The elephant in the room

Last night, looking for something to watch, I stumbled on a series of shows that I've never seen before and within minutes I was engrossed in it.  The show itself isn't important, the reason I mention it here is this...  in the middle of the second episode, I burst into tears.  The scene that caused the breakdown?  A seduction scene.

A masterfully done seduction scene.

A believable seduction scene and one that reminded me in all its painful reality just how long it's been since I've experienced that same simmering rise of passion and explosion of desire.  I burst into tears because I was suddenly reminded of what that feels like.  I wanted to rewind the show and watch it over and over again, but the build-up wouldn't have been there and the scene would have lost its appeal.  The same elements that made it feel so real made it impossible to replicate on demand.

And now to the elephant...  Need I be explicit?  The preceding paragraphs should be enough of a clue.

We don't talk about it.  It's there, in the forefront of my mind, but we don't talk about it.  The few times I tentatively brought it up, it was acknowledged and the conversation died there.

My previous marriage left me with some fairly deep emotional scars and one thing that I've always loved in my relationship with J is that I didn't need to fear rejection or worry about being desired or wanted.  In whatever ways we may have been incompatible, passion or desire for each other was never one of them.  Except that now I can't help but question that certainty.  When days go by I can ascribe it to tiredness, when weeks go by, I can attribute it to stress, but when months go by...

What scares me most is that I have almost accepted the status quo.  Almost...  And then a scene like the one I saw last night comes along and I'm stabbed with the full knowledge of just what it is that I'm giving up and tacitly agreeing to live without.

The elephant in the room is making me cry.