How I learned to use a condom from a cute, happening, 28 year-old blonde chick

After my first date was under my belt and I continued to see Catalyst, I started to think about having sex again!  Honestly, despite my high drive, because I wasn’t looking to date when I stumbled upon Catalyst, I had not given it much thought.  But here it was, staring me in the face!  When you’ve only been with one person and you’re going to have sex with someone new after 20 years of the same ole thing, you can have some odd thoughts.  There’s the crazy things like, “Does everyone do it basically the same?  I mean, my husband taught me all I knew, what if he didn’t teach me right?  What if my best move with my ex is actually laughable to someone else?  He taught me how to do a blow job, too, what if the way I do it is a turn off to another guy?  How covered up can I stay the first time I have sex with him?  Do I really have to let him see me completely naked?  Will he laugh?  Will he be sorry?  Will he just not care?  Will he be one of those men I’ve heard about and its over in 10 minutes?  Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?  Men our age have plumbing problems, what will I do with that little surprise?  What will it be like to have sex with a condom on?  Wait, I could possibly get pregnant with someone with different swimmers?  What I am going to do about birth control?  Oh dear, STDs are pretty high among folks our age, what is it I have to do about that again?”

I live in a close facsimile to a “Stepfordville” community.  I knew I could find out about birth control from my friends, but they had all been married for almost as long as I have and none of us know anything about today’s safe sex.   When I got married in the early 90s, we were just learning about STD’s, especially ones like AIDS.  I mean, some of them have been around forever, but those were only for the promiscuous and I certainly didn’t fit that category.  In fact, they were still trying to figure out if you get AIDS from kissing when I was walking down the aisle.   As you may know, I was a virgin, I trusted my husband and I never had to give safe sex a single thought.  Fertility did not run in my family so I never even prevented pregnancy…like ever!   (Sidebar…anyone else hear Taylor Swift when you see the phrase “Like Ever?”)

So I decided to go see my a happening, young blonde chic I knew who could “help a sista out.”  I scheduled an appointment with my cute, perky, YOUNG doctor…it was time for an annual checkup anyway, kill two birds with one stone as a bonus, great!  Let me just say, with all this positive change in my life, I was glowing!  I had lost weight, I was finding myself, I was having a blast with Catalyst, I was woman—hear me roar and I could light up a room.   So Dr A walks into the exam room and says “Whoa…what happened to you?  You’re radiant!”  I told her I had gotten a divorce since I had last seen her (I’m one of those go-to-the-dr-once-a-year types) and she immediately changes her bright smile to a serious face.  She then said “I’m sorry!”  I said, “No,no, no it’s a good thing, that’s why I look this way!”  She then said “You lost 200 pounds of dead weight?”  EXACTLY! 

She does her thing…All the normal things like checking skin, listening to my chest and then all the somewhat embarrassing lady-part things that you have you to give yourself a pep-talk through.  Once I’m no longer spread eagle, trying to pretend that the little paper gown does anything at all and regain my composure, I tell her I really need some guidance.  I explain I am hoping to have sex with my new friend and I have no idea what to do about safety or birth control.  Dr A was so funny, she literally jumped up and down with excitement, like five or six times even!  Who knew doctors could have that much cuteness and personality?

She gives me my birth control options, a prescription, a talk on safety, a little how-to education and leaves the room.  Let me also share with you that I went to a private school. ..An independent Baptist one and not so much because my parents were as strict as the school was, but because it was cheap for a private school.  We had a rather rotund headmaster who made it the rule that guys and gals had “To stand as far apart from each other as Brother B**** is wide!”  So I wasn’t even afforded the awkward safe sex talk in high school, in fact I’m not even sure those people knew that people have sex.  But that was a whole host of scientific knowledge ago, so it wouldn’t matter now anyway, although I would have loved to have seen them put a condom on a banana!   So here I was, getting my first thorough sex talk at 40-something.  And although, I’m the friend that everyone sends the dirty jokes to that they wouldn’t share with anyone else, I’m  also the friend that is known for saying something totally unexpected and sexual, and I’m the open book person, even I was slightly embarrassed! 

After talking, she even convinced me I should get tested for STD’s just in case my husband had done anything I didn’t know about, which I agreed to do.  After I get dressed and ready to leave Dr A’s office, I see her in the hallway.  She has a huge grin on her face and says “Now you have a GREAT time and don’t do anything I wouldn’t’ do…oh, who am I kidding?”

And that’s how I learned to use a condom from a cute, happening, 28 year-old blonde chick, minus the banana!