That Woman

I never thought I would be that woman. The woman who feigns headaches, who wears sweatpants to bed rather than sexy panties and camisoles.

I always judged her, I thought, "What an ice queen! How does she keep a man?"

See, I have always worn my sexuality like a badge of honor, letting it define me to an extent. It has not been that way for a long time now.

I wonder when it started. Sadly, it has been so long it has become hard for me to remember the times when I longed to be touched, felt the fire burning. Perhaps a year and a half, two?

I don't know if it is kind or cruel how I carry on, keeping him just satisfied enough so that I don't have to talk about it. It is not that I am a coward, never that, it is worse; I a completely uninterested in that conversation. I feel that it would be a waste of my time and emotion to "talk about it".

There are times when I throb and feel that ferocious hunger again, little reminders that the sexual lion still roars inside of me.

I have only dared admit this to my my best friend, my soul twin, and what do you know? She feels the same way. How comforting to have someone else who is confused by the new image in the mirror!

I heard a sex therapist on the radio a while back who said that faking an orgasm was like denying your truest self. She said that our sexuality is the core of our being, that it was a betrayal of ourselves to be untrue to it.

Well, I suppose I agree to a point except that I have spoken to that side of myself, and she knows the deal. It is emotional triage. My mind is full, I have a hurricane of thoughts and feelings, possibilities, sorrows, joys, I am poised for the myriad of changes and challenges I am entering. I really just don't have room for that conversation. I can't afford the shit storm of the long goodbye. That could be what this is, I don't know, but I also don't want to know right now. This is the conversation I am really avoiding, this is the conversation I can't even have with her.

This year is starting out pregnant with possibilities. It is going to be a big year and I find myself bracing for the explosion. I am going to be true to myself, not in the watered down sense Dr. Sex indicated. I am going to continuing living the best way I have figured out to live so far: with passion, with patience for myself and with faith in life itself to make all things crystal clear in its own good time.

No, I never thought I would be "that woman", but perhaps I'm not. Perhaps knowing that she is a stranger borrowing my body, knowing that she is just a guide, leading me to explore a new part of myself, maybe that makes me decidedly different from her.