The Power Of Touch

I've never been an overly touchy person.  Throughout our marriage, it has been much to my  husband's dismay that I do not cuddle in my sleep.  Touch me while I sleep and I you might just get to hear me bellow like an angry troll.  I do not like to be disturbed. 

Granted, in my waking hours, with my husband at least, I do enjoy holding hands and sitting close.  He best not leave without kissing me!  With my children, I enjoy their snuggles, their hugs and their love.  However, for years, if you didn't fall into one of the foregoing categories, I was extremely uncomfortable with the uninvited touch of another.

For instance, the friends who wanted to hug when they saw me for the first time in a week, or even a month or two; were probably left with the impression that they had just hugged a stiff 2 by 4.  I just found human touch between friends uncomfortable.  Quite frankly, it was also unnecessary.  Why do people want to touch you when they talk?  Why when I went frazzled and disheveld to church did people want to put an arm around me and hug me?  Why when people laugh do they reach out and touch others?  Why, why, why, do people touch so much?

Have you ever had life feel so messy, so out of control, and so chaotic that sometimes you weren't sure if you were really living, or the walking dead?  I have, and it sucks.  No matter what I did in life, no matter what choices I made, someone else's were always pulling me two steps backs for every one step I managed to make.  I felt like I lived in a hell with no escape and the only thing I lived for was saving my family from that hell.  Most people will never know those hours of despair for me.  They can't really be put into words.  It's funny, when people hear about the trials that my husband and I went through a few years ago they very surprisingly say, "really!?!"  These are people who saw us weekly, but whom I never knew on an "intimate" level.  Never would I have shared with them the turmoil that was my life.  I wore a pretty good mask, even for the family I saw regularly.  There really wasn't much anyone could do to help, so I asked only for the help I knew they could provide.  Somethings just take time to work themselves on their own.

I degress. My thoughts and lessons learned though are this . . . there is a miracle that accompanies human touch.  I had a visiting teacher (a woman from church who visited with me every month to see how I was doing); I never told her directly about the problems I was having, just that things were "okay," "trying," or that "I was surviving."  But she checked on me every month nonetheless, and when she saw me at church, she regularly put her arm around me.  There were other people too, who regularly made sure they touched me when they talked to me; my hand, my forearm, or my shoulder.  I can't say why it didn't bother me as much then.  Perhaps because I felt like that giant hot air balloon ready to take flight; regularly pulling on the ropes that kept me grounded.  Touch helped keep me grounded, call it the ropes, call it regular reinforcement of the knots, it doesn't matter to me.  Simple touch helped keep me grounded.  It didn't make me stop feeling lonely, but it did help me not feel alone.  They are different you know?  Lonely is a feeling you have, it is interpretive.  For example, you can be in a room with a crowd of people and feel lonely; yet you are not alone.  Alone is the actual state of being.  And as people remember to reach and out gently touch me (non-intrusively), I knew that no matter how lonely I was, I wasn't alone.

Now, as I walk through life, engaging with people, I don't shudder at the thought of hugging a near stranger.  I've had clients walk through my office door, distraught over divorce, the loss of children to the custody of the State, financial troubles, etc. I know that when talking with them, the simple touch of my hand, or a hug for a worried mother may not dissolve their problems, but more than my words, it assures them they are not alone.  Additionally, to the teenagers I talk with, the kids I counsel with, my touch tells them I'm not just spewing words at them, I care.  Touch helps to open ears and hearts, so words are heard and the meaning of words are known.

When  I was laid-off in November, my husband was also unemployed.  We have four children and I was terrified.  It was all I could do not to let my mind run away and fall into a serious panic attack.  There were no words you could tell me to make it better.  There was too much unknown about what the next few months would hold for us, and what would ultimately happen to us.  For the first time in my marriage, I didn't sleep on my side of the bed and for once, I couldn't sleep at all if I wasn't in my husband's arms.  My life was, once again, upside down and all I could think about was whether or not I'd be able to provide for the four sleeping beauties that lie peacefully in other rooms; unaware of the magnitude of having two unemployed parents.  My husband got a job a couple weeks later and, after that, I slept peacefully on my side of the bed.  Sad, I know; and probably selfish of me.  However, it both were natural to me; rely on his touch to keep me grounded when severe anxiety struck, and needed some independence when I resumed a little control over life.

Most of us walk through life without having complete control over our lives.  We have some aspects "controlled,"  other's "under-management," and other's well beyong our control.  Sometimes, it is the touch from an acquantance, more than those close to us, that keeps us grounded and helps us feel not so alone.