Someone made the comment on my last entry that secrets in marriage are dangerous, and I do tend to agree. My husband knows about every word I exchange with man I mentioned in that entry. He doesn't know everything about the man in the one called "Dancing," but only because he doesn't want to. He knows that the romantic relationship there is in the past, and he's right about that. He doesn't understand it, never having been in a relationship that complicated, never having had sex with anyone with whom he was not in a committed relationship. He doesn't really want to understand, and since it is past, he doesn't need to. And frankly, some of what passed between us is none of his business, as one reader pointed out - just as much of what passes between him and me is none of anyone else's business.

He does know every time the man from "Dancing" and I exchange e-mails and that we're playing phone tag (and about every message). Every e-mail we exchange is available for him to read, just as every handwritten letter was in the past, and he is aware that that's the case. IHe chooses not to read them, and in a way, it's probably good that that's the choice he makes. He doesn't read my e-mails from other friends, after all. Part of trusting me is that he never micromanages my friendships or demands information - and part of me being trustworthy is that I tell him what I do with my male friends and about conversation with them, just as I do with my female friends, no more and no less.

On the other hand, if I make a big deal about trying to give him extra information about a man he distrusts or of whom he is suspicious, in order to provide greater transparency even than usual, so he will feel reassure, it usually backfires. It tends to upset him and make him nervous. That has always been true, and it's been true in cases where there was nothing, nothing, nothing there. So part of this blog (not just this entry) is me working out how I feel about feeling attractive again and about the surprising things that have happened recently, including what I wrote about in the last entry. Part of it is me working out whether there is, indeed, anything I need to tell my husband, since telling him things tends to upset him. I don't want to keep anything from him that he needs to know, and I'd rather upset him than do that, but I'd certainly rather not upset him for no reason, because doing so makes my life easier. If I tell him everything, my conscience has no issues to deal with at all - except, of course, for having bought myself some peace at his expense.  My goal is to be honest and transparent without telling him things he would prefer not to hear when there is no reason to hear them. In other words, he trusts me so much that he trusts me to work things like this out myself unless I need his help, and that level of trust makes me want to continue to be deserving of it, gives me another reason to be that trusthworthy.

And that means working things through and asking myself questions. And since this is an especially confusing time, for reasons mentioned here and for others, including medical issues and big changes on the horizon, I created this blog as a tool to work through things. It's a blog as journal, as I said in the first entry, whether anyone reads it or not.

Maybe no one will ever read this blog. I don't know how to meet people or attract readers here starting from scratch.

It's all right with me if no one ever does. I like comments. I love comments. I like to interact with people. I like to meet new people.

This blog is my place to say what's on my mind about topics I don't usually discuss, though. It's my place to be free and express thoughts I normally keep to myself. If it turns out that I'm still keeping them to myself because no one ever reads, then it does. Writing them down will still help me get them sorted and make me feel I've expressed myself.

After my parents divorced, my mother lived practically a cloistered existence where men were concerned. She was a socially active, successful professional but never dated. She's just not that into dating. She's not that into sex or talking about sex or feeling healthy about sex. She feels that it's our mission to overcome any sexual feelings we might have.

As you might expect from that, she didn't talk much about any sexual feelings she had. I have certainly talked about sex with my friends over the years, although I'm not really into sharing details of what who did with whom and exactly what body parts did which. But I don't have a lot of female friends who are older than I am. I don't have any older sisters.

For whatever reason, I have arrived at my forties completely unprepared for what a very sexual age they would be, if only mentally.

I was warned that I might need to worry about peri-menopause, which hasn't been a factor. I was told to expect gravity to work, and wow, it does. I was told that I might have a teenager's complexion and my periods might be irregular.

But I did not expect that I would so come into my own when it comes to sex. I think about sex more than ever. I want to have sex more than ever, and I always wanted to have sex more than many women. But now, I am grown up. I look back on lovers past and think "If I had known then what I know now, if I had been as unafraid then as I am now, if you had been as unafraid then as I am now - wow!"

How is that I'm here at what is supposed to be the age of encroaching sexual decrepitude as randy as a teenager but more intense and centered? Where did this rush of sexuality come from?

Is this age-related? Or is the result of my current state of abstinence? Has the enforced period of no sex in my life resulted in making it the focus of so many of my thoughts?

Is it the sudden presence of men from the past and present, men I find exciting and interesting and arousing, men who are all unavailable to me for one reason or another but who show interest, anyway?

How did everything become all about sex? And why do I love that so much?