It's The End of the World As We Know It...

And I feel fine.

Despite that, life, as we know it, will never be the same again. Scientists have made water run uphill. Yes, Chicken Little, that is indeed the sky you see falling. Damn you, Gravity!

Even before seeing that, I was having a strange day. For what else can you call a Monday spring morning with rocketing gusts of wind, a bacon & tomato sammich for brekkie, while watching the Godfather?

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Which is to say, life is about practicalities. How do you manage, though, when even the practical becomes unlikely?

My guy proclaims that he has been a cripple now for five weeks.* I feel for him, yet there’s pretty much nothing I can do. If I help too much, he’s left feeling useless. If I do too little, he’ll think I’ve changed. It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” sort of situation, and I have a hard time straddling that really persnickety line. Such is life.

There comes a time in every injury-rehabber's life, this breaking point. Just when you think you’re never going to improve, things change rapidly. Before the progress, though, comes a period of unknowing, and there’s little more frustrating than that of just not knowing where you stand.

For those around the injured person, it’s difficult. You either can’t fathom what they’re going through (and most underestimate the amount of adversity a serious injury brings with it), or you can relate too well, which can sometimes be frustrating for the injured person, since they’re going through so much that your easy ability to relate is almost demeaning to their present adversities.

The Guy and I have discussed bondage off and on since we began dating. I had plans to tie the boy up much sooner than I have, but I began thinking realistically. It dawned on me that he’d been badly hurt, was on too many painkillers that had some sexual side effects, and all that, and I knew that, on the one hand, being tied up and pleasured would be perfect for him because he’d not have to exert himself and could simply enjoy the moment, but on the other hand, I knew he couldn’t return the favour and my kindness might wind up psychologically backfiring. So, I decided to postpone it.

This past week, I thought we might be at a point where I could tie the Guy up and just have him enjoy the experience now. Well, he did, absolutely, and I loved being able to do that for him, ‘cos that’s what it’s about, but… I’m a kind girl and I tend to be generous, and the Guy matches me well in those regards. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing he’d like to do more than rock my world in response to me rocking his, but then there’s reality. It’s just not quite that time, he can’t. I knew this when I tied him up, and I know it now.

That doesn’t make it any easier for either party. It’s frustrating when you really care about someone to any degree yet can’t show them the affection you’d like to exhibit, all because either you or they happen to be limited by physical realities.

There are things I can’t do that well right now, sexually, just because of injuries I have from over the last four years thanks to a small assortment of serious accidents. Giving head ain’t what it used to be – I can do maybe five or so minutes at a time before I get serious neck cramping and headaches, with my jaw locking up randomly for the next day or so. Doing the cowgirl ride, on top, makes my right knee go all wonky and every time I try it, my kneecap begins sliding off-base and my tendons snap like silly. These things piss me off, and I can’t even begin to understand what frustration the Guy must be having these days. He is a romantic, after all.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some pretty awesome moments when both of us have been functioning in good form. I just know there’d be more of them if we were both at the top of our game more often. In fact, our on-the-town budget might dwindle drastically if full-on sex and all its trappings were on the menu every night.

Fortunately, I have to say that my sex drive’s at a really low point right now. Mentally, I want to go at it like wild bunnies in mating season with the Guy. I’m all about the thumpin’, you know. ‘Specially with him, but… Then there’s reality.

I’ve been doing battle with estrogen in one form or another for many months now. I had this near-insane reaction to an older birth control pill (Marvelon) that has a high estrogen content last October. Went into this black-as-hell depression and nothing but nothing could yank me out of it. You can see some evidence of it in October, 2005’s postings in the archive. I tried to keep most of it private, and maybe my other blog has more personal postings in it, but boy, it was one of the darkest periods I’ve ever experienced.

At the start of my next pill cycle, I switched to Alesse, a lower-dose pill. And now, well, my mood’s better, but my sex drive isn’t what it used to be. In fact, it hasn’t been for quite some time.

I got a lot of new readers earlier this year, in Feb/March, as a result of a series I began on masturbation. What you probably don’t know is that I don’t think I masturbated once during that series. I’ve been a little bothered by this unSteffness of mine for a while, but didn’t really know the extent of it until I got involved with the Guy.

It’s interesting, knowing the extent of your arousal intellectually and emotionally with someone, and not being interested in displaying it, or even able to do so, sometimes. Now, keep in mind, I have a high sex drive. As a chick, I probably have as high a sex drive as you can have without being addicted to sex. (Yes, it’s a real addiction.) So, perhaps having a little of the sex drive diminish isn’t such a bad thing. I’m not too concerned about that. I'm still pretty damned feisty from time to time, and probably still more than the Guy needs just now. At least he knows that when he's ready, I'm willing, and that's a start.

What I am concerned about, however, is the lack of sensation I’ve discovered I have.

It’s one thing to be able to masturbate yourself to orgasm… you lose a little sensation and you just dismiss it as getting disenchanted by the thought of having to take yourself to orgasm solo yet again. Like one reader wrote to me once, it’s like drinking water to eliminate a hunger. It’s not exactly a model solution.

When your lover, though, knows their shit and you just can’t feel like you ought to feel, like you know you should feel, you begin to realize it’s not them, it’s you, and that’s as frustrating as hell, too.

Next cycle, though, I begin yet another new birth control pill. Hopefully I’ll be a little less emotional some of the time, and hopefully my sexual sensitivity gets back to what it used to be, and hey, a little more drive might not hurt, but given the present scenario, I could wait a month or two for that.

So, the sky’s falling, water’s running uphill, my sex drive’s diminished, and the Guy’s having a rough week of it. What else is new? Life goes on. Storms seem the longest when you’re in them, and as time passes, you realize what a blip it was on the radar of things. When you’re being bombarded by gusts and howlers, it’s a little harder to see the big picture.

That’s why they made days only 24 hours long; having to get through anything longer would be inhumane on some days. As it is, it all starts anew tomorrow, and soon enough, another week’ll come along. It’s important to live in the moment, but it’s more important to realize time doesn’t stand still for anyone, least of all you.

*If you're new-ish to the blog, shortly after we began dating, the Guy had a mishap and broke his right leg in three places above the ankle. Two intense surgeries were done to insert titanium plates and far too many screws, and he's been on crutches ever since. Next week we find out finally if his bones have been correctly knitting, but he's had no cast since week three, and can see the "monstrosity" he claims his foot/leg has become -- covered in scars, bruising, and the like. If he gets the a-okay from the doc, he can finally begin putting pressure/weight on that leg. As of today, it requires great care and protection to keep it on the healing path. Frustrating for its owner, indeed.