maybe it's a sign

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/style/peter-manning-garth-wingfield-wedding.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

an equally powerful sadness

 i'm not sure i've ever shared on here that i lost my virginity fairly late in life and certainly significantly later than my peers. as a result, i spent much of my early adult years dealing with this acute longing for physical intimacy. this longing was often accompanied by a deep sadness as I questioned if would ever have that experience in my life. 

i think i have shared before that, for me, sex is something that needs to be experienced in the context of some relationship. i'm not saying it has to be within a strictly, monogamous relationship, but there does need to be some history, connection and a certain kind of commitment that comes with at least a good friendship. i've had one encounter where this was not the case, and the experience was so profoundly empty that i've chosen not to repeat it again.

and now, with some five years since my last relationship i've come to learn that there is an equally powerful sadness to the one i experienced in my virginal 20's, and that is finding oneself wondering if you will ever have the experience of physical intimacy again. with prospects seeming dim as i age and my issues with depression and anxiety causing greater isolation on my part, i find it difficult to believe that the answer to my wondering is an affirmative one. and i know that many people my age will go the rest of their lives without the pleasures that accompany having a lover. i know that to be true. i just  really wish i didn't have to be one of them.