You Can't Rush the Pot Roast

The following paragraph ends a recent post on freya's excellent blog:

"Later as he's fucking me, I simply let go. I say whatever comes up and bubbles from my throat. I feel what comes to me. I let go of context and let myself be. Funny that it took so long to find liberation in submission."

freya's last line stuck with Me. I've written before about how I see that submissoin is ultimately, and, (potentially) completely liberating.

And it does "take so long." It shouldn't be peculiar that it takes so long. But we are a results-oriented lot, and as such there's a tendancy to view everything but the perfect desired end result as inadequate, somehow empty, wrong.

Of course it just isn't so. We all move, in Dominance or submission, in response to a million variables and stimuli. The side-steps, the back steps, and even the running from the room screaming are all natural responses and arguably normal responses. And we end up where we end up, when we're supposed to end up there. And, very importantly, our understanding of "there" changes with time and experience.

I often say to My girls that submission is liberatiing, and I've said it maybe 1,832 times. When I said it the first time, they understood it. When I said it 10 months ago, they understood it, but in a totally different, deeper way. When I say it today, their understanding is deeper still. That rich understanding couldn't have happened two years ago, or last August, or three weeks ago. It's a function of the totality of time and process and their constant devoted efforts to understand. They are exactly where they should be in their understanding because they are where they have to be. It's sort of like an old axiom of project management: you can't have a baby in one month by recruiting nine women. There is no short route to the long haul.

Where I think many submissives (and their Owners) go wrong is in glossing over or even lamenting that fact rather than celebrating it. Again, I'm hammering on a favorite theme here, but it's so important: Focus on the process and the product will take care of itself. It happens so slowly, if done right, that one barely notices until one has the moment when something sparks us to look back, and the distance travelled is suddenly, readily apparent. Savor the process, the time invested, the way one savors the magic of pot roast: Time and some care transform a tough piece of meat in something magically flavorful and tender. And while the transformation and the final flavor are remarkable, one shouldn't overlook the wonderful aroma that slowly builds and permeates the house for hours while it's cooking and fires our hunger slowly, inexorably.

It takes a long time. And how wonderful it is that it does.