Taking a lover :)

Aren't these super cool?

Don't hide your love...

Michael McDermott - "Lantern"

So if you've ever spent any kind of significant time with me, you have heard me talk about sex. It fascinates me. It scares me. It's endlessly interesting to discuss. I've been trying to work it out, figure it out, for a long time. I think I'm at a better place today than I was fifteen years ago, and even five years ago, but I still have questions about morality, sexual ethics, and the very Megan-esque question, "Should I take a lover?"

Every six months or so, for the past thirteen or so some-odd years, I ask myself this question. And several of those times, the answer was "yes". But for the past few years, the answer has been "no". I entered seminary, quickly got into a relationship, and was confronted by my spirituality and sexuality, all at the same time, in the same room. It wasn't pretty. It was scary and not healthy. I was old enough to know better, but I didn't know how to make decisions that were good for me.

Celibacy is an awful word. So much of the person I want to be is plain hard core. And celibacy is not hard core. But it's also a reflection of how far I've come in those thirteen years. At the beginning, I was sixteen, totally in love, and unable to move in my own body, accept my own sexuality and act on it. When I lost that relationship, I did a 180 and slept with anyone who would have me. I was heartbroken and confused, and it took me a really long time to work through those feelings. It took me a long time to forgive that sixteen-year-old girl who couldn't sleep with her boyfriend, the one person I ever really loved. But I have forgiven her. It was a lot of emotion for a previously unloved little girl. It was overwhelming and terrifying.

So maybe I'll take a lover, but I probably won't. I want to be with someone I love. So yeah, that's the thing I've been talking about lately, that painful, suffering, wanting. I want to be with the person I love, and it's an almost impossible thing to wait for.