No Touchie

It's not very often I use my blog as a forum to lament about personal trials. I most often use it as a forum to share the crazy and random things that happen to me or that I notice. Every so often though I'll man up, so to speak, and discuss something that is deeply personal and/or something that could qualify as a trail or tribulation. Tonight would be one such night. I was at my counseling appointment today (before you even ask, yes...more than likely i am crazy) and I was discussing some aah..concerns with my councelor, mostly regarding my dating life. It was in the middle of the appointment that I had a realization. It had been over a week since anyone had touched me. In any way shape or fashion. No hugs, no causal caress, hell I hadn't even been jostled one good time. It made me go back and re exam the past several months. And the realization was shocking. I can think of only 2 instances since Feb that I have been kissed on, or shown any type of affection by a member of the opposite sex. Even less than that for friends and family members. I can hear it now, you're thinking I'm exaggerating, not remembering the small few times someone has come up and put there hand on me, or perhaps patted my shoulder. I promise you, I have an uncanny memory and I went back through the days and there has been no such contact, save for those two instances and a weekend in Chicago with my best Friend.
And there I sat. Tears running down my face discussing this with my councilor. There are not words to describe the despondency that I felt at this realization. Still feel, now, hours after I left her office. I'm still not quite sure which is bothering me more, the fact that this is happening in my life, or I've become so acclimated to it that there was no notice of it until today.
How many of us go through a day with out touching the people we love? Touch establishes intimacy, trust, it is a form of communication. It soothes, it consoles, it speaks to the heart in a way that no words can ever come close to. How many of us take for granted the people that we could reach out to and lay a hand on? How many take for granted that there is merely someone there that could be touched? How many touch and never realize what it could mean to live with out it? To many I think.
There is no one in my foreseeable future that is going to change this. Perhaps I'll make it a game. See how many days I go before I'm given a hug, or some one comes up and pats my back. In return, I shall make a point to touch those that I care about more often, to show them in my actions how much they mean to me, though it is a very small list and those that mean the most live the farthest away. Yes..a game it shall be. Tomorrow shall be day 1. My councilor gave me a hug before I left.