Disarming.

I am having a languid, delightful time getting to know someone. A man.

The same someone who inspired me to look at how much I don’t want to let a romantic interest get to know me. And, for whatever this is or will be, it’s really, really nice.

I described to a friend what it felt like to be held – not spooning, or even the enjoyable resting of your head on the guy’s chest – but simply standing, holding one another, like the kind of extended hug that someone forces around you until you relax. Until they can feel your shoulders drop, and your lungs start to inhale again. Until you feel safe enough to breathe.

It’s like that, only without the imperative insistence of the extended hug. This feels, to me, mutual, natural, like we both are relieved just to stand there, heads tucked, arms wrapped, bodies together, and breathe for a minute, guileless. It’s similar to the feeling I sometimes have when I realize that I’ve been holding my breath or breathing shallowly for too long, and I finally take a nice deep breath into my belly. Filling out my whole body with awareness, instead of constriction.

It’s a feeling that you didn’t know how stressed or armored or anxious you were, until it falls away so fucking naturally and quickly, that it almost makes you dizzy. And suddenly, you’re just two people, two hearts, unaware you were looking for relief and comfort and ease, until now you’re experiencing it.

It’s benevolent, and it's grace.

For me, it’s also an awareness, I think, of how lonely and body-starved I’ve been. Not for sex, though sure, but for that kind of holding. To be held. It’s actually, now that I think of it, what I came to at the conclusion of my meditation retreat in January. I concluded that this year, I wanted to learn to let myself be held.

I almost always hold my breath, as I’ve written about before. Even in the safety and constance of my own home. I am always on guard, protecting myself from something. And it’s just so tiring, but I don’t realize it – didn’t realize it, until in this togetherness, I find it fall from around me, and experience feeling unburdened and relieved of that something. 

I am not Fate’s author, I am only the scribe. So, I can only report to you what I know, and share with you how I feel in the moment, today. As everything changes so quickly.

But recognizing for myself that there’s another way of being, that there’s an open way to be, that in fact that way of being feels like its own ecstasy, I think I’m learning that my armor is not as useful as it once was. And that being held, without that shield, is more healing, joyful, and filling than I could have predicted.