Touch is so important. To be touched, to be held. To feel the warmth of another human being. A hug, a back rub, a caress, or just patting someones arm or knee. Sometimes you don’t know how touch starved you have been.

Ending a bad marriage, and subsequent years of solitude, left me touch starved, I’ve recently realized. I’d forgotten the connection made by touching. I was lucky in that I had my son and my friends to get hugs from all those years. But the connection made, or strengthened, by regular touch, intimate touch was not there for about 15 years for me.

I’m not talking about sexual touch, just loving human touch. The warmth of a human hand on your back, or your neck. Sitting close enough to someone to feel their body heat as you watch TV. A warm embrace for no reason except you felt like it. It’s a joyful thing. It’s just not something I realized was missing from my life, until it wasn’t any longer.

I think I’ve heard that babies who aren’t cuddled are often diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” We have all seen pictures of crowded nurseries, where there are too many babies and not enough caregivers, with not enough time to just hug and cuddle all the babies. I am guessing that a lack of loving touch in a child’s life contributes to his growing up anti-social, or looking for a way to numb obvious feelings of lack of self worth. It’s a sad thought.

Just my thoughts this Sunday morning. I’m just grateful to have touch back in my life.

Love and light.