Don't touch me, I'll be just fine

I hate being touched. I don't go around touching people's cheeks and patting their shoulders and pecking them every time I stand up to go to the loo. That's how I know my friends .... I touch them and I let them touch me. (In a platonic way!) I allow them into my space and I accept to enter theirs. Its my ultimate level of trust. It's how I show I care. Touch is my distinguishing feature. A trust that I do not wield about lightly. If I let you hand linger in a handshake for longer than a second, I either have profound respect or fear for you....or you are my friend. Either way, it is not a privilege easily given. It is the Midas touch.

Unfortunately, that is also how I know I've lost a friend. When the power of touch leaves our relationship. Then it means that life as I knew it has ended and I have to start again. That is how important touch is to me. It's my physical manifestation of my love. And since I let so few in, it is quite a big blow. It takes me a long time to recover. I wonder if the next one will matter. If I'm going to be giving out my touch just to watch myself fail. And yes, when I lose a friend it makes me feel like a failure.

I have lost 2 close friends in the past year. They sort of faded away from my radar. So much so that it felt like they had died. and taken half of me with them. For one, I didn't see it coming. He just walked away, and never looked back. There was no note with an explanation, no lingering email to say when he'd be back. He didn't even leave pieces of me behind to remember him by. It was like the end of a great movie. The credits were rolling and there was no rewind button. The second one.... it just feels like the friendship is slipping through my fingers and I can't stop the course its taking. Like water or sand through my hands. Actually its like trying to catch a river with my teenie tiny hands. My touch is not enough. Like my green lush garden just got annihilated by aliens. I know I can do nothing about it but still I try and it hurts like hell. Because those memories we have, they never go away. Memories I cannot pass on to a new friendship. That I cannot sell. They have no transferable value. Occasionally I'll see something that reminds me of them and I won't be able to call or text. I will want to send an email but I'll be afraid. And the hardest part is that, I still won't be able to tell anyone else. Because those were relationships worth their salt. They left behind scar tissue that I sometimes wear with pride but mostly with shame. I now have to hide ever knowing them or them ever touching me. They taught me lessons and those lessons were real.

I miss the touch of those friendships. The warmth and closeness that they brought me. The circumstances that built us and maybe eventually crushed us. Even that one that has not completely faded, the one I am so desperately trying to save, I miss it everyday. The touch is gone. The warmth is fading. The trust completely forgotten. And every time I see them , every time we pass each other in the street, every time I hear their names in conversation or smell their scent in the wind, I will have to pretend that their touch meant nothing. I will have to say it, every time I will have to pretend to believe it, "Don't touch me today, I'm doing just fine." On my playlist: