It started way back when, we were both
skittish, best friends in an all girls school.
In our
fierce pretense, I'm-tougher-than-that
denial, we pretended that we
would never want
to be hugged for comfort. We were
stronger,
no pale girlie stuff. We didn't need each other to
tell us how smart we were, how pretty. We were
scornful, prickly, and defensive.
By now, I am
lying when I confess an unease to being hugged.
Often I will call her up and talk.
I spout things I never meant to tell, jabber
on about inconsequential happenings just to have
some human contact; times when all i need is a
hug, and there's noone nearby to give it.
She
is still the bundle of nerves she was back then:
shying away from touch, denying something she needs.
I would never tell her this truth I see, because
that would be to risk losing her. Antsy, and private
nerves askitter, she'd fade out of my life in that
obscure way she has. Now you see her now you dont.
We do not hug. I do not touch her other than
to poke her playfully in her side. If, god forbid,
she lost someone/thing she loved, I wouldn't know
how to comfort her. I wouldn't be able to hug her
through all her barriers, across her denial.
I would never be able to admit to it myself,
have a hard time thinking that I could turn to
a friend and say, in response to a caring
offer of help: I just need a hug. However
true it may be. Maybe she has come to this stage
too, and just has the words stuck behind her smile.
Why are we scared to admit that all we
want is human contact? I hated being touched,
because I so craved it. I wanted an acceptance.
If I couldn't get it on an intellectual level did
physical acceptance then seem cheap? No. It was
that the casual touch gives me that much more to worry
about. I was scared of it, fearing I would set
off a scent, radiating a neediness I wanted
hidden. Why is it so hard to admit to weakness?