A while back I was messaging with a friend and during
the conversation we were discussing how The Guy and I didn’t live close
together (which in situations such as mine can turn out to be a boon and tends
to happen when you live in a decent-sized city), so on the occasions when I
would go to his place, it was “a long haul for a booty call”. And let’s be real
here. That’s what it was. We were hooking up, not having a relationship. I make
zero apologies for that, by the way, so feel free not to judge. I had fun. I’m
reasonably confident he had fun. No harm, no foul. I’m not claiming I’d repeat
the scenario, but I also don’t regret it. That’s such fun, by the way. Being able
to walk away at the end of something with no regrets. You should try it some
time.
But back to my story…
Today was my last day of in-office physical therapy
for vaginismus. In truth, we could have stopped a few weeks ago, but I’d had a
bad run of at-home PT before an appointment and really wanted to make sure
everything turned back around before calling a complete halt. I knew going in
this morning that this would be the end, though. We’d discussed it a few weeks
ago and I get the feeling that my physical therapist was waiting for me to
bring it up. Not that she wouldn’t have eventually said, “I think we’ve gone as
far as we can go”, but she did ask me after each appointment what I thought but
it was never quite phrased as “Do you think you need to keep coming back?”
I’d say it was for the best to let me come around to
this idea on my own. Just a couple of months ago I’m not sure I could have made
that call. The idea of the end of PT freaked me out. Now, however, I’m mentally
and physically in a good place, and I
think that made all the difference. I’m doing PT on my own 2-3 times a week and
working with various sized dilators, introducing larger ones slowly, but
surely. Even when there is pain, I realize it’s not always going to be that way
and I remember how far I’ve come in the past year. It’s all good. I’ve got this.
I remember in the beginning my therapist said she
thought it would take about 8 weeks. Fast forward to today’s appointment and we
are 363 days into our association. Hey, I never said I wasn’t uptight! Ha!
Probably 6 months ago I was saying that if we were wishing each other a Merry
Christmas then it was going to be worrisome, but as that date drew closer, I let
that thought go. I started telling myself that however long it took that was
just fine and then…I even started to believe it. Yep. I’ve got this.
So now allow me to circle the wagons back around to
the beginning and how it’s a long haul for a booty call. Changing the meaning
of that a skosh, I laughed – thankfully only in my head and not out loud so
that everyone around me would think I was nuts – today when I was thinking
about writing something with that title. I realized that, I suppose, it could
also be interpreted that this past year has been quite a long haul for, well, y’know,
to be able to have sex.
But it’s not about a “booty call” or a “hook up”. I
have little-to-no interest in that kind of thing (my involvement with The Guy
was a behavioral anomaly, albeit a fun one). This is a quality of life issue.
If I’d had sex more recently than…well, I’m not telling you specifics on how
long it had been before last year because some things I actually will not share with the masses, but suffice
it to say that it would have helped if I’d been more sexually active in the
past because then perhaps things would have been working right. Or I’d at least
have realized that they weren’t. And it would have helped if any of my doctors
over the years had questioned why a pap smear was so excruciatingly painful for
me. But I wasn’t and they didn’t.
So yes, in the end, I suppose it’s been a long haul
for a booty call. Good thing that’s not really what I’m ultimately interested
in. I didn't expect this last year of my life to unfold the way that it did, but as I said earlier, I don't regret it. I've discovered a lot about myself. I'm stronger than I imagined. I have less of a filter than I always thought I did. I've let go of any particular fear about discussing pretty much anything with anyone. And I'm also pretty damned amazing. I think that last one is my favorite.
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