Here in the doldrums of winter, I'm doing a lot of thinking. I was recently wondering about the various shapes the proverbial male midlife crisis takes. Most of the time we hear about a man buying a red sportscar or having an affair, quitting his job or taking up skydiving.

My midlife crisis--I'm 48--seems to be taking the shape of reframing my sexual identity. I don't intend to say that I'm a closet homosexual. I don't even intend to say that I'm bi-curious. Identity is more fluid than that. We create and recreate ourselves--our masks--as we come into different life situations. In the same way, our sexual identity, as an article I posted earlier on this blog suggests, is also more fluid than that.

Although wrestling has brought me several homoerotic experiences. These come unbidden, given the very nature of wrestling. But as of yet, I've had no consciously sexual experience with another man. But this enters my mind more and more these days.

I wonder if I would be having these ideas if it weren't for wrestling. A friend of mine once told me that it was through wrestling that he learned he was gay. He was dating a woman who had brothers. He got close to the brothers and realized that he enjoyed wrestling with them much more than he enjoyed fondling their sister. What a stunning realization that must have been! But then again, maybe not. At some level that couldn't have come as a surprise.

So I wrestle with myself and my identity. And I look for men who in some way resemble the image of that man I want to hit the mats with, wrestling every one of them I can get my hands on.