One Wait Ends; I Extend Another

I went back to Dr. Ronica yesterday. Would she allow me to get back on my bike? 

I'm going to make you wait until the end of this post to find out, Dear Reader.

The culture samples came back.  I had a staph infection, she said.  It could have come from any number of things, but the tear, slight as it was, in my vaginal wall gave it a place to take root.  

Infections aren't fun.  Actually, this one was more inconvenient than anything else.  It didn't make me feel ill; it's just kept me off my bike and ruined some undies.  


Dr. Ronica and I were talking about one thing and another and I mentioned that I haven't been sexually active, and that I haven't been in a relationship since my surgery. Although I've met a few people who interested me in that way, I decided that I really didn't want to be involved, and that I wasn't in a hurry to become sexually active. 


"Why should you be?," she said.  "You've given yourself time to develop and to get used to the changes in your body.  I think that's really smart."


I am certainly curious to find out what sex will feel like.  It doesn't take any great perception to realize that a female orgasm has to feel different from a male one.  But how, exactly, I wonder.  I also want to see whether these changes in my body will affect, not only the way I have sex, but in what other ways I might relate to the next person who hooks up with me.  Will it affect, not only the physical sensations, but the emotional and mental aspects of my relationship?  


If my first meeting with any of the people with whom I was involved before my surgery were to take place now, rather than back in the day, I somehow don't think I'd even have an affair, much less enter a long-term relationship, with them.  Granted, I sometimes look back fondly on things I did with Tammy, and even some moments I had with Eva.  But I was a different person in those days.  The funny thing is that I don't see myself so differently, at least in some ways,  from how I saw myself when I knew them.  After all, I knew at least something about myself that I was trying to hide from Eva and hoping to integrate, somehow, into life with Tammy.  


Yes, I am still "getting used to" my physical changes, as the doctor and other people have suggested.  However, I am also how I have--and haven't--changed, mentally and emotionally.  


Dr. Ronica seems to understand that.  And, yes, she told me I could ride again.  Just change my saddles and proceed with caution, for now, she said.