REBELS WHO LOVE

The other day I walked into a workout class and this woman said “you look just like Drew Barrymore except for you look like you have mental wellness and besides …she hates sex!” I did not know what this woman was talking about.

Then a few days later, I learned that somehow a comment that I had made on the show about how abstaining from sex for six months just didn’t seem like that long to me because at my age and with my life experience, it just doesn’t. The whole conversation came about because the news reported that a talented and cool, male actor - who is considered a heart throb by many accounts! - abstained from sex for six months as part of a role he was working on. And I love this actor. For him, that must have been challenging. I see that now. And I’m sure that there was one point in my life where six months might have seemed extreme, but I’m on the other side of that now.

At nearly 48 I have very different feelings about intimacy than I did growing up. I did not have role model parents and I engaged with people in grown up ways since a tender age!  I was looking for companionship! validation! excitement! pleasure! hedonism! fun! And adventures!! Now, because I can’t get in the time machine and change my history. So I now choose to look at it through a positive lens, which is that I lived! I lived a very rich full life. However, after two kids and a separation from their father that has made me cautious, I have had the pleasure of shifting my focus when it comes to love for myself and my two daughters. I know that does not include a man nor has it for a while. I’ve come to realize through working in therapy (with Barry), he said something and I had to write it down. He said, “Sex is not love! It is the expression of love.” I have searched my whole life to have words like that to help me understand the difference and now, thanks to him, I do.

And since entering life as a single mom, I have not been able to have an intimate relationship. I have had the honor and a pleasure to actually work on myself and learn what parenting is, again something I was not exactly clear on growing up and I’ve had many learning curves thrown my way. I’ve been intimidated. I’ve been triumphant. I’ve been asked to be educated in every way I can be. The truth is, it’s different for every family and every individual, but I have had to try and find my own way. I’m also raising two daughters, so how we raise girls to be appropriate and empowered and to love themselves and to realize that we live in an age where the images and messages that they will see will also contradict what I have come to believe intimacy is! Intimacy is something that makes you feel good about yourself!  I also talk about and have learned when something doesn’t make you feel good or it makes you feel bad about yourself, pay as much attention to that as what makes you feel great because there’s a lesson in there.

I am just in a completely different place in my life and maybe in the near future I will get into a relationship… but it simply hasn’t been my priority. So I’m not a person who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level. I am someone who is deeply committed to fostering how young girls, my daughters, and myself as a woman, are supposed to function in this world! A relationship with a man has not been top of mind for me for a very long time. Some people can get out of a marriage or relationship and in the near future find themselves in another relationship. There is nothing wrong with that! Not one bit.  I do not judge! I celebrate their journey! Because for some people that really works. It didn’t work for me. I needed to stay very celibate and honoring and in some sort of state of morning of the loss of a nuclear family that I swore I would have for my daughters and to find grace and acceptance and what our new normal of a blended family would be. It took time. I’m proud of myself that I took that time. That's what I, as my own individual and no one else just me, needed to do and I honored that and I respect myself for it, as I respect anyone else for their choices. I have just simply come to laugh about the fact that it is not my personal priority to be with a partner, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become one someday. I need time. And my view on sex has truly changed.

I wish when I was younger that I had had the chastity and the thoughtfulness that I do about intimacy now as a 48-year-old woman. I wish I had been taught by my mother or my father or my friends that there is age appropriateness business and that there is a way to become a classy young woman! There are things that are fun but also boundaries that can lead to tremendous self-respect. When you are selective and you look at sex as an expression of love and not love itself…well, I’m so glad to be here now in my life. But don’t forget I’m a naughty monkey who is rebellious and weird and comedic and wacky and doesn’t judge others and really doesn’t want anyone highly involved in my choices when it comes to this vulnerable subject but because I’ve been an open book my whole life but here we are!

So for the record, I do not hate sex! I have just finally come to the epiphany that love and sex are simply not the same thing. I searched my whole life for, which is to be a calm woman and not a bombastic party girl. Also, when you grow up and are in a marriage with kids and you think you’ll only be with this one person for the rest of your life and then that doesn’t happen? It rocked me to my core, to put it lightly. But I am lucky enough to have my cup runneth over in the love department: I have my two daughters, and for the first time ever in my life, I’m actually including self-love, too. I actually really appreciated what Billie Eilish talked about on The Howard Stern Show about how young girls should filter the images and messages of the current state of sex is in this modern world. Wow! Thank you for that. We need rebels who love to show us the way.

I wish for everyone that they find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that! And if and when they happen to find what makes them feel bad about themselves, that they pay attention and avoid it, and even abstain from inviting in emotions that do not lead to self respect. And then of course, find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that! And to be passionate and protective in the fact that we all deserve love! and we should all give love! but love and sex are simply not the same thing.