Today I converted. Mac has been proselytizing long and hard and has finally won my heart. Perhaps I fell in love the trendy guy who plays Mac in the commercials on TV. Perhaps it is because so many of my friends have Macs. Perhaps it is that every time I sit in my husband’s office, I get jealous because he has a Mac and I do not.
For the last year or so, my husband and I have had an on going discussion about a new computer. It was not a question of “if” but “when”. My laptop was far too old. And while age in and of itself was not enough reason for me to go through the pain of moving my life from one computer to another, the fact that it took 7 minutes to boot up was grating severely on my nerves. (Yes, I timed it.) So, the question turned to the type of computer I would get. I was angling for a Mac, but my husband declared that I was not “Mac Worthy”. I felt like I was stuck in an old Seinfield episode. You know the one…”sponge worthy”.
It is true that I do not do the incredibly tech-y things that Mac is designed for. I am not designing websites; I am writing copy. I am not editing graphics; I am sketching my ideas by hand. All the people who design my sites and edit my graphics have Macs. Technically, I don’t NEED one.
But Macs are sexy. And fast. And you can shut the cover without turning off the entire computer.
Finally, my husband and I came to a compromise. We have a friend who has a lightly-used Mac laptop, and we would buy it off of him. I get the benefits of a Mac without the full weight of the price tag.
So today, I am typing on a new keyboard and getting used to its nuances. I choose the smaller computer intentionally so that I can take it with me on the road. (There is nothing worse than having an idea for a blog and writing it on a scrap of paper that inevitably gets lost.) The downside to a smaller computer is that the keyboard is slightly smaller as well. And I am finding that the “Y” key is sticking a bit. I have to hit it a bit harder to get it to work. But everything else is rainbows and unicorns – just like they promise it will be on the commercials! All of this reminds me of an illustration I use when teaching clients about sexuality.
Sex is like typing.
If your goal is to be a phenomenal lover, it takes time, practice and feedback to learn how to hit the right keys at the right time to get the desired outcome. If you are not getting feedback, you won’t be a good typist. If you don’t practice, you won’t be a good typist. Our bodies are a lot like this keyboard.
But, let’s change up the illustration a bit. In real life, our “keyboard” actually changes over time. Sometimes, only a couple keys are out of place. If they are keys that we don’t use often such a “q” or “x”, it will probably take us a while to notice. But if the “a” or the “t” suddenly moved places, we will take heed immediately. If someone switched our normal keyboard for a Dvorak keyboard on us, we would probably come unglued.
In our sex lives, we need to realize that change is inevitable. What worked in your sex life when you got married might not work after you have had kids and will most likely not work after menopause. Throw in a chronic illness or job loss or depression and you are getting calls from a completely different playbook altogether.
You can approach these changes in a couple ways:
- You realize that change is bound to happen and so you shore up your communication skills. That way, when change does come, you have a way to express your needs to your spouse and sort through the challenges together.
- You can get all pissy and pout about the drain of kids, or getting older, or whatever else is bothering you – with all that free time you’re going to have when you stop having sex altogether.
You get to choose. Do you want to be reactive or proactive?
One last thought. Think of all the new things you will get to try as you take your new “keyboard” out for a whirl over the years. The very fact that change is inevitable forces us to get out of the rut we have fallen in, look at our spouse through new lenses, and learn about each other in a deeper way. This process, when done well, builds incredible intimacy.
Me? I am embracing change today. Good-bye, PC, I will not miss thee. I’ll learn to live with a sticky Y key. Worst-case scenario is that I type in “sexy” and only get “sex” on the page. And getting sex when you weren’t expecting it ain’t all bad!!
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