Well awake again, way before time fir the alarm goes off. How about you? Some of you are sleeping away, some are up and have been at work or going into work, some wishing for a job to go to and some worrying about life and some are cuddled up with their life. We all are in a different state, all in a different stage of life, and thoughts and so many other things. Sometimes these early wake up calls can be for a potty break, hot or cold, your dog, or so many other reasons. Sometimes it is the quiet time for devotions, time for reflection and time to bombard my blog with my thoughts so hang on! I will try to keep this somewhat PG….
I work in women’s health as a nurse. I have been blessed to be a nurse for almost 33 years, over half of my life, and in women’s health for 30 of those years. I have seen so many changes over the years from changes in care, changes in how we women age and grow, changes from embarrassment to discuss their concerns to even some things I blushed at. I have been invited to walk beside women in some of the most amazing things in their life, intimate changes, hurts and hopes. It has been amazing and it has taught me so much. I learn just as much from my patients and I hope they learn from me. Women are more forward in their thoughts and words than ever before but their hearts want to be heard. Sometimes they forget how to speak up, some feel they can’t ask for what they want and some have had their voice taken away. We as women are juggling alot in life. For some it is the dating scene, early married, young parents, parents of teenagers, empty nesters, widows, all women in different stages. Sometimes we get so busy juggling we put ourselves last, we put our relationships on a back burner, we burn out before we have had a chance to shine.
I have always been a person who is inquisitive and I will say an active listener. It makes me who I am, good or bad. With Valentine’s day on the horizon, well it made me think about relationships. Made me think of my past ones and a hope for a future relationship and it made me think about how we treat each other. I have been divorced for a long time. I know you find it hard to believe but I wasn’t perfect, shocker! Hindsight is 20/20. I was young and romance filled my eyes of pretty night gowns and sexy time. Then kids came along and I worked full time, at one point three jobs prior to my son’s birth, and keeping a home and a strong willed child that fell on the autism spectrum and those pretty night gowns became sleep shirts and choices of sleep over sex. Overwhelmed of what all I was juggling and resentful that he couldn’t read my mind and offer to help. And then that gerbil wheel of life kept going. My marriage didn’t end well, two kids some abuse and well alot of hurt. My hindsight now says I should have cut us all slack. That my house didn’t have to be perfect, that I was doing the best I could and I should have spoken up instead of immature expectations he would read my mind. Now listen, abuse is NEVER your fault, no matter the mistakes you make or the problems, you have never asked for abuse or responsible for their behavior. Just saying. I put alot of pressure to make everything a moment, to let my home to be touched with love and the love I forgot for myself. One thing I did learn then and learn everyday talking to women, the more women are heard and supported the happier the bedroom life becomes. Nothing sexier than standing beside a man who helps fold the laundry or does the dishes, makes you more open to doing the dishes later lol! When we look at each other as the person we love, not just for the money they bring home or the man who takes care of the yard work or the woman who cleans the toilets and cooks dinner. We all have roles in a marriage, in a relationship but if we look at that person as the person we love and not just what they do for us, well that makes a huge difference in how that relationship grows. We get so caught up in the nit picky things that drive us crazy that we sometimes nit pick the heart to death. Sometimes we hurt our own hearts for what our mouth can’t say.
Life gets crazy with just the world we live in and then you add the responsibilities of life, raising children, work and then the need to just be perfect. Women bring home their part of the bacon and fry it up and the pressure to be a sex goddess, well it is alot. Some women have given up on the sex goddess part, some withhold that part as a sense of justifying their hurt, some want more in that love department but don’t know how to ask. So many levels to this very basic need of intimacy. And sometimes that inner goddess is tired of couch surfing the real housewives and wants to role play you silly girl! Our bodies change and speaking from the women’s point of view, we get wedding dress ready in our younger years, get fluffy from happiness from all the good food and good sex, then that ends up in pregnancy where you never knew your stomach and behind could expand, rings don’t fit and you feelnlike a blown up marshmallow and yes feel womanly and kind of sexy until those last couple of months. Then breastfeeding and healing from delivery and sex is the last thing you think about. You recover or there never would be more kids in this world, but then you have kids who know when it is sexy time, stress becomes greater and sex becomes less, you sometimes become roommates and zoo keepers and you forget the importance of time as a couple. Then those kids grow up and start their life journey, and for those of you lucky to still be together, forget what it is you like about each other or what to do with your time. And just about the time you can feel free to be sexy that dang menopause and ED come around the bend. What the heck! This time of life is just as challenging as having sex for the first time. Your body is changing, you need to talk about dysfunction and what works. Some women have said how do I tell my husband of 30 plus years change how we make love and do so without hurting him or hurting myself? Then there are some women that are my heroes as they are in their seventies and still going strong and love the intimate part of their life. Such a goal to achieve! We get so busy discussing the goals and needs of life we forget to discuss the needs that keep a couple together. What the heart needs, what the body wants, and what your partner needs and feels. And not just for one holiday or two, but all year long.
Valentine’s day is around the corner and the pressure is on to send the flowers, buy the jewelry, find a sexy nightgown that hides the fupa, the cards, the dinners and all the good feels. I will admit when I was married I would get excited for holidays. The sentiment, the heartfelt card, the surprise on his face from a gift. Sometimes that was one sided as he didn’t like holidays. We spend so much on holidays, but what if we treated life and love as valentine’s day? Random notes or cards, flowers just because, fixing someone’s favorite dinner or surprising them with a lunch date, something that makes each other feel special. The husband saying honey I got the kids and you go take a bubble bath or the wife saying go on that boys night to the ballgame and I will be here for the touchdown later. Lifting each other up and not constantly pointing out their faults. I share too much, but in my early marriage I was young and all about romantic gestures. My mother will shake her head at this, sorry mom. I got home before he did and was starting dinner and thought I am going to knock his socks off when he gets home. I put on an apron, like a butcher apron, and that was it. Heard him drive up and I opened the door to greet him. Well I was expecting a wow or hubahuba but I got laughed at and told to get back in from the door before I was seen. Well needless to say that didn’t end in a happy ending. Now I am older and wish I had the body I did then, but still will probably try to pull that same thing again to surprise a man, not just any man mind you but the one that deserves my heart and would growl this is mine and leave the door open while he kissed me breathless (yes I read too many romance novels). I digress. When someone makes themselves vulnerable either in an apron or boxer briefs or whatever, appreciate the effort. Appreciate the time outside of the bedroom and appreciate each other and somehow sleep won’t be the first choice. Divide the chores, don’t forget to laugh, don’t forget the reason you fell in love with that person. Life changes us and teaches us, our bodies age and change but there was a reason you became one in the first place. When a woman feels heard, she responds. When a man is appreciated he responds. I have told my patients women are like crock pots. We start on low and need to simmer and warm up, we warm up from that attention, how are mind is touched before our bodies and that touch starts the fire. The majority of men are turned on by the looks of what is in that crockpot, the visual stimulation out weighs the mind sometimes and their engine revs a bit different than a woman’s. But If you discuss that recipe with your clothes on, talk about what you want and need prior to that meal, well the meal gets even better. Yeah I try to use word pictures alot. When each partner feels appreciated, it transfers into other areas of their lives and then makes some parts even better.
Like the accompanying picture says, anyone can get naked and have sex but it takes that connection to be more than sex. Sex has become easy and feelings have become difficult. When some are young, hooking up is a right of passage it seems. Hormones raging and lithe bodies and sex is fun. Then you realize you are more than a good time Sally. The steady relationships or marriage happen, bodies change and the emotional connection happens. If you don’t feed that emotional connection the sex fades away. If you don’t put the effort into each other you give up. Those are sad stories to hear and then usually you hear of extra marital affairs. Chasing that thrill and feeling of being wanted. Then separations and divorces are as easy as going to the grocery store. Then the person left behind feels unloved and unwanted and loses self worth. Again they are more than the intimate parts of their life but yet feel they just aren’t enough. Or the partner dies and that person is left with unsaid words, sleeping alone for the first time in 50 years. We are complex people who simply want to be loved. We all can get naked and have sex, but to make love to a person is a whole new level. So while everyone will bustle about looking for a valentine’s gift or send those over priced roses to work so everyone will oooh and aaaah, maybe we think about everyday life and love on the person you have been blessed with. Surprise someone with a surprise isn’t linked to a holiday. Sometimes when you feel you have to buy something, it takes the joy out of giving. Sometimes when you want to do something just because, the rewards are great for both of you. Sometimes when you are single, you read too many romance novels and wonder where you can find an apron with spanx, lol.
If you are single, realize that getting naked is fun but baring your soul is brave. If you are married or in a relationship, getting naked is fun, but nurturing each other is humbling and forms a bond that goes beyond the physical aspect. If you are older and widowed or single as a pringle, getting naked involves a shower and maybe not falling, it is knowing your heart has been loved and for some the hope to be loved again and it means you love yourself. Each one of these people are brave. They showed up naked, they showed up to put cool cloths on you while you were worshiping the porcelain throne, they showed up in ways too many to mention. We all can get naked and orgasms can be fleeting, but the person that can take your mind and heart and then your body, those are the ones that deserve to see you naked ( and no matter the shape of that body, they still deserve to see all of you and you see all of them). In a world of Fifty Shades, and sites galore to surf, we sometimes make sex seem easy. It isn’t. It is as complex as people, it is something that grows with monogamy (friends with benefits can be great sex but leave one empty because it is just naked exercise without a soul connection). It isn’t just holiday gifts and holiday sex (yes I even used to be excited for holiday sex) it is everyday excitement. It is making time for the person your heart beats for and not just the chocolate hearts, it is the quick text, the flirty picture sent, it is the code word you set up to leave a function to go home for sexy time (that may have happened in my marriage lol) it is getting up early to fix his lunch or see him off to work, it is the foot rub when she gets home(after a shower and yes even for those who don’t have foot fetishes), it is being there to hold each other through the challenges in life and not just post sex cuddling. It is more than a holiday where everyone rushes to declare their love and then next day forgets to speak to their loved one because they are too busy.
Now I write this from the female perspective because I am one and I talk to women all day long. I have a feeling for some men they would agree with these thoughts. Women, we have spent too much time taking away a man’s masculinity yet get upset when they become meterosexual. He isn’t your girlfriend, he is your man. As much as you want to be heard, he wants to be appreciated. As much as we struggle with our body images, he does to. As much as we worry about being dry as the desert, he worries about his performance. Some look as their men as a ATM and some men look as their women as a place for deposit but no return. Men, I think, want to feel love and heard, they want to be manly, they want to matter but sometimes their pride over takes their heart. I hear about this infamous man card and how some women want to take that man card. Why? Just because you think you can? Why would you want him to be whipped and at your beckon call? He then becomes an object not a person and isn’t that what women get upset about, being treated as an object? What is good for the goose is good for the gander. I want a man to be a man. Strong hands soft yet callused from working with his hands and he has not been idle, the smell of sweat, the sky grin he gives you when you are being silly. I want a man that is manly in all ways but makes me feel like I am his world and that his world is better because he has me and I have him. Yeah I know, too many romance novels. But seriously, why take away someone’s identity or change them because if you have to do that, did you really want that person for who they were or just for who you thought you could change them in to? I don’t know about you, but I want to grow and change but want to be accepted for who I am and vice versa. We all change and grow, but the base person we are is always going to be there. We all are flawed, all carry baggage and hurts, it just depends on what we want to unpack and what we don’t want to let go of.
So as we head into this expensive holiday, maybe look at yourself and not the holiday trappings. Examine your mind and heart, love your body no matter the shape, love the person you are. Then, if you have that person in your life, look at them. Look beyond the dirty dishes and laundry, look beyond the bills and stresses. Really look at that person and feel those butterflies of love, hug them tighter, pray for them harder. Talk to them not at them. Listen to what they say and pay attention to what they don’t. Listen I don’t have all the answers, but I know a thing or two. I have been married and divorced and I have dated. I have made mistakes, again that damn apron incident. BUT I have learned alot. I have learned love should never be taken for granted. I have learned we all deserve to be loved and not just when we are naked. If we spent more time working on ourselves and each other and our relationships, well I have a feeling we would be naked alot more. Valentine’s day is a day to celebrate love, love should be celebrated. So if you are blessed to have someone, love them with all you have. If your love has gone in to glory, cling to the love you shared as you go down memory lane knowing you were brave not to just be naked but to have your heart loved. If you are a single parent, love on those kids so that they know love is possible in all forms. If you are single (me) love yourself, forgive yourself for past mistakes and be thankful for what those mistakes taught you so that one day you won’t just be naked but your soul to bare to the one who has been waiting for you. True love comes in many forms but only grows when it is fed. So you crazy in love people, celebrate and revel in the blessings you have been given. You young single girls, that brief hook up may make you feel like a goddess but cupid’s arrow may have to be an antibiotic shot if you aren’t careful. You are more than just sex and don’t forget that. You mature single women (me), reflect on love and know you are worthy for love, the love that goes beyond getting naked. Now if you’all will excuse me I have to go and get ready for my paying job, get naked to shower and maybe invent aprons with spanx to sell to you adventurous souls out there. Don’t make life so serious all the time. Flirt and surprise and laugh and love, make the moments count not count down to the moments. Recognize Valentine’s day but make everyday have a little bit of love in it. I am going to try. And remember chocolate is chocolate, be it in a red heart or a single candy bar it is all still chocolate…so take a bite and enjoy your life and enjoy who is in your life. Love the one you are with and that starts with you.
