Or Survivors CAN Have a Great Sex Life!

Midlife dating is divine.  Questions, like balls racked up on a pool table get shot and pocketed.

“What do you want in life and love?”

“Where must you travel?”

“What are your secret passions and joyful hobbies?”

This, in between ice cream licks and sips of wine or water. Words shared on trails hiked as hands and legs get entangled. I no longer care how deep the roots go, how long the paths converge and enjoy the months, days or only hours.

My words rush out and often but the precious ones are reserved, stayed pickled and private, for friends and loved ones.

Once, I felt damaged, broken and apologetic.

Once I knew myself to be an alarm in danger of blaring even when switched off. Disabled, without batteries, I feared being triggered and the switch back in time.

No more. No longer.

Memories, both good and bad, have been freed.

Secrets, I may never share, not because I am ashamed but because they are not relevant to who or how I am in the bedroom.

   Joy, at long last and hard won.

              Triumphant I am.

Not that dating is not without highs, lows and exotic locations. Intimacy is as messy and delicious as a watermelon which doesn’t drip neatly. I no longer rush happiness like it’s a bargain sale or a lottery ticket I must scratch. I like the life I’ve crafted, need not open my lids for anyone willing to jump into a can.

I’m not willing to spill the gifts of color without consideration, not of my worthiness but the worthiness of the other.

Plus, it’s too fun to rush. Dating is a joy ride. Who you think you thought you were at first meting can evaporate in a second.

This I know: Love changes everything. And love changes nothing. You are you. I am me. That will not stop no matter what the “we” and this is the beauty and the joyful work. Accepting that – magic transforms. We are made new, in love, to ourselves and each other, not because we change but because we remember!

We crawl the world as babies noticing blue skies and cat toys on a dirty rug with equal reverence.

Happily, I am not a teenager with dream schemes and how-to plans to do it better than others. Not a want-to-be anything I already am with a future and a history. In the space between my track record and bucket list is where I live.

Why should I apologize for what others did or have done?  I own my choices not my circumstances. I sign my name to the lines I’ve authored.

Is this the peace I thought impossible? Can bliss be subtle?

Whatever it is it is a gift I can’t get enough of.

Photo Credit: Margaret Bellafiore

Never again will I rearrange my life, heart or body to please another.

I feel such compassion for the child and woman I was, dependent or fearful.

Now, I know how to get close and back away.

I know how to press the gas, idle or back out of the driveway.

Trusting myself more makes the behavior of others matter less. I don’t have to blockade my heart any longer.

To have my own back makes even raw nakedness safe.

The tired phrase of embracing it all has new meaning.

I love being an adult.

Female. Sensual. Sexual and powerful.

Whole, in the bedroom, I now revel in every phase.

Wanting

Longing

Laughing

Lusting

Toe touching

Thigh tingling

Hanging on words, lashes and limbs.

Holding

Releasing

Coming home.

It is more than this guy or that man. I’m not bed hopping by life lapping. Poets and mystics write of falling in love with life itself and I know the scent of lavender climbing my front stairs is pushed by an ocean breeze is a gift, an aroma I stop to smell.

Bounty holds more appeal than drama. The unexpected bite of eggplant and the new texture of spice on cauliflower when I swear I don’t like that vegetable is sensory delight.

To inhabit my body makes moments magical and those moment accumulate as textured like yarn knitting a fabric of feeling I am warmed by even when sweater is disrobed.

This is the work of recovery, one reward, sweet gifts follow anguish as unexpected as an orange-beaked bird arriving on a butterfly bush tilted head and chirping hello.

To know myself giving and receiving pleasure fills me with unbridled enthusiasm. I am the simmering and the savoring. I am the hungered and the hungry. Satiated and no longer starving.

Once, survivor issues were the mattress,  sheets and comforter that surrounded me in the bed. I saw no way to get vertical without climbing in. Avoidance was easier than getting tangled.

Now, skin surfaces are bedsheets, hearts are the pillows and the soul is the bedroom my breath travels in.

Photo Credit: Margaret Bellafiore

Desire rises, frenzied and exhilarating, waves at high tide pushing the shore line.  Desire, quiet stores water, a tidal pool I become a drip castle in.

“Sex is so good I forgot to have a flashback” is what I told my friend when it first got good a few years back. Still, it was a toy I didn’t trust would still be there if I put it down. Now, I have to concentrate now to remember what I used to be afraid of.

There are scars instead of festering sores. The ghosts of the past have been returned to their owners. Their chaos and energy won’t be housed in the sanctuary that is me where they had trampled uninvited and I didn’t give them a key.

I am celebratory but take nothing for granted.

I am a flower not only blossoming but capable of watering. I remember thirst but in a way that makes water taste better and more succulent. It’s water spiked with gratitude.

This body is no longer young or lean but free from the weight of fear.

I’m as soft and stable as the sand which can be moved but not removed by waters rushing over.

No one makes love like a returned to herself survivor or a woman driven by want rather than need. No one knows the sacredness of trust or joy of playful abandon better.

There are joys worth documenting. Know this, I used to describe myself as a sexual amputee, dead from the waist down. I say this in case you don’t believe yourself capable of freedom. I feel as though I’ve been granted mobility after decades in a wheelchair. Years later it only gets more miraculous, luscious and satisfying.

No matter the story line with that guy or this man,

I am in love with life, mine,

and possibility

which reliably returns

only always.

Nantasket Beach, Sunset Photo Credit: Rob MacDonald

Photo Credit: Margaret Bellafiore