Reach Out and Hug Someone

Different kinds of friendships always comes to mind after being on a social network. There are fair-weather friends, casual acquaintances, lost friends, found friends, new friends, and friends who we hope to never meet again. For those we want to contact, we reach out and touch someone with a smiley face or a nice comment about something they posted, or a picture they shared. It's often construed as impersonal and lacks the emotional and physical response we as humans need. Then it occurred to me about an epidemic that faces the world and it's called skin hunger. It's an emotional response that is developed by the lack of touch. Sometimes, it can even cause you to feel depressed and completely alone as you swim in an ocean of peoples who barely know you. How wonderful it would be to jump into the car and visit a family member or meet a friend for a lunch or dinner date but instead, we have to be content with faraway impersonal relationships. The heartfelt hugs we once remembered are being diminished as more families and friends live apart in different states and this lack of touch keeps us from being close to our loved ones. When was the last time you reached out and touched someone? For me, it is not nearly often enough. When was the last time someone said, “If only you lived closer...” or “We can't be truly a part of your life when you live so far away?”

I am truly affected after leaving someone I care for when there's been physical contact, because I am a hugger and I have the need to look into someones eyes during conversation. I want to remember how the lines formed around someone's eyes when they smiled and the touch of their hand on mine. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for technology as it has allowed us to communicate with anyone around the world, but unfortunately it dehumanizes the physical interaction for which many of us crave and thrive upon. We interact with our electronic devices more than we do with each other, completely eliminating the human touch from the equation. Sadly, many our our older generation do not use technological devices, and can leave them feeling unloved and out of the loop with others. How many times have you see a family gathering and everyone is texting, or surfing the web while grandma sits alone? How many times have you got together with the grandkids and they would prefer to text their friends or check out a You Tube video? How many times have you wanted to reach out and hug a young person without them thinking you're a pervert?

We live disconnected lifestyles and we live in an extremely litigious society where touching someone can be considered sexual harassment. People have become fearful of hugging and physically greeting one another. Can you imagine a child being born into a strange world with underdeveloped senses except for the sense of touch? We have all initially made sense of this world through our skins. Touch and affection told us the world is a safe, secure and warm place to live. Touch comforted us. A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a massage or a gentle hug can heal the heart and spiritual well-being in the receiver. For those of us who may be suffering from skin hunger, a therapeutic massage may satisfy the cravings. For a parent, a spouse, a friend, or a caregiver do not forgo such a human and elemental need as touch. It makes lasting memories once a loved one is gone.

It is the first sense developed in the womb and the last sense to leave our bodies. It is so vital, in fact, that therapist and author Virginia Satir stated that human beings need four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth. So find someone you love or care about and give them a hug today. You'll be surprised how many will say, “I needed that.”

Is It You?

"One never knows what chance treasures these unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind..."  ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Before we took our first breath we evolved into a thriving human being in a sack of embryonic fluid. A liquid which sustained our life's nutrients soothing our tiny bodies until our maiden voyage. Is it no wonder why we are calmed when we emerge ourselves into a warm tub of familiar territory when it can erase the visual simulations of our busy day? Water therapy has been used for its healing properties to heal pain, purge toxins, and in treating depression and suicidal tendencies. No wonder so many people desire to live near a body of water and focus on an overabundance of blue noise.

Being around water gives our minds and senses a rest from the world, it can calm us and transport us to another time to relive a pleasant memory. Which is the real reason for this post. Recently, my family gathered at the northern Michigan lake that was familiar to us all to say goodbye to our brother. He lived in Florida, but he was laid to rest 1800 miles away next to my parents in the family plot. We all gathered from three states for this brief encounter to the place I used to call home. As it is with many family gatherings, ours have its problems too. I shouldn't have been disappointed, but I was because there is always one who tries to be the buffer and make things right or makes excuses for those who think they're in the right. I'm that one. I am guilty as charged.

Upon arriving at the lake the first thing I did after checking in was to find a dock I could sit on and dangle my feet in the water. I have done this for as long as I can remember. Every time my parents vacationed at the lake in the summers, I ran to the lake soon as I opened the car door. After I moved to the lake as a teenager, I sought this aloneness every chance I could. I embraced my solitude of being by myself near the water. It was the one place being the new girl or popular or not fitting in didn't matter. The sound of the waves softly lapping the shore, the gentle motion of the fishing boat rocking on calm waters, and the smell of the boat motor gas did something to me. I suppose you could say, I transported myself to my happy place and did this once again thirty years after moving away. It was the gift I had given myself after a long stressful journey to get here.

All prior tensions was magically wiped away soon as I saw my pink polished toes in the water. I smiled and selfishly captured this moment in time for me alone. I thought about past years, the people, and many events that took place so many years ago. The moment I daringly plunge into the cool water my adult mind was engulfed with the fantasy of being the slim dark-haired girl of my past. The girl who wondered when a certain someone would be coming up to his parent's cottage for the summer or who I would see at the Music Box later that night. I emerged to the surface to catch my breath and caught the scent of a campfire in the distance and remembered the parties at a nearby campground. It all made me smile as I dove back under the water. The far ago memories danced like a rock song in my head keeping time with the beat of my young heart. I thought of my parents, my children and my husband. I thought of them with pride and with love. I thought of my brother who will be dearly missed.

The night before I was to head back home I saw a red pick-up truck with a business name painted on the tailgate. The beautiful Italian surname was that of that certain someone from my past. He was the boy I wondered about every time I drove by his parent's cottage when I came back home. I excused myself when I saw the person who it belonged to and asked if he was related to the someone I once knew. He said, “I am he.”