The Smelker Seven

101 Days of What??

"So, do you think it will be like chocolate?" My friend Cynthia asked me recently, "You know, where either you get sick of it, or the more you have of it the more you crave it?"

"I don't know," I replied, "I'll let you know."

And now, 46 days into our 'experiment' I can confidently say I definitely fall into the latter category - I crave 'it'.

Crave what? Chocolate?

No. Sex.

Let me explain:

On August 19th Fox News carried this story. I was so intrigued by it that I said to Terry, "Hey, wanna try it?" His eyes lit up once he read the story too. Of course, I had just given birth seven days earlier so starting the adventure was out of the question, but it gave us time to plan.

While I was pregnant I had already planned (and paid for) a romantic weekend away for Terry and I to Port Royal. I would be 5 weeks post-partum then and we decided that would be a great time to start our 101 Day odyssey. In doing the calculations I realised that 101 days takes us to New Year's Eve.

I haven't told too many people about our 101 Days, but I did tell Cynthia, Xavier's mother. "You can't stop on New Year's Eve," she exclaimed, "You have to ring in the New Year the right way!" She's perfectly correct of course, so really this should be titled 102 days, but we are following the title of the book!

So, how does this relate to chocolate? Any couple who has been married any length of time knows that their sex life can vary from day to day and from week to week. Sometimes it is erotic, passionate and breath-taking, a foreign rich, exotic dark chocolate, not taken lightly and not brought out every day. Other times it starts out as one thing and ends up being something completely different - a random blindfold-pulling from the mixed chocolate box; perhaps The Three Musketeers lands up on the evening chocolate plate - light-hearted and airy; another time it might be something nutty. We might plan for a certain kind of evening and end up with something light years removed from it.

But that is the joy of our 102 days, the unpredictability of it; the only predictable part is that Terry and I know that during the course of the day we will have sex. No excuses, no 'I'm too tired', 'I have a headache' excuses. There is no fear of rejection from each other during this time, no 'what if he/she says no?' because we have to say yes!

Terry blogged about this a couple of weeks ago and mentioned that this was a little tougher than he originally thought. Here is what he said, "You might be thinking, “But you’re a guy- don’t they have sex on the brain all the time?” Well, the truth is, although we might think of it a lot, the body is not always so willing, especially when the event is occurring every single day. The stresses and busyness of the daily life sometimes have left me with more inclination for sleep than for sex."

I am seeing only benefits to this though - we are a lot more aware of our appearance, both in the bedroom and out. I am on a mission anyway to get fit again after Xavier's birth, but this gives me added incentive. We touch each other more during the course of the day, and tend to sit close together even when performing separate tasks. We text each other and call, just to say 'I love you'. In some ways it is like we are courting again, but with the added benefit of years of intimacy attached to the thrill of dating. And because we know each other so well, we look for ways to keep things spicy and fresh. We talk more, and we are a couple of talkers anyway! But subjects that might in the past have been uncomfortable for us to discuss, we chat about with ease. We are more sensitive to each other while at the same time not being scared to express our thoughts on everything ranging from sex to salvation.

Every marriage has its share of disagreements. Terry and I over 15 years of marriage have managed pretty well to 'not let the sun go down on your wrath' (Ephesians 4:26) but there have been a couple of times the ill feelings have crept into the bedroom with us. Well, knowing I am going to be intimate with someone later on that day makes me rethink how upset I get about piddly little things. Am I really going to get bent out of shape because he didn't do something, or because he didn't say something?

We have asked each other what we will do once the 102 days of sex is over. We're not sure, but I did tease Terry that perhaps we should go for 365 days - like this couple!!

Labels: 101 days, chocolate, Cynthia, experiment, Fox News, Port Royal, sex, Terry

posted by The Smelker Seven @ 4:20 PM