Sometimes you don’t find yourself, you just remember who you are.

I wrote on Ten Shades & Me about two weeks ago about a trip to Severn Beach with my Mum. What I didn’t recount in that post was a moment that happened on the water front while I was there.

Severn Beach is on the Severn Estuary, and is where the River Severn meets the Bristol Channel. I’d love to say that it’s much of a beach but, well, it’s not. Apparently it used to be, but the strong currents of the estuary washed the deposited sand away and turned the plains back to mud. So it’s more Severn Mud than Severn Beach.

And so it goes.

While I was there, though, and looking across the water, I could see Newport in the distance.

For a time, seeing Newport was part of the fun, part of the joke: my submissive, A, was from Newport. While I was across the water, I’d say that I was “keeping eyes” on him.

I loved A, in the way that a Dominant loves a submissive. It wasn’t romantic; it was protective. If you asked me if I loved A as a boyfriend, then no, I didn’t — it was never about a romantic love for us.

I know that A loved me too. Not as his girlfriend, but as his Domme.

So it tore my heart out when A said that he wanted to “forget everything, including us”. I was worried about him, of course I was, but I also couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I cared about A and I’d pushed him, but never too hard, or harder than I thought he could handle. I watched him like a hawk, and I knew when he was just a bit uncomfortable, versus when I was really pushing him too hard. I’d never make him do anything that I knew he wouldn’t like, or when I knew he was really out of his comfort zone.

A hated me, but he loved me at the same time. He loved how I’d push myself into his mind, play with it for a little while, and then leave. He hated that I had this effect on him, and he hated that he wasn’t in control of it.

He also didn’t want it to stop.

It would amuse me, and I would laugh, and A hated that I would laugh.

He also didn’t really want me to stop laughing.

So the end came as a huge blow, like a sucker punch to my chest — I never really got told why.

That blow destroyed my confidence as a Domme, and my ability to love another submissive like I loved A.

I loved A, and I was very protective of him.

He was my submissive, and somewhere deep inside, I was so bloody proud of that.

As it was, some many years later, A did try to come back to me.

A said that nobody could Domme him like I could and he’d never really forgotten about me, he also wondered if I would take him back. I was touched by that, honoured even, but by then, I’d forgotten how to Domme.

It felt false, like a charade, or like something I was just trying on. I’d gotten more into my relationship with Levi; I had no interest in Domming anyone anymore.

A tried to fight me to get me to Domme him. I saw through the manipulation, and I ended up blocking him.

But in recent years, I have Dominated again, and I’ve rediscovered a little part of myself each time. The old me that was with A has gone, the new me has arrived.

I know that I won’t be for everyone, and really, that’s okay. I’m not going to “try” to be anything anymore; I’m just going to be me, exactly as I am.

Looking out across the water and over to Newport, I no longer felt angry or sad. I had only good things to say for A, even, and I wished him only the best.

As I stepped away, though, I realised one thing: perhaps I never really had to “find” my inner Goddess after A — perhaps she was still within me all along.

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