Intimacy over Novelty

There once was a man who sought to reach the peak of the tallest mountain. His shoes were fastened to his feet and he conjured up enough spirit for the long trek. There would be rivers and valleys to pass for sure but the view seemed worth it. This was a man who knew the intricate ins and outs of this climb, because every rock and jagged edge wasn’t separate from the whole thing. In fact he might tell you that the view at the top was worth every scrape and cut on his knees and hands. That the attention spent to every moment of the climb, as he lugged his tired body over the last few boulders of that steep incline, was exactly the thing that made that view all the more sweet.

Sometimes I think in life we want to helicopter to the top of that mountain, take a couple selfies and peace out. And sometimes I think we treat physical intimacy like that.

Whether you’re married or not, in a relationship or not, all of us have to ask ourselves at some point what physical intimacy means to us? What is the purpose of it?

I think what I’ve recently realised after undoing a lot of harmful narratives over my own sexuality is that intimacy, like most other things, is a slow climb up the mountain. And I’m not talking about foreplay.

3.5 years into marriage and the intimacy that I experience is wildly different to the intimacy that we started out with. They say your best years come later on in life, and you know…I’m starting to see a lot of truth to that.

It’s like there’s a natural order to it. Just like climbing a tree. You don’t attempt the hugest branch until you’ve become familiar with the smaller ones first. You don’t have the same appreciation for a trek that you helicoptered too, compared with the long hike you undertook to get to the top. It’s like buying frozen meals from the cold isle, compared to a long slow roast cooked at home.

Somehow we understand this principle in some ways… but don’t apply it to the some of the most important, special and sacred things in life.

I think even within marriages where religious beliefs are held… all too often its like “okay everything is now on the table, and we’ve waited/ abstained so long so of course that will be one of the first things we do”.

If I’m being totally honest, I would for sure would go back and slow all of that down. That was like 1-100, and “woah nelly”, we could have taken a minute.

I think that’s why “young love” is so appealing and nostalgic for some. I think there’s this beautiful sense of exploratory fun that happens as two people so ever so slowly explore each other’s heart, mind and body. I think it’s appealing because it’s like saying “ I love you so much” i’d bend the rules only for YOU.

I don’t actually believe there’s this sick sense in everyone that craves the forbidden. I think TV shows have made a lot of money off of us and caused a whole lot of painful issues for us by telling us that. But I don’t believe thats the real attraction of it. It’s not because its hot and heavy and has some wild context of spontaneity and surprise. Passion and true love in its ultimate form isn’t clothes off, naked bodies and a climax.

In my experience… sex can help you disconnect from your reality for a minute, can give a perceived sense of feeling loved and wanted for a time, or can just feel good and even within a marriage that can still feel a lot like a frozen meal.

There’s something about the long journey. The day in, day out. The soul bearing, the slow walk.

If we could go back to our wedding day Josh and I would have pumped the breaks. Probably would have spent some time just enjoying each other in our underwear, being in awe at that next level of being “let in”, would have sat in the tension of hoping for more and yet finding a contentedness of the “more” that we’ve been given/ chosen.

I would have enjoyed the awe of admiring him without clothes, and taking in his form, realising the sacredness of even that. That when you say yes to one, you are saying no to rest of the ENTIRE world. That’s a lot of nos. That’s really freaking special. And maybe not even a “no” for like a time, but feeling the sense of depth that comes with the “no” for the rest of my life.

Maybe we’ve lost a sense of depth in our sexual experience because it’s become a necessity of all relationships in its simplest form = pleasure, and not a careful expansion of one we deem worthy of our uttermost and most powerful “yes”. If the goal was simply pleasure we could eat a whole lot of maccas and get an oxytocin rush almost pretty identical.

But the goal maybe isn’t just sex. Maybe the goal is a deep intricate knowing of one’s person. Not the rose-y false self that everyone puts forward when newly in a relationship, but a deep knowing that only comes with time.

The “knowing” I have of Josh now, is not the “knowing” I had when we got married LET ME TELL YOU ha! Same goes for me. The “knowing” he had of me was piddly in comparison.

So yes, I would have gone back and slowed it down, I would have taken the time. I would have taking way more time to take note of the sacredness of each thing. And not just jumped in because like “oh well now we’re married and what do you do now? I guess you have sex”. I don’t know why sex is the prerequisite for relationship. Like its epic, and its biologically wired in us to join with another, to experience a depth of choosing that says “ I choose you so much” I want to expand you and me into another.

{ side note: I seriously think that’s what that verse was about, two become one… yeah its a cute idea for marriage, but I think its like this… “two people with both of their love, made one out of their love for each other, they made an entire new creation, an entire new human, two came together to make one love”.

Anyway,

Intimacy isn’t a race to the top. I don’t even think the top is the goal. Yeah its pretty, but it’s the stuff along the way that makes it pretty. Its the day in day out showing up and for me personally… the element of life-long commitment is pretty important, its the years of hard conversations, its the ugliness we’ve seen in each other over time that we didn’t even know was there, or was possible, given the right circumstances.

See, you don’t reap fruit the day you plant your apple tree. Or even if there are fruit but you pick it before its ripe. Yeah it’s fruit. Yeah it’s eddible. But is it sweet?

It’s the hard work, the long pursuit, the wait and the learning of each other.

It’s something that can’t be bought quickly, made quickly, or deleted quickly. It’s not even something you can gather up as time passes. It’s an active stewardship. Its thick and sticky and binds you up in webs of safety. It’s repeated seeding, and watering and growing. It requires your own vulnerable work and your vulnerable work with them. It’s being seen over and over and over again as a naked soul before just a naked flesh and seeing their actions say “I choose you still”.

Maybe that’s the one thing our diet culture of intimacy just can’t have.

The:

“I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”,“I choose you still”, “I choose you still”, “I choose you still”.

It’s like we were always made for that. To be FULLY seen, and FULLY known, and FULLY accepted.

I think that would have been Jesus’s deep hope for us when He created intimacy. That we could know a love like that. Maybe he thought when He created the world that we’d get to experience a piece of that on earth as a reminder of the way he experiences love for us. A love that says, you’re worth the slow journey for, the long pursuit, the depth and sacredness that I apply by offering my heart, mind and soul (at this depth) to no other, I reserve this just for you, and no matter what I choose you still over all the rest.

It’s almost like if we slowed down enough to watch how the earth moves and lives out its being, that we could learn to see a natural order of intimacy, an intimacy that frees us up to take in some really freaking epic views.

“There’s something that some people will never understand and that’s that intimacy is way better than novelty. The problem with intimacy is that it’s hard and takes work, and sometimes it’s really painful.”

- John Mark McMillian

Here’s to the climb friends.