The past year has been interesting on a personal level.

Professionally speaking, I finally got my nonprofit started (harassing the government actually works in some cases) and am nearly ready to introduce my first book. Both projects have been a huge learning and disillusionment experience, only a little of which has been chronicled here. The business world just really doesn’t work the way I’ve been led to believe it does and, from a business perspective, the adult industry really doesn’t work as badly as the rest of society thinks it does.

I buckled down and can now build a website entirely in XHTML and CSS. My knowledge of PHP is coming along and I’m passingly familiar with a couple other web programming languages. I’ve familiarized myself with basic spoken French. (Doesn’t mean I can speak back, though.) It’s nice to know that my brain has not turned to mush yet.

So who knows where I’ll be a year from now? Hopefully running the beginning of a successful media empire and growing a beautiful nonprofit idea. (Really hopefully—have a new French wardrobe, inner and outer -wear.) But finally, after two years (one year longer than I thought), I am off and trotting along.

Personal growth comes at a much different pace than secular growth.

At a very young age, my philosophy of sex and marriage and men was that since there were 6 billion people on earth (at that time) and half of them were men, why would I want to have sex with only one man my entire life? This still makes sense to me, frankly. I’ve never pretended to believe differently with anyone I’ve met.

This philosophy has always caused problems. Although I’m upfront about my non-monogamous nature, men are always surprised when it turns out that I wasn’t telling them a line to turn them on—that I was telling truth instead. Then the surprise turns to rampant insecurity. This puts just a wee bit of a damper on a relationship. (And the fact that I’m not big on long-term commitment.)

I’ve cheated. It’s taken me till this long to realize how much it hurts someone else to do this to them. That is actually one of the very few things in my life for which I am ashamed (no, working in the adult industry isn’t another).

So…I retired from my perfect job to be with one person. I changed my entire life to be with this one person. It has not been easy for either of us, but I think I’m the winner of the “having the most issues with the situation” award.

I’m nothing if not stubborn. I made this bed and now I was going lie in it. It wasn’t like I was with a terrible person. I consensually lost my income and freedom. (“It seemed like a good idea at the time” is not much of a consolation, by the way.)

This past year the struggle has been more pronounced. The worries and pressures of bringing my projects to completion added tension, as well as the fact that I lost a lot of that sexual spark. I was aware of the pattern I was following and it depressed me. I didn’t want to do this to my lover.

I have an amazing pen-pal who has gone through numerous, huge, life-destroying problems, as well as some similar relationship problems with his new wife. He was able to help give me perspective that I lack, along with simple encouragement to do the right thing. That helped a lot.

The turning point came a couple months ago. I was reading another blog (that isn’t linked here) and the girl was describing the domination games she and a lover played. He liked power plays that interfered with her life. He wasn’t just asking her to sit still or take 100 spanks, he asked her to do things that pushed her real boundaries.

I realized that these past two years have been all about pushing my boundaries—no—breaking them completely. No wonder I haven’t had the same desires I used to with my lover. No wonder I fought and struggled so much with him and myself.

We’re not in a power-game. This is just a way of explaining what happened, how it explained itself to me and why my own decision affected me the way it did. I am not submitting to anyone, I am learning a new way of being. It is a process of changing motivated by love and respect. (He has made some changes for me and he risks a lot by being connected with me when my book comes out. I’ve risked very little, but my life has undergone enormous change.)

Once that light went on, it was easy to recognize where my behaviors and thoughts were coming from. Once identified, my fears and worries vanished. It came down to a simple choice, one which I had already made because I believe him to be worth it. So what was I upset over?

At this moment, there is nowhere else I’d rather be than with him. Who knows or cares what the future holds? It will get here when it gets here. Right now, I’m perfectly happy with my one man out of 3.5 billion.