"Sex is hard, often painful but also hilarious and more gratifying for the simple reason we keep wanting it." This stayed with me. I am thinking so much about sex and what it means as David and I get older. I love that you included "hilarious" because that is also beautiful.
My cousin is 102 ( 103 in November!). She is healthy except for hearing loss and on light meds for mild heart condition. Otherwise she is self sufficient, drives a car, uses the computer and cell phone including texting, has 4 big dogs and a great memory. What got her here with such great health? Besides genes ….she never stresses and hasn’t cared what others think for years upon years!
Actually, my husband and I were talking about your piece recently and he noted how better and more satisfied we are at sex than our younger selves. You pay more attention, are more creative, take more time, and find more joy and laughter in pursuading your body parts to cooperate. Coconut oil (solid rather than liquid oil) also helps. You may have to let go of the WHAM spontaneous of younger days but the playful anticipation is pretty cool, too
I have 2 avoidable caveats to share…( just skip away and read somebody else if you don’t want to know).
#1. Next week I will be 82y/o and in the last 3 1/2 years I have fallen three times- breaking bones each time, with long recoveries (casts, titanium rod, etc. . Each time I vowed to never fall again, and I was wrong. (Before those falls, from age 50-to almost late 70’s I was vibrant, also jogging almost 365 days each year- falling maybe once or twice each year, with nothing more than bumps, scratches and some bleeding at most.)
I do what I can- even take anti-vertigo supplements and try to remember to bring a cane or my walker each time I walk. Yet each time as I improve, I leave them behind. (as I write now I’m lying in bed with my latest cast, trying to keep my leg a little higher than my heart.)
But worse than that, is what happened in 2009. By then I’d had 3 different types of cancer and was found to have Lynch syndrome, which is a cancer propensity. The physicians proscribed a complete hysterectomy for uterine cancer, although it took almost 4 months before I received the diagnosis and could get the surgery, before the 1 month recovery. Then came 3 radiation therapies, vaginally.
Everything changed sexually, quite possibly unnecessarily. Only then I heard of “The Truth About Cancer”. After a few couple years of studying more, I now have been able to avoid cancer almost altogether, although 2 types of skin cancers occasionally pop up.(living in sunny Las Vegas doesn’t help) I take a pinch of grey salt in my water, for example. I chew 2 to 3 kernels of apricot kernels daily, often take some sour sop leaf tea or powdered lions mane mushrooms in smoothies, and the like. Occasionally I wondered if I could’ve started these anti-cancer natural therapies earlier, would I have avoided the need for a hysterectomy altogether.
With 1 and a half inches of a vagina left, and radiation scarring, I’m not interested in sex anymore.
All’s well that ends well though, because my wonderful partner whose ignorant doctor prescribed a month of radiation therapy two times a week- as prevention against prostate cancer due to his enlarged prostate, can’t do penetration anyway. (His doctor told him his erections would return. But they haven’t, and it has been years. Once the compound pharmacy’s organic pills worked, but they stopped working as well) I’d like to say foreplay’s enough, but that’s another story. The second caveat obviously is to learn how to prevent cancer, and not wait until you get a diagnosis.
So you are in vegas too? Hi neigbor! what part of vegas?
This sounds like a lot to manage but it also sounds like you are rising above it and managing. I think the heft of the medical problems as we age is such an issue. thank you for raising it. It’s not sexy to talk about but so important. and we will all face it. I fell over the dog today and was like, oh this is how it begins…..
I love this Pat. Yes, I think where we used to be driven by the horniness and explosiveness of it all, having a longtime partner who has been through the changes in each others bodies and just finding new ways to connect is kind of its own beautiful puzzle. I love this.
Kim I just found you and I’m thrilled. We are the same age and it’s been a rough ride since I went into menopause at 51, but I feel like I’m really getting the hang of it now and learning to love myself in a way I never could. My sex drive suddenly dropped away like a 2 ton stone in water and it was horrifying; I’ve had to learn what it means to feed my soul and truly be comfortable in my own skin in order to find a deeper drive and joy in intimacy. I’ve also had to do a lot of work on my childhood traumas and while it’s really hard work, I do feel like I actually see myself when I look in the mirror now. 8 years ago I felt like my youth was being sucked away, now I see the gifts instead. So grateful to find this conversation and community, thank you for creating it via your honesty and transparency.
"Sex is hard, often painful but also hilarious and more gratifying for the simple reason we keep wanting it." This stayed with me. I am thinking so much about sex and what it means as David and I get older. I love that you included "hilarious" because that is also beautiful.
It’s supposed to be hard lol
My cousin is 102 ( 103 in November!). She is healthy except for hearing loss and on light meds for mild heart condition. Otherwise she is self sufficient, drives a car, uses the computer and cell phone including texting, has 4 big dogs and a great memory. What got her here with such great health? Besides genes ….she never stresses and hasn’t cared what others think for years upon years!
Yes. 👍🏻
Oh Judy! What a great story. We should all be so lucky. The attitude is a lot of it, I think.
Actually, my husband and I were talking about your piece recently and he noted how better and more satisfied we are at sex than our younger selves. You pay more attention, are more creative, take more time, and find more joy and laughter in pursuading your body parts to cooperate. Coconut oil (solid rather than liquid oil) also helps. You may have to let go of the WHAM spontaneous of younger days but the playful anticipation is pretty cool, too
I have 2 avoidable caveats to share…( just skip away and read somebody else if you don’t want to know).
#1. Next week I will be 82y/o and in the last 3 1/2 years I have fallen three times- breaking bones each time, with long recoveries (casts, titanium rod, etc. . Each time I vowed to never fall again, and I was wrong. (Before those falls, from age 50-to almost late 70’s I was vibrant, also jogging almost 365 days each year- falling maybe once or twice each year, with nothing more than bumps, scratches and some bleeding at most.)
I do what I can- even take anti-vertigo supplements and try to remember to bring a cane or my walker each time I walk. Yet each time as I improve, I leave them behind. (as I write now I’m lying in bed with my latest cast, trying to keep my leg a little higher than my heart.)
But worse than that, is what happened in 2009. By then I’d had 3 different types of cancer and was found to have Lynch syndrome, which is a cancer propensity. The physicians proscribed a complete hysterectomy for uterine cancer, although it took almost 4 months before I received the diagnosis and could get the surgery, before the 1 month recovery. Then came 3 radiation therapies, vaginally.
Everything changed sexually, quite possibly unnecessarily. Only then I heard of “The Truth About Cancer”. After a few couple years of studying more, I now have been able to avoid cancer almost altogether, although 2 types of skin cancers occasionally pop up.(living in sunny Las Vegas doesn’t help) I take a pinch of grey salt in my water, for example. I chew 2 to 3 kernels of apricot kernels daily, often take some sour sop leaf tea or powdered lions mane mushrooms in smoothies, and the like. Occasionally I wondered if I could’ve started these anti-cancer natural therapies earlier, would I have avoided the need for a hysterectomy altogether.
With 1 and a half inches of a vagina left, and radiation scarring, I’m not interested in sex anymore.
All’s well that ends well though, because my wonderful partner whose ignorant doctor prescribed a month of radiation therapy two times a week- as prevention against prostate cancer due to his enlarged prostate, can’t do penetration anyway. (His doctor told him his erections would return. But they haven’t, and it has been years. Once the compound pharmacy’s organic pills worked, but they stopped working as well) I’d like to say foreplay’s enough, but that’s another story. The second caveat obviously is to learn how to prevent cancer, and not wait until you get a diagnosis.
So you are in vegas too? Hi neigbor! what part of vegas?
This sounds like a lot to manage but it also sounds like you are rising above it and managing. I think the heft of the medical problems as we age is such an issue. thank you for raising it. It’s not sexy to talk about but so important. and we will all face it. I fell over the dog today and was like, oh this is how it begins…..
I love this Pat. Yes, I think where we used to be driven by the horniness and explosiveness of it all, having a longtime partner who has been through the changes in each others bodies and just finding new ways to connect is kind of its own beautiful puzzle. I love this.
Kim I just found you and I’m thrilled. We are the same age and it’s been a rough ride since I went into menopause at 51, but I feel like I’m really getting the hang of it now and learning to love myself in a way I never could. My sex drive suddenly dropped away like a 2 ton stone in water and it was horrifying; I’ve had to learn what it means to feed my soul and truly be comfortable in my own skin in order to find a deeper drive and joy in intimacy. I’ve also had to do a lot of work on my childhood traumas and while it’s really hard work, I do feel like I actually see myself when I look in the mirror now. 8 years ago I felt like my youth was being sucked away, now I see the gifts instead. So grateful to find this conversation and community, thank you for creating it via your honesty and transparency.