Given that Valentines’ Day is coming, saying the words “blow it” in any sentence suggests many different things. What I mean to say is that I’m exhausted. I had four hours sleep last night in part because I had a domestic blow-out with my honey, the likes of which would make Joy Behar proud. Then I had to get up unreasonably early to attend my first of two meetings. In between which I dealt with sick kids, wrote a presentation and adopted out our dear loving bunny Thumper who had been living a lonely life on our pleasant but isolated side porch.  

Just writing this is making my fingers hurt. I don’t know how we do it. I don’t know how we can balance all of our professional pursuits, our kids, the demands of our personal lives and still find time to make whoopee. 

Whoopee in this case is anything having to do with the act of making love with persons we know - or don’t know - or having sex either with a breathing body or a battery operated one.   

My point, sad to say, is there are times when we are just not in the mood. Since I’m still of a mind to keep up my spiritually sexy column, I have to confess, I’m prepared to solider on in spite of the fact that though I’m feeling mildly spiritual, I’m not feeling at all sexy. 

Maybe that’s because I’m fifteen pounds over my lingerie-wearing comfort zone.  Or perhaps it’s because my daughter’s hormones have begun to develop as fast as she is, and the thought of having the “talk” as she has been asking for, is making me want to run from sex the way my ancestors ran from the Cossacks.   

Or possibly it’s because one or two of my slightly older, wiser friends have begun to experience the life change which as I empathize, makes me want to stock up on KY and red wine.   

I’m beginning to think we start our sexual lives clueless, terrified, and maybe just a bit hopeful and we wind up clueless, cranky and maybe just a bit hopeful. In between we try our best to fake it while making it until we make it while we’re faking it. Does it make sense that most of us hit our sexual prime in our early thirties, way later than advertised, then have scant few years of unfettered, lubricated bliss, before we dry up like a dust bowl in Faulkner’s heartland? Really? Really????

I suppose it’s normal, if not expected, that the larger life cycle or sex cycle from beginning, middle and end would seem both predictable and manageable. My being still in the middle of the sexual life cycle, I have nothing to complain about - most of the time. But, yet, I feel a sinking dread without really knowing why.

After four divorces (yes, really) and countless misfires, I have a loving partner when we’re not fighting, but that doesn’t guarantee desire, connection or a willingness to forsake the temporary black cloud that has descended like a wet noodle on my sex-scape.    

So what’s a girl to do?  Part of me wants to run screaming into the night but I’m not going to do that. Instead, on the brink of Valentine’s Day, I’m going to enjoy the best of my middle period!  Maybe a little wine, a little chocolate, a little moonlight, and if I’m really feeling it... 

So why not join me? No matter how good or bad you are feeling, push yourself to go beyond the emotion of where you are now. If you have a partner, why not be open to a little playfulness worth remembering? And if you don’t have another in your life at the moment, there’s plenty worth celebrating. Life is nothing if not changeable and the time you’re spending now, possibly on your own, has the potential to be one of the most wonderful, self-nurturing and blissful periods of your life.

Okay... so live a little. Forgive a lot.  Indulge. And let the sun shine, even if it wants to rain on our sex parade.  

Heck... after writing this I might even be feeling a little bit better. Who’d of thunk it?

ps If you live in the NYC area, click here for information on a special Valentine’s Day event, Be Your Own Valentine, hosted by friend, colleague and author Daylle Deanna Schwartz.  

[Photo credits: thedailybeast.com]