Touch: The Need To Be Precious
If there is any need that I am aware of more than anything right now, in the midst of everything, it is the need to be precious to someone. As I sit alone in my room and my life flows by like water, time flows and I am alone. I feel so alone and unloved. And feeling unloved, my worth diminishes in my own eyes. An intense feeling of emptiness and despair grows.
From the core of my being, I deeply need to be precious to someone that I can hear, see, touch - someone that is there right beside me. But as I am yet unworthy, I am alone, and in that loneliness, degenerating, becoming even less and less fit for love. I can only wish for love now. I think even just to feel safe to reach out to friends more would help, but I think that there's a kind of deeper love that I need so much - someone to hug. That's what I miss about living with family members - lots of hugs. But now ... I mean, I'm lucky if I even get one hug a month - that's a good month if it's one a month. I don't even see my parents that often, and they're the only people I consistently hug. So ... less than 12 hugs per year. That's extremely dire starvation for a physical expression of love! I read this: "While most of us suffer from living in an anti-touch society, women tend to feel more touch-starved than men, probably due to the fact that they have more estrogen. A woman who is not receiving enough touch becomes withdrawn and even depressed." (from an online article dealing with touch and oxytocin, especially relating to estrogen) Is it any wonder that I feel like this? Touch is something that people need all their lives. Long ago, a vast percentage of babies in orphanages used to die, and it was later discovered that the reason for this was that, though every other physical need was adequately provided for, no one touched the babies lovingly - no one held them or cuddled them. (www.benbenjamin.com/pdfs/Issue2.pdf) There are negative physical and emotional effects of a lack of touch in adults as well. I was reading about it online earlier this evening. Something about a decreased life span, etc. - it's just not good. sad
This time travel roleplay I've been trying to start has been kind of lagging - not enough people interested, etc., so in the iterim, I spent some time writing what I suppose would be the equivalent of fanfiction stories for the couple I am playing part of. So many of my own desires were pouring into my stories of them - particularly in the latter stories, as what existed between them became more than mere physical attraction and grew into love in full bloom. Many nights, when I was having trouble sleeping, worried or afraid, I would find myself drawn to read the stories I had written about them - especially the parts where they touched each other: all the times they held hands, hugged, kissed, or cuddled. I think that was probably my own desire to touch and be touched in those ways reaching out from my heart. But it has opened up the yearning for touch so much more in me. Now, I feel the lack of it so much more - looking at what I yearn for so deeply, reaching out to empty air with my heart, trying to touch and be touched in my mind, in a fantasy.
I'm kind of weird about touch. When I become really, really comfortable around someone, I'm really cuddly (I'm like that with my Mom, and probably would have been like that with my boyfriends if they hadn't all been ... *expletives* with selfish, harmful agendas). But with most people, I feel kind of shy about touch - I want to hug my friends when I see them (which isn't that often - I need to get out more!) but I often hold back a bit - unless I make a deliberate effort to push myself past the fear and awkwardness I have with touch. In terms of touch and a future spouse, I definitely need someone who is very cuddly, as often for me, the deepest form of an expression of trust is giving and receiving touch - what I am most afraid of but also so desperately need.
When I fall asleep at night, I try to imagine that the soft feeling of my blankets around me is being held in the arms of someone that loves me (God or my future husband). For the space of a few seconds, I can almost make myself believe in a deep emotional sense, that there is someone out there loving me, wanting to wrap his arms around me and hold me at night.
Though I may act awfully proud and say, at times, that I'm not sure I ever want to get married, the truth is that I really deeply long for marriage. I want to know what it's like to really, deeply love and be loved by a good man, and I don't want to be alone - being alone is not what my heart truly wants and needs. When I think about never getting married, it's because I would rather die than be married to the kind of guys I dated in the past when I was younger and very naive. I was an object to them - they never knew me, though I'm sure they thought they did, just a means to an end. There was no love there - I didn't even love them, I was only confusing infatuation and lust with love too. But when I think of being an object to someone, I know that I'd rather never get married than be that. But, I need someone ... someone special who can "taste my soul" ... who can "taste" me and reflect that back to me, showing me that he knows me deeply, and someone to whom/for whom I can do the same. I want to know and appreciate and be known and appreciated deeply. I don't want some cheap, sloppy equation of random man + random woman = love. I don't want something cheap - I want something rich, rare, and true. I believe (in moments in which I actually feel faith) that there is someone that God is preparing for me and someone for whom I am being prepared. God has someone picked out for me already. I just want God's choice for me, not my choice for myself, because God knows better and God has the best in store.
Sometimes I wonder what this means for me - do I sit around waiting for that person to come into my life? That urks me somewhat, but I also know that right now I am not ready for him. I'm unemployed, not certain about a long-term career path, and most important of all: I don't have a strong, steady relationship with God. How is a Christian man who has a close relationship with God even going to be attracted to someone whose faith and relationship with God are awfully on the weak side? I could throw into my list of reasons why "now" is not the right time additional things like: emotional baggage (I'm probably going to have that all my life, so if I wait 'till I don't have any, I'd have to wait 'till I'm dead >.< wink , physical appearance ... still pretty out of shape, more weight to lose, etc. - but I'm not getting any younger! It has always been my wish to be able to be young and beautiful for my future husband. But ... I'm a lot less young than I was, and "beautiful" is living in fantasy land. Looking myself square in the eye and being absolutely honest, this is what I see:
no makeup = very rarely beautiful, sometimes pretty, usually kind of plain ... or worse
with makeup = almost always at least a bit pretty, and on some occasions, beautiful
So, the natural me with no adornment? "Beautiful" is just not an honest word for me to use in describing what I see. It boggles my mind to try to imagine someone looking at me in the morning with no makeup on and that person telling me, in complete, sincere honesty, that, to him, I am pretty. My appearance would have to have a unique appeal to him, because I highly doubt that joe-average guy could look at me without makeup when I wake up in the morning and honestly say "pretty." Not that I'd ever want to ask! The "just-rolled-out-of-bed-in-the-morning-beautiful" myth/generalization is patently absurd - definitely not true for everyone, definitely not true for me! But ...
Aside from all the questions of whether I am worthy enough as a person, or physically desireable enough as a woman, I am lonely, and I do yearn for touch and for love. To me, love is the main purpose for life: loving and being loved by God, loving and being loved by our fellow human beings - this is what really matters in life.
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