Prioritizing & Protecting

So things have been beyond hectic the last few weeks. Im not ever overwhelmed easily and can typically juggle several things at once but things have been flying at super sonic speeds these last few weeks and I've gotten distracted by it all and somehow took focus off of something important. Something really important. Vitally important in this relationship.....the mutual agreement between Professor & I to be open and honest, at all times, about all things. Yep.....pretty darn important.

Now I wasn't trying to be dishonest. I wasn't being a brat and hoping to use the chaos as a veil for me to be naughty and go undetected. I actually thought I was helping. I know Professor is as busy, if not more so, than I am. Yep.....aside from being committed spankos.....we seem to be committed workaholics. :) Things have been especially busy for him the last few weeks because he has an important, time consuming, monstrously  demanding project at work. Coincidentally aligning perfectly with the sudden chaos in my life. 

I'm a naturally possessive girl and protective of what I have decided is *mine*. Professor IS mine. So trying to be the helpful girl I can pretend to be :) for the right man, I decided I would shield Professor from the chaos in my life. I decided to answer 'fine' when he asked how I was doing. Then when he asked if I was 'really' okay or fine.....I said 'yes'. Worse, perhaps than those small stretches of the truth, were the extent of the issues I was dealing with that I had chose not to fill him in on. I did plan to tell him eventually.....was hoping to use his, right time and right place lecture to defend my actions. I had just planned to tell him *after* his project is due and *after* things calmed down and returned to 'normal'. I called this 'protectively prioritizing'. 

Obviously this worked for a very limited time. I did okay with deflecting and selectively forgetting what I would and wouldn't mention to him for a few days......and was actually pretty proud of myself, I might add. I wasn't monopolizing his time, he was getting some work done, and I was busy conquering one calamity after the next.....all while successfully, or so it seemed, keeping my Mentor out of the loop. Yep, good job with this little balancing act right? Not exactly.

Enter Wednesday......HUGE issue.....also known as, MY BREAKING POINT. Nothing will ever compare to the stress and anxiety of your child being in danger.....nothing. I intentionally dodged answering Professor's calls that afternoon because I knew if I heard his voice....that deep, steady voice.....I'd lose it.....and then run the risk of mentioning one of several things I'd been working so hard to keep from him.....so sent him to voicemail and focused on my son until he was out of the woods. 

Relaxing, or trying to, that evening and a Yahoo Messenger window popped up.....guess who? Yep, he found me and apparently during my absence of the last several hours, my younger sister had filled him in on the current issues.......several of which I had intentionally not mentioned to him. He is amazing and took the first 20 minutes or so to check on my son, check on my emotional state and calm me down......yep, pretty freaking amazing. Then he mentioned the things he had been made aware of. 

At first I was pissed at her, but then really thought of my reasoning for anger and it was pretty darn flimsy. She hadn't done anything wrong.....I hadn't told her *not* to tell him.....she had only done what she thought would be helpful.....and she had been honest. I hadn't been honest.....at all. I explained to Professor that I wasn't trying to really hide anything from him, that I would have eventually told him, that I was trying to be helpful because I wanted him to be able to devote his time and energy to his work so he wouldn't be stressed or overwhelmed. He mentioned 'Rule #1' and suddenly the realization of what I had done fell on me like a ton of bricks. I had convinced myself I was right, I was being helpful, I was being selfless, I was taking care of *my* Dominant and doing it for his own good.......I was wrong. I had been somehow oblivious to the fact that my protecting by prioritizing and deciding what to tell him was chipping away at the foundation of what we are in the first place. Our base is honesty......our relationship formed from and upheld by trust.....a trust brought about from unedited honesty. Even though my intention was good.....my method was wrong. If I thought I could hide things from him, whatever the reason, on occasion then what would stop it in the future? If I could withhold important details and circumstances to protect him then where would I draw the line in my 'protecting'? What damage would be done if he was only given partial information to go on? How could he help me if he didn't know what the issues were in the first place?

Obviously, with everything happening at the moment, it couldn't be addressed immediately......aside from a lecture on the importance of Rule #1 and a discussion that brought about a new understanding of what I had really been doing by hiding things.....for altruistic reasons or not. I had to add this to my Punishment List for a discussion at a later date......just to make sure I really take this lesson to heart. I promise I have already and after our future discussion will just have one more reason not to do it again. And for now, we are back to 'normal'......I am working very hard not to do anything that will require his focus so he can get his work done, but I'm keeping him informed on all of the things he needs to know, without selective editing. I am much happier when this is our 'normal'......it is actually *really* nice and extremely freeing to have one person you can talk to about anything, someone who knows everything, someone you trust, someone who knows the real me and someone I can share with and not have to ever edit content for. Lesson learned.