• Sunday, December 10, 2006

    I Can't Tell.

    So about this celibacy thing:

    True, choosing whether or not to get hot and sweaty with someone isn't really too much of an issue right now. I'm still living with my husband, after all. It's a fairly lonely experience to sleep alone in the same house with someone you've been with for ten years, so when I fall asleep, I console myself with fantasies and memories.

    Yet I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice, cancelling out the benefits of celibacy, namely, self-reliance. Do escapist fantasies keep me from tuning in to and accepting loneliness? As in, if I really wanted to get full value out of this, would I be disciplining my mind as well? What a tall order it would be to not only isolate myself physically but also mentally. Isn't that our nature -- to crave connection?

    Where are the inappropriate boundaries of where I let my mind go, of what I think of and with whom I do it? My erotic essential nature wants to be recognized even if it is currently untapped. Even if you don't drive your car for few months, you should go out and start it and let it run just to keep it charged. There are pieces of me that I don't want to forget, or even worse, deny.

    So I'm going to crawl into bed and remember a late night, my lover's body in the light of a single candle, and his sweet and tender care.

    5 Comments:

    At 8:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    There are a couple of different reasons to choose celibacy. Certainly, one is to engage in the discipline of self-denial. If that is why you're doing this, I don't know that have anything useful I can say. On the other hand, there is also the kind of celibacy that stems from looking to avoid letting sex cloud your decision making. If this is the case for you, then the memories of past experiences are neither good nor bad in themself. The main thing is that your celibacy will help to keep you from making a relationship decision based on how compatible you are in bed. I'm all too familiar with the problems that come from thinking that just because you can figure out how to have mind bending sex with someone that you can also figure out how to have a successful long tem relationship with them. Maybe you can and maybe you can't, but until you figure out the direction you want to take your life, you don't need to compromise to accomodate someone else's opinions/needs/desires. Good luck.

     
    At 10:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Speaking as someone who is an unwilling celibate, since she's just not interested, it's scary how it doesn't bother you after a while. It's like your body kind of goes into "sleep mode" (I usually HATE computer analogies, but this one is appropriate) on that subject, until something . . . um . . . jiggles it to bring it back to life.

    Since you're in a difficult place now to have it any other way, I'd let your body go into sleep mode, and focus on other things, until it's time to reawaken that part of your nature.

    Of course, thinking of you reawakening will keep me up at night now, lol . . .

    XO

     
    At 10:39 AM, Blogger What the Chuck said...

    Hi WG,

    You wait. Four more days and you'll be crawling the walls.

    Sex is a beast not so easily tamed. And why bother?

    XO

    Chuck

     
    At 11:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Let your mind go, girl. There's no benefit in mental-emotional ascetism, in my opinion.

    Your main goals in all of this is to work through the loss and upheaval without going nuts or allowing any part of your personality to wither away

    I like your metaphor. You gotta start the parked car now and then to keep the battery charged ;-)

     
    At 5:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Jim is right.....your body goes into sleep mode.....but watch out when you find that someone or something that jiggles it to bring it back to life......because it will be all you can think about.....it will be all you want. I know. Someone woke me up this year after 6 long years of a sex life that was verging on non-existent and finally disappeared completely.

     

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