Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

Author:Cheryl Strayed [Strayed, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-94932-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

TINY REVOLUTIONS

Dear Sugar,

I’m a woman in my mid-fifties. I read your column regularly and believe that my question is pedestrian but am humbly asking for your advice and support anyway as I sit in the pain of it all.

After a couple decades of marriage, my husband and I are separating. I’m at peace with it as I feel my marriage has essentially been dead for a while. My husband never was demonstrative emotionally or physically. I have spent many years feeling horribly lonely. No amount of trying to get from him what I needed brought change. It took a lot for me to finally believe that I was worthy of more and to make a step toward that possibility.

Of course the future terrifies me and excites me at the same time. I want to create more loving relationships in my life, both in friendship and romance. I want and need loving touches, loving words. And at the same time, I’m terrified that I’ll never feel the tender touch of a man. Yesterday, as a friend was telling me about a wonderful intimate moment with his partner, I was frightened that I would never have that in my life.

I worry about sex. I haven’t been with another man for a long time. The sex in my marriage was routine and uninspiring. At one point, I told my husband I wanted to have sex more often and he made a joke of it the next night. And I am afraid I am not very “good” at it. I would orgasm regularly with my husband so it isn’t that. We hid behind what worked until it got to be boring. For years I imagined robust, adventurous sex, and yet I would allow the routine to continue. I am afraid that I will meet a man that I connect with and we’ll have sex and I will not be any good in bed.

I need help. How does one go about changing that before it’s too late?

And, then there is the issue of my body. With clothes on, I am presentable. Without clothes, my body reveals the story of significant weight gain and significant weight loss. I feel good about losing weight, but naked my body is droopy and I’m embarrassed by it. I try to imagine how I will be present sexually with all my insecurities in that department. Surgery is expensive and out of my means. My doctor says without it, my skin won’t regain the same tightness. I imagine orchestrating ways to keep from being seen, but I know that probably won’t work and I am so afraid of how a potential lover will react. I don’t want to hide behind my fear, and yet I am so very frightened of exposing myself. I know you can’t do it for me, Sugar, and yet I feel so alone in this place of fear.

Are there men my age who date women my age who will be accepting of my body? I know you really don’t have the answer but I ask anyway.

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