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Monday, January 08, 2007

Well, Happy New Year everyone!

I have to say I am a little relieved the holidays are over, even though I enjoyed being around friends and family.

Sarah Jane's first Christmas was fun. She was totally over excited and completely enthralled all morning with all the people and noise and glittery sparkly paper and shiny new things around. She became over stimulated and irritable before lunch so I ended up sneaking her away. I knew that with my mother and Mac's mother both in the kitchen I was not needed downstairs so I took my time with Sarah Jane, bathing her, massaging her, dressing and wrapping her. Mac came looking for us just as Sarah Jane's eyes were growing heavy and I was about to feed her. He sat with us and watched as Sarah Jane fell asleep suckling at my breast.

When she was done Mac took her from me and held her up on His shoulder so she would burp, then He put her into her bed and we both tucked her in. I turned to Him and He put His arms around me and we stood there for a while, just being us before going back downstairs to the rest of the family. It was my favourite part of Christmas day.

And New Years was pretty overwhelming. I have not been around that many people for quite some time and found myself sneaking off so that I could catch my breath now and then. I like parties, I really do, but I find myself much more appreciative of quiet time now. And it took me a few days to get over the lack of sleep. I think I am losing the ability to be a party animal. I don't think I will miss it too much.

Over the years of writing Submissive Reflections I have had a few commenters accuse me of letting women down. I have been told that I should be ashamed for living my life the way I do, that women fought for the rights that I take for granted and that I am spitting in their faces by choosing to live in a male dominated hierarchy. For 22 years of my life, I would have thought the same thing of me. Had I read this blog during those 22 years, I probably would have been shocked. I didn't know I had a choice to make. I was told that I had to have a career, I had to be independent, I had to do it all by myself, and raise a family while doing it. That is what a successful women does!

I no longer think I am letting women anywhere down. I chose my life, I chose my partner, I choose every day to trust that He is doing what is best for us. I love Him. I love the way I am allowed to live. For the first time in my life, I am comfortable being me. I do believe that is what feminism should have been about, giving women the choice to be a lawyer, and/or a bricklayer, and/or a doctor, and/or a CEO and/or a mother and/or a wife. I made my choice. And I am happy, healthy and thriving with the choice I made.

Now when I get a comment that says I am letting women down, I do sit back and reflect on it. I try and see how I am hurting other women or making it hard for other's to achieve what they want out of life and to be honest, I cannot see it. I don't see how living my life detracts from anyone else's life. I do not try to encourage others to live the way I do. I do not expect people to use my life as a guide. The only thing I do is say to women that you do have a choice, you don't have to do everything by yourself to be happy. Happiness comes to you by making the right choice for you. When someone says to me that I am letting women down, what I think they are really saying is that I am letting them personally down. The choices I have made make them uncomfortable for whatever reason and they want me to live my life by the choices they would make for me. They want me to be the way they think I should be. When they tell me I am letting women down, it is them that are letting women down by trying to make us all conform to their set of values instead of letting us have the freedom to choose our own.

So this (belated) New Years, I wish that every woman (and man) out there find the way of life that makes them happy. This year my resolution is not to let the nay-sayers drag me down.

Now I am off to feed and change my darling daughter who, according to my breasts, is due to wake. I say 'feed and change' not because she is an animal (though technically she is, we all are), I say it because it is exactly what I am going to do. And once she is settled, I intend on finding some food to feed my Husband when He gets home.

But luckily, I don't need to change Him.


Posted by Sarah McBroden at 11:51 am




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