Not enough hugging
Yesterday;
Me: How many times a day do you think we hug?
Ryan: (giving it an honest contemplation) Does it count when you straddle me and sit on my lap?
Me: Yeah. Anytime where we are embracing, have our arms around each other.
Ryan: I don’t know, maybe 10, 15 times?
Me: Sounds about right
Today I counted and yep, that’s about right. I like that. I think that’s a nice high number.
I wrote and read a eulogy for my grandfather’s funeral this week about how his relationship with my grandmother really stood out as special to me, for many reasons one of which being they were always showing physical affection. Four others read eulogies at his funeral that corroborated the story- my grandparents were always touching each other. You would always catch them holding hands, smooching, hugging.
Ever since I wrote the eulogy I’ve been thinking about intimate touch and how I don’t think there’s enough hugging, or at least not enough talk about hugging. For erotophobes, PDA and hugging and smooching makes them uncomfortable, because, well, they’re erotophobes. These are the “get a room” people. For sex-positivists, huggy smoochy intimacy type stuff isn’t sexy enough to talk about, or at least, with all the shit going on in the world there are more pressing things for them to talk about. Somebody’s gotta talk about it, so I just thought I’d put it out there that I’ve been thinking about hugging a lot lately. I’ve been thinking about how hugging makes me feel good, that I’m happy with the amount of hugs I get, and that I hope you are satisfied with the amount of hugs you get too.
PS: As I was typing this, Ryan, who didn’t know that I was writing about this topic, came over to my desk on three different occasions and gave me a hug :D
DR. JILL
