but I do sometimes use dressing up as a kind of sex toy and I can see anything in that direction is not appropriate.
But I don’t always use dressing up like that. Sometimes (more often I think, after all there are more convenient sex toys) I dress up because … well,
Why /do/ I dress up?
Why /would/ I want to imagine God in these ways?
When we “imagine God as a cardigan sweater”, what are we doing? We are thinking about how the features a cardigan sweater is /supposed/ to have, what wearing a cardigan sweater is /supposed/ to be like, might apply to God. So, comfort, warmth, organic, traditional, familiar in some way, and so on.
God as a strappy satin nightie
I wear my nightie when I’m staying away on business. After the day’s work I get back to the hotel, I tie up loose ends, I respond to outstanding emails, I have dinner. When I get back to my room after dinner I immediately undress and change into my nightie, and then I relax. I tidy things away and set things out for the morning, I read or listen to music (often wearing a sweater on top of the nightie, so the nightie is like loungewear or even a dress). Hotel rooms are always too hot for boy pyjamas or a t-shirt, so I sleep in the nightie. I enjoy feeling the straps over my shoulders, and the soft cool material by my skin.
The fact that I like to dress up is the most secret thing in my whole life — ever since I started when I was a small boy. I can only wear something like this behind a locked door and closed curtains. So, wearing something like this /means/: I am in a private space, I am safe, no-one will come and get me, no-one will tell me to explain myself. Free from danger, I am free — in such a tiny way — (I won’t say “to be myself” that is nonsense). Sometimes I do bad things, sometimes I don’t. It’s a silly childish spell.
God — or at least Jesus — shelters me. To feel him near me is a beautiful luxurious feeling. I don’t need to explain myself to him — and if I don’t need to explain myself to him, why would I need to explain myself to anyone else? Jesus near me means I am safe: I even used to say to myself sometimes “You are safe: Jesus loves you.”
God as a dainty bra
For present purposes there are two types of bra: padded and un-padded. I have one of each, with matching knickers. I wear them in different circumstances.
The padded bra I always wear with the matching knickers. They are a glamorous, silky set. Because the padded bra affects my silhouette so much I can only wear them in private, as with the nightie. If my wife and son are away together for a few days I’ll spend all my time at home dressed just in these bra & panties, maybe with tights, and just a shirt or a dressing gown. I’ll work, I’ll iron and cook and clean, and I’ll feel light and free.
The unpadded bra I wear, mostly with the matching knickers, when I am out and about in some town away on business: shopping, eating at a restaurant in the evening.
It’s especially nice if they can be first things on in the morning (like this morning! ^^). In the morning after my shower I feel all clean and fresh and somehow climbing into special nice bra & panties enhances, encapsulates and preserves that feeling.
I have only started wearing bras very recently (March 2013 I bought my first bra). It feels like being gently hugged, embraced. I’d like to find a bra that would really fit my tiny breasts. It feels very intimate and tender, especially if I know I am wearing matching bra and panties. And if I am wearing out and about, it is a special secret that sometimes makes me blush.
Because these clothes are a treat for me, the bras I wear are dainty and pretty. Wearing something special and nice that close to me makes me feel that I am special and nice — like the nice ladies who wear these clothes in the catalogues. (I don’t mean special as in “better” than anybody else, I mean something more like “treasured”). I am always conscious that I am wearing a bra, so it is always reminding me of all this.
God holds and supports me. I am always aware of Him and I can always feel his presence. Knowing Jesus loves me makes me feel special and treasured (I don’t need to feel “strong”: I feel “strong” all the time. It’s easy to pull myself together, to fight, to get to bed early, to exercise, to eat properly).
The “secret” side feels relevant too. I love Jesus, I love reading the Bible and these Christian books. Because of today’s cultural environment, I feel I have to keep all that secret too (although my wife has started saying it is a “matter of time” before I “turn into a Christian”).
Posted by David on 2016-03-17
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2016/03/17/wearing-god-by-lauren-f-winner/
Shame
Yesterday I did something that made me feel so ashamed. Far too ashamed to give any details here (and I don’t want to be tempted to “explain it away”). In the immediate aftermath I was full of disgust at myself. Of course I have done things like this before. Of course I will do things like this again. A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Even the word “sin” seems to pretty it up — encapsulate and tidy away the revulsion I feel.
[I should say, nobody was hurt or even inconvenienced by what I did. Probably (hopefully!) nobody even noticed.]
In bed at night I found this poem.
Quite shocking to read by chance something that is so close to how I feel.
The first two verses felt very true, as I ruefully remembered the morning. How much I’d like to forget what I’d done, or wall off temptation far away.
When I read “O my saviour, who my refuge art”, I suddenly thought of taking these things I’d done — that day, still fresh and close in my memory — and showing them to Jesus. That felt horrible, and I felt even more ashamed.
But the lines after that didn’t feel quite right. I don’t really want Jesus to be a wall inside me. I want him to be a kind of better temptation. I want to learn to turn to him instead of following my baser urges.
I don’t want to be divided from my sin — so my sin can carry on doing its own thing without troubling me? Isn’t that worse?
I have to own my sin, own these horrid things I do. I have to find a way to give them up somehow to God or Jesus. What a weird kind of offering. I don’t know what to do with it.
I forgot to pray that night. I forgot to ask for forgiveness. Will try to remember tonight.
Posted by David on 2016-03-02
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/shame-2/
Two pivots. Pivot 2: up (I hope)
*** Jan 2016: London again
January 2016 I was down in London again, this time to meet an exciting potential new client.
(although the meeting went well, it doesn’t look like we will work together: they were ostensibly looking for a specialist contractor, but they were really looking for a new in-house generalist. We’ll see.)
After the meeting I was going to spend a couple of nights with my mother-in-law (who is 90: fairly healthy, but I generally stay over if I’m anywhere near).
I’d been in this slough of despond for two months. I wanted to pivot up again. I didn’t set myself any targets — other than performing well at the meeting, and having a nice time with my M-i-L — but I wanted this short stay away to swing me up again, into most of all a stronger more positive outlook.
I felt so done in I wanted to pamper myself. On the way down I was wearing knickers and I changed into a bra on the train. The first thing I did after checking in to my hotel was to go shopping: a new bra & panty set from Marks & Spencers, and three pairs of knickers from Boux Avenue. I even went out for dinner still wearing my bra under my shirt.
Perhaps that doesn’t sound too good, but I had an early night, and in terms of pampering it worked very well. I was confident and relaxed with the potential client, and visit with M-i-L also went well.
Staying with M-i-L for a few days was also a very good opportunity to ponder on my work generally, and to prepare for my upswing.
I was expecting to be trying out all my new knickers while I was there but as it turned out I was too tense waiting to hear from this company.
*** Now
That was a couple of weeks ago. How is the upswing going?
I think the pivot idea was a good one and the upswing is happening. Realising to myself that it is not all about me and my own bad habits was important. My wife, and our son, and the state of my business are all affecting me. This swing is not just “up” but also “out”: as well as them affecting me, I can affect them.
So I am going to write more about my Real Life here — including my work (no maths I promise). Apologies in advance for some dreary blog posts.
I will probably write more about dressing up too. Not just out of bravado or angst. It is part of me and it does comfort me (and I just enjoy it). When I leave this behind it will have to be done right and for the right reasons.
Other news:
- Porn doesn’t seem to be a problem at the moment — in that I rarely look at it.
- After returning from London I started reading “Wearing God” by Lauren F. Winner, and I’ve just finished it. It is a lovely book and it was just what I needed to read. I am sure it helped me pull myself together again. I’ll post a review shortly. After reading it I have started praying regularly again.
Posted by David on 2016-02-05
https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/two-pivots-pivot-2-up-i-hope/
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