Sex Talk

Tags

marriage, middle age, sex in marriage

Rembrandt’s depiction of Samson’s marriage feast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“It’s the time when you find out, all of a sudden you realize as you get older, that maybe your father wasn’t just there to raise you, that he actually had dreams of his own and things he wanted to do and things that he has sacrificed.” – James Gandolfini, on a moment in the film Not Fade Away

—————-

Actor James Gandolfini, known for his role as Tony Soprano, is a 51 year old man with a 13 year old son.  His statement that I quote was meant as an interpretation of what inspired him in the role that he played in the movie, but it’s obvious that the truth of that statement likely comes from his own personal experience.   His statement is very obvious, not really in the realm of an epiphany for me, but I can relate to what he says simply by being a 51 year old father of a 13 year old son.

The more I experience as a father, the more I am able to communicate with my own father about my own life.  We can relate on a more personal level because I am no longer just looking at him as my father, I know I am talking to someone who has already gone through much of what I am also going through.  My dad sacrificed for me, put himself aside….

There is a reason I didn’t finish that sentence.

There is something most men don’t directly talk about as they get older, a pain most endure alone — a sacrifice not as obvious as putting aside a dream, giving up driving new cars or having nice things, writing a book or finding the perfect fitness zen.  Those are all on my list, by the way, and sometimes they are just plain excuses.  Oh, guys complain, mostly joke about it, and indirectly talk about it.  One group of guys I hang with and exchange emails with are constantly talking about the WA (wife alarm) and sending out cartoons that make fun of marriage.  If I may say so,  and I will, that strikes me as a bit emasculating and I won’t do it.

Others take it a step further and complain about their wife to that single or married woman for sympathy or a potential screw.  That is not emasculating, it is pitiful and pathetic.

Of course, some just blog about it.  Oops.

I do feel a bit pathetic.  Not just because I do use my blogging privilege as a mechanism to clear my soul (you have been warned), but because I am guilty of complaining about my wife. Guys are pitiful  that way.

What I am trying to convey when I say that married men, men who stay the course with their family and wife through thick and much thin even when they get to that point when it starts to become obvious that youth is starting to leave them and the attractiveness of youth is being replaced by the comfortable appearance of middle age, really have to put self aside to stay.  When the comfort of sex, of any physical attention, starts to wane and the children take priority, it takes a real man to stick around and stay faithful.  It is a sacrifice that really isn’t comfortable to speak about in public, to admit to any one.

I said this to my dad by email this morning.  We talk a lot through email these days.

I think most guys, if they are honest, are going to say that sex takes a back door and even their marriage takes a back door for a season in their marriage.  I never expected it to last.

We don’t expect the honeymoon to last.  I enjoyed the party as long as I could, not realizing how delicate of an arrangement my marriage would become.  Nor did I realize what it would be like when the physical attention came to a screeching halt.  The delicacy of marriage, the sensitivities required, is not always as obvious as any man would like it to be no matter how hard he tries.  I found out in a counseling session that my wife did not feel that I supported her enough through a miscarriage and the procedure that followed.  That was the reason she gave for shutting down on me, giving me years of pounding my head against the shower wall during cold showers.

I have stayed.  That is what real husbands do.  Real husbands stay even when it hurts to think that maybe, just maybe, his wife is not what he envisioned as a newlywed a real wife to be.

And we wonder if we are alone in that type of situation.  We are not.  It has taken me a while to figure that out.  Because guys never say it.  They never talk about it.  We do not want to embrace the notion that we are not sex gods.

Some give up and leave.  Some turn to a mistress.  Some turn to perversion.  Others find ways to indulge themselves, to replace what they are missing.

Then I see ads for movies like “This Is 40”, listen to my dad tell me that something similar (but not as extreme) happened to him,  think about what my friends talk about.  I realize that it’s a condition that happens in every marriage, a condition that has to be overcome.  Likely by sacrifice, not by accepting the ceiibacy that comes with the season, but by sacrificing the part of a man that refuses to talk about it with his wife.

I am trying.  I am not all the way there yet.  At least I know I am not alone.

Cold shower, anyone?

Relaxed

Tags

faith, friends, mountain biking

Four days in a row.  In December.  Even in the snow.

It has been years since I have been outside so much for bike rides.  I still can’t believe it has been four days in a row.. and so much fun.  My thighs are burning from the exertion of the constant uphill efforts riding a mountain bike off road requires, but it is such a pleasant burn.  Cap that off with the added energy.. this morning I did not want to stop when my buddies wanted to quit after 2.5 hours, and there is nothing but benefit.  I am having a blast, so much that my three friends laughed at my enthusiasm as we rode this morning.

We rode snow covered and very technical single track this morning.  The place we rode is like a roller coaster park, a bit intimidating when slick, but so fun.  When I had to put out an effort, especially when my rear wheel began to spin in the snow near the top of a climb, I began to grunt like a maniac to push myself hard enough to keep going to the top.  My friends starting mimicking me.   Great friends, eh?  We hit the parking lot, but my friend Jim told me to try out his nice carbon frame bike with studded tires.  I took his bike out for a few minutes — I could hear them joking that Steve may never come back.  What a ride!

My friend, Jim, is someone I met several years ago while on a weekly group ride that one of the local bike shops sponsors.  I fell in with him right away, especially after I overheard him talking about church to another rider and asked him if he was a believer.  Jim is a believer, a Christ follower, and I think he was encouraged by my boldness and willingness to talk about my faith openly in public.  I am a talker, you see, and not ashamed of most anything, whether it is talking about God, family, friends, sex, sports,.. you name it.  Jim and I have been friends since.  He’s an avid mountain biker and the first person I asked about riding mountain bikes last October when I got the itch.  The rest is history and riding with Jim and our friends Jon and Eric has become a weekly event.  They like having me around, commenting this morning that they have already ridden off road more in the past two months than they did the entire last year!

And Jim gave me the ultimate comment this morning as we were transitioning between single track this morning.

“You know, Steve, I was just thinking this week how we met, how we have gotten to know each other and I can’t help how God puts friends together in the most interesting ways.  I sure am glad we crossed paths. I have always found the way you talk to people so easily an encouragement and it makes it easier for me to talk to people. That’s a gift, Steve, something I admire.”

Such a compliment from such a great encourager.  Of course, Jim also was laughing because of something I didn’t mention — we started talking on those group rides years ago because an accident that was caused when I crossed his back wheel with my front wheel on a turn.  We became friends through a bicycle crash.

And there will be chances for many more.  There were a lot this morning, all snow related however.  Jim has become a friend that I would be willing to sacrifice for.  I almost had the opportunity a year ago.  Jim needed a liver transplant.  I called his doctor and asked her to talk to him about accepting a living donation from me.  God provided for him then, too, by providing another way.

 

Simple Slow

Tags

simple life

Eisenhower Expressway {| cellspacing=”0″ style=”min-width:40em; color:#000; background:#ddd; border:1px solid #bbb; margin:.1em;” class=”layouttemplate” | style=”width:1.2em;height:1.2em;padding:.2em” | 20px |link=|center | style=”font-size:.85em; padding:.2em; vertical-align:middle” |This image was created with hugin. |} Eisenhower Expressway.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Simplicity.  Life that moves at a pace that seems so much slower than what I have become accustomed to.

That is the small town farm community where my parents live.  After years spent in the suburban hustle of the Chicago area, a visit to the south central Illinois town is almost foreign to me, my blood pressure dropping the moment my foot hits the ground next to my car.  I like it.  I miss it.  I often wish for it.  Like the casseroles and meats served at the countless number of church potluck dinners, just driving into that little town is a comfort to me.

Their town is a place where expectations dwell more on character than on the physical.  Oh, there is plenty of affluence there, especially on the large farms carefully maintained and nurtured in the prime black soil of central Illinois.  There are nice homes, but not like the extravagance seen in the suburban excess that surrounds my home, pride shown more in the upkeep of an old homestead rather than a large new edifice.  I sense the history of the little town, seen in the old homes, the same landmarks still in the same place they were thirty years ago when I lived there.  A drive with dad brings on many stories as each landmark reminds him of something that happened at that spot or with a person who lived close by.  I understand why my parents will never move to Florida or someplace away from that small town.  Their heart is there and they will not leave it behind.

Sometimes I feel a tug at my own heart when I am there.  A piece of me still is a part of that part of the world, even though my parents live in a different town than I was raised in.  It’s close enough that the town they live in is still familiar to me.  The town is where dad’s family comes from.

Mir always laughs at me when we come home from a trip south, even if only for a day.

“You sound like a hick.”

The small town drawl comes right back to me.  I like the friendly voices, I feel the voices as the warmth of the people I know there comes to me.  So many people know each other, the existence of each person depending on all of the people each one knows.  In that small town, you know everyone in a way that is just not possible in the suburban speed.  The pace is such that you can take the time to know – because you have to know.  Some might call that gossip if they are not familiar with small town ways.

We went to church with my parents last Sunday morning.  For a farm community, their church is large with a new building that can be seen from a long ways away, mostly because it sits in the middle of the corn fields on land donated by a retired farmer.  Our suburban church is enormous, with polished and rehearsed church services complete with carefully prepared media and professional musicians.  The people at our church dress in the latest styles with modern hair, new.  That is not so at my parents’ church, church services filled with old hymns accompanied by choppy country style piano, sung by tone deaf farmers with slicked down hair, uncomfortable in their Sunday best.  My kids always snicker with a hand covering their mouth, a bit disrespectful of the portly wives as they warble next to the husbands while clad in old polyester dresses or stretch pants and Christmas sweaters, their hair done up in braids or permanent curls.  While a woman sang a special song about Jesus’ birth, a young woman dressed in a makeshift bedsheet robe walked slowly up the middle aisle while holding a baby doll Jesus, unrehearsed, no real purpose for the trip evident.  It was simple.  And the people there thought it was great.  The sermon was brass tacks gospel, so basic – and so right.  I remember when that was all I required to hear, when I did not require the bells and whistles in order to worship.  My family struggles to understand the significance.  I struggle to understand how anything else is required.

I need simplicity.  Life that moves at a pace that seems so much slower than what I have become accustomed to.  Life that is slow enough to be appreciated, where you see the things you miss when you let it zoom by.

Soon the holiday will be over.  We will take down the yard decorations, drive quickly out of our neighborhood rather than slow down to look.  Life will return to normal.  Fast.  What will I miss?  I am glad that I get a chance to slow down now and then.

Christmas Has Come Without New Underwear

Tags

Christmas, family, gifts, kids

I caught this image this morning. Ahhhh… peace.

Christmas Day Closes….

I begin to write this blog with a pleasant buzz, not from alcohol as I have not imbibed, but from a truly blessed Christmas day with my family.  The day is about to close and throughout my house are many electronic devices in use, the lot of us enjoying some artificial respite from days of close proximity to each other.  My comfort comes from a warm pair of red angry birds pajama pants (a present from my daughter), the music of the Mumford & Sons CD (also a present from my daughter) on the living room stereo, the glow of the lighted Christmas tree, and an overdose of Fannie May chocolate vanilla creams.

When I say “respite” I don’t mean it in a negative way.  Christmas has been a four day celebration this year, mostly due to the timing.  It started Saturday morning with a party I enjoyed with my Panera breakfast friends, a trip south to my parents for a weekend Christmas celebration, back home last night, a mountain bike ride with friends yesterday morning followed by afternoon Christmas shopping and Christmas eve church, then capped by wrapping presents.  I fell asleep while I snuggled with my family on the couch during the annual Christmas eve reading from our Advent book and collection of Christmas stories.  I didn’t make it to the end of Mister Willoughby’s Christmas Tree before I was dreaming of sugar plums.  Christmas day has been unusual for us simply because we usually open presents, then travel three hours south to my parents’ house on Christmas day.  We stayed here, enjoying opening presents after sleeping in, then hot cinnamon rolls and eggnog, and time together over the gifts we received.  The kids are old enough now that they chip in without much, if any, discouraging words.  I cooked the requested meal of cheese stuffed pasta shells with garlic bread, perhaps one of the best batches I have cooked, and enjoyed the meal with Miriam’s parents.  Mir’s dad had three helping of shells, so I know they were good.

The mice are at play….

The day was spent together, a nice pleasant day.  Now Alyssa is enjoying the laptop PC we gave to her, Nate the video game and tablet.  My work bonus paid for a nice Christmas plunder.  Mir is catching up with the sisters she hasn’t heard from yet today.  She has six sisters, so that is a mighty task.

The preacher in me lives on….

One thought that struck me on Christmas eve and has continued to linger throughout the day is one that should have been clear to me long, long ago.  The thought is so simple, so easy that it may just be too easy –

My life has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to truly find God.  Like the wise men who were led to find Jesus by God’s design, a star that pointed the way, I am reminded of a God who is always there, waiting for me.  God is there, shows me the way, has really always been there for those who seek him.  Finding Him can be a long journey and I may not really see Him clearly until I reach my destination.  Christmas is perhaps the time each year and in my life when I can see God clearly, understand that He is there.  I need to be reminded of that.

May your Christmas have been as blessed as mine, as well as the year to come.

Christmas treats for our furry family

Tags

Nick, orange cat, sheltie

Chester the cat and Nick the Sheltie always look forward to the treats they receive in their stocking each Christmas morn. This morning was no exception

*slaps forehead*

Tags

batteries, dildo, friendship, TMI

“Hey, I have this funny TMI story for you.  Don’t say you can’t handle TMI because I know you can.”

The impromptu story continued as she tugged me by my coat sleeve past the time clock into the parking lot.  Shannon is one of those chatterbox types, someone who seems to accept everyone who has wandered into her scope of existence.  I like her energy, tell her I  know when she is approaching by the quick little steps she takes.  And it was with that energy that she led me along across the parking lot, enthusiastically telling me about the little stage her husband is building in the basement for their daughter. He was up late, the drill vibrating up through the wall as she tried to sleep in the upstairs bedroom.  The sound changed but she kept hearing a buzzing.  It sounded too familiar, she said.

For some reason, maybe because she has spent enough time around me to experience my sideways sense of humor (you’ll have to trust me on that claim), Shannon has confided little tidbits about herself to me before.  I listen to her and I laugh.  Really I don’t think it takes much encouragement for her to share anything with anyone she is even relatively comfortable with.

And I wonder if she slaps her forehead when she walks away.  You know what I mean.  One of those SMACK why did I just say that forehead slaps.

It could have buzzed all night. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Well, guess what.  The buzzing wasn’t his drill that I kept hearing.  It was my dildo in my nightstand.”

Umm, yeah, that probably crossed the TMI line.  Funny thing is that it just, well, seemed natural coming from Shannon.

Of course,  maybe she feels comfortable telling me something that, ummm, personal because I a bit of the TMI type myself.  Don’t expect me to be telling dildo stories any time soon, though.  Until now.

“You know, I don’t know what this says about me, but my first thought was that you were going to tell me it was your dildo.”

“Yeah, those Duracell batteries really last a long time.”

“Good night,  Shannon.”

Guess with some people there just isn’t such a thing as TMI.

My forehead hurts.

 

Spread

Tags

budget, Christmas, exercise, spending, weight

Book cover from children;s novel, Christmas Holidays at Merryvale by Alice Hale Burnett. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ho Ho Ho.

Santa is looming on the horizon with his booming laugh or whatever you want to call that sound he makes growing louder each day.  My children are both dreaming of large electronic sugarplums, day dreaming.  Alyssa already knows what she is getting from Santa Dad.  We picked it out and bought it together — a nice new laptop PC we found online the night before Thanksgiving.  Nate knows of said laptop PC and is therefore expecting Santa Dad to produce something equal in value.

Yikes.

Christmas is one of the challenges of parenting.  Our dilemma has always teetered on the desire to teach our children proper values, to keep them from the clutches of greed, and between the desire to give them the nice things in life.  I pay the bills, so usually it is me that tries to hold the spending down.  Mir goes crazy with Christmas presents and does not seem to understand that buying a lot of little things adds up quickly.  Our Christmas budget gets blown each and every year, the little things killing us more than the big things.  This year we are getting each child a big thing — Nate wants a tablet and will likely get one — but I doubt my sweet wife will stick to the additional $100 budget I have set for each child.  That’s a lot, I know, but we only get them for a short while.  In the meantime, I am counting on my Christmas bonus to pay for said presents, and I hope that Mir at least doesn’t spend all of that.  I’m no Clark Griswold and my bonus will not be the jelly of the month club, but the bonus is not a huge amount either.  What we don’t spend on presents will likely what we live on from Christmas to New Year’s day.

Speaking of Santa, another challenge that presents itself to me this time of year is my growing belly.  Cycling keeps it in check quite nicely during the warmer months, enough that my pants practically fall off by July, but I always find myself wondering why my pants are shrinking come this time of year.  Mountain biking helped keep the Santa spread the last few months, actually kept me in very good shape, but yesterday I noticed my waistline was tugging at my jeans.  Oops.  Time to behave, cut the sugar out of my diet for the next week, get back into the exercise regimen.

Ho Ho Ho.

More Palos Trail riding

More Palos Trail riding

This one might be better than the other.  There is more technical riding at the beginning as this is a very technical trail, with lots of cool drops.  The trail scared me a bit the first time I rode it.

These are not my videos, but some day I hope to have one of those cool helmet cams to make my own!

Avoiding

Tags

hope, sandy hook

My thoughts ran a bit silly this morning as I enjoyed the stillness in my quiet house, the sun barely up as I pondered over my steaming bowl  of creamed wheat and hot coffee.  Not even Chester, our orange cat, or Nick, our Shetland Sheepdog had ventured down to join me.  For a moment my brain functioned on that one cell of silliness that usually prevails over most of the other cells, an ode to my cereal forming over the puzzle of rhyming cream and steam, but only for a moment as the rest of my mind took over.

When I get the gift of a morning of peace, I find myself speaking to God, sitting back with my coffee as I wait for the hot cereal to cool enough to eat, and listening.  Those moments bring clarity that I so often need.  More often than not, a time of quiet with my thoughts turned toward my maker brings me to where I need to be, even if only for those few moments of contemplation.  I had some questions to ask or really just I needed to digest more than a sweet bowl of creamed wheat.

All weekend I have been avoiding  any processing of the horror that occurred last Friday.  Everyone has been talking about it.  While I haven’t totally stepped around it, really an impossible thing to do if one has been in contact with the world at all, I have been in a state of what can only be attributed to denial.  After all, what happened is becoming commonplace in today’s America.  The only thought in my head since Friday has been “not again”, selfish as that may be.

I tend to be that way.  Selfish.  A few years back,  when a dear friend killed himself in the doldrums of manic depression, stabbing himself repeatly next to a cold river on a bleak January day, I went to the funeral home for the visitation.  My blood turned cold when I saw him there in the casket, his skin ashen white from falling in the freezing river.  When it came time to go to Paul’s funeral the next day, I couldn’t go.  I just couldn’t.  Something deep inside of me did not want to process his death, thought that maybe if I didn’t go the funeral he somehow would not be dead, that his suicide would be only an illusion.  Avoiding might just make it go away.

That doesn’t work, does it?

In a sense, I just don’t want to admit that the America I live in is not the America I grew up in.  I can’t say that bad things didn’t happen in America before the sixties, but what I have witnessed is a country that once recognized the importance of honoring God has turned about face.  A nation that turns away is seeing the results of being a nation without God, and that is a society without a rudder.  Those who need God most can not find him, listen to the demons that torment them instead.  Our nation has been overtaken by evil and we don’t even know it.. or don’t care.  The Sandy Hook tragedy reminds me that the nation I live in is becoming weak by choice, by forgetting God, and we don’t even see it .  We don’t see what it has done to our souls.

We even mock those who state the obvious.  How many thought Mike Huckabee’s statement on Friday was inappropriate?

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?”- Mike Huckabee

I have heard from more than one thinks Huckabee was inappropriate.  I don’t think what he said is inappropriate, for what he is saying is that our nation truly has become a nation that does not want to face up to the reality.  No one is responsible, is accountable, for their own actions.

Columbine was a shock, a symptom of hopelessness, a mentality that sees no where to turn when reality becomes too much to handle.  So much has followed, enough that incidents like it are becoming commonplace.   In a way, Columbine was as significant of a statement of what has happened to America, to  this world, as September 11 was.  Evil did not arrive on that day.  It was already here.  What both events brought to America was that this country is not immune to what the rest of world has been vulnerable to for much, much longer.  The evil has just had taken longer to manifest itself.  Maybe that was due to the resistance that a Godly nation had created.  Honestly, I don’t know.

Would things have been different Friday if Adam Lanza knew God, if his life had been exposed in any shape or form to God’s power?  Maybe.  That is really not for me to say.  I shouldn’t say.

My son expressed to me yesterday the same question I heard many times on Friday – “How could anyone be sick enough to do something like that?”.  I ask myself the same question.

But I have tried to avoid asking myself that question.  I can’t even ask God that question because really I already know the answer.  If I don’t ask myself the question, maybe it won’t really be so.  It is.

And ask myself what happens next?

There is a cold bowl of Cream of Wheat in my sink if anyone wants it.  Watch out.  I like it sweet.

—–

I wanted to fit the Max Lucado prayer about the Connecticut shooting in here – but I don’t see where it fits into anything I have said.  His thoughts don’t fit into my denial, but his prayer really sums it up nicely:

Dear Jesus,

It’s a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.

These killings, Lord. These children, Lord. Innocence violated. Raw evil demonstrated.

The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?

Your world seems a bit darker this Christmas.  But you were born in the dark, right? You came at night. The shepherds were nightshift workers. The Wise Men followed a star. Your first cries were heard in the shadows. To see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame. It was dark. Dark with Herod’s jealousy. Dark with Roman oppression. Dark with poverty. Dark with violence.

Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.

Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.

This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.

Hopefully,
Your Children

Decisions

Tags

bicycle trainer, dreams, lazy day

Lazy saturday.  This morning was a bust, my hope to ride my mountain bike once again dashed to pieces by rain.  I found video online last night, lots of it actually, made by guys who ride the trails I ride and on the trails I ride.  It was dry when my head hit the pillow, visions of mountain bikes filling my dreams.  I woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting my bedroom windows.  Drat.  No ride for Stevie.  That ugly hamster wheel is screaming at me from the garage and I am doing my best to ignore it.  I hate the hamster wheel (i.e. stationary bicycle trainer — evil incarnate in an inanimate way).

Hamster wheel with the bike and probably more fun (Photo credit: sualk61)

So I went back to sleep and my dreams filled with the stuff guys like to dream about (I wanted to kiss her but made the right choice), then the dream turned cruel as I found my bicycle in the dream, trashed by a disgruntled campground worker.  There were tears in my eyes as I awoke, the dog licking my hand, so I am pretty sure I must have been crying in my sleep.  Just to calm my mind, I shuffled down to the garage to make sure my bicycle was indeed OK.  It is.

I have already done the checkbook and paid the bills.  I replaced the front door screen with the winter glass.  I filled the gas tanks of each vehicle.

Now I must decide between laziness or doing more chores.  Hmmmmm……