I spent years chasing a word that was never what I meant

For most of nine years I described what I wanted as punishment, and I chased that word into three conversations that all fell apart in roughly the same place. I would get close to somebody who took the word at face value, feel a great wave of reluctance, and disappear. Three times. I assumed I was a time waster and felt appropriately awful about it.

What I actually want is to be obedient about small ordinary things. To be told what to do, in a house, on a Tuesday, and to do it because I was told. The word I had was dramatic and the thing I wanted is domestic, and it took nine years and a very patient woman asking the right question to get from one to the other.

Thirty three, Salford. Eighteen months since the penny dropped and I have not written to anybody since, because I wanted to be sure it would hold, and it has.

So: standing instructions, ordinary tasks, a check that they were done, and consequences that are dull rather than theatrical. Losing a privilege. Doing it again. Being told I have let somebody down, which lands harder on me than anything else could.

What I do not want is anything with pain in it, which is the thing my old vocabulary kept promising and which I have never once actually wanted. I understand why a woman reading a nine year history might expect otherwise. That is why I have explained it.