Archives for posts with tag: let’s talk about sex

In Brief, In Briefs

January 17, 2015 //
0

I’m still lounging in my sleepwear, and it’s actually 8:00 am. I succeeded in sleeping in – and a good thing, because my emotions and my physical pain kept me up quite late. There’s nothing like stress, hormones, and pain to illustrate all my very worst qualities as a human being: easily frustrated, childishly attached to being comforted, emotional, needy, demanding, inflexible, irritable, unapproachable, resentful, baggage laden, and capable of losing all perspective in a moment. This human primate thing is not so easy as it seems…at least not if I am wanting to be the best that these raw materials allow.

This morning I woke with this headache continuing from yesterday, and through the tears (yes, sufficiently painful to cause tears in the absence of other emotion-causing stimulus) I took time to be grateful for something pretty obvious; I don’t have this headache every day. That’s something. I take a moment and try to apply the same practice to other frustrations, other things I am ‘going without’ or just no longer have in my experience these days, that I continue to be attached to, and to yearn for.  I’m grateful that I ever did have those feelings, and experiences. I appreciate and value the memories that linger.

This is not the most joyful place I’ve been in life. Facing a mid-life health concern, having my own experience – companionship, love, sharing; none of these things actually change one thing that is real and true in all this. I am having my own experience. There will always be elements of my experience I can’t easily share, or verbalize. There will always be the limitation that others are having their own experience, as well, and my words will be filtered through their understanding of the world, and the context of their experience. There will probably also always be elements of my experience that are best not shared at all – that’s been a given all along. It’s one of the most difficult things about having this particular TBI, or of being a trauma survivor; most people don’t try to share on the level I default to, and most people do not want to have a visceral understanding of some kinds of pain. I am alone with my words. A lot. At some point, that has to be okay.

My TBI complicates things, and sometimes in a very unexpected way. I’ve been feeling incredibly discontent lately, less supported than I ‘expected to’, lonely, sexually unsatisfied, emotionally isolated, frustrated, and disconnected in my relationships… I miss a particular time period in a valued romantic relationship (which one would not be relevant, the experience is similar across all of them, to varying degrees). I miss “that year” together, with the intensity of our affection, the continuous good-natured camaraderie, the close emotional bond, the driven heat of sex-all-the-damned-time – and feeling well and truly loved, satisfied, cared for, nurtured, valued… it was fucking fantastic. There’s never been another year like it in my life, before or since – even in the relationship I share with that lover, now. I noticed it at the time, and I valued it greatly. I regularly attempted to express my appreciation and gratitude… and to my later great disadvantage (I realized during the night), his response was to assure me I deserved to be treated so well, and that he always would, and further that I ought not settle for less, ever. I wonder if, at the time, he had any idea that he would be treating me less well over time, himself? I recognized how spectacularly special that time was, and the wonderful way he loved and cared for me. I regret that I didn’t understand his polite refusal to be complimented on it had the potential to set my expectations of the future of love. It’s not fair to either of us that I yearn so much for a moment in love’s life cycle of unsustainable intensity. I’m sure it was a good time for him, too. No time machine. That time is not now.

Here I am now. Love is. That’s a pretty big deal. There are still things I want out of love that I don’t have right now. That is what it is. I suppose I will likely always feel that way. Realistically, if I never had sex ever again… I’ve had more than most people, some of it has been extraordinary. Same with love – if I were bereft of love’s warmth tomorrow, I have at least known love. Romantic promises and hyperbole probably don’t trip everyone up the way they tripped me up…my broken brain got in my way; I did not understand those promises were not ‘real’, only beautiful words of love.

Today I will have breakfast with a friend I’ve been missing, and converse about the things going on in our ‘now’. I won’t need to pretty up the details – he’s the sort of friend I’ve always been able to be entirely frank with, and he’s always there. He’s been a friend since before the relationships of my heart’s landscape now even existed, and has context on who I am over time, and how I’ve grown. When we hang out, I walk away feeling more aware of how far I’ve come, and wholly accepted. It’s never been about sex between us, and it’s good to be able to talk those things over with someone who doesn’t have any potential to feel hurt by it. If you have such a friend – cherish them. You may need the warmth of their good company later on. Later I will ride the train home, and think about all the sex, all the lovers… and the awareness that there is life beyond sex, much of which I’ve not had to explore; most of my experience is sexual in some way. I’d like to find my way to a point on the journey where sex just doesn’t matter, doesn’t drive needs, doesn’t influence my actions or emotions – for now, even the idea of sex tends to feel emotionally compelling, and something more or less on the order of ‘everything that matters’, because for now, it seems to matter so terribly much that without those experiences, I sort of wonder what the point is?

The path isn't straight, the destination isn't obvious, but the journey must continue.

The path isn’t straight, the destination isn’t obvious, but the journey must continue.

Today is a good day to explore the unknown within. Today is a good day to talk with a friend. Today is a good day to wander, eyes open, on strange paths. Today is a good day…to change.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Love’s Best Magic Trick

January 4, 2015 //
0

I was standing in the shower tonight, feeling the hot water slide over me, following gravity to the drain. My thoughts slipped gently through my awareness in much the same way, sensuous, ephemeral, fleeting. Thoughts about love, and loving, about life, and the ceaseless passage of time, and whether time actually affects love, really… It’s the sort of thing I think about in the shower, I admit it; I’m at an emotional place in life, and love is The Big Deal among emotions. I’m fortunate to experience the wonder of love, and specifically, adult, romantic, sexual love.

The shower filled with a fog of steam, and transported me to another moment, a distant time, and I paused there, recalling it with great clarity. It had been a nasty several days; I was exhausted, stressed out, and feeling bereft of comfort or affection from my then-partner. We’d been fighting like a seashore – the sort of experience where one issue is put to rest, and another surges, as if the emotions beneath the whole mess could not be defeated, solved, or turned for the better. Through out the difficult week, I’d worked, too. I came home, one evening later in the week, committed to ‘making things right’ and hopefully making amends and communicating support, comfort, and love enough to hold each other, maybe even have sex. Not only did the evening not turn out so pleasantly, it went from bad to worse and before dawn we were done. Finished. Over with.

Sometime out in the middle of all that, there were a couple of hours – after he stormed off, and before he returned – that I might have spent in solitary misery, if a dear friend hadn’t stopped by to check on me, worried and wanting to be sure I was okay. I clearly wasn’t ‘okay’, and he stayed awhile. It is this interlude, with that friend, on the described night, about which I was thinking in the shower, tonight. He had asked me a question, you see, and it is one that has stuck with me like an echo. I heard that question in my thoughts tonight, and let it rest there to be considered… “When was the last time you’ve been made love to?” he had asked me. I remember, also, being puzzled by the question at the time, how it could be relevant in the moment, what he might mean by asking it just then, and honestly – what he meant by it, at all. I replied with something to that effect, something more or less “How is that any different from any other sex?”  Even so many years later, I remember the compassionate and saddened look in his eyes – I remember that look, that expression, more clearly that most other details of that precise moment, though I know he responded to my reply. I remember my heart pounding, my mouth dry, and the sudden panic that there was some quality, or characteristic, or technique that lovers might be expecting that I just didn’t ‘get’… could they tell? Is it a character flaw? We probably talked longer, and knowing him as I do, I know the transition from conversation to contact was natural; I only remember his eyes, his touch, and being in his arms. I remember the lovemaking that followed. I remember the connection, and the intimacy, and the puzzled laughter when we realized together that this magical few moments had been unexpectedly snatched from the middle of a break up… it seemed incongruous, possibly inappropriate – and such a relief to be held, cared for, comforted, and…something more, something I didn’t have words for.  We talked more; I felt stronger when he departed.  I felt loved.  The sex actually was different that evening… and that is what I was thinking about, in the shower. (Oh! Hey, not ‘those’ sorts of thoughts, just thoughts. lol)

"You Always Have My Heart" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with glow.

“You Always Have My Heart” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with glow.

Comedians often make jokes about the phrase ‘making love’, or the term ‘love-making’; it seems generally considered to be ‘verbal slight of hand’ – a convincing way of talking a woman into sex, or a way of thinking about sex that is ‘for women only’ in some way. Sex is sex, after all, isn’t it? I thought so, too, for a long long time. My thinking on the topic changed that evening. Love-making is perhaps Love’s best magic trick – it has the potential to literally create love between beings. Think that over – we can actually make love. Wow. Powerful. I stood there in the shower, wrapped in mist and warmth, pondering the nature of love… and trying to cleverly capture it in a succinct phrase or two, or some brief explanation of how it could be that way at all… (I watch way too much Science Show, apparently).

So…Really…What’s the deal with ‘making love’? How is it different from ‘sex’, if it is, at all? I gave the matter a great deal of consideration, comparing and contrasting my own experiences, thinking over conversations with past lovers, and things I read in studies of various sorts. I could only identify [in the shower, no notes or references] one characteristic, in the context of my own limited – and highly subjective – experience with such things, that differs between sex and ‘love-making’ (which doesn’t require love to exist in advance, but can result in love as an outcome); it’s something to do with connection, intimacy, awareness…mindfulness. (It’s in the way we touch, but not the technique, and it is the level of awareness of each other, but not a particular act, or script, and it is that we matter to each other, in the moment.) Mindfulness? No kidding? Huh.

I’ve been struggling with understanding mindfulness in the context of sex for some time, and not finding my way with any ease (mostly just feeling ludicrously self-conscious, clumsy, and awkward)…and standing there in the shower thinking about love, a puzzled piece snapped into place quite neatly. There’s likely a lot more that could be said about this, and certainly I think about sex a great deal (being among the many people who generally would like to have much more of it than circumstances provide), but I’m so not an expert on intimacy, or love, or sex…I’m a student of love, as much as a student of life, and here too, I am more about questions than answers.  I feel like I’ve taken a step forward on an important part of my journey, though, or perhaps I’ve at least correctly oriented my map. I find myself feeling encouraged by this new understanding of how love-making differs from sex, and I’ll make a point of telling you why; if making love is about the mindful nature of a romantic connection, or moment… then it isn’t ‘about’ the physical act. If love-making isn’t actually ‘about’ sex, then the sometime lack of sex that life sometimes throws my way is no impediment to love, loving, or love-making! I don’t mind going without sex now and then, sometimes we must – but I don’t want to go without love. I feel a bit like I’ve been ‘doing it wrong’. There’s so much more to learn – starting with learning to make love – without sex.

It’s just past midnight…it’s a good night for love. I have a lot to learn, and this is a very exciting bit of curriculum with which to start the new year.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Timing and Context

October 26, 2014 //
0

I woke too early for a Sunday morning, and by that I mean, I’d have liked to sleep a bit longer, but I am awake. I woke with a sense of urgency, and a heart full of troubling emotions. The urgency turned out to be easily addressed by indoor plumbing; being human remains a very biological experience.

Have a flower

Living things, living.

The remaining emotions seem, even now, a hodge-podge of weirdness on the blue end of the emotional spectrum, and some anxiety thrown in there for added ‘fun’. When I faced the emotions head-on, with compassion for my experience, they mostly receded into the background. This is consistent with my experience of emotions that are not specifically tied to actual here-and-now events or experiences. So, I woke with linger emotions from dreams, perhaps, or simply with some built-in chemical cocktail coursing through my blood stream that my brain interprets as ’emotions’, but may not be. Last but certainly not most rare, I could be misinterpreting what I am feeling; anxiety and excitement have a lot of chemistry in common, and I am going on a date with my traveling partner today – very exciting, indeed. 🙂

Taking inventory of the experience I’m having right now, I feel rather breathless, as though it is actually difficult to take a deep breath; my diaphragm feels very tight and deep cleansing breaths require both focus and effort. I’m in pain, but less than has been so common recently, still, my back feels still and my muscles send me clear indications that the positions I took during the night may not have been ideal for later comfort; shoulder and neck pain in my muscles give that away. The snap and pop of joints that don’t hurt reminds me to be gentle with myself, to slow down, and to move with purpose; I’m still losing weight, and there’s some slack in joints, tendons, and connective tissue that puts me at risk of easy injury.

I’m still finding this breathless, rather anxious-feeling core, unmitigated by yoga or meditation. I take another deep breath and relax, feeling the ebb and flow of it. Although I did read “The Giver” before bed last night (perhaps not ideal nighttime reading for someone with sleep and nightmare challenges, honestly), my own dreams were not filled with it, they were filled with love and lust and sex and life…considering it in this now moment, the feeling of ‘anxiety’ and breathlessness suddenly spikes. Oh. I get it now. It’s the sex thing. lol. Damn it. Being 51, and post-menopause, has done not one thing to reduce my sex drive, or my interest in sex, or curb the maddening libido that is one of life’s gifts to me, if anything it seems more pronounced than ever – and now I needn’t worry about pregnancy. Younger me, back in the distance time of my 20s, would be so thrilled! lol. I mostly find the din of urgent sexual desire to be an impediment to contentment, because there really isn’t much chance at fulfilling the seething need; it’s too much to ask of another person, there are a lot of other things going on, and we all have so much to do… I love the feeling of being aroused, eager, excited, even yearning for sexual contact and satisfaction is largely a very positive and life-affirming experience…but I also have to take time out to work for living, get some things done around the house, take care of me… and my partner is  human, too, with his own needs, desires, limits, workload, time and lack of time, energy and lack of energy… in short; everyone at this party is human.  I have spent most of my adulthood feeling like my sexual needs are not needs that can actually be met in any sustained way, you’d think by now I’d be used to it. lol

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

51 is a funny time of life to be this horny, too. It seems unexpected to some people, as though there is some magic shut-off switch at 49, and sex tends to be a less comfortable subject once the conversation isn’t also about people 18-40-something. lol. That, however, is not my baggage. 😉  What is my baggage is learning to comfortably manage unmet needs; unaddressed these emotions potentially lurk in the background waiting to hijack my experience with some unexpected tantrum or moment of generalized pissed-off-ed-ness that can really mess up a lovely day. As ideal as it would be, sex itself is not always the solution available. This particular conundrum is still in the ‘more about questions than answers’ stage, too. So.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass... there's got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass… there’s got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Today is a beautiful day to be so fortunate as to feel excited to be alive. Today is a good day to be able to feel profoundly excited by my partner, such that just living alongside him day after day is this exciting. Today is a good day to be human, to be a being of emotion and sensation. Today is a good day to feel and to love. Today is a good day to practice willfully treating others well, regardless of my emotional state. Today is a good day to respect my own experience, with love and kindness, and recognize I am not alone. Today is a good day to be human; every piece of the puzzle rich with meaning, and potential for growth. Today is a good to enjoy the moment, and appreciate my great capacity to love. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women

Oooh, sexy!

July 14, 2013 //
0

Well, maybe, maybe not…’sexy’ is pretty subjective. Interesting concept, too; part emotion, part aesthetic, part visceral response to…someone. Sex is a big deal for a primate. I guess maybe a few people get The Sex Thing figured out pretty easily. I thought I had. I mean, The Sex Thing has always been a subject worthy of considerable contemplation (and practice), and I’ve long wondered why we don’t take it all so much more (and less) seriously. We don’t expect nuclear physicists to wake up when they turn 18 and suddenly know what is unknown, or expect educators to be born fully formed and possessing all the known information of the universe to pass on to the youth of the next generation, or expect needed knowledge or skills to be magically in our possession without taking the steps to learn them, refine them, enhance them – and share them with others. Somehow, someone somewhere got the dumb-ass idea that sex doesn’t require – or warrant – study and education and skill building. lol.  I’m still – after giving the matter approximately 39 years of contemplation – I’m still entirely bemused that as a culture we can be so incredibly short-sighted, and yeah…just not very bright, to think for a moment that sex doesn’t rate the same serious study and pursuit of knowledge that any other meaningful endeavor in life is expected to require.

Oh…maybe sex isn’t ‘meaningful’? Yeah, we can stop there. All I need, personally, to ‘prove’ the meaningful quality, the value, the importance of sex is a moment to observe the huge amount of human bandwidth that goes into getting sex, having sex, stopping other people from having sex, regulating sex, talking about sex, thinking about sex, writing about sex, video taping sex, measuring things that are relevant to sex, cataloging practices and achievements that have to do with sex someone, somewhere, is having – real or imagined. There are multiple industries that support our appetite for sex, and our sometime desire to stop ourselves from craving or pursuing some particular detail that really does it for us as individuals. If sex weren’t meaningful, we would have no need to enact laws that regulate or govern it, or our freedom to have it, or our restrictions from having it – and we sure wouldn’t be spending any of our limited mortal hours speaking in envious, or horrified, tones about the sex someone else is having.  So sure, meaningful, obviously.

Sacred? Could be…but to whom? Why? What quality about it? Does one person’s sexual take on life, the world, and ‘everything’ have any real relevance to anyone else’s? Does what we know, think we know, or once thought we knew about sex have any permanence? Mores change. Taboos change. “Normal” isn’t any more ‘real’ than the thinking that defines it.

Honestly, it’s on my mind a lot lately – sex. The whole thing; how it feels, what it means to me, what I like, what I need…and mindfulness.  The March Toward Menopause continues, slower than I’d like, but perhaps I need the time? I’m not the same woman I was at 18. I understand the world differently. I understand myself differently. Even sex is different…and I haven’t ‘figured it all out’, yet. (We’re all adults here, right? Can we talk about this?) The mindfulness practices I am learning are so helpful in so many areas of life – my overall stress level day in and day out is much lower, and I feel more comfortable living my life and enjoying my experience…and I am still struggling to figure out how to apply ‘mindfulness’ to sex. Seriously.  So far, most of my experience applying mindfulness to sex, or attempting to, results more often than not in an intensely ‘self-conscious’ experience, with far more awareness of small points of physical discomfort, concern about my partner’s experience in the moment, and ‘performance anxiety’. I’m pretty sure that last one is a pretty huge indicator that I’m not making best use of the potential in mindfulness, at least where sex is concerned. lol  Fuck, at least I’m still laughing about it. I like sex too much not to keep trying…but I do tend to be a bit on the ‘think-y’ side…so of course, I go looking for any available resource. What do I find?

A quick Google search for “Mindfulness and Sex” returns more than 5 million hits, and the first two pages include links to some excellent articles…and I’ve read them, each and every one. Hell, I took notes. I did further reading on relevant topics. It hit me today… it isn’t that mindfulness ‘isn’t working’ for me, where sex is concerned. 😦  It is working…and I am becoming aware that some of my experience includes feelings of anxiety, of performance pressure, of physical discomfort, of subtle moments of resentment or anger when things don’t go quite as hoped, and of simple self-consciousness and concern about the small details that matter, and my partner’s experience.  Mindfulness isn’t broken because my experience isn’t universally simple, easy, and ecstatic – it is working quite nicely – because my experience isn’t actually simple, easy, or a matter of getting from arousal to ecstasy quickly and without complications. It isn’t reasonable to expect it to be, is it? Sexual trauma survivor…going through menopause? Right, looking at it in print, it seems pretty silly to have expectations of sex that could be filmed in a single take, with the history I have. lol.

It’s looking like ‘dealing with my shit’ is going to include a whole new understanding of my sexual self…I’d like to embrace that as an adventure, an opportunity…no, no that’s not quite true. I’d like it not to be on my agenda at all. Seriously? How do I even start? What are the ground rules? Why can’t I just ‘take a class’ at the local community college? Why didn’t my education prepare me for this?

Well…I haven’t figured everything out, but it is still a lovely summer day. 😀

Lovely pink flowers on a summer day.

Lovely pink flowers on a summer day.

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Turning 50, women