You're listening to Loving BDSM podcast episode four
thirty nine.
I have I I have something in my
throat. No worries. Kayla Lords here with the,
nope.
How do words work? Oh my god. Kayla
Lords here with the one, the only, I'm
not gonna try to add anything cute, John
Brownstone.
Oh my god. Wow. Real professionals would rerecord
it, but nope. We're just moving forward, y'all.
This week, we are continuing our series about
making power exchange work in the real world
by talking about
what happens and what can happen and what
we can do about our power exchange when
we are taking care of other people who
are not our partners. So raising children, caregiving
for adults, that kind of thing.
And and
I wish I could say, here are all
the things and here's a checklist, but y'all
know me. There's no there's no checklist, but
we will talk about it.
Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If this
is your first time listening, glad to have
you. If you're back for another week, welcome
back. Loving BDSM is produced every Monday and
Friday for your kinky pleasure in education. Show
notes are found at lovingBDSM.net.
Come back often and feel free to add
the podcast to your favorite podcast app. You
can also follow the show on FetLife at
loving BDSM PC,
on Instagram and technically threads at that handle
I will forever fucking hate, loving d s
and the number one. So that's at loving
d s one. On blue sky at lovingBDSM.
Blah blah blah blah blah, or on YouTube
at youtube.com/lovingBDSM,
where you can watch us live stream the
podcast every Wednesday. All links are in the
show notes.
Okay. So How about if I just click
it instead of hit it? I mean, but
we're kinky around here and we're into impact.
No. You can't do that. I need it.
Oh, you need that. Well, I need it
out of my way.
I will pull it back out. I just
need it out of my way. I went
through all that to get it right and
where I need it to be. I will
pull it back out. I have a well,
I don't have a good memory, but I
have an eye for that kind of spatial
stuff. Give me a second. Is this anything
about this episode at all? No.
Is it a very good example of real
world power shit?
Yes. Yes. It is.
Okay. So was I supposed to have an
announcement of, you know, we're sponsoring us or
here, remember this thing? Sure. Sure. Didn't. Did
I? No. I can tell you, we just,
restocked a product on the kinkery, the kinkery
dot com.
It's the pounder. Mhmm. It's a a sleek,
simple,
beginner friendly
paddle. There you go. Thekinkery.com.
Okay. And and there's some beautiful woods that
I'm I know. I'm hope I'm part of
me hopes they go fast because they are
so gorgeous, but also,
I'd like to have them around so I
can show them off and be like, look,
this is the kind of shit he makes.
Right? Yeah. I I especially like the yellow
heart. Got some
I had some yellow heart,
and it's absolutely beautiful because the wood is
yellow,
but then there's, like, traces through the woods.
I call them almost feathers. Mhmm. It's beautiful.
Natural curving. Naturally occurring in
the wood. I tried to edit the pictures
to do them justice. Mhmm.
I tried. So there you go. Oh, that's
our announcement. Okay. Okay. So this week's episode,
several people because I've made offhand comments about
parenting. We've talked about the whole real world
dynamics. It's like, oh, yeah. Parenting will fuck
that up.
And a lot of people have commented who
are parents who are like, oh, my gosh.
Can we talk about this? Well,
I couldn't and wouldn't make this whole episode
just about parenting because we've actually talked about
it several times.
So that is linked in the places,
for
specific to parenting conversation. We are going to
talk about parenting,
but for those folks who are who are
done raising children and or have no intention
of ever raising children, that does not mean
you won't face something similar if you ever
have an adult in your life that needs
extra care, that can't live independently
or even if they're living independently, they just
need help. We've experienced that twice now. Mhmm.
And just, you know,
nothing prepares you for that. Not really.
But the awareness that, oh, yeah. If if
you find yourself in this situation five years
from now, maybe maybe
your,
leaky brain, like I have Swiss cheese brain,
will remember,
wait. Caitlin and JB talked about this. All
this shit I'm going through, it's normal. It's
it sucks, but it's normal. So that's that's
we're combining it all.
Two things I wanna say. Mhmm.
One, we're not talking specifically about partners. There
are absolutely power exchange relationships where one or
both more partners needs
specific caregiving. We're not talking about that because
that to me is a little bit separate
from this topic.
The other thing
when we do talk about parenting,
we are talking about the stereotypical
experience that most but not all parents will
have of their children grow up and as
they age
they become more
mature, more independent,
need you less or in different ways
depending on how you look at life, ideally
with the the thing of they will have
their own home and their own life, and
you'll
fully independent. Right? That is not true for
all parents. I do not want it to
make it sound like we think that.
I can't speak to that experience
at all.
I hope some of this might resonate, but
that is a challenge
that
this episode is not
equipped
to offer
probably anything helpful. That is a that is
a different
life experience. I don't have that life experience.
I'm not gonna I am not gonna try
to condescend
to parents who are living that life to
tell them what I think they can do
for their power exchange.
If you are a parent in that life,
maybe some of this will be helpful. God,
I hope so. But just know we know
your experience is way different than the parenting
we will talk about. We are not gonna
spend the whole episode on parenting, but we're
gonna touch on it. For anybody who absolutely
hates the thought of parenting, I'm so sorry.
That's why I try to add in adult
caregiving.
Just know our stance is there's no requirement
to be a parent. If you want don't
want to have children, don't.
For anybody who is struggling, I am so
sorry. I can understand why you might skip
this one. That's understandable too. Okay.
So,
the other thing we always say when we
do talk about parenting, we don't think we
are experts on parenting.
Your mileage will always vary.
We tend to talk, as we do on
all things, but our own specific experiences.
We know that doesn't work for everybody.
Okay. And then, of course, talking about adult
caregiving. So we let's just set the whatever
here. Because I have all kinds of notes
that I'm very I'm very proud of me.
I am taking this series as seriously as
I am capable of taking anything. So just
I think that's a lot. I have the
ability.
With adult caregiving, there is an adult living
in your home,
elderly,
whether they are just
older and just can't live by themselves anymore
or
and the thing that terrifies me and terrifies
my own mother they have dementia, Alzheimer's, they
are slowly
not
being the parent you remember. Right? That kind
of situation.
And then there's also adult caregiving, which you
have direct experience in of they live at
home, but they need care, and that is
for however long they need that care with
the end result usually being
they are no longer on this earthly plane,
that kind
of disruption to life. It's temporary. It doesn't
live with you necessarily, but it's it's it's
a thing you have to contend with. So
that's where most of our experience with adult
caregiving comes from. Okay. So there's lots of
different situations and some of us have will
experience all of them and some of us
will experience one or two. I think it
even though there's differences between caregiving for an
adult
and caregiving for a child, there are very
clear differences. There's a lot of crossover.
So hopefully
this will resonate regardless of where you are
on the spectrum.
Okay. So I wanna talk about how this
caregiving for others, not your partner,
affects
power exchange life Mhmm. But power exchange. So
I made a list.
And you're checking it twice? And we're gonna
go through it. Sound good. And hopefully, as
we go through this, we can offer up
some things to consider, some things to try.
Okay. Just some solidarity. Alright. You turn on
the fan? Before we do that, I'm turning
on the noise maker. Oh, good. Because I've
already gotten myself all hot and bothered and
worked up.
So
okay. So let's start
with these are in no particular order because
they're all important at any given point. Mhmm.
The no time
for your power exchange, your fuckery. Oh.
Oh. Time
is not always on your side. It really
is not. So the parenting thing
that I often try to remind, especially newer
parents,
of is that in general,
these children
will grow up.
They will become more independent.
I am not gonna lie to you and
tell you that parenting gets
easier. It gets it stays hard. It's just
different hard is all it is.
So
in a typical parenting situation, the no time
thing does ease
up. Situation,
the no time thing
does ease up. So if you're dealing with
a screaming, crying, not sleeping through the night,
small, small human,
just know
there will be a time when you literally
could not wake them up with a brass
band playing in their bedroom. Pretty much. Yeah.
And you'll be like, oh, that means they
can't hear shit.
I'm in my room Right. Doing my thing.
So, that is a thing that
can shift and change. Right. And and, you
know, when when we first got together, the
boys were young enough, they were at that
They were in that peak time for them
where they could they slept like Like rocks.
Yeah. They nothing woke them up. Nothing woke
them up. They slept through the night, and
they they didn't hear. One one once their
eyes were closed and they were off in
dreamland, they didn't hear anything.
And then the there came a point where
the oldest
was,
not quite
the grade schooler, not quite high school, so
that that in between Mhmm. You know, and
and he was around a lot more.
And then high school
hit. It's a whole different animal. And and
that was a whole different animal too because
at at that time,
he was involved with a lot of things.
He was involved with school at, and he
was a very busy person. He was not
home very much. It was great when he
could start driving because then we didn't have
to be the chauffeur anymore.
How many times did we sit in the
circle parking circle at the high school in
our pajamas
waiting for a child
at 10:00 at night?
Oh, I was so grateful when I could
drink. Ball game. Yeah. Right.
So the
the no time thing
for parenting shifts and changes.
We have our youngest is 15
grader high school. However,
our youngest has mental and physical health stuff
and is homeschooled. Mhmm. And so
the his brother had the hit a certain
age,
you know, wanted all the independence we would
grant him. Mhmm. And then some. And then
some. More than we would grant him. Yeah.
And then the youngest is,
actually, I would do anything I could to
never leave this
this house. Right. Yeah. And so we've I
feel like from a parenting perspective, we're seeing
both ends of some kind of spectrum of
they're never home, which
the nice thing is when they're not home,
they're off doing their own thing. You get
that ideally, you get that time to yourself.
It's an hour. It's a couple hours.
Hopefully, there's no other children who are, like,
meeting you. Right? You might be able to
claw back some time.
In this case, we have a kid who's
always around, and this will come into the
privacy
issue.
So
we are not needed, but we are very
aware there is a child in this house
while we are trying to be kinky fuckers.
I yeah. You and and, you know, I
think I mentioned this to you, you know,
with him being home in a sense, it's
almost like being a caregiver twenty four seven.
When the health issues were at their peak,
it absolutely was. It absolutely was. Like, we
were not at a point
at at that stage where we were even
focused on our power exchange and certain nobody
had time or energy for fuckery.
So it just kinda pushed all that down
even more.
He's much more stable mostly.
We figured out a groove and a routine.
Mhmm. We can we also
we part we bought the house we live
in for very specific reasons. One is the
office in which we stream and record. Mhmm.
But two is because the kids' bedrooms are
on one side and we were on the
other. When we were
viewing this house,
one of the things we did and I
need you to remember, sound carries in an
empty building, empty room. Right. One of us
stood in what would be one of the
kids' bedrooms, closed the door. The other one
went
to what would be our bedroom, closed the
door. And then started we started making noise.
Noise. Loud noise. Yeah. When we realized, oh,
shit. Well, I can't hear him. He can't
hear me. We're like No.
All things being equal, this is the fucking
house.
Because we had just had
the,
the experience of the children being across the
hall from us and Oh, yeah. Thin walls.
Again, we will get to the privacy issue.
Mhmm. But it tends to be the privacy
issue and the time issues feel like they
go hand in hand. Yeah. Now,
the time thing, part of it as a
parent is as they need you less
and you can trust that they will not
swallow
a rock if you leave them alone or
stick their finger in a socket or whatever
whatever.
You can pull back some of that timing
and go to a private area and get
10, five minutes, 15 minutes. As they get
older, ideally, you get more and more time.
Now let's talk about the adult caregiving
because we had the experience of you having
to to travel. Yes. The first time was
your sister. Right. She was a few miles
up the road. It was Mhmm. It was
travel time because of traffic.
Yeah. But it was not But it was
in in in the same area. Same general
area. Exactly. The second time was your mom,
and that was a two hour drive one
way. Correct. And you were the one who
needed to be there Yeah. As the responsible
adult. Yeah. Great. So, yeah, I
the way that had,
or at least it was meant to work,
I would be gone during the week,
and then someone would take over
for me on the weekend. And I come
home,
see my baby girl, and catch up with
what what work
Yeah. Came in during that week.
And,
you know, there again too, it it it's
nice when
things work out the way they're supposed to,
but don't always count on it.
Numerous times, I came home for the weekend,
and within a few hours, I would get
a phone call. Right.
I know. I can't handle this. What am
I doing? I need you. And I had
to turn around and go back. And that
was not the adult needing care. It was
the adult who was supposed to be providing
care. Care. Yeah. Yeah.
So
that
put
a big strain
on RDS at that time. Oh, yeah. I
mean, even even more so than my sister
because at least that with with her, you
know, at the end of the day, I
was home. Right. Right. You were sitting in
your own bed most times. At the end
of every day, I was home with you.
Right. And we got to a point where
you and I actually were able to tag
team because
that was when you still worked your big
boy office job. Right. And so you had
a limited amount of time you could take
off Mhmm. That you would get paid for.
Yeah.
And I so the there came a point
I was like, I will drive you to
medical appointments. I will take you to stores
if you need it. Mhmm. I you know,
JB
doesn't have the time financially
at work to be able to do all
of this. Mhmm.
I I don't think I have to tell
anybody who's caring for any human
that if you can have help and access
to help and resources,
it does go easier than if you were
doing it on your fucking own. Mhmm. I
think we all know that. But it is
one of those things where whether it's raising
a child until you push them out of
the fucking nest, and if they come home,
at least they're adults Mhmm. Or it's an
adult who needs long term care.
It it what was I gonna say? Goddamn.
It's
it it will take up a lot of
time, but it tends to be a season
in life. It is not
usually
a forever thing. Mhmm.
And
I think what we found both with parenting
and taking care of your sister and then
your mom is you get into routines. You
know, even if you're not trying to, even
if you're a person who hates routines, most
of the time you kinda fall naturally and
knowing this is the pattern of what happens.
And so, like, when you're taking care of
your mom and you were gone
all week and then you'd be home usually
Friday evening or Saturday or whatever,
that was a time when, no, fuckery and
power exchange was kind of the furthest thing
from our minds.
Yeah. Yep. I cannot speak for anybody else,
and I'm not speaking for you, JV. But
I will say there is some,
hope is maybe too strong of a word,
but there is some
calm that I can feel when I can
look at a situation and I go,
no matter how this ends, whether it's triumphantly
or painfully, this is not forever.
Correct. It's not gonna be great when it
ends. We're gonna have to, like, go through
that too. But this situation that is sucking
up time and money and resources
and is
mentally, emotionally
difficult
does not last forever.
If we can get through this,
we can figure out what our new normal
looks like and get back to
some semblance of whatever we're trying to do.
But, yeah, with your sister, you actually had
more help,
not as much as you should have. Well
and then the end was a shit show.
Mhmm. With your mom, you had less help.
Yes. And less reliable help. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Now as
the person who was not directly impacted and
and had I missed my daddy, but I
stayed home with the kids and, like, my
that part of my life got to stay
normal.
As a submissive,
I was like, I am taking care of
things here both because that's what you do,
but I I framed it in my little
subby section of my mind as a service.
Anything to make your when you got home
your life a little bit easier.
For me,
that was how I could kinda hold on
to some of the power exchange
part. It was I just had to reframe
it. It was still a bad thing that
was gonna end in grief and pain because
it was.
But in the middle of it, the surviving
of it, the we had no time to
see one another. We were separated for days
at a time. Mhmm. All of that.
I was like, yeah. But if I can
kinda keep everything calm here and be one
less thing for JB to worry about
Yeah. Then I'm doing this I'm I'm I'm
serving.
With your sister,
that was more of a just a teamwork.
K? Right. What can I do to take
the burden off of you? How can I
ease make this a little easier for you?
Yeah. You know? And sometimes
both the you know, there's two of you
in the relationship
and child or adult, you're both going through
it and it's hard for both of you.
Mhmm. But the
the trying to help each other,
even if
it's not quite noticed in the moment or
you it's not explicitly asked for, just trying
to
be a support for for one and then
the other and switch
off. I think I think it makes a
difference. I do. Yeah. But the time factor,
that is why we talk about, I think,
in last week's episode,
small connections.
Small,
seemingly ordinary things that don't mean anything
except to the two of you.
Our
bedtime ritual. Mhmm. The only time we don't
do it is if he's not in this
building. Right. And even then, we'll do it
verbally over the phone. Correct. It's not quite
the same, but it it has meaning. Right?
Mhmm.
Routines.
Yeah. Having habits. This is what I do
as a dumb. This is what I do
as a sub. That you can do. Right?
Like, sometimes everything's so disruptive. You don't have
the time to do it. You have to,
like, put it to the side. But I
know what my routine looks like on a
typical day, whether I've got
two children
hanging on a leg, which
thankfully the oldest was old too old for
that by the time we started our power
exchange. Right. Or I've got teenagers who are
telling me that I make them do everything,
and
all I wanna make them do is take
a shower. You know? Mhmm.
Like, those routines, you know, for me,
that's what lets me feel my submissive self
when I don't have any external,
validation or experience. Or JB's gotta go off
and do his thing, and I'm still here
trying to keep everything going. I could still
connect
and tap into that even if we're not
directly doing it together. Mhmm.
I mean, one of one of the big
things for me,
especially since I I had to stay down
there for, you know,
days at a time,
was when we connected through FaceTime.
Mhmm. You know?
And and doing that,
you know, us connecting and talking every every
evening that way,
it it helped me
carry the emotional load. Mhmm.
Mhmm.
And I think that when when the caregiving
you're providing is very
stressful and there's grief attached to it,
I think whatever
one or both of you can do for
each other, even if when you're both truly
going through it at the same time. Right?
Maybe
the adult is somebody you're both super close
to. Maybe you each have an adult that
you're caregiving for and you're both going through
it. Those, man, those small points of connection
are the things that you can find to
do for each other. And look, that is
not a kink thing. That's not a power
exchange thing. That is a human thing, a
relationship thing. Doesn't matter the flavor, but if
you can then do it with
a kinky twist, you know, I think I
think it can be those small moments
that don't take a lot of time, that
are happening while you're doing other things, that
are part of a routine that you are
able to maintain.
And that means you might have to strip
down and simplify the power exchange in kinklife.
It might have to go to bare bare
minimum for you to, you know, to feel
like you can be a little connected to
the power exchange, but also get through your
day. Right. I mean, those little things
were so important. Mhmm.
Alright.
You know, between between all the stress and
everything else that was going on at the
time,
you know, you you don't have a lot
of,
freedom to just,
you know,
move about, so to speak. And, you know,
do do the things the way you normally
do them. So when, you know,
those little things yeah, man. In in those
instances, you you look for it and you
hold on to it. Mhmm. And you have
to be intentional about it. Yeah. And there
will be times you can't be intentional. It's
a bad day. It was a bad night.
It's a whatever.
You don't have the luxury of time to
even really think about it. But when you
get those quiet moments where you can think
about it Mhmm. And the thing is is
the quiet moments for people who, like like,
I'm a person who I need some quiet
time to really, like, deep dive into my
own brain to figure out what I'm thinking
and what I'm feeling.
Some of those situations don't allow for lots
and lots of time.
So
I
had to get good at
allowing myself five minutes. Look, it might be
when I finally got to sit down and
go to the bathroom and pee. And there
was the two minutes I had in there
on my own as a parent or anything
else
to try. But I also think you have
to be careful not to put too much
pressure
on yourself and your partner in the relationship.
These, you know, raising little humans to be
not shitty big humans
and caring for adults who maybe have cared
for you when you were little or you're
seeing them in a vulnerable way that you
would never normally have seen them,
that
carries that takes a shit ton of time
and it carries a huge emotional strain. And
if
you are also on top of it worried
about somehow maintaining
some
very in-depth
time consuming
kink life,
you are going to burn yourself out from
both fucking ends because something will have to
give. You know? Mhmm. Is there that some
exceptional person who's like, no. No. No. I
can handle. I can compartmentalize, and I can
give this much attention to this and that
much attention to that, and I can keep
it balanced.
You, my friend, are the exception. You are
not the rule. The rule is most of
us have a limited capacity. Right. And parenting,
caregiving,
there are stages and times in life where
that is your biggest focus. Yeah. And that
means that your power exchange, no matter how
much you care about it and how much
meaning you derive from it and how much
you feel
connected to your truest self,
it takes a back seat and that is
normal.
And I the the things I've seen people
put themselves through to try to maintain what
they had at a time in life when
they don't have the same amount of time
for it,
you're making your life harder than it needs
to be.
Now, you know, I I will say this.
What what helped me too through that time
was the fact that you were taking care
of everything.
When I came when I came home,
the house was cared for. The house was
taken care of. The, you know, there were
you had done grocery shopping. You did whatever,
you know, laundry needed to be done. You
took you took care of all that. And
and for me, that was a big thing.
Mhmm. You know? And and also too,
you know, because we still had a business
to run. Mhmm. And to pay the mortgage.
Yeah. Yeah. We did. So
when when I came home, what I was
very grateful for
too, you know, you had things laid out
for me
for the work that I had to do
for the weekend, and and you had it
laid out for me so I could just,
you know, pop up up up up right
through. Mhmm.
You know? So that that,
that went a long way.
Here's the thing that this ties into.
So in some situations, one of you is
off having to do the caregiving, and the
other one of you is left behind or
not as involved and so you're looking at
every other part of your life. Right? That's
gotta be maintained.
This is an example of sharing the mental
load.
I could take on
the domestic
and professional mental load because JB's mental load
was
unending stress and grief. Right?
In parenting, this is one of many reasons
the first first marriage did not work. There's
so many reasons, but this is one of
them. There was no sharing of the mental
load.
You know? It was all on me
to remember everything, to take care of everything.
Now we do have an episode about mental
load in power exchange,
but the more you can share
in a relationship where you're trying to you're
trying to have be fucking kinky and power
exchange y, but also this thing is happening
in your life, the more you can share
the mental load,
none of it's easy, but
the air quote, that's the easier it is.
Because then you're not alone. Right? Like, in
my mind, JB was doing the hardest part.
He was making these drives, and then he
was going into
sometimes
idiotically
stupid stressful moments that didn't even need to
be stressful. And there was not a fucking
thing I could do to help. But what
I could do is make sure his life
was a little easier at home. Right?
In parenting, there were a lot of times
I'm what's called the default parent. My children
to this day are coming to me first.
Like, one's a fucking adult. I'm getting the
first text, the first one. And I don't
mind. I'd I'm glad I have that relationship
with them. But what that meant was when
they were younger,
everything was mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.
Mom. And so if
I
of
by the way, some of y'all have heard
it before. My text, my ringer for my
children
is Stewie
saying mom, mom, mommy, might. Because, yeah, that's
familiar.
Mama.
So JB was always very good at going,
oh, this is a,
a high touch parenting moment.
BG don't have time for nothing. I can
go clean this thing. I can take care
of this thing. I can offer to help
with the parenting thing,
you know, so that that that mental load
was shared. Because when you already don't have
time to connect in your power exchange and
also you're carrying the mental load of caring
for this or keeping something going or whatever
whatever, if it's not the burden is not
shared,
you have less time. And also, you are
one of the things we're about to get
to, it's actually the next thing. Let's segue
into it. Stress.
The stress of it all. The stress of
it all. Shared mental load reduces that a
little bit, but Mhmm. Sometimes
it's just gonna be stressful till it's not.
Right. It really is.
Pretty much. I mean, you know,
the times in parenting that were stressful that
were
sometimes I had to be reminded, sometimes I
already knew, that were
developmentally
appropriate. This is what they're kinda supposed to
do at this age, and you you got
to respond the way that you feel. You
got to respond, blah, blah, blah.
That is a that is a stress. But
then there is the stress. I'll speak from
a parenting perspective because you you felt it,
but you also felt the adult caregiving stress
on a different level. Yeah. When the youngest
was
mentally, physically the sickest he's ever been. Mhmm.
Actually, I had conversations with his therapist where
I kind of said and then she validated,
I was traumatized by that. Now, he was
traumatized by that. I'm not gonna take that
away. But the level of stress for that,
that is a different level of stress where
Yeah. Sometimes
the answer would be, god, can I just
feel my baby girl self? Can I feel
very submissive and taken care of? And sometimes
that was not the answer. That was not
what we needed.
Power exchange
did not
provide
the relief sometimes because the stress was just
too big. The fear was just too
great. The feeling out of control and like,
you don't know what's gonna happen and you
don't control any of it and you just
gotta fucking roll with it.
While also being a very anxious human being,
like, there were times.
JB could not daddy me out.
No.
Now from the stress perspective Mhmm. Adult caregiving,
what what was that like with power exchange?
I was like, how does that all from
your perspective?
You know,
I wish I could say
it's it's cut and dry and it's, you
know, this is gonna happen. That's what it's
gonna be like. And it's not.
Mhmm. Because,
you know, caregiving for my sister,
caregiving for my mom, two very different,
very, very different
experiences.
Polar opposites almost, really, if you think about
it.
What did that do for the stress level?
From my side, what I wanted to do
was to make sure that you didn't it
goes back to the mental load. I wanted
to make other parts of your life as
stress free as possible Yeah. So that you
could function in the stress. Mhmm.
The first time you ever said to me,
I cannot be the decision maker right now.
I cannot dom right now. Do not ask
me anything.
Was at it was in the middle of
taking care of your
It had been a bad day. There was
a lot of family angst. That was unnecessary.
Right. But it was there. It was there.
And I asked what you wanted to drink
with your dinner, and he went, nope. I
cannot make a decision. I could not even
decide on what I wanted to drink at
that point. No. Yeah. No. And we got
better over time
in stressful situations in general, not specific to
this. Have we done the episode on stress?
I'm sure we have.
Silent will tell me in the live chat.
We've gotten better at having kind of a
code
where Mhmm. And sometimes just outright saying it,
but we're better at saying this is too
much
for me to also
be in this role. This is too much
for me to to also be a decision
maker. This is too much for me to
get up and and Yeah. Serve. Like, I
I just I need to be alone. I
need to not be touched. I need to
sit in a dark room. I I need
something. But
to continue doing the things that are part
of
my submissive role, I can't I don't have
it in me.
It is
not easy to admit that
from either side of the slash, y'all.
It's a vulnerability thing.
I know from my perspective, and I think
probably yours,
if I'm have read it correctly, it feels
like you're letting the other one down. Right?
Like I said, I was gonna be this
person to you. This is our relationship. And
I'm over here telling you that I don't
I'm at my capacity. The stress is too
great. There's too much. It's too much today
or in general, you know? There were times
with your sister and your mom where some
days were easier than others. Right. And so
the stress levels there was stress that's always
there, you know. If you're caregiving for an
adult who is ill, the stress is always
there.
But the day you know, once you
got used to the spikes,
it made the days where there's no stress
spike feel
easier. Yeah.
I could ask you to make a decision.
That is also I think where we got
really good at because you trusted me.
I could pick your options
and so then you weren't making a decision
from out of nothing. From scratch. I was
just bringing you, hey, all of these options
will work.
Which one do you want? Which one do
you want? And
when you could make decisions that,
you know Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.
So for us
to
maybe have it be relatable
to anybody else out there,
we looked at, you know, we got better
at communicating.
We had to get real good with being
real vulnerable.
There, you know, I don't know if anybody
else feels this way, but to me,
the vulnerability of telling you that I can't
do the thing I said I would do,
I can't be who I said I would
be temporarily or for a long time,
versus the vulnerable is is harder to me
than the vulnerability of going, hey. Can you
hit me with that thing until I cry
and pretend you don't like me? Like, that's
it's all vulnerability.
Got that episode
too. But that because it feels like you're
letting the other person down
when you have to be that vulnerable. Go,
I can't do this the way that we've
been doing this. But I
think that's the most fucking honest conversation you
can have. Right. Because it allows you,
like, as a parent now I'm I'm very
grateful. I did not have to try to
be power exchange with infants. With the youngest
was as close to colicky. They wouldn't
diagnose, but that was colic.
The my first marriage did not even survive
being a parent to two. Like, I don't
know what power exchange would happen.
It means
the the no child power exchange and the
child having a child power exchange are completely
different animals.
And you gotta, you know,
have realistic expectations
that, hey, the thing we thought would work
because, oh, aren't babies easy?
Not for most of us.
You know, we're we can't do. There's there's
too much. It's it's too much. You know?
But you gotta be willing to have those
conversations. True. And I think, to me, the
real letdown
of your partner is not in not being
able to do
what you said you would do within your
role in your power exchange. It's not having
the conversation.
Yeah. Because two things are happening there. You
are drowning
and they are having expectations of you that
you can't meet. Hold up to him. Hold
up. Right. And so now there's the, what
the hell's going on with our relationship? You
said you would do a thing and now
now you just added stress on top of
stress.
You know? The reason there are so many
reasons we say kink is customizable.
Yeah. So many. I'm I'm I'm sure I
heard that somewhere and picked it up and
just fucking loved it and now now I'm
saying it all the time.
It's because it's also customizable at every stage
of your life.
If you try to hold on to the
power exchange you had
when you were not caring for an elderly
family member, when you were not
raising an infant, if you try to hold
on to that pre
this moment, this caregiving moment, power exchange, you
are setting yourself up for failure.
You just because it's gotta shift and change.
Even if that shift and change isn't that
much, there's gonna be a shift and change.
Mhmm. So you get to customize your power
exchange through every stage
of your life. Yeah. And you kinda have
to. And you kinda have to. And you
have to. You have to.
Because you don't, you know, we we've talked
about this
so many times.
You know,
it
DS or anything in life is not one
and done. You don't say, okay, this is
how we're gonna live our life and and
then you know la dee dee dee now.
We never think about it again. Yeah. Yeah.
About it again. You know, no.
It it it changes and you have to
change and flow with it. You you cannot
cannot
remain rigid Mhmm. And say, this is, you
know, this is it. No. You cannot do
that. I'm not saying change the change will
be shift will be easy. For some people,
that's that's really hard. Okay? To to just
chain to have to change a routine or
change a way of thinking. For others, it's
easier. Great. The thing is, is when you
are at a high stress point in life,
small children, teenage children who were driving, that
was a stress I was not prepared for.
Family members. Right? Whatever.
If you cannot shift your power exchange to
be what you need in the moment, you
have just it's stress compounding on top of
stress. You're just layering it. Well, why are
you gonna do that to yourself?
You know,
I'm I'm I'm gonna try and and and
relate this,
and maybe you can help me along the
way if I get, you know, start stumbling.
One of the best things I ever heard
was
a
thing where they're talking about, you know,
people would say, you know, oh, I'm giving
a %
in relationship, and you gotta give a %
and all that. And and that is so
not true.
Okay? Because on any given day,
you know, hell, maybe today I'm running at
a %.
Mhmm.
Tomorrow,
I, you know, would be at 75.
Right. You know? And
we
in in any relationship,
you need to be able
to
work back and forth with each other.
You know, when when one is feeling down,
you you you help you throw in that
extra percent to help that one. When you,
you know, and and it it's back and
forth. I I agree completely. The analogy I
like is not that you give a hundred,
I give a hundred, is that together we
give a hundred. Yes. I like that one
a lot because what it means is if
you're having a real rough day and all
you got is
20, if you can talk about it with
your partner,
they might not have the full 80. But
maybe they're in a better place and they
can give 60 or they were only given
50 before. Right? The other thing I like
and I think it gets forgotten. It's it
it's because even the % and the fifty
fifty Mhmm. Can be ableist.
So the thing I I like that I've
heard from
a lot of creators,
over the years is that if the best
you
have
is 20%, that's them. That's all you gave
everything you had. Guess what? You gave a
%.
Yeah. You did the best you could. Mhmm.
Now for those of us who think like
my brain does and I keep being told
it's a neurodivergent thing, so you can tell
me.
For us literal thinkers,
your best
is apparently not
the best you were ever capable of doing
ever. Giving your best is what you have
to give
without
burning yourself out in a given moment. I
didn't know that. I was raised you give
a 10
and I was like, I,
living on fumes, but I will dig deep
and find
what I think is a 10%.
No.
Also though, in that giving and that whether
it's hundred and hundred, 50 50, however you
wanna label it,
Sometimes, let's be real, especially caregiving, especially caring
for other human beings who have their own
feelings and needs and
right? Some days, you don't have anything to
fucking give. And guess what? Neither does your
partner.
And and now this segues into exhaustion.
Yeah.
That's the third one of those. We did
no time stress. Now we're at exhaustion.
I don't have like here's three easy tricks.
Right? Like,
What I have found is when we if
we can keep our sense of humor
from the stress to the exhaustion and admit
to one another, oh my god, I don't
have anything in the tank. And Jamie goes,
fuck me neither. And so then, we're openly
talking about how we are lumps on this
couch right now. And, yes, there's all these
things around our home that need to be
done. Yes. There's our whole power exchange routine
that we
barely
have energy for. You know?
Yes.
We made sure the small human survived the
day and went to bed. Check that off
the fucking list. That's what we got done.
We don't have anything left us. You know
what?
You we did a damn good job. We
kept small humans alive today.
Mhmm.
Is the house filthy? Sure. Sure. Is there
work still to be left? Sure. Sure. You
know, and and We are open and talk
about it and go, god, I'm fucking tired.
And then it's not this dirty little secret.
Right. And and also what what comes of
that, because we fell into that trap too,
at least I know I did.
You know, you you don't tell your partner
that you're exhausted or you know,
and
you you like you know I gotta do
what I gotta do. Mhmm. Kind of thing
you know,
and and you try to push through,
it it it's not a it's not a
good thing. It can build resentment.
Mhmm. You know, it can make the exhaustion
feel worse.
Mhmm. You know? It makes everything feel worse.
It makes everything feel worse. And then then
comes the point where, you know, then start
getting
snippy with one another.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know? And and and just by
that that that little bit of thing
saying,
excuse me folks. Somebody had a bubble. Yeah.
You know just by by sitting there and
saying, you know,
I I just don't have it today. I
I don't
have it in me. Okay.
That
kiboshes so much.
And it keeps the lines of communication open.
Yes. Now I'm I'm gonna be real with
you. There are days I got the energy
and JB doesn't. And JB's tired and he
goes, I don't have it in me. Do
I feel disappointed? Am I you know, my
my baby girl feel are they a little
sad? Sure. That is a human natural response.
It's fine.
What I don't do is take my bad
feelings out on him. He clearly
communicated where he was at.
I can say if it feels appropriate at
the time, maybe I save it for later.
Aw, that kinda sucks. That makes me sad.
Not in the way to pressure them and
guilt them, but just to kinda like have
the conversation. And then you know what?
The earth keeps fucking spinning and we keep
moving on because that might be today.
Tomorrow might be different. Right? Or maybe you
know, like, in a parenting situation, maybe you
can see a a point in the future
where where somebody, not you,
is caring for these fucking children. And you,
whether it's in your own house or somewhere
else,
get to pretend you're child free for, like,
half a second. And you know that you
have that coming.
Well, I can be disappointed now, but I
know I got this thing coming. Or,
you know, we've created enough of a routine
or when we are not both exhausted or
either one of us is not exhausted, we'll
have this thing that we'll do behind closed
doors. Exhaustion and stress goes back to that
small points of connection.
Yeah. The those become very, very, very important.
Let me say again because I say it
all the fucking time. Our bedtime routine is
it. Now, am I making coffee for this
man every fucking day because it's part of
my service? Sure. Am I making sure he's
got his probiotic as part of my service?
Yep. Yeah. Do I make the bed? Do
I unmake the bed? Yeah. Yeah. I got
my service stuff, like, doled out. Do I
always speak to him with respect because that's
the one constant rule? Abs fucking lily. Do
I still bring him decisions to make it?
But on days where he's like, I don't
want a coffee or I can't make decisions
today or whatever,
that bedtime routine,
there has been
one,
maybe two nights where we were both physically
in the room and did not really do
it. And it was some of our biggest
fucking
fights. Yeah. We don't fight often. We don't.
Stress and exhaustion, that's when
the biggest arguments come through. And thankfully, we
work through them. We Yeah. You know, we
make our apologies to one another. Mhmm. We
talk about what actually happened. We, you know,
try to figure out how we can do
better next time.
But, yeah. In general, that one time of
day and, like, our one time of day
I'm not saying have a bedtime routine. Our
one time of day that's guaranteed because we
go to bed at the same time. Mhmm.
Bedtime. Yep. Your one time a day might
be the five minutes before that first child
starts crying and and needs your attention. It
might be while your adult
that you're caregiving for is taking a nap
or is, you know Yeah. With another adult
that you can trust, and you don't even
have to think about them for the like,
you're one point in the day. You've got
to find it. You might have to get
creative,
but find that point where you can connect
in your powertrain. That's just like, you know,
with with with our youngest, even though,
you know, he's home all the time.
You know, when we
go to bed,
he, at that point, you know, we're old.
We we go to bed fairly early, not
that late. And he's
entrenched in his video games. He don't hear
shit from them. He's got his headphones on.
He's he's chatting Doors closed. Doors closed. He's
chatting with his friends while they're doing their,
you know, quests and different things. And yeah,
he don't hear shit. And we have learned
to take advantage of that. Right. Did it
take us a hot minute to get to
that point? Of course, it did. But it
it was like when when it hit, it
was like, oof,
light bulb.
Yes. Mhmm. Yes.
Little to no privacy.
Now this is different for everybody. We have
had as parents,
we've been fortunate as adult caregivers. Mhmm. Our
adults never lived in our home. No. So
that is not a thing that we have
faced, but we have we've had children all
this time. So,
the first place we live, they were
technically kind of on the opposite end of,
like, a hallway from us. Mhmm. But the
walls were thin, but they were young. And
that wasn't an age where they could go,
what was that sound, mommy? And I could
be like, oh, we were just clapping because
we were so happy.
I could distract them and they it would
be fun.
I also
as quickly as I could,
it was difficult.
I split from their dad, divorced their dad.
It was just us. He was never around
again. Thank you very much. That's how that
went. So I never got those weekends off
as a single mom. No. It did not
happen.
So in the beginning of the split, they
would
creep into my bed more often than after
we'd been
I'll just the three of us long enough,
I kinda was able to get them to
slowly
stop
sleeping in my bed. Because I'm the type
of parent that I I have a kid
in my bed if they're got a nightmare,
they don't feel good, something something. But in
general, I'm a parent that wants my child
to have their own bed. And that and
they,
did well with that. I never that was
never an issue. Yeah. You will have a
different setup and you will find your own
way. But what that meant was when I
moved in with JB, we very rarely had
to worry that a small child would be
creeping in in the middle of the night
or first thing in the morning. They just
kinda didn't do that. I think it helped
that the boys shared a room. There was
four year age there's four year age gap,
but for a lot of years, they shared
a room. So if one of them woke
up, they usually just went and poked their
brother. Like Mhmm.
Yeah.
And now,
these children would
twist themselves in the knots to do anything
to not have to come talk to me
in the middle of night about any fucking
thing. I'm not mad about it, y'all. I'm
not mad about it. I think as long
as it's not an emergency, let's have a
conversation when I'm caffeinated and I have clothes
on.
That's a good time.
Not at three in the morning. Now they
do know if they need something on there.
Yeah. But, you know, so that was a
a way that we did get our privacy.
So we had Mhmm. The townhome where the
walls were thin, but the kids are hard
sleepers. Yeah. And they didn't wander into my
room for any reason. Mhmm. Then we had
we had the condo where the bedrooms were
a little bit closer, but the walls are
nice and insulated and thick. The sound did
not quite carry. Mm-mm. And they were still
good sleepers, so we were good. Right. Then
we rented the house where they were right
across, like, here's our door. There's the width
of the hallway, and then there's their door.
And the walls were super thin. Yeah. There
was no privacy at that point. Yeah. The
walls were thin, and I don't think there
was any insulation
in those walls at all. Oh, my god.
No. The house had been purchased from somebody
who I think tried to flip it. Yeah.
And then they couldn't, so they rented it.
And it was it looked pretty if you
didn't look too close, if you didn't squint
your you know, you weren't
I didn't see that crack over
there. One of those kinds of homes, which
is why we did that very,
very
complex noise testing when we came to buy
this house. So the year Excuse me. I
get ish that we spent in the house
where they could hear everything and they were
way too fucking close. We were miserable
Yeah. For that year because
we did not
get
true fuckery
No. At all. Like, if we were doing
anything, it was real subtle stuff, and it
was like when we were in the car,
just the two of us. We tried to
when the kids were
both
at school, that would be, like, the time.
Mhmm. But the nighttime stuff, the first thing
in the morning stuff. Yeah. I know. Nope.
Because the and the problem with middle of
the day, that sounds like the easy thing.
Hey. You've got an hour. You've got six
hours. They're gone. Yeah. But we both gotta
work and we gotta earn a living and
we we gotta, like, be adults. So
we were really bad at finding
small moments of time. Like, we're begging y'all
to do. Like, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. If
you're lucky enough to get an hour, take
the fucking hour. Mhmm. You know? And I
get Yeah.
Not everybody feels this way. I know. But
I know how I am. I can be
I always say it's my baby girl side.
If I can't have
the whole
hour, the three hour scene, the big huge
production,
and that's what I'm focused on and thinking
about and and I'm thinking about how I'm
not getting it, it makes the little five
or ten minute
moment
pale in comparison.
And there have been times in my life
where I was like, well, if I can't
get the whole thing, I don't even want
the little taste of it.
I was spiting my fucking self.
My
I understand the urge.
I
beg you to not let yourself go down
that as much as possible. Take the ten
minutes you can get. Yeah. No. It's not
enough, but it's better than nothing. Nothing. We
have gone literal years
with nothing,
and that
sucked. If we were not so good at
communicating
and best fucking friends and our power exchange
wasn't so subtly, like, just intricately worked through
fucking everything,
I don't know what would have happened to
us with the amount of time we went
with almost nothing physical, because we kept waiting
for a three hour spot to open up.
Right?
For what? From 2020
COVID times to
2024,
what we had consistently was a small point
of connection. It was ten minutes. Mhmm. Which
the times that we argued so badly that
we refused to do our bedtime routine,
that hurt my feelings so bad. That made
those devastating.
Like, that really would point out just how
bad this argument was. It wasn't even right
for me. No. No. Nobody slept well at
night. No.
Here's
here's one. And this is a thing you
cannot
get away from, get around, because it's gonna
happen at times.
Putting the needs of your children or the
adults you're taking care of above your own.
Sometimes
there's kinda no fucking choice. You know? Somebody's
sick. Somebody needs extra care.
Somebody,
you know, needs extra time. I have, to
this day, have absolutely stopped what is going
on in whatever I'm doing minus going to
the bathroom. I will always go pee first.
I've learned I've learned on that.
To talk to a despondent
19 year old on the phone who
thinks everybody hates him and what he really
needed was a meal and a nap.
But, like, he he calls, and I I
know I know when I get that call
that he's calling because something's on his mind.
What are you doing, mom? Nothing. What's your
knee, babe?
The youngest, just yesterday, was going through it,
and I have learned with the help of
a therapist what some of this stuff means
and, you know, to be,
paying attention. Cognizant of it. Right? Be focused
on it. Everything stopped. Right? Everything stopped because
let let's what can I do? How can
I ease this for you? Can I fix
it? Oftentimes
not. When they're sick, when they're this, when
they're
yes. Yes. Anybody with an infant knows.
Yeah. You haven't slept, showered, or eaten a
full meal because
that baby is not going to sleep and,
you know, is screaming itself. Right?
There is a line that you have to
find for yourself
of when it's time
somebody needs to help you so that you
can take care of your own needs.
Sometimes
it's safer than you realize to let them
wait
so so you have that time for yourself.
That is
a unique situation
for every person and every situation that you
are in. Like, the things I could leave
the kids alone to,
like, sort that out. I I'll be back
in thirty minutes. You're you're fine. You just
don't know you're fine.
Is different, you know, those things at that
moment in time, yes. And then another life
thing in life, no. That was not an
option.
But it is very easy.
Typically, if you were the default caregiver,
the parent or the one taking care of
an adult,
to
not to
try not to or to feel guilty when
you do think about your own needs.
And
sometimes you don't have a choice, and sometimes
you just don't know that you can ask
for help. You're not confident that you can
ask for help. You're rejecting help because you've
now got it in your head that nobody's
gonna do it the way I can do
it, and so I can't let anybody else
do it.
I can't tell you if that's the right
decision. I don't know your life. I don't
know what you're going through, but more times
than not, you really
can accept the help. It's just fear.
That will affect everything in your life. You
already know this. It will absolutely impact your
power exchange.
Absolutely.
JB was doing the thing that terrifies me
and driving on almost no sleep, two hours,
one way to go take care of his
mom. Then getting there and not sleeping because
it was a stressful situation. There was no
good bed to sleep in. His mom needed
him at all hours. Right? And then he
was with no sleep driving back. He was
everybody
his mom's needs, his sister's needs, all came
before his own
and he that's how he functioned through it.
What that meant was when he got home
to me, I was like, we're gonna take
care of you because you've you've got to
have that. Right? Like, whatever it is you
need, let's
do that. That is normal. But if you're
not openly communicating with your partner about it,
you're not being honest with each other
Oh, it's gonna be a tough one. It's
gonna fuck everything up, y'all. And I think
we know this. I think we somehow
we y'all, I don't know if you think
this, but I'm sure I've had this thought
that power exchange is somehow so different
to any other relationship
that it can both withstand things that most
other relationships can't. That's not true. True.
But also is it weirdly
too fragile
to let real world stuff interfere with it?
Neither is true.
How do we hold both thoughts in our
head at the same time? I don't know.
I'm weird like that. Maybe you don't.
But all of it all of it is
I you gotta you gotta say the thing,
you know. I have not slept in three
days. I have not bathed in five. I
want to spend time with you, dear submissive,
but I'm taking a shower and a nap
first. Right?
The one I have tend to have to
do to JB is I love you.
I want
to get naked with you and roll around
in the bed. But if one more person
talks to me, touches me, or needs me,
I'm a lose my shit.
So I am always your submissive. But right
now, your submissive is taking a five minute
break.
I'm a go sit in a dark room
by my fucking self.
And, yeah, I I had to learn that
I had those needs. I did not Mhmm.
I did not understand
why
I gravitated
to
my typically bedroom, lights out, fan on high,
right underneath the AC vent, every time I
got really stressed out or, like, really overwhelmed.
It's because it was too much. I was
overstimulated.
And being in a still,
quiet room
completely the fuck alone,
it's very calming for me. Once I realize
that, I I now make
Yeah. Like, I need that. I need five
minutes of that so I can do three
more hours of the stressful
Right? Alright. When I see you go in
in the room and close the door behind
you, I'm Mhmm. I know. And the thing
is, I take advantage of that now
Mhmm. Every chance I get when I need
it because I know from experience, there are
gonna be times I don't have that luxury
and it is a luxury. It is me
taking care of my own needs
but when you take care of other humans
as part of like your day to day,
it's a fucking luxury to have that kind
of time. I have that time now from
from a parenting perspective because they are older
and they don't need me as much. I
don't know what I'm gonna do when I'm
not, like, actively parenting in the same way
anymore. Like, my mind doesn't even
comprehend it anymore.
I'll be very lost for a hot minute.
But that's the other thing. Some people I
can I can hear you? I don't have
time to do that. Not every day. You
certainly don't. But whatever it is that you
know that you need,
that there will be times you can do,
take that time. Communicate with your partner. I
can't do this right now. I need this.
If you are the partner watching
your, you know, whether submissive or dominant,
ground grind themselves down on the ground because
they are caring for everybody else. Right?
It is your fucking job to stop them
at some point and go, hey, this is
what I'm saying.
Here's what I think I can do to
help. That's taking some of the mental load.
When you ask for the list, you've just
given a mental load. I'm just saying if
you see it go, I would like to
do these things. What JB has learned to
do is go, will it stress you out
more if I just take care of this?
And sometimes I go, yes, it will. And
sometimes I go, no. You go right the
fuck ahead. But he has gotten really good
at coming up to me and going, what
do you need right now? Yeah. I've gotten
better at going, I need quiet. I need
a cool room. I need to be left
alone because that's what that is what I
need. Whatever you need,
spend some time,
however long it takes, however many fucking years
it takes, figuring out what it is, and
then fucking talk to your partner. Yeah.
Because all of this is hard.
Mhmm. Now
the the other thing I will say, this
has been a very long episode, and I
still have a couple more things, and I
know I get ranty. So I don't know.
I don't know.
One thing I will say for these times
of caregiving,
the episode we did
last week, DS, that nobody will notice.
If any of those kinds of things resonate
for you in Power Exchange,
highly recommend
because
you are like, for us, my rules and
routines, the tasks that I follow, I have
built those into the life I have as
a mother. Like, I know when I can
do this because no child will need me.
I know that sometimes my child will need
me in a way they haven't in forever,
and I can just then go to JB
and go,
I either need need some time or I
need to not do this thing today,
but it's it's baked in. So I can
fit the things I do as a submissive
around the life I have.
The things that we do that have meaning,
as we talked about in that episode, are
things that that we're already doing and don't
look like anything. Right?
Getting in the car and handing him his
sunglasses.
He was gonna put his sunglasses on anyway.
Me doing it doesn't take any extra time.
We're sitting there. Nobody's gonna ask a question.
Sometimes the only time for a while we
got alone was when we were in the
fucking car together. Mhmm.
You know, so You take a lot of
drives at that time. We did.
We did.
So that is the thing I can also
say during this time of caregiving Yeah. For
an adult. Find if again, if it resonates
Mhmm. Find things that are not
actively, like, fuckery
Yeah. That can't be behind closed doors, I
mean. Mhmm. And that don't have that nobody's
gonna clock. But that means something to you
so that you have something. Can we talked
about
this many times this year as we are,
like, reconnecting in our power exchange. Mhmm. But
the thing that got us through those, what,
four years
of just hell
Yeah.
Was
the way we do our power exchange. If
JB is always the decider
and I keep doing the things that I
agreed to do because they still work for
me to do. It's not like I don't
mind doing them.
Yes. The the power exchange is not where
we want it to be once we get
through that time in life. It's not our
idealized version where we are really satisfied
with it. No. But But at least there's
something there
that it's not totally just thrown out. Yep.
There's something there to build off of. Right.
Also,
because I'm like this.
Quality over quantity, y'all. Some folks, regardless of
whether you're a parent, you got a kid,
whatever. Mhmm. Your life is so fucking busy
and stressful in
general
that having a whole bunch of rules or
a whole bunch of tasks or that's too
fucking
much. You don't have to do all of
the things.
Do what your life and your
mental and emotional health allow and physical health,
true, to allow you to do. That might
be one thing every fucking day. It might
be two things. It might be this stage
of life, it's only one thing you can
do, but in six months, new stage of
life,
you can add more. But if we get
really, like, focused fuck
that
shit. It is.
I say this as a greedy fucking baby
girl
who why would I want one when I
was gifted with two hands
and they're not small? I can I can
have more? It will fit in my hands.
Give me more. I am that kind
person. Why do I want the small slice
of cheesecake
if the standard size is really big.
That that's the kind of person I am.
So I I get
how people can think that way. But life
has taught me
that what that means is more often than
not, I'm going without
because I won't
accept smaller, not lesser, not lesser. We're not
accepting
less respect, less communication,
less care. Right? We know and that's we're
not accepting
less.
Just
smaller amounts.
Smaller, not less. Right?
Mhmm. And
if you can find what works for you
and your partner, he can get you through
the next Right. Season.
Mhmm.
Okay.
The last thing I wanna leave everybody with
Mhmm. We started at the beginning.
And sometimes it's a triumphant thing and sometimes
it's a sad, sad thing.
Whatever caregiving you're doing, it is probably not
forever.
Yeah.
In most situations,
most common situations, it is not forever.
These children will grow up.
Mhmm.
The adult caregiving often has a clear expiration
date. I hate to say it. I don't
wanna sound callous. It's it's
heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Mhmm.
But however long this this lasts, it's it's
not a forever. It's not. No.
So
now that I've brought the whole fucking room
down
sorry, y'all.
Look. A lot of this people are gonna
go, that's common sense. That's what you should
do in the rest of your life. Yes.
But sometimes
we somehow think power exchange life is completely
separate
and distinct from
the rest of our life. And in certain
cases, it can be. Like if you are
very much a my power exchange only happens
under these specific parameters, it can feel like
it's separate. But
you're out The rest of your life will
will interfere. I don't care if you only
do power exchange in this one specific situation,
in this one room, at this one time,
on this one day.
All the things going on in your life
will impact that.
So,
real world power exchange,
this is one of the things we've talked
about this before, but people were like, oh,
real world? Yeah. Please talk to me about
parenting.
I will link to you on all the
ways we have talked about parenting, but this
is true of just taking care of another
human. Yeah.
Yep. So
anything you would like to add? I think
we,
covered it. I made my throat hurt.
I made myself sweaty.
I probably turned my face redder than usual
from a blood pressure spike. No. Oh, good.
The makeup is working.
Yeah. So all that being said, yes, we
can be done with this topic and go
into a bonus section. Alright. So,
are we good?
Sure.
Keep it kinky, y'all.
See you next time.
You asked if we were good. I know.
Yeah.
And I then forgot what that means. I
was, like, just answering the question. Yeah. We're
good. I'm good. Nothing more to say. I'm
good.
Can we talk to the crickets, please? Yes.
Oh
my God.
The comments in the live chat have been
great. I saw it's already gone
flying past, but I want to acknowledge it.
Rah Rah from Pink Kink pointed out that
Sunny Megatron is the one who said kink
is customizable, like, first. First time you mentioned
that. And I'm trying to like,
I have no doubt that I because I
follow Sunny in a couple places. I probably
saw it, didn't clock it, but it, like,
stuck in my subconscious.
But I don't have a clear memory of
going, oh, yeah. I heard Sunny say that.
I saw that in a post. I don't
doubt it. I don't doubt it. I'm sure
that's where I got it. What are you
looking for? Pounders? In the box labeled pounders?
Really?
Geez. Never would have known.
So what JB is doing right now is,
somebody asked to see what yellow heart looks
like.
So for YouTube folks, he's gonna show that
off. For podcast listeners, thekinkery.com,
you will be able to see it. I
think the pictures I took and the way
I edited them, it's true to actual color.
But JB's gonna put it in front of
the camera.
But also I my whole thing, I got
distracted. I wanna give the shout out and
the credit to Sunny Megatron for being the
one who says that I'm gonna go back
to that episode and, like, add that credit
in. Because I knew I knew it came
to me somehow, but go ahead. Alright.
And JB is putting the yellow heart
pounder in front of the camera. For podcast
listeners, this yellow is like a true fucking
yellow. Mhmm. Like, there's, like, some shades of
very pale brown maybe, but it just looks
super fucking yellow. Yeah. And and
the the dark spots in the wood,
they almost look like feathers. They're so You
called it feathery? Yeah. I I called it
feathery. That that's the best way I can
describe it. It's very subtle and swirly. Yeah.
And feathery. You're right. And soft. That's why
it reminds me of the image. It's beautiful.
But, yeah, the color of the wood yeah.
Yellow for sure. Yeah. The one you picked
out has a stronger feathering pattern
on one side. The one I took the
picture of, because I wanted to show off
the most yellow Mhmm. Is the one that
just shows the most yellow and less of
the feathering. Yeah. So,
yeah. Yellow heart. So for anybody who's knows
anything about wood and or has purposely purchased
from the Kinkery in the past, kinkery.com.
Yellow heart is to the color yellow that
purple heart is to the color purple. Purple
heart is fucking purple. Now every once in
a while you'll find a cut where there's
a very strong red undertone and you're like,
is that a true purple? But sometimes it's
a true fucking purple. That's a true yellow.
So
yeah. That's
and the other thing I wanna say about
these fucking pounders is three of the woods,
and I think it is the
three of the woods,
two of them we have two paddles of,
are fucking heavy.
If you are a thud person,
the wenge, which is so dark brown, it's
almost black,
the bloodwood
Uh-huh. And we only have one of them,
but the rosewood. Yep. They are either almost
10 ounces or over 10 ounces. Mhmm. That's
heavy for a paddle that size. For podcast
listeners, the paddle is 12 inches long, but
the paddle area is only two inches wide.
It's three quarters of an inch thick. It's
the thickest pounders you've made
in a hot ass minute.
I would be afraid to have one of
these heavy fuckers come at me. That's
because there's gonna be that sharp smack of
solid, you know, flat surface hitting skin,
but the weight behind it,
that'll knock somebody's breath out. I promise you.
I promise you.
So yellow heart and we have one called
Edamoe.
Edamoe, am I saying that right? I believe
so. Yeah. They're the two lightest woods, but
light is,
I can't think of the word.
Fuck. There's a word.
I can't think of the word. Anyway, when
I say light, I just mean they're lighter
than these heavier woods. The, yellow heart and
the edemoe. Edemoe to me is not the
prettiest wood, but that's a personal preference. I
know people who have loved when you've had
edemoe before.
They are in that sa that weight that
we classify as the in between where you
will get a sting, but you will get
some thud.
But the the wenge, the bloodwood, and the
rosewood Mhmm. Would cut. Oh, yeah. That's some
dang. And if you're like, I will not
remember which woods if I go to the
kinkery Com.
Any paddle listing, any actually, product listing. Paddle
listing,
pick the wood down from the drop down,
scroll down to the bottom of the page.
There's a tab that says additional information. I
put the weight in every fucking time.
So
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's, that's the canary Com. I
think I'm gonna send out an email today
because I'm I want people to see the
pounders. I want the people to see the
pounders.
But you're also working on other restocks,
which I'm excited about.
Mean evil restocks.
Oh, god. We got on the side. We
have stayed on and then got on again
the side of the fucking Instagram algorithm
of,
why would anybody do this? Are y'all all
just sick? I fucking hate you but I'm
not commenting because I don't have the time
or energy for your fucking bullshit. Mhmm. I
would rather people just fucking block us if
you don't wanna see the kink shit. But
also, if you would stop commenting on the
kink shit, guess what would not show on
your fucking feed. Yeah. You would go away.
But my favorite, once I figured out the
reference, it took me I had to Google.
Are the people who go brick by fucking
brick, which is they have built their algorithm,
their feed, brick by brick to see what
they want. I had to Google it y'all.
I didn't know what that meant. Wow. I
I didn't know if I was supposed to
be annoyed
or pleased. Right. And so I saw several
over the past several months, I've seen several
comments.
And I was like, what the fuck does
that mean? I was like, oh, okay. So
then, again, most one of our most recent
pieces of content, wrong side of the algorithm,
but just right enough to see some brick
by fucking brick y'all. Hell yeah.
And then we sold out of what was
in that video.
God damn it.
Oh god.
Oh god. Yeah.
So yeah. Mhmm. I,
I'm always happy when you bring a product
because it makes my promotional
stuff much easier.
I know
because I know from experience and I've, you
know, tried to learn about this stuff that
you never just market a product one time
and be done. You gotta show it off
in different ways several times because people need
you know, not everybody's gonna see everything and
people need to see things multiple times before
they'll, like, do anything about it unless it's
something that they're, like,
actively looking for.
But I get really, like, ugh. I just
showed off this fucking paddle four days ago.
I don't even have anything creative to say.
I just wanna, like, put one of the
paddles in front of my fucking phone because
I use my phone to take pictures and
go, here it is. This is a paddle.
Fucking buy it. Like, that's
oh, god.
I
you know, apparently, you can't just do that.
Oh my god.
Salads, saying in the live chat, there's no
episode on routines, but I would've
been convinced there was. Let me Uh-oh. I
got my my Google Drive up.
You will either
be surprised or not be surprised.
That
what am I trying to say?
Every single episode that we've ever recorded, I
have the script and the notes for every
single one. So in my Google Drive, I
just type in a keyword. I'm like, did
we do this? Episode two fifty four, ruts,
routine, and the mundane.
I think I don't know that we talked
about them as how to set up a
routine.
I'd have to
teach myself how to talk about how to
set up a routine
in a way that might resonate with more
than just me.
But we do have episode two fifty four
where we at least
talked about them on some level.
So
I made myself hot and sweaty. My makeup
is melting off. We're not done recording for
the day. I know. No. I know you
knew that. I was pointing out. I've I
have
I'm melting myself actively, and we still have
more to go. I didn't hold anything back.
So that next recording for patrons,
over on Patreon, this is gonna be interesting.
Well, at least it's not video. It's just
True. But if I have no voice, and
I can't think of words,
I'm sorry if you are a member of
our Patreon. I'm so, so sorry. Maybe then
we should go.
Oh, but I'm enjoying myself. Get get you
cooled down a little bit, and then we'll
finish. Let me go sit in a dark
Yeah. Room by myself.
Myself?
Mhmm.
Under
the fan in the Oh, and read my
book. Oh, the book I'm reading is so
good.
And I'll do puzzles for a few minutes.
Okay. K.
Yeah. I've gotta make sure the kid actually
ate something. Yeah.
Yep. Anyway Anyhoo.
That was all chaotic, but hopefully something good
came from it.
I don't know why I get all apologetic
about being chaotic. I should just fucking embrace
it.
I don't know. I don't know. I always
wanna be After all these years. Yeah. I
always wanna be sleeker and more put together
and, you know, whatever than I actually am.
And I
I struggle to just embrace
the mess that I am because
my perfectionist side says you shouldn't be a
mess. I'm a fucking mess. I just
I just need to own it.
I will say because I meant to say
it earlier and then forgot, and I'll have
to say it again next week. But hey,
if you are willing to stick around to
the bitter end, you get to know first.
We have an episode next week, which is
the May.
And then we are taking a break the
following week, which is the week after The
US Mother's Day. I don't know when The
UK's Mother's Day is. But US Mother's Day
is, I believe, May 11, whatever that Sunday
is.
My mom will be in town from the
Thursday before
to the Thursday after Mother's Day. And I
don't wanna have to run around worrying about
recording. But Yeah. I looked at a calendar.
The Friday when she will have been gone
because she leaves on Thursday,
is is that the fifteenth or sixteenth? I
can't remember the date, but that Friday But
it will be the night of the hangout.
It'll be the night of the hangout. So
there won't be a episode, and there won't
be a following Monday episode,
but there will be a Friday night livestream.
Wow. So we got one more episode in
this series we're doing. Mhmm. And then we'll
take our break. And then we might do
a couple of episodes that are not related
specifically to the series. But then as topics
crop up, then I'm like, oh, that fits
the series. We'll do the series. We'll keep
it going.
Yay. Oh. Oh. UK Mother's Day was a
month ago. Wow. Alright.
Yeah. I don't pay as much attention to
my UK, like, connections and friends. Not like
they're used to. Yeah. Yeah. They're not in
my my feeds quite as much, so I
don't keep up with it anymore. Mhmm.
But also,
I also forget that their time change happens
at a different point than our time change.
There's always, like, a week where The UK
friends I do, like, connect with most often,
we don't know what time we're trying to
talk to them about. Right?
Somebody's time has changed and we're not in
sync. But
yeah. So
Yeah.
Anyway.
So
Anyway.
Okay. I'm hot and sweaty. Mhmm.
Yep.
Gotta go be a mom before I can
go be a lump in the bed. There
you go. Before then, I can come back
and screech into a microphone. Yep.
Okay. Okay. Alright. We'll talk to y'all later.
Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for
being here to the bitter end. Mhmm. Thanks
for embracing the chaos. Yep. Okay.
Bye. Bye.