Virgin

The beauty of blogging anonymously is that I don't have to worry about my mother reading this.  Or my daughter.  Or any future dates.

So - let's talk about sex, shall we?

It's been a while.  As a matter of fact, it's been such a long while that I can no longer remember how long it has been.  I asked for a divorce two years ago, and it had been a while before that, too.

During my marriage, his disinterest in sex - coupled with telling me that he actually WAS interested in sex with me, and the fact that I discovered a porn habit - was incredibly painful.  The stereotype says that men want it more than women, and I think that made me feel deficient.  Our sex life doesn't factor into the long list of what I tell myself about why our marriage fell apart, but it was a problem, and at least a symptom of our problems, if not one of the causes.  If I didn't initiate sex, we'd go months without it.

And here's a funny one: When I was giving birth to our daughter, who was conceived the conventional way, my OB said "Wait a minute, your hymen is in the way...." This snapped me out of my breathing exercises with a "WHAT?"  Apparently, my hymen was tough, and it had never been broken, and it created a barrier that my baby couldn't pass through.  In order to give birth, the doctor had to cut it.  How weird is that?

Which leads to how I feel today: virginal.

Despite the fact that I've had lovers and a husband, it has been so long since I had sex that I can barely remember it.  And what's more, the body that I had with previous lovers is all but gone: this new body has not only aged almost two decades since the last time I took on a new lover (the last one being my husband, and we started sleeping together in 1995, when he DID seem to like having sex with me), but I've also given birth since then.

Oh, yes, and I've had breast cancer since then.

Breast cancer is not sexy, and the marks it has left on my body aren't sexy, either.  I have a ridiculous amount of scars - measurable in feet, not inches - across my chest and back.  Gone are my pretty breasts (it seems vain, but how I miss my pretty, perpetually perk breasts!), replaced by strange silicone ones that are cool to the touch, far too round, and have no feeling in them.

And here's a little overshare: I don't have nipples.  I had double mastectomies with flap/implant reconstruction, and we tried to do new nipples twice, but both times they "failed" which is medical-speak for disgusting things which I will not mention here.  In place of nipples, where there were once perpetual headlights on my chest (a source of embarrassment when I was younger), are now just tattoos like targets: a darker circle inside a lighter circle, sort of resembling a nipple.  To say I miss the headlights is an understatement - I didn't appreciate them nearly enough when I had them.

So, this "new" body of mine has only seen one man, and he was one who knew me "before."  I could pretend to myself that Bryan knew the old me, so he would remember that when he saw the new me.  Given that, unlike Cuckoo Momma, I don't have any lovers that seem worth revisiting, the next time I reveal myself to a man, he will see only the scarred version of me, and not my youthful, healthy, perky, nippled self.

Inside me, there is a lusty woman who is proud of her sensuality, eager to get back into the sack with a handsome man.  I'm proud of the way I managed my cancer, proud of the hard work I did to get back my life, proud of my strong legs and of the way I can hold plank for over a minute now.

But I also feel like a scared virgin - what will it be like?  Will I cry?  Will he think I'm beautiful, or will he be repulsed? Is it REALLY like riding a bicycle?  (It had better be better!)  Am I ready?

*****

Yes, I'm back on the dating scene.  No, I haven't met anyone who has made me consider, even for a minute, getting into bed.  I actually canceled a first date today - just wasn't feeling it.  I am having some interesting online chats (no, not that kind.....all very chaste!) with an intriguing gentleman, but I know all too well that online chemistry may not translate to in person, and we're still trying to schedule our first date (around our parenting schedules, which conflict).  Perhaps there will not even be a first date if we can't figure out the schedules.

But spring is in the air.  Birds do it, bees do it....and I remember just enough to know that I used to like it, a lot.

But until then, whenever that may be, I'm feeling virginal.

I will say this, though. Whoever "he" may be, the one who makes me want to change this state, risk vulnerability, and make some magic, well, I'll warn him now: he'd better be taking his vitamins.  I have some catching up to do!