If you touch me, You'll understand what happiness is

We did backrubs in choir Wednesday. I love when we do backrubs in choir for all the obvious reasons we do them but it always surprises me how much I like them. And I think I've finally figured out why. It's the touch. I don't get touched really.

I'm not a terribly touchy-feely person. I like my personal space a fair piece larger than most. But I realized that I don't often get touched except by the little ones who are more than happy to hang on me as much as I'll let them. I think it's a hazard of being home with them and working from home, maybe; there just aren't those small encounters where someone might pat your arm briefly or put their hand on your shoulder, those little inter-personal interactions that show someone recognizes you're there and cares about you.

I remember (and, yes, I'm dating myself a bit here) a Scarecrow & Mrs. King episode where Amanda is explaining to Lee how she knows that a particular pair who are pretending to be a couple don't love each other. They don't touch each other, she says. People who love each other do. (Of course, she says this with her hand on Lee's arm...)

The isolation of working from home, of taking care of small children, of always being busier than one has any right to be... the things we sacrifice for 'having it all'... as the song puts it, "something's got to give."

I realized, after I thought about this, that a goodly reason of why my kids hang on me is that I'm always busy trying to Get Stuff Done. So I am resolving to touch them more. To try to show them through my actions that I love them. Whether it's just a pat on the head as I pass them, an extra kiss at bedtime, a hug during the day, I will try to make sure they don't come to the same realization that I did - because, when it comes down to it, we all need that little reassurance that someone realizes that we're there and is glad of it.

~~~
Memory, Cats.