Big

[Photo by Keshigomu under a Creative Commons license]

Every once in awhile, Holly lets me see her playful, youthful, little-girl self.  It’s sassy, silly fun and we both enjoy it.

Now, allow me to say something up front:  Holly is a completely functional adult woman.  She puts the Up in Grownup, no lie.  In fact, the grownup she grew up to be is serious, diligent, hyper-responsible. True torture for Holly would be making her replace her car’s inspection sticker…one day late.  [Cue scary music].

Sometimes, when we do this thing that we do, we play out our other sides, right?  The person who’s ultra-alpha hard-charging businessperson by day likes to take all that off at night, put on a collar and not be in charge for a few precious hours.  I know I do; hell, it’s Club Med on two legs and you don’t even have to go through TSA to get there.  And so maybe very, very responsible, detail-oriented Holly, who is the grownup to many people in her life (and not always consensually!) wants to put down her to-do list for a minute and play.  I have a hard time seeing that as a bad thing.  I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than what it is: Recess for Grownups.

When I meet someone who still has that effervescent, youthful part of themselves, I marvel at it.  I marvel at it in the same way I would marvel at a bright shard of pottery that is all that’s left of an ancient masterwork.

I do not have that.  I am, for better or for worse, irrevocably and completely grown up.  I’m a huge fan of roleplay, but if I ever did an ageplay scene, make no mistake: I’m not channeling a younger version of myself.  I am making something entirely new that may have nothing at all to do with the lass I once was.  It’s not a piece of me: it’s a role.

Sometimes I think Holly wonders what I get out of being the big to her little for awhile.  Maybe she thinks I’m just a good sport.

The thing is, that’s not true.

It’s not true because my “big” is every bit as real and part of me as Holly’s “little” is a real part of her.  My desire to nurture, my desire to be the one creating the fun, and above all, my limitless, passionate desire to make things go right — oh, I don’t have to playact that.  That is as real as it gets in Lily-land.

Because sometimes, you can’t make things go right for the people you love.  The giant boulder is steamrollering down on all of us and sometimes we can’t stop it no matter how much we want to or how hard we try or how crazy we’re willing to get to make it right.  You can’t stop it or safeword on it or get it to go away for love or money, so you just do the best you can, by which I mean you work it until you really and truly cannot work it one more millisecond, throw up on your shoes, and then get carried out on a gurney all the while yelling PUT ME BACK IN!  PUT ME BACK IN DAMMIT!

But see?  That’s what’s great about being big: it’s a magical, beautiful snowglobe world.  And inside it, nothing ever hurts for long and nothing is wrong that can’t be fixed.

I can make everything go right.  

Even if only for a few precious hours.

So if Holly and I ever get around to talking about it and she asks me if I’m just being a good sport when I’m being the big, I know what my answer is: “Are you kidding me?  I fucking LOVE being Big!”