Am I Healthy Enough for Sex?

If I am to believe the Viagra advertisements found on television, I am at the age where I may need to consult a doctor to see if I am healthy enough for sex.

More on that in a bit.

I got to thinking about the difference between the first half of my life and second half.  As most people, for the first half of my life I still required training wheels on my emotions.  I was quick to anger.  I was not opposed to irrational reactions or throwing tantrums.  I displayed selfishness.

In my preteens and teens I adopted self-doubt as a favored emotional input.  Back in seventh grade, being a called a “zero” was the worst possible slight.  I recall, at that time, talking with a couple of my buddies about an upcoming dance.  “Are you going to go?” one of them asked me.

“Why would I go to a dance?”

“Because girls, dumbass.”

Without hesitation I said: “A girl is not going to be interested in me.  I’m a zero.”

“You can’t say that about yourself,” my friend objected.

“Yes, I can.”

At the time, I really believed myself a zero.  I accepted my zeroness.

Like Picasso and his distinct periods of art, I survived periods of emotional distress.  I followed-up my period of self-doubt with a long, long stage of outright depression.  Depression carried me deep into my twenties. I tried to be pleasant and funny on the outside, but inside I was filled with dark corners, broken furniture, and shattered windows.

My marriage to the most beautiful woman in the world finally brought me to a truly happy place.  I suffered from moments of anger, immaturity, greed, and so forth, but only occasionally.  We spent almost thirty years together before her passing.

I am now in the second half of my life.  I spend my days with that girl, the most beautiful woman in the world.   I have been allowed the status of being a grandparent.  I feel very fortunate.   I pretty much have my emotions sorted out.  Sure, I experience occasional flares of anger, or, as that girl says, I sometimes “crawl into myself.”   Otherwise my emotions are stable.

Now my body is going to hell.  The usual stuff.  Aches.  Pains.  My last visit to the optometrist revealed the onset of cataracts.  Every so often I must have “suspicious” spots on my skin removed or frozen into submission. 

I don’t want to go on listing this sort of stuff.  We all experience these things, and much more.

Smart television people, being smart television people, know their demographics.  The television stations I watch are peppered with advertisements for laxatives, cancer treatments, weight loss programs, and suggestions that I might want to ask my doctor if I am healthy enough for sex.

Apparently, I am heading back to zero status on a physical, rather than emotional, level.

--Mitchell Hegman