Sublimating...

Is something I've become practiced at. My faith requires it. There is nothing wrong with temperance, obviously, but what do you do when your instinctual desires outrun your ability to repurpose primitive urges? One can only go so long, perhaps, before one's humanness is simply too much of a contender for one's spiritual platitudes to hold up.

Of course, sometimes in order to redirect one overwhelming, persistent preoccupation we choose another obsession. Allow me to make this more specific. I do these things. I struggle, more and less successfully with my own will. Mostly intellectually, in the seat of my mind, where all battles begin and are lost and won.

Christ really upped the ante. He moved the concept of sinfulness from our actions to our hearts (our thought life). Believers in Christianity are exhorted to present [our] bodies as living sacrifices, to be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, to take every thought captive. We know that we are prone to sin, but believe that Christ in us is the one who overcomes our sinful nature.

There are days when I wonder if I know Christ at all. Can I say that I know him, love him, want life on his terms more than I want them on my own? If I'm being honest, I can't say that all the time. I can't say that most of the time. Not because I don't believe the gospel, intellectually, but I see that my life does not comply with the things he said. And I see that this is my unspoken choice. How can I say I believe something if my default reaction is to privilege myself and my instincts above the precepts of my faith?

This is at once troubling to me and something I am not nearly concerned enough about. I am worried because I'm not worried. Does this make sense to anyone else?

I am posting this, not because I have some burden of guilt to confess, but because I think a light needs to be shone on the issue of a woman's sexuality and her awareness thereof, particularly after a certain age. It is hard to hold it together past a certain point. That point being the one in which your body seems to have a mind of its own--when all of your internal mechanisms seem to be conspiring against you to one end. Fulfillment.

Out of respect for the institution of marriage, out of respect for the sanctity of sex, I have refrained. At the age of 33, I am outward abstinence personified. And I'm not just talking about the letter of the law, I mean the spirit. Nothing. Nada. There have always been periods of difficulty, but they have been manageable, for the most part.

Something has shifted. I am having a greater degree of difficulty conceiving of a proverbial wedding night. I am far too pragmatic for that at my age. In the last year I've come to accept that I may be one of those people who doesn't marry--and not because I have the "gift" of celibacy, either. I have revisited several constructs I once took for granted.

This is not sour grapes. I'm not trying to prepare for the worst by saying I don't want it, or I knew it wouldn't happen. I believe it's entirely possible that I will get married. I just also understand, now, that marriage isn't the end of everything, and is by no means a safeguard for the future.

God made me a sexual being. That is supposed to give me comfort--the newfound urgency of my desires is no shock to him. Yet, he set parameters.

What I'm saying is that for as much as I respect the idea of those boundary lines, there are no longer any romantic, affected notions of piety attached to them--none that feel strong enough at present to keep me inside.

I know plenty of Christians who have not waited. For a long time I was incredulous. God's laws are so plain--so categorical--on this point, I thought. I see now that part of my success in abstaining has had less to do with the superiority of my will and more to do with the lack of a legitimate opportunity. How great a victory is it, then?

There are no answers. I'm just hanging on by a very thin thread.