That "S" word

Let me first say, I am not a blogger.

Wait! wait! Don’t stop reading yet! Keep an open mind...

I admit, I love reading the ideas of others, sneaking into someone else’s soul and nosing about, looking for life clues, and I am often inspired by them, so I suppose I figured I’d try my hand at tossing my thoughts and feelings down on paper. Not real paper, as a friend of mine insists is the only honest way to go, just an application that opens and allows me to express myself quickly and easily. I think I’d like to say what’s in my heart and mind because...well, I suppose, at 57, I have a few experiences that might just help some poor schmuck or schmuckita who’s struggling along and wondering what the hell is happening in this life, questioning if their experience is just one awful anomaly. I guess I’d like to reassure that one person out there who may be thrashing around that I’ve been mired in the same shit, and it helps to stop and smell the---well, not the roses, but you get my drift---and take an informed look around (since you’re held fast there in the muck anyway), and then make a solid plan before you try to slog on through.

Okay, so, Reb and I were talking about the S word. Uh huh...Sex. I thought that might get your attention, but this isn’t about SEX sex as much as it’s about personal power. I suppose if I were an excellent writer I would have strung you along a little bit longer...

I recently had a cholecystectomy, which is to say that a surgeon filleted me, snagged my gallbladder when he was rooting around inside my guts with a sharp pair of scissors, and yanked it out through my belly button. Prior to the surgery, I had asked for advice on the procedure from Facebook friends. I found out that an alarming number of people, mostly women, have had their gallbladders stolen from them too, and most do not regret the loss in the least. I’m still pretty sore, and have a nasty bruised belly, so I am not so quick to forgive this body of mine that created a stone large enough to warrant the removal of a part of me that my acupuncturist swears will seriously affect my chi. At my age, and in my state of mind, I need all the chi I can get.

But let’s get back to the sex, shall we? So, one of my friends said that the procedure---the cholecystectomy---was a frickin’ cakewalk, and that she had come home the very same day and had some smokin’ sex with her sweet husband! Let me clarify here: She had four incisions cut into her belly, had been under general anesthesia for two hours, had been filled to popping with carbon dioxide gas, was bruised and swollen, and yet she went home and---instead of whimpering softly and being helped into bed in an earnest attempt to find a comfortable position in which to catch some well-deserved Zs---she hopped her man for a some hot, spicy loving!

Reb and I are trying to make sense of all this. I mean, no matter who you are, after years and years (and years and years) of marriage to the same man, sex just isn’t anything like what the movies would have ever led any of us to believe. For many women, if they are even willing to speak about it at all, it’s either a nightmare or a chore, a boring and predictable five to ten minutes a couple times a week that allows the woman to feel as though she’s done just enough---barely---to keep her husband from becoming a Gloomy Gus, pouting, and storming off to kick the dog.

So, how did ONE woman (and here I must say, she’s quite an extraordinary woman, but Kids, DO try this at home!) come to be exquisitely happy with her sex life, decades after marriage?

She took charge.

She’s always taken charge.

I myself have been, embarrassingly enough, passive all these years. For those of you ancient souls who remember the cartoon strip Peanuts, I have been forever trapped in the body of Lucy Van Pelt. In one telling panel, she asks her very wise younger brother, philosopher Linus, what our purpose is here on Earth. Without hesitation, Linus responds simply, Why, to make other people happy! Lucy immediately balls up her fists and screams, Someone’s not doing their job!

And there you have it: I’ve been forever waiting, expecting some other to come along and fulfill me, make me happy, complete me. Wasn’t that the message I had gotten from every Hollywood film on love and romance I had ever seen? Someone was supposed to come along and sweep me from my upright stance and carry me off to paradise. Yet my sexually-charged friend (while I was busy waiting, hands on hip, eyes rolling upward while tapping an impatient foot) has never stood around, not for a minute. She saw the man she wanted to marry, she pursued him, and she presented herself to the world, and to this man, as a sexy, attractive woman, in spite of the fact that she matches none of the silver screen’s leading ladies in appearance. She evaluated what she wanted---happiness, love, and a great sex life---and she’s been actively seeking and receiving it for years!

Damn!

So as surly as it makes me, I have to look this square in the face and accept it: The fact is, I make my life. I make me happy, or not. I’m in charge.

It’s a pretty powerful message, and one in which I thoroughly believe. It’s just that I’ve been craning my neck for so long, looking down the road and waiting for the regal white horse and the sexy, rugged stranger, that it will take a hell of a lot of work to stop my head from snapping around automatically in that direction when I’m in need of something, anything.

I really really know that no one needs to save me. I just need to learn to break the very bad habit of dropping this embroidered white hankie, expecting someone else to screech to a halt at a moment’s notice just to bend over and valiantly pick it up. It’s just a frickin’ hankie! How hard could it be to pick it up myself?