A Sad Occasion and a Selfish Spanko

Tonight I went to a memorial service for the husband of a lady I work with. He was only 39, and now she, at 36, is a widow. Last Friday she came home from work and found him unresponsive. She called an ambulance and they got him to the hospital, where they found that he'd had a stroke. Unfortunately he never came out of it, and he passed on Sunday.

I've known my coworker for nine years now, but I'd only met her husband in passing. The service tonight made me wish I'd known John better. I know that at a funeral, naturally everyone is going to focus on the good qualities of the deceased, but you could really tell that he was just a great guy. His uncle runs a ministry that focuses on helping the homeless, and, John was very involved with it, despite numerous health problems that made just taking care of himself difficult and eventually led to a tragically early death.

My heart breaks for his wife tonight, and it makes me even more grateful for Nick.

On another topic, I'm due for a spanking sometime in the possibly near future. It's for a financial issue, although not an overspending issue. Here's what frustrates me: when I've done something wrong, Nick is pretty good about dealing with it (eventually). And that's a good thing. But when I need a spanking for something else (stress relief, etc) I don't really feel like I can count on it happening.

The much promised birthday spanking, for instance - never happened. And what I wanted from the birthday spanking was less a playful experience than a slate cleaning experience. And the night before New Year's Eve, I mentioned to him that the next day would be our 5 year DD anniversary and asked him if he would give me a sort of here's-what-I-want-you-to-focus-on-for-the-future/start-the-year-fresh spanking. The next day nothing was said about it, so finally, as we waited for midnight to roll around, I asked him about it. He looked surprised and told me he didn't remember the conversation. Okay, we were in bed when I asked him, so I could see that I had probably misjudged the sleepiness factor when I asked him, so no big deal. But then he said, "Okay, how about this - tomorrow it's happening, no matter what, come hell or high water." Except it didn't. Not the day after that, either. Or any day since then.

I guess what kills me is that I don't know how to fix this. I know and can accept that one of my biggest needs is for the occasional serious (non-punishment) spanking. It's obviously important that the punishment ones happen too, but those I try to avoid, not only because they really, really hurt, but also because the fact that I'm getting one means that I've somehow screwed up and put stress on our lives. So I'm not about to do something to earn one just because I'm feeling the need to be spanked.

I've never been the type of person who was comfortable with that kind of manipulative bratting. It's selfish and thoughtless, and it completely undermines all the good that DD can do in a marriage. However that leaves me stranded when it comes to just getting the reset button pushed. It's hard enough for me to ask without feeling like I'm talking to a brick wall, regardless of how promising and attentive he may seem at the time.

We've done the whole maintenance thing, and while that had its time and place, we both feel like we've grown beyond that, and that at this point it would just feel forced and fake (as it began to feel toward the end of the time we practiced it).

But of course this whole part of this post leaves me feeling incredibly guilty, because what Nick does for me in doing DD at all is so much more than he signed on for when we got married, and I truly am grateful for all that he does. He's very good at disciplinary spankings, and not the just actual spanking part of it. He's good at the lecturing, at taking me to the point where I need to go, at knowing that it's not something that can be handled in the time it takes to beat my behind, but rather involves giving me time to process the experience, cry myself out, and come back out of my cocoon.

And yet, selfish as it makes me feel, sometimes I need another level.