hard-won pride, humility, and power

i was thinking again this morning.

i can't really explain the thoughts, they aren't well formed, but i was thinking of humility and pride and how they seem so diametrically opposite, and in fact they are, but they can and do coexist peacefully within me. How can that be? That's what is difficult to explain, but i will attempt to do just that.

i am so very proud of who i am, and who i belong to, and the progress i have made in my personal life. i truly don't recognize myself at times, especially when i look at where i have come from. There is no way that i could ever convey the dramatic difference, and even if i could, y'all would have a difficult time believing it. Padrone can attest to that fact, if y'all want to ask Him. His slave, His woman, has grown up while wearing His collar.

i am so proud of that, y'all. That has taken quite a bit of work, introspection, realization of things that i have no choice but to accept about myself, and even recently things that i refuse to accept because i am not convinced that they are truly who i am....and the struggle that it creates even now. But i know that eventually i will be able to work through it and find out more about myself - even if it is that i *am* who i thought i was in this particular area.

This struggle is internal, and it isn't something that Padrone requires. The struggles aren't His, they have no effect on Him as long as my behavior is appropriate....except the effect that any internal changes bring to our relationship. That is my point - He wants me to enjoy, to be happy, but that isn't His main concern. He cares about my obedience. My enjoyment is a bonus, to me and to Him as well. He loves my pleasure, but His own pleasure is what it is all about, and HIS pleasure comes from my submission, my surrender to His will.

i know that i please Him. That is also a source of pride for me. i am so proud to know that the simple country girl that i am, is pleasing to a man as wonderful as my Padrone. For me, that is a new feeling...knowledge that i please, simply because i am who i am. i am submissive, deeply submissive, and Padrone needs just that. But it isn't merely my submission that He loves. i finally know that it is all of me, and i can't help but smile with pride that i am His.

But the humility aspect....how can i not feel humbled by the degree of intensity of our interaction, our relationship? i suspected from the beginning that He would control more of me than anyone ever had before, and more deeply as well. But nothing prepared me for what He does control, and how He does it. Nothing could have prepared me for it. He has said in the past that He wonders if there is a limit to my submission, and honestly it hasn't been found yet...but neither has His need and desire to control me either.

This incredible Master, and who He has shown Himself to be to others is only a taste of who He really is, that i can honestly say, has found in me...in me....the slave that meets His deepest desires. How can i not feel so humbled by that fact, even while i swell with pride to know that it is so?

i have thought, and i have discovered that humility itself, is a totally different kind of power.

i am humbled by what we have, Padrone. i am honored by Your collar, by Your ownership, and all that it entails. i bask in the pride that You feel for me, my Owner. But the relationship itself....the intensity that is ever-deepening... the control...the submission...the emotions....the behaviors....the surrender and the need for such deep surrender.....THAT is what truly humbles me.

What we have, Padrone, is something larger than both of us combined should have been able to create. What we have can only have been created by emotions and needs and connections that are destined for one another. That is what i find humbling, and yet in that humility... is the power to increase, to strengthen, to grow, to expand, and to inflame what exists until we are both consumed time and again with one another, and with the relationship itself. It can only happen with You...and with me.

"i love You" is a very pale image of the place You have in my heart, mind, and in my life. i am Yours. Completely.