March 17, 2023 • 18 mins
Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. Right now I feel really disconnected from leather, and so I share what that's like in this interlude.
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Edge (00:01):
Welcome to full cow, a podcast about leather kink and
BDSM. My name is edge Mypronouns are he him, and I'm
your host. And this is anotherinterlude, the episode between
episodes offered raw andunedited, but with leather
creaking. And I have to admit,even though I claim this is
(00:23):
offered raw, which is fairlytrue, it is also true that this
is I think, the fourth time Ihave started this interlude,
because I'm finding it verydifficult to talk about this
topic, not because I find it adifficult, I'm finding it
difficult to find the words,right. It's not like, Oh, this
(00:44):
is something shameful or hard totalk about. It's simply, I'm
trying to express something andI'm stumbling. And so I keep
starting over. So I'm just goingto commit to keeping this tape
no matter how good or bad it is,that's going to be an
interesting experience for youas a listener, there may be a
lot more flubs, and a lot morepauses, because I really do want
(01:07):
to invite you into a real timeprocess of my thinking on this
topic. And that topic is thefact that at this point in time,
I feel disconnected from myleather. And to give you a
reference point, I'm recordingthis on Sunday, February
26 2023. And I offer thatbecause by the time you listen
(01:31):
to this, in the middle of March,there's a very good chance I'll
be in a different place. So Iwant to really kind of route
this in this moment. Now, when Isay I'm not connected to
leather, I do not mean I'mfeeling depressed, my
antidepressants are actuallyworking great. My overall mood
is good. And I'm extraordinarilycontent with my life as a whole.
(01:56):
Nor do I mean to say simply thatI'm not horny, you know, my sex
drive can be very variable. I'mused to that. I don't mind it,
it's actually a bit of a reliefmost of the times, but corny and
connected to leather are twodifferent internal feelings that
are not necessarily linkedtogether. There are times for
(02:16):
I'm 40, and not necessarilyfeeling my leather. And there
are far more times when I feelconnected to my leather. But I'm
not horny. In fact, that's sortof what am I default modes
connected to leather, but notwarranty. To give you a sense of
what I mean, when I say I don'tfeel connected to my leather.
I'll give you a few examples.
First of all, I've not bookedany leather travel at all this
(02:38):
year, not claw, not IML not anyevents. Because I'm just not at
the moment interested in beingthough in those spaces. I also
have a number, my own number, Ihave a couple of local boys that
I've been in conversation with.
And I've let this conversationsgo quiet. And it has nothing to
(03:00):
deal with those boys. It haseverything to do with this
feeling of not being connectedto my mother. And last night, I
actually had to go to ramrodbecause I have to speak to the
bar manager because we want todo a bluff event at ramrodded I
agate get it cleared with thebar. But I didn't want to gear
up I didn't want to stay forcigars. So I went in tank top
(03:23):
and shorts because we can dothat in February in Florida and
tennis shoes and spoke to thebar manager and then came back.
So I mean, when I say I'm notfeeling my leather, I mean that
I am not motivated to be in it.
And when I am in it, it feelslike a piece of clothing. Right
(03:44):
now obviously I'm wearing myLanglands padded pocket Columbia
jacket, because that is what'sgenerating all these beautiful
creepy things. And it just feelslike I'm wearing a jacket. All
of this is also to say that theinverse is true that often I
feel a special connection toleather and and that operates in
(04:05):
a couple of different registers.
So first of all, it means that Iactual feel, actually feel a
connection to my gear. And ifyou've listened to my contents
in general, you know, I have anon again off again relationship
with things that are woowoo thatI both want to discount them and
(04:26):
stay rational but that I oftenhave a part of me that's really
quite woowoo and my connectionto my gear is part of that I
feel connected. There's a threadthat binds that gear to me as
though it has a spirit and thatspirit comes to touch me. I come
(04:49):
to touch it. I don't know whatbut I feel there's a physical
connection. It's it's it's notmaterial, but it's substantial.
There is a physical Next to mygear. But when I say that I feel
most of the time connected toleather, I'm also talking about
the larger connection to thecommunity as a whole. And I
(05:12):
don't even just mean, thecommunity as a group of people.
I mean, this sort of abstractsense of the community of
leather, which is the traditionsthat I respect the history that
I have the people that I know,it is the community writ large,
and that when I feel connectedto leather, I feel part and
(05:34):
parcel a participant in thatcommunity. And that's not
something I feel right now.
Actually, it's one of thereasons I'm a little quiet on
social media as well. I knowwhat my next video series is, I
want to do a deep dive on boots.
But I just haven't felt likestarting it. I'm not concerned
by any of this. There have beenmany points in my life where I
(05:56):
simply didn't feel connected toleather. And that's one of the
reasons I wanted to talk aboutit in this interlude, because I
have to imagine my experience isnot unique. And there may be
other people out there, maybeyou right? That you may not be
feeling connected to leather,you may feel a little distant
(06:16):
from it, you may feel that itdoesn't have the same that it
used to. I don't know what thatsound was, I told you raw and
unedited. Here's the good news.
I always reconnect with leather,I have come to trust that it is
so integral A part of me soauthentically who I am, that I
(06:37):
can go through these periods ofdisconnection I can, I can go
through periods of distancewithout the fear of loss. So if
you're in a place in your life,where you're feeling a little
disconnected from leather, orkink, or BDSM, or whatever your
thing is, I want to give yousome hope that my experience at
(06:58):
least suggests that I do returnto it in time. There's a very
real sense to in which I nevernot connected to leather. I am a
leather person wherever I showup in my life, even when I'm at
work, or I'm at the grocerystore, and I'm wearing a tank
(07:20):
top and shorts in February,because we can do that in
Florida. At every point in timeI show up as another man because
I bring the values of anotherperson, I bring the practices of
another person, I bring thecomportment of a leopard person.
Everywhere I go, it's in how Iwalk. And it's in how I carry
(07:40):
myself. It's in how I treatothers, and it's in how I speak.
So it's not as though I'm evertruly disconnected from it,
because it is an integral partof me. But I think it's a little
bit I think it's a little bitlike a symphony. So in honor my
boy, I'm gonna say the leatherpart of me is a bassoon. And
(08:01):
right now the entire symphony isplaying, but the bassoons a
little quiet. So it's still inthere, it's still making the
music, which is my life, but soare other parts of me, the
recovery part of me, theromantic part of me, the friend,
part of me, the silly part ofme, all the parts of me are
(08:21):
contributing themselves equally.
And then there will be parts ofmy symphony of life, where the
bassoon becomes predominant,where you can hear it, playing
tively over the rest of theinstruments. And there are times
when the bassoon has nothing toplay, and other instruments are
(08:43):
making the music. So that givesme a sense of both all these
parts of me and how they worktogether. And it gives me a
sense that even if I don't hearleather, you don't see it. If I
don't feel the connection to mygear or to the community. That
doesn't mean it's gone. It justmeans that it's quiet right now.
(09:04):
I tend to believe everythinghappens for a reason. That is my
own personal belief influencedby my 12 step recovery. And so I
have to believe that this periodof quiet has reason. I don't
know what it is, and I don'thave to know what it is. I only
know this, I will return toleather. It is so much a part of
(09:26):
who I am that there's noavoiding it. In the meantime,
I'm still focused on many partsof my life. I've been really
extraordinarily social upfrontintrovert almost to social and
I've been certainly enjoyingthat. And it's been fulfilling,
but it is probably displacingsome overall patterns of energy
(09:47):
that might otherwise be put intoleather. I am spending a lot of
time with people and people whoare important to me. And that is
beautiful and fulfilling. Butagain, we'll change the story
Have Symphony inside.
Now I also know that there aresome contextual factors that are
in operation right now. I knowfor a fact that at the moment I
(10:11):
testosterone is low. I've simplychosen not to do anything about
it right now. I'll be seeing mydoctor in about a month, and I
will talk to her about it then.
But for the moment, I don't feelthe need to do testosterone
replacement therapy today. Andin part, that's because I know
that while there's probably somefactor some relationship between
(10:34):
the levels of my testosteroneand my connection to leather and
my horniness, I know from livedexperience that those three
things, hormones, horniness,leather, are three
interdependent things, that theyhave some impact on each other,
but they also have quite a bitof independence from each other.
So there'll be times where Iknow my testosterone is really
(10:58):
quite healthy, but I'm still nothorny. Still not connected to
leather. And there will be timeswhen I feel very connected to
leather, but I know mytestosterone is low. And I'm not
only right, these things areinterrelated, but they are not
linearly related. It's not likeone makes the it's not like, Oh,
if I get my testosterone, right,that I will be horny that I will
(11:20):
be into leather, it doesn't workthat way. For me. A second
contextual factor is the factthat I'm doing not just a lot of
social plans, I'm doing a lot oftraveling in the first part of
this year. And in fact, I'mgonna be gone for what feels
like most of March. That's anexaggeration, but not entirely
an exaggeration. And that isexhausting. For me, I am
(11:46):
essentially a homebody home issanctuary Home is where I
recharge, and to be away fromhome and to deal with airports,
and packing and Ubers. And allof that can be quite tiring to
me. Certainly, that's onereason, I think that I've not
booked claw or IML, or anyletter events right now, because
(12:07):
I just can't bear the thought ofmore travel. Another contextual
factor is the fact that, youknow, I am being reflective
about relationships and what Iwant in relationship, and if I
want a relationship, and who Imight want a relationship with,
and that requires a differentsort of focus in my life right
(12:28):
now. So I'm investing energy insome different places, with some
people to see what will come ofit. That's a contextual factor
as well. But again, it is notthe factor. So I understand that
there are many things going onin my life, why don't we
surprise everyone? You, me,everyone, there's a lot of
(12:50):
things going on in our lives.
And I understand that some ofthese are creating a context
where I may not feel connectedto leather. And, but I also
understand that there'ssomething else, there's
something else, it's not asthough, if I had a boyfriend, I
(13:10):
would be connected leather, if Iweren't traveling with I would
be connected to leather, if myhormones were right, right,
there's no single factor. This,for me is part of the sacred
mystery that I connect to mysexual kink, which, you know, I
talked about some in the episodeon spirituality and really is
far more woowoo that I wouldever want to admit that that
(13:34):
there's, there's somethingspecial, there's something holy,
I'm going to use that word,there's something holy about
leather and kink to me. And, andit exists independent. It is
bigger than me and I touch it,but it is independent of me. And
(13:54):
therefore, no single factor inmy life can control that outcome
can make that happen or nothappen. So while I want to
recognize all the contextualfactors, when I want to realize
all the things that could begoing on that would create a
context where I am not connectedto leather. It's something else,
(14:15):
it's the leather itself. I don'tknow, it's me in relation to the
leather. I don't know. Here'sthe beauty. I don't need to
know, I don't need to know whythis is going on. And I don't
have to worry that it's apermanent change. What I've
learned to do is really ingeneral, that's what I do is I
honor where I'm at. That soundspretty woowoo too, I understand
(14:39):
and very kind of New Agetherapy. But for me, what I have
found is that if I can't changea thing, the best thing to do is
sit and experience a thing. Anda lot of times that means when
I'm sad, I just have to feelsad. When I'm joyous. I have to
feel joyous right? I don'tdiminish my emotions. I don't
(14:59):
push them to the side, I don'tlock them away, because my
experience is that doesn't solveanything. And then they just
come back later in some horribleform, but I don't want to
experience them. And so I liketo use the phrase, the only way
out is through the only way outof something like sadness is to
feel all the sadness into it'sall been felt. There's something
(15:22):
similar going on here, that thatI don't have to be impatient
about the fact that I'm notconnected, nor frightened or
anxious. Nor do I have to spendmore than the 15 to 18 minutes
or so I'm going to spend in thisinterlude, I don't have to spend
any more time than that,thinking about it, I can simply
(15:43):
be, okay, I'm not connected toleather, I'm going to work on
something else, I'm going towatch some TV, I'm going to go
dancing, I'm going to eat adelicious meal, I can simply
honor it by letting it alone.
That's what I mean, by honoringit, I'm gonna let it the fuck
alone. And I am not going to tryto force it in any shape or way
(16:05):
I'm going to let it be. Becausethat's the best way I can kind
of respect that part of myself.
All of this is so deep andwoowoo territory, not entirely,
but it's very close to thewoowoo territory. The takeaway,
(16:25):
let me come back to rationality,let me come back to this actual
interlude. The takeaway for youis, there may come points in
your life, where you're notfeeling it, where the gear
doesn't feel special, or youdon't feel right in the gear, or
you don't want to go to an eventor go to the bar or connect with
other people. That's okay.
You're certainly not alone. Thishas been a regular experience of
(16:50):
my journey that has happenedmore than once. And it happens,
and it passes. And I reconnectas passionately as ever. And if
that's happened for me, I haveto believe that will happen for
you as well. Or not. By that, Imean, you may never end up
(17:11):
feeling disconnected from yourmother. But I think the whole
point of this interlude for meis if you do if you're feeling
that way now, or if you feelthat way, in the future, I want
you to know you're not alone.
Others have been through it.
I've been through it. I've madeit through the other side. I'm
sold on a person. And if that'strue for me, I have to believe
(17:31):
it's going to be true for youtoo. So wherever you are in your
journey, no matter how connectedyou feel, physically, to your
gear, to your actual friends whoare leather, to your local
community, in leather and kinkor to the larger abstract notion
of leather and kink. Whereveryou are in your connection. I
(17:51):
hope that you find it fulfillingand joyous and affirming. And,
as always, I really hope yourjourney and I don't I'm actually
serious about this. I reallyhope your journey is blessed
Welcome to full cow, a podcast about leather kink and
BDSM. My name is edge Mypronouns are he him, and I'm
your host. And this is anotherinterlude, the episode between
episodes offered raw andunedited, but with leather
creaking. And I have to admit,even though I claim this is
(00:23):
offered raw, which is fairlytrue, it is also true that this
is I think, the fourth time Ihave started this interlude,
because I'm finding it verydifficult to talk about this
topic, not because I find it adifficult, I'm finding it
difficult to find the words,right. It's not like, Oh, this
(00:44):
is something shameful or hard totalk about. It's simply, I'm
trying to express something andI'm stumbling. And so I keep
starting over. So I'm just goingto commit to keeping this tape
no matter how good or bad it is,that's going to be an
interesting experience for youas a listener, there may be a
lot more flubs, and a lot morepauses, because I really do want
(01:07):
to invite you into a real timeprocess of my thinking on this
topic. And that topic is thefact that at this point in time,
I feel disconnected from myleather. And to give you a
reference point, I'm recordingthis on Sunday, February
26 2023. And I offer thatbecause by the time you listen
(01:31):
to this, in the middle of March,there's a very good chance I'll
be in a different place. So Iwant to really kind of route
this in this moment. Now, when Isay I'm not connected to
leather, I do not mean I'mfeeling depressed, my
antidepressants are actuallyworking great. My overall mood
is good. And I'm extraordinarilycontent with my life as a whole.
(01:56):
Nor do I mean to say simply thatI'm not horny, you know, my sex
drive can be very variable. I'mused to that. I don't mind it,
it's actually a bit of a reliefmost of the times, but corny and
connected to leather are twodifferent internal feelings that
are not necessarily linkedtogether. There are times for
(02:16):
I'm 40, and not necessarilyfeeling my leather. And there
are far more times when I feelconnected to my leather. But I'm
not horny. In fact, that's sortof what am I default modes
connected to leather, but notwarranty. To give you a sense of
what I mean, when I say I don'tfeel connected to my leather.
I'll give you a few examples.
First of all, I've not bookedany leather travel at all this
(02:38):
year, not claw, not IML not anyevents. Because I'm just not at
the moment interested in beingthough in those spaces. I also
have a number, my own number, Ihave a couple of local boys that
I've been in conversation with.
And I've let this conversationsgo quiet. And it has nothing to
(03:00):
deal with those boys. It haseverything to do with this
feeling of not being connectedto my mother. And last night, I
actually had to go to ramrodbecause I have to speak to the
bar manager because we want todo a bluff event at ramrodded I
agate get it cleared with thebar. But I didn't want to gear
up I didn't want to stay forcigars. So I went in tank top
(03:23):
and shorts because we can dothat in February in Florida and
tennis shoes and spoke to thebar manager and then came back.
So I mean, when I say I'm notfeeling my leather, I mean that
I am not motivated to be in it.
And when I am in it, it feelslike a piece of clothing. Right
(03:44):
now obviously I'm wearing myLanglands padded pocket Columbia
jacket, because that is what'sgenerating all these beautiful
creepy things. And it just feelslike I'm wearing a jacket. All
of this is also to say that theinverse is true that often I
feel a special connection toleather and and that operates in
(04:05):
a couple of different registers.
So first of all, it means that Iactual feel, actually feel a
connection to my gear. And ifyou've listened to my contents
in general, you know, I have anon again off again relationship
with things that are woowoo thatI both want to discount them and
(04:26):
stay rational but that I oftenhave a part of me that's really
quite woowoo and my connectionto my gear is part of that I
feel connected. There's a threadthat binds that gear to me as
though it has a spirit and thatspirit comes to touch me. I come
(04:49):
to touch it. I don't know whatbut I feel there's a physical
connection. It's it's it's notmaterial, but it's substantial.
There is a physical Next to mygear. But when I say that I feel
most of the time connected toleather, I'm also talking about
the larger connection to thecommunity as a whole. And I
(05:12):
don't even just mean, thecommunity as a group of people.
I mean, this sort of abstractsense of the community of
leather, which is the traditionsthat I respect the history that
I have the people that I know,it is the community writ large,
and that when I feel connectedto leather, I feel part and
(05:34):
parcel a participant in thatcommunity. And that's not
something I feel right now.
Actually, it's one of thereasons I'm a little quiet on
social media as well. I knowwhat my next video series is, I
want to do a deep dive on boots.
But I just haven't felt likestarting it. I'm not concerned
by any of this. There have beenmany points in my life where I
(05:56):
simply didn't feel connected toleather. And that's one of the
reasons I wanted to talk aboutit in this interlude, because I
have to imagine my experience isnot unique. And there may be
other people out there, maybeyou right? That you may not be
feeling connected to leather,you may feel a little distant
(06:16):
from it, you may feel that itdoesn't have the same that it
used to. I don't know what thatsound was, I told you raw and
unedited. Here's the good news.
I always reconnect with leather,I have come to trust that it is
so integral A part of me soauthentically who I am, that I
(06:37):
can go through these periods ofdisconnection I can, I can go
through periods of distancewithout the fear of loss. So if
you're in a place in your life,where you're feeling a little
disconnected from leather, orkink, or BDSM, or whatever your
thing is, I want to give yousome hope that my experience at
(06:58):
least suggests that I do returnto it in time. There's a very
real sense to in which I nevernot connected to leather. I am a
leather person wherever I showup in my life, even when I'm at
work, or I'm at the grocerystore, and I'm wearing a tank
(07:20):
top and shorts in February,because we can do that in
Florida. At every point in timeI show up as another man because
I bring the values of anotherperson, I bring the practices of
another person, I bring thecomportment of a leopard person.
Everywhere I go, it's in how Iwalk. And it's in how I carry
(07:40):
myself. It's in how I treatothers, and it's in how I speak.
So it's not as though I'm evertruly disconnected from it,
because it is an integral partof me. But I think it's a little
bit I think it's a little bitlike a symphony. So in honor my
boy, I'm gonna say the leatherpart of me is a bassoon. And
(08:01):
right now the entire symphony isplaying, but the bassoons a
little quiet. So it's still inthere, it's still making the
music, which is my life, but soare other parts of me, the
recovery part of me, theromantic part of me, the friend,
part of me, the silly part ofme, all the parts of me are
(08:21):
contributing themselves equally.
And then there will be parts ofmy symphony of life, where the
bassoon becomes predominant,where you can hear it, playing
tively over the rest of theinstruments. And there are times
when the bassoon has nothing toplay, and other instruments are
(08:43):
making the music. So that givesme a sense of both all these
parts of me and how they worktogether. And it gives me a
sense that even if I don't hearleather, you don't see it. If I
don't feel the connection to mygear or to the community. That
doesn't mean it's gone. It justmeans that it's quiet right now.
(09:04):
I tend to believe everythinghappens for a reason. That is my
own personal belief influencedby my 12 step recovery. And so I
have to believe that this periodof quiet has reason. I don't
know what it is, and I don'thave to know what it is. I only
know this, I will return toleather. It is so much a part of
(09:26):
who I am that there's noavoiding it. In the meantime,
I'm still focused on many partsof my life. I've been really
extraordinarily social upfrontintrovert almost to social and
I've been certainly enjoyingthat. And it's been fulfilling,
but it is probably displacingsome overall patterns of energy
(09:47):
that might otherwise be put intoleather. I am spending a lot of
time with people and people whoare important to me. And that is
beautiful and fulfilling. Butagain, we'll change the story
Have Symphony inside.
Now I also know that there aresome contextual factors that are
in operation right now. I knowfor a fact that at the moment I
(10:11):
testosterone is low. I've simplychosen not to do anything about
it right now. I'll be seeing mydoctor in about a month, and I
will talk to her about it then.
But for the moment, I don't feelthe need to do testosterone
replacement therapy today. Andin part, that's because I know
that while there's probably somefactor some relationship between
(10:34):
the levels of my testosteroneand my connection to leather and
my horniness, I know from livedexperience that those three
things, hormones, horniness,leather, are three
interdependent things, that theyhave some impact on each other,
but they also have quite a bitof independence from each other.
So there'll be times where Iknow my testosterone is really
(10:58):
quite healthy, but I'm still nothorny. Still not connected to
leather. And there will be timeswhen I feel very connected to
leather, but I know mytestosterone is low. And I'm not
only right, these things areinterrelated, but they are not
linearly related. It's not likeone makes the it's not like, Oh,
if I get my testosterone, right,that I will be horny that I will
(11:20):
be into leather, it doesn't workthat way. For me. A second
contextual factor is the factthat I'm doing not just a lot of
social plans, I'm doing a lot oftraveling in the first part of
this year. And in fact, I'mgonna be gone for what feels
like most of March. That's anexaggeration, but not entirely
an exaggeration. And that isexhausting. For me, I am
(11:46):
essentially a homebody home issanctuary Home is where I
recharge, and to be away fromhome and to deal with airports,
and packing and Ubers. And allof that can be quite tiring to
me. Certainly, that's onereason, I think that I've not
booked claw or IML, or anyletter events right now, because
(12:07):
I just can't bear the thought ofmore travel. Another contextual
factor is the fact that, youknow, I am being reflective
about relationships and what Iwant in relationship, and if I
want a relationship, and who Imight want a relationship with,
and that requires a differentsort of focus in my life right
(12:28):
now. So I'm investing energy insome different places, with some
people to see what will come ofit. That's a contextual factor
as well. But again, it is notthe factor. So I understand that
there are many things going onin my life, why don't we
surprise everyone? You, me,everyone, there's a lot of
(12:50):
things going on in our lives.
And I understand that some ofthese are creating a context
where I may not feel connectedto leather. And, but I also
understand that there'ssomething else, there's
something else, it's not asthough, if I had a boyfriend, I
(13:10):
would be connected leather, if Iweren't traveling with I would
be connected to leather, if myhormones were right, right,
there's no single factor. This,for me is part of the sacred
mystery that I connect to mysexual kink, which, you know, I
talked about some in the episodeon spirituality and really is
far more woowoo that I wouldever want to admit that that
(13:34):
there's, there's somethingspecial, there's something holy,
I'm going to use that word,there's something holy about
leather and kink to me. And, andit exists independent. It is
bigger than me and I touch it,but it is independent of me. And
(13:54):
therefore, no single factor inmy life can control that outcome
can make that happen or nothappen. So while I want to
recognize all the contextualfactors, when I want to realize
all the things that could begoing on that would create a
context where I am not connectedto leather. It's something else,
(14:15):
it's the leather itself. I don'tknow, it's me in relation to the
leather. I don't know. Here'sthe beauty. I don't need to
know, I don't need to know whythis is going on. And I don't
have to worry that it's apermanent change. What I've
learned to do is really ingeneral, that's what I do is I
honor where I'm at. That soundspretty woowoo too, I understand
(14:39):
and very kind of New Agetherapy. But for me, what I have
found is that if I can't changea thing, the best thing to do is
sit and experience a thing. Anda lot of times that means when
I'm sad, I just have to feelsad. When I'm joyous. I have to
feel joyous right? I don'tdiminish my emotions. I don't
(14:59):
push them to the side, I don'tlock them away, because my
experience is that doesn't solveanything. And then they just
come back later in some horribleform, but I don't want to
experience them. And so I liketo use the phrase, the only way
out is through the only way outof something like sadness is to
feel all the sadness into it'sall been felt. There's something
(15:22):
similar going on here, that thatI don't have to be impatient
about the fact that I'm notconnected, nor frightened or
anxious. Nor do I have to spendmore than the 15 to 18 minutes
or so I'm going to spend in thisinterlude, I don't have to spend
any more time than that,thinking about it, I can simply
(15:43):
be, okay, I'm not connected toleather, I'm going to work on
something else, I'm going towatch some TV, I'm going to go
dancing, I'm going to eat adelicious meal, I can simply
honor it by letting it alone.
That's what I mean, by honoringit, I'm gonna let it the fuck
alone. And I am not going to tryto force it in any shape or way
(16:05):
I'm going to let it be. Becausethat's the best way I can kind
of respect that part of myself.
All of this is so deep andwoowoo territory, not entirely,
but it's very close to thewoowoo territory. The takeaway,
(16:25):
let me come back to rationality,let me come back to this actual
interlude. The takeaway for youis, there may come points in
your life, where you're notfeeling it, where the gear
doesn't feel special, or youdon't feel right in the gear, or
you don't want to go to an eventor go to the bar or connect with
other people. That's okay.
You're certainly not alone. Thishas been a regular experience of
(16:50):
my journey that has happenedmore than once. And it happens,
and it passes. And I reconnectas passionately as ever. And if
that's happened for me, I haveto believe that will happen for
you as well. Or not. By that, Imean, you may never end up
(17:11):
feeling disconnected from yourmother. But I think the whole
point of this interlude for meis if you do if you're feeling
that way now, or if you feelthat way, in the future, I want
you to know you're not alone.
Others have been through it.
I've been through it. I've madeit through the other side. I'm
sold on a person. And if that'strue for me, I have to believe
(17:31):
it's going to be true for youtoo. So wherever you are in your
journey, no matter how connectedyou feel, physically, to your
gear, to your actual friends whoare leather, to your local
community, in leather and kinkor to the larger abstract notion
of leather and kink. Whereveryou are in your connection. I
(17:51):
hope that you find it fulfillingand joyous and affirming. And,
as always, I really hope yourjourney and I don't I'm actually
serious about this. I reallyhope your journey is blessed
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