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Loving Took Days, But Intimacy Took Decades

Deana K Rodriguez
Human Parts
Published in
6 min readDec 13, 2024

I’m writing what I know, and it’s an enlightening journey. When I look back at the history of my relationships, I learn things about myself — patterns and revelations that I hope others may also be able to learn from.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

A Little Background Info

The man I call “Husband” and I started our lives together very young, in my native Southern California. He’d moved here from Brooklyn only a couple years before we met. I lost my virginity at the age of 16 to him, and I’m focusing this story around the time when our love turned into sex (but not yet into intimacy).

I am now 54, and according to him, I’m sexier than I’ve ever been. I feel it, too. There’s something to say for living through decades of change (good and bad), and understanding/learning to appreciate the resulting scars, wrinkles, and sags, and those squints or smiles between us that we immediately understand. Forty years later, our marriage has been a true journey. We’ve taken some ugly steps backward, and some huge strides forward, particularly once we both realized that growing up does not particularly equate to maturity.

My Introduction to Sexuality

We’re both solid Gen-Xers. What does that mean? It means a lot to our personal stories. We started “going together” in 1984 when I…

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Deana K Rodriguez
Deana K Rodriguez

Written by Deana K Rodriguez

I’m a poet and observer of life. Someday a published novelist. I love the #writingcommunity on Twitter-X @ItalicBoldDKR. I'm a member of American Poets Society.

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