Tag: touch

Perfection

Yup. Everything is perfect exactly when and how it is. We get exactly what we need when we need it, and we end up exactly where we need to be exactly when we need to be there.

This morning, I got myself to open gym before having to go in to work. I was mostly on my own at the gym, with only the owner and a private training session guy there when I arrived (and the owner’s dog, of course). The music was great and jamming and chill, and the workout was up on the screen, so I happily got to work. I knew I couldn’t do the whole workout, but I was fine with that. I did the fastest 5k of my life yesterday morning, so I was okay regarding cardio. And I had to go straight to work, so I didn’t want to get super sweaty, anyway. Just doing the weightlifting part of the workout would be fine. If I could also do the abs closer, that would be great, too. (It didn’t happen, by the way, the abs part, due to timing.) The sun was shining, it was 8:30-ish (which is way later than my usual exercise), the dog was napping in the sunlight, and we all were enjoying the fresh, crisp air of the morning. People had been walking past the open gym door since I’d arrived, so I’d only partly paid attention to them after the first few times. However, one of the passers-by seems to be coming inside. As I turn and look directly at him, my brain takes a few moments to process what I actually am seeing, whom I am seeing.

He had said he was out of town until Sunday, but that he would be at the gym Monday morning. However, he had been saying that he would be at the gym many times in the past several weeks, though he’d made it only to four or five workouts in the past two months… I was beginning to give up on him. But I had checked in on Tuesday just to see what his deal was. He had told me he was in Austin until Sunday. And yet here he was, on Friday morning, walking in to open gym.

I tell you, when my brain fully grasped whom I was seeing, my stomach – and deeper – somersaulted and shivered. My face had a massive smile, and I know my whole being lit up. For both his benefit and my own, I was glad that he was here in the gym. We hadn’t seen each other in what felt like far too long. I had been missing him. We hugged intensely, and I didn’t want to let him go. It felt to be a mutual desire.

Later, as I was passing by him to get to the rings, as I always do with my touch-y self, I gently placed my hand on his shoulder when I passed. He was sitting on a lifting bench, facing me, and ever so slightly raised his hand in response, just grazing the back of my thigh. It wasn’t sexual, no. It was just intimate, in a loving way. For whatever reason, almost since I first met him, I’ve just wanted to hold him and be held by him. Today, in its odd little way, the Universe gave me a taste of that. My morning and day were already set as wonderful today. But that little bit of his showing up and our hugs and gentle loving touches, that set a golden edge to all of it, giving me a certain satisfaction that I rarely have these days. It was perfect, really.

And then, at work, just the perfect person showed up, someone massively important to me from my childhood. We had an unexpected few-minute emotional and powerful conversation, complete with tears and hugs, and tentatively planned to spend real time together in the near-ish future.

Also, the taco someone ordered for me was spectacular and within my dietary desires.

And work felt easy today, on so many levels.

And, leaving work, I walked with a new girl who seemed neat. Turns out, she’s half French, and we spent most of our walk in French together.

And all of that only went to 3:30pm today… It was just an amazing kind of day today, just what I needed in so many ways, and I am grateful. Thank you, God and the Universe, for such love as I felt and experienced today. Thank you.

Peace

Post-a-day 2021

Hold

Some days,

I just want to hold some

Body.

Some days,

I just want to hold

Myself.

And some days,

I just want some body

To hold me.

But most days,

The first and the last

Are on hold.

I’m growing weary,

So often being on hold.

I’m growing tired,

Of being all I have to hold,

While on hold,

on my own.

Post-a-day 2021

Feel the burn

Today, I got to spend some in-person one-on-one time with a dear friend of mine.  She and I have not spoken much lately, because, whenever we do talk, it usually lasts a couple hours or more, and I tend to think of calling her when it is a little too close to bedtime for such a long call.  And our schedules have been kind of opposite – I go to bed early, and she late – which hasn’t helped her be able to reach me either.  We just both accepted that we were in a bit of a scheduling break (break due to scheduling, that is).  

We used to spend at least one evening a week together, spending quality in-person time with one another and a few other good friends.  Then, we actually lived together.  And then I moved away, then back… the latter of which happened right before she moved away.  (Not too far, but far enough that even weekly hangouts were out of the question.  So, instead, we talk on the phone a lot, which is actually quite nice.

Anyway, today, we spent time together in person.  And it was amazing.

The other day, I had almost cried when someone held my hand – it was a surprise for me to have such a reaction, but it was an important but near-forgotten sensation from what feels like oh-so-long-ago.  I was nearly overwhelmed by the feeling, by the comforting warmth and pressure in just the right place.  Just as our hands were growing slightly damp in the middle, and my insides were breathing with pure comfort and delight at this specific, if odd, comfort from so many moments in my life, he dropped my hand.  Naturally, I went a bit crazy in my mind about the possibilities as to why he did that.  And I don’t just mean then. I mean mostly afterward, and borderline obsessively.  (Fortunately, I can acknowledge when it has been enough, and I can just let it all go, but I certainly allow myself to delve, if only for a short time.)  From a logic standpoint, it was likely due to the sweat that he dropped my hand, although it was because of the sweat that I was so filled.  

Nonetheless, as I considered this over the next couple days, I began to see how much I had not seen regarding my need for physical comfort.  My brain, body, and psyche need physical contact to survive, not just to thrive.  And I have been getting by on the absolute bare minimum lately, and so certainly not thriving.  Life has been just that much harder because of it.

And so, this evening, as that all was not news to this friend, I was given a good, solid rub-down.  Her strong, firm, warm hands placed intentional, loving pressure on my back, both massaging my muscles and giving me comfort.  Then she purposefully rubbed all along my arms and each finger, my neck and shoulders, and each leg.  I asked her to treat me like a dog, and give me a rub-down, and she did.  And it was extremely comforting at the time.  Then, further along in our hanging out together, rather than just giving hug after hug at things, we just sat together in an embrace, I somewhat in her lap, arms around her waist.  Her strong arms held me tight around my shoulders and back, as my head pressed against her upper chest, and she rested her chin atop my head.

When she had first arrived, there was no doubt in either of our minds that I was struggling.  I have a lot of things causing stress in my daily life at the moment – a lot.  And those things have begun taking a greater hold of my attention each day, as their volume and significance have increased.  Now, about to go to sleep, I don’t necessarily notice feeling any specific way, but that I notice a lack of something.  There is something gone that was previously here, weighing me down.  I am not tense and stress-y, clenching somehow with my whole being.  I am comfortably standing, wide-legged, shoulders totally chill and relaxed, breathing very calm and easy, all without effort.  Now, I am merely getting ready for bed.  I see those things that have been stressing me, but they are just something I see – they are not taking me over anymore.  I am breathing easily, without restriction or strain (that, though I could push through them, they certainly were there before).

And I can breathe, simply because my body can handle it all again.  My skin and muscles and hair follicles were rejuvenated by her hands and arms, and they are all breathing freely once again.  All because I got a rub-down.

It may sound silly, but there’s a reason that has become an actual job in some countries – people need it.  Remember, babies die without physical contact.  It’s a wonder we haven’t come up with something for this for people sooner, I suppose.

Man…

Post-a-day 2021

^Meh… got it, but had to consider

Grazingly uncomfortable

A few years ago, I was talking to a male friend of mine about one of the other guys at dance, and how I couldn’t figure out if he noticed that he would end up swiping the edge of my boob whenever we danced together (partner dancing).

He informed me and the other females present that a guy always knows when he has touched boob – it is like radar… whenever boob touches any part of a guy’s body, it immediately alerts, “BOOB!”

And so then we were all wondering if the occasional faces that the guy we’d been discussing would make – an almost embarrassed, pursed-lip, laughing expression, like a little boy who’s snuck ice cream before dinner, and his favorite aunt calls him out on it, but they both know she won’t tell Mommy (and probably just will steal a bite in exchange for her nonverbal agreed-upon silence in the matter) every so often while dancing with me were because he noticed that he’d touched boob, but hadn’t meant to do so, and so now didn’t know how to respond appropriately, but did his best to ignore the event (with his face totally betraying him).

Because we really couldn’t figure out why he always made those faces when dancing with me…., but this seemed like a reasonable and likely solution to our quandary.

The specific guy was an actual well-known friend, and so we all agreed easily that he was not at all intentionally malicious in any way with the boob grazing – he was just not that great with the body management while staying on beat and all in the dancing.

I don’t remember if I ever verified this theory – aka tested it time and time again, when dancing with the guy – but I have a sense of being rather convinced of that being the case, even now, years later, so I’m thinking I did check that he always made those faces just after what seemed like an unintentional boob graze.

Now, the reason this has come up tonight, is because of something that happened tonight.

When giving me a side hug tonight, a long-armed guy’s arm went a little too far around my back – about half an inch, I guess – and his fingertips, ever so slightly, grazed the outer edge of my breast.

When it happened, I naturally pulled strategically out of the hug, from years of practice in removing myself from any sort of uncomfortable situation, intended or accidental.

I didn’t say anything, though, because I found myself wondering first, Did he notice that?, which was almost immediately cut off by the memory of what my friend had told me years before: “BOOB!”

And then I wondered, Was that intentional?

????????????????

And then I didn’t know where to go with it.

He’s a tall guy, so misalignments can happen rather easily, as they happen with extreme height differences…, but he’s a tall guy, and he has been a tall guy for some time, and ought to know how to manage such things by this point in his life… but he’s also really not a ladies’ man, and so might not be too accustomed to hugging girls in the first place…

After the fact, I feel almost embarrassed that I was too embarrassed for him to bring it up, to tell him in some way that I disapprove of the behavior, whether it was intentional or not – I didn’t have to be mean to him at all, but I think it would have been valuable to inform him either way to be cautious in the future.

Yet, it was not so natural a thing to me that I even considered saying anything at the time… I just moved away from the incident altogether, for fear of discomfort.

I didn’t want to embarrass him over something he had neither intentionally done nor known about.

I was embarrassed for myself at the prospect of pointing out that he had touched me inappropriately, period.

This is something for me to work on for myself – I want to be comfortable to speak up and conscious enough to do so, whenever anything like this might happen.

And I want all people to be encouraged to do so themselves, too – I want us to be happy and comfortable in our own skins, and to be able to express, in a useful and beneficial way, what doesn’t work from other people’s behavior toward us.

Yeah.

Post-a-day 2019