Things have changed a bit in our household in the past few weeks. The biggest change(and the one thing that has caused other things to change-yay snowball effect!)has been that I have started my German language course required by the immigration office This means that I now have class from 8:45 AM until 12:45 PM, Monday thru Friday. This means no more staying up until 11 PM or lying around in bed cuddling with Daddy until 8 or 9 AM. This means my butt is up at 6:30 AM so I can be out the door by 7:45 and then usually I’m ready to pass out about 9:30 PM, and that’s on a good night. Starting class has totally messed up my earlier shopping and cleaning schedule. Instead of spending my mornings' cleaning or shopping(depending on what day it was), I now spend my mornings conjugating German verbs and trying to get that “spr” and “ch” sounds down.

The other night, I was fighting sleep. It was about 9 PM or so and I was exhausted and that kinda irritates me because well, I feel that’s just too early to be as worn out as I was feeling. I told Daddy that I couldn’t fight staying awake anymore and I was going to bed. Daddy told me that He would go to bed as well because He knew I needed the cuddle time and at that precise moment, the tears and incomprehensible high-pitched voice started. I felt guilty about being so tired because I felt like I hadn’t done anything to be that tired. I felt guilty because Daddy was going to bed earlier than what He normally does. I felt guilty because there were dirty dishes in the sink and dirty laundry in the washer that I just hadn’t felt up to tackling. Most of all, I was terrified that I was disappointing Daddy. It took a few times for me to communicate all of this to Daddy because well, He can’t exactly understand that high-pitched voice I tend to emit whenever I get really upset. He reassured me several times that I won’t disappoint Him because He knows that I’m trying my best and that is all He ever expects from me.

It really sucks a lot when real life sets in. All these day-to-day responsibilities such as work and school, kids, bills, the list just goes on and on. Unfortunately, there’s nothing that we can do about this. Well, there is, but the consequences are never fun. Even though we can’t always spend our days chained to the bed or sitting at our owner’s feet, there’s always a way to still show your submission in the vanilla world.

• Wearing your collar or another piece of meaningful jewelry(if you can’t wear your collar at work or publicly).
• Letting your owner know where you’re at via SMS message(texting)or another messenger service, even when your owner can’t always reply.
• Spend some time every day meditating on your submission, even if you can only spend 15 minutes or so. Doing this while driving or on break from work is a great way to get this done.
• Keeping a journal-I know it’s hard sometimes to get this done, but set aside one hour, even just a half an hour, once or twice a week or however often you like and write. If you need a starting off point, use Submissive Guide’s journal prompts.
• Laying out your owner’s clothing for the day.
• Wait until taking your first bite of a meal until after your owner has taken his/her first bite.

There are so many ways of showing your submission even when caught up in the whirlwind of vanilla life. I know how difficult it is to try to keep the proper mindset and how easy it is to fall apart when you feel like you’re losing a huge chunk of who you are as a person. For me anyways, losing the feeling of being a slave tears me up inside and makes me lose any motivation I may have to do anything and I’m sure there are several others out there who can understand that feeling. This struggle to find the balance between the vanilla world and living the kind of BDSM relationship we want with our partner is something that we as slaves and submissives have to struggle with on a regular basis throughout our submissive paths. But like everything else in life, it’s just one of those small bumps in the road that makes life interesting.