When Does Touch Become Critical?

Elaine Williams ©2008
When does it become critical that you be touched with love or affection? Does something happen to those of us out of relationships for extended periods of time due to divorce, loss of a spouse or physical separation?
Speaking for myself, as a widow of four years, some days it feels like I have a yearning to be touched with familiarity, love, affection or tenderness. My mind aches for the intimate brush of fingertips, a soft touch of lips upon mine. Is it selfish to want that again in my life – to have something beyond a quick coupling or an unsatisfactory relationship?

I value myself more than the cursory affair might allow, so I have decided I want more in my life than a short-sighted tryst, a quick something that leads to nothing. Where am I on this plane of thought? Am I withholding my affections for a specific purpose? Another marriage? No, at this point I am merely looking for something satisfying in body and spirit that may turn into a long term relationship.

I have purposely chosen to walk my path alone at this time, when I feel so acutely the lack of companionship in my life. The affection of friends and family count, but not in the greater degree of when I am alone and have time to think about my life circumstances. It is a different type of affection I crave, and will eventually have in my life. I practice patience, but some days I admit patience is short lived.

How long is too long to go without an affectionate human touch? It feels like an aeon of time has passed. There’s always the fear that the wait may prove fruitless in the long run. Will I regret waiting for the right one at the end of my life if he doesn’t show up?

Will I wish I had seized every moment that might have been -- good, bad or indifferent? I feel in my gut there is a grand plan, but perhaps I’m just fooling myself to keep from panicking. The thought of being alone for the next thirty years increases that rumbling of dismay. I deserve to find happiness – I had it once, shouldn’t I experience it again? There is no giving up, it is not within me to just roll over and play dead.

I have a wonderful, enriched life, why shouldn’t I share it with another? Is it critical to be touched when you yearn for it so much that it makes your skin itch and tears come to your eyes? Is that when you know your time to wait is up? You can be proactive, but in the end all you can do is live, be present in life, and wait until that hand touches your shoulder and you turn knowingly into someone’s loving embrace. Some days even twenty-four hours seems it is too long to go without a loving touch. How then would you classify 1460 days without that loving touch?