I remember your touch

One of the aspects of aging and perhaps too, of having more time on your hands is to be drawn back by memories of youth and of the moments that shaped your younger life.

Today when I was having one of the body attacks that I have in which my trauma seems to be trying to push its way to the surface of my consciousness I was aware of the longing of my body for the deep sexual connection with an intimate partner and how this healthy, totally natural impulse and aspect of human experiencing was denied to me as a result of a Catholic education in which I was taught not to love and value my female body but to fear and despise it.

I never had a sexual relationship with my first boyfriend, Robert.  I longed for it but I feared it as well.  The truth I now know was that I had come to believe from my upbringing that I was not loveable and I was also carrying an anger around my parents being emotionally unavailable that played out for me in many close relationships with men.  I also feared the exposing of my self and by body in an act of pure vulnerability which is the sexual act, that I may be looked on with revulsion or that I may not be adequate to the task, that my lack of self esteem would be all too obvious.

This is so sad for me and there is much, much more to this aspect of my story that I don’t have the time or energy to go into today but suffice to say it has left a scar.  Every single relationships ended in being left and reminded me of my all too deep inadequacy and the inadequacy of my partners to meet me with truth understanding and  compassion.

I was remembering today my partners touch.  I was drawn back to that moment at age 17 when the possibility of reaching through to  deeper sexual intimacy was offered and of the fear I felt and the need to pull back.  I was reminded of how close on the heels of this experience came my motor vehicle accident which led to being torn out of school and that critical time of adolescent transition which was the ending of school, the embarking on adulthood, of how I was taken away and confined to a hospital bed.

And the next year more trauma visited my family.

As I lay on the floor today, my body contorting with waves of pain which were also undulations of supressed life energy trying to find understanding and conscious expression for me I was back in that time in 1979 with Robert and my stomach lurched with grief and longing as I was aware of the many other times the opportunity to express love and connect was taken away.

In the end my journey has been to love myself for only from that point of self acceptance, self knowledge and understanding can I show love for any other.  My defences held me back, but they were, at the time, I felt necessary protections, ones I now long to shed.