Got Hugs? 'Cause I don't.
I recently worked three nights in a row. The result was that I came home from work, fell asleep, woke up, and got ready to return to work 3x with little variation. Night shift makes your rest between shifts an obligation, otherwise you may be in a dangerous position to make mistakes. Because of this, the total percentage of my time spent on my phone came to a whopping 1.4%. This was made up entirely of a one hour phone conversation I managed to have with my boyfriend in the morning before falling asleep, a 30 minute conversation with him while preparing my food for midnight, and at most 30 minutes of miscellaneous, which was divided up into using it to look something up, check Instagram, take a photo and read an email (maybe).
Back home, on a two day break, I found myself lying on my bedroom floor, exhausted, but maintaining a few conversations while intermittently checking social media for that next thing that will make life click. My excuse was that I didn’t want to fall asleep so early, and using my phone was a way to passively remain awake till 9:00 came and I could finally curl up in bed. Besides, this is what people do.
And yet, for the insane normalcy of this activity, it felt oddly foreign to me after those three days of sleeping and three nights of work. My hands seemed to register that they were holding this device for an outrageous amount of time. I became antsy. 9 o’clock or not, I went to bed.
I am the only one who can admit it for myself, the fact that I am lonely. The fact that, no matter the frequency with which I receive recognition on the media, hear a text bing on my phone, or find some new sort of inspiration from totally valid and intriguing truths that we place in boxes and caption lines, I end the day feeling an emptiness that many bowls of ice cream have attempted to fill, a sensation that I’m falling, and a jumpiness in my own skin.
Because this skin of mine, it lacks what I have given to my phone consistently. It lacks attention, it lacks touch, it lacks the action of being held and pressed close to another physical body beyond the phone.
At an office visit to my primary care physician, I mentioned what we’ve now diagnosed as a benign familial tremor, and in order to assess the tremor, she held my hands. She then had me do different actions with them, pressed them lightly to feel the little shake that has always accompanied my fingertips and is the real reason I never became a surgeon. I had to admit that, while I daily touch many people in my line of work, it feels wonderful to be on the receiving end of that touch, even when it is of scientific quality.
A little later we were getting blood work. I’m sitting now in the lab chair, the tech wraps my arm tightly with the tourniquet, there’s a poke, the tubes that I’m holding in my right hand slowly fill up and are set aside. I want to converse but I feel that I cannot. I want to tell her the story of how my one patient would say in fright, “It goes to my heart! Every time you poke me it goes to my heart!” I could only hold her hand and comfort her over the necessity of the blood work we needed for her health. Yet this story cannot come out of my mouth, for I am feeling strangely sapped of strength.
My mind reels back to the time, now two years ago, that I passed out during blood work. But soon the blood draw was over, and I sat there, pleased with the success and ready to mention how I’m hoping the blood work comes back good when instead I say nonchalantly,
“Hey..do you have some juice..?”
“Yeah, of course,” she’s placing a label on a tube,
“Do you feel okay?”
Me: “Yeah, I feel OK, just..not..”
“Have you been fasting?”
Me: “No, I ate breakfast right before I came here.” I’m doing good though, from the looks of it, so she now says,
“Alright, well give me one moment to tape you up and then I’ll grab it.”
The last thing I remember was thinking, One moment is going to be too much time.
And then that was the end of my life. I was done. Gone. Vanished. I could have died and would not have noticed that it had happened. I had the weirdest dream, but it was actually like being in another world. When I came to, it was as if I'd arrived from outer space. There was someone upside-down, looking over me from above, arms holding me, and all is blurry. I stare for a good 15 seconds, oblivious to my surroundings and when I finally remember what had preceded this moment I gasp, catching air, and I can’t stop gasping. I must not have been breathing?
She hugs me.
“You take care,” she says, pulling away from me, her hands still on my shoulders. I smile to reassure her and thank her again; I’ll be fine.
I’ll be fine. And I will continue to be so because in this touch-screen world, you can’t admit you’re in a touch-me deficit. It comes off as needy, even selfish, and to some it may come off as sexually charged. But all those categories of this desire miss the mark. I’m not talking about the needy-touch-me-freak nor would I ignorantly limit this to purely a need for sexualized touch.
One day back in June, while visiting Peter, we had been going about our fairly busy day and now are fairly hungry, so we were in the kitchen cooking up some food. My head felt frazzled though and, drawing upon the knowledge my Mom instilled within me about the beneficial effects of oxytocin, I grabbed him and said “Hey, give me 20 seconds.” Puzzled, he looked at me with an inquisitive glance whilst I wrapped my arms around him and settled my chin into shoulder, now close to his ear, I explained that it takes only 20 seconds of sustained physical contact for oxytocin to start flowing through your body. This usually allows for a deep breath to occur, which also calms the body’s nervous system down.
And yet, for the insane normalcy of this activity, it felt oddly foreign to me after those three days of sleeping and three nights of work. My hands seemed to register that they were holding this device for an outrageous amount of time. I became antsy. 9 o’clock or not, I went to bed.
I am the only one who can admit it for myself, the fact that I am lonely. The fact that, no matter the frequency with which I receive recognition on the media, hear a text bing on my phone, or find some new sort of inspiration from totally valid and intriguing truths that we place in boxes and caption lines, I end the day feeling an emptiness that many bowls of ice cream have attempted to fill, a sensation that I’m falling, and a jumpiness in my own skin.
Because this skin of mine, it lacks what I have given to my phone consistently. It lacks attention, it lacks touch, it lacks the action of being held and pressed close to another physical body beyond the phone.
At an office visit to my primary care physician, I mentioned what we’ve now diagnosed as a benign familial tremor, and in order to assess the tremor, she held my hands. She then had me do different actions with them, pressed them lightly to feel the little shake that has always accompanied my fingertips and is the real reason I never became a surgeon. I had to admit that, while I daily touch many people in my line of work, it feels wonderful to be on the receiving end of that touch, even when it is of scientific quality.
A little later we were getting blood work. I’m sitting now in the lab chair, the tech wraps my arm tightly with the tourniquet, there’s a poke, the tubes that I’m holding in my right hand slowly fill up and are set aside. I want to converse but I feel that I cannot. I want to tell her the story of how my one patient would say in fright, “It goes to my heart! Every time you poke me it goes to my heart!” I could only hold her hand and comfort her over the necessity of the blood work we needed for her health. Yet this story cannot come out of my mouth, for I am feeling strangely sapped of strength.
My mind reels back to the time, now two years ago, that I passed out during blood work. But soon the blood draw was over, and I sat there, pleased with the success and ready to mention how I’m hoping the blood work comes back good when instead I say nonchalantly,
“Hey..do you have some juice..?”
“Yeah, of course,” she’s placing a label on a tube,
“Do you feel okay?”
Me: “Yeah, I feel OK, just..not..”
“Have you been fasting?”
Me: “No, I ate breakfast right before I came here.” I’m doing good though, from the looks of it, so she now says,
“Alright, well give me one moment to tape you up and then I’ll grab it.”
The last thing I remember was thinking, One moment is going to be too much time.
And then that was the end of my life. I was done. Gone. Vanished. I could have died and would not have noticed that it had happened. I had the weirdest dream, but it was actually like being in another world. When I came to, it was as if I'd arrived from outer space. There was someone upside-down, looking over me from above, arms holding me, and all is blurry. I stare for a good 15 seconds, oblivious to my surroundings and when I finally remember what had preceded this moment I gasp, catching air, and I can’t stop gasping. I must not have been breathing?
She’s calling for help, I still can’t say anything, I’m just sucking in air like there’s no tomorrow. My heart beat is calming down though, and by the time I can comprehend everything again she’s saying, “She passed out..I think? It was like a seizure, her eyes dilated and she went rigid against the wall.” I just look around all fuzzy, this must be someone else they’re talking about because I certainly don’t remember any of that. Yet knowing that I’ve done that before, I accept it must be the reality.
I’m transferred to a different chair in which I can lie down. Now I’m feeling like myself and I thank them for their concern. “I should be alright, I’m feeling much better now,” they still want me to take it slow so I stay a few more minutes then get up to leave. Before I do though, the lab tech comes over with that sense of someone who has a very important and necessary task to do.
She hugs me.
“You take care,” she says, pulling away from me, her hands still on my shoulders. I smile to reassure her and thank her again; I’ll be fine.
I’ll be fine. And I will continue to be so because in this touch-screen world, you can’t admit you’re in a touch-me deficit. It comes off as needy, even selfish, and to some it may come off as sexually charged. But all those categories of this desire miss the mark. I’m not talking about the needy-touch-me-freak nor would I ignorantly limit this to purely a need for sexualized touch.
One day back in June, while visiting Peter, we had been going about our fairly busy day and now are fairly hungry, so we were in the kitchen cooking up some food. My head felt frazzled though and, drawing upon the knowledge my Mom instilled within me about the beneficial effects of oxytocin, I grabbed him and said “Hey, give me 20 seconds.” Puzzled, he looked at me with an inquisitive glance whilst I wrapped my arms around him and settled my chin into shoulder, now close to his ear, I explained that it takes only 20 seconds of sustained physical contact for oxytocin to start flowing through your body. This usually allows for a deep breath to occur, which also calms the body’s nervous system down.
He didn’t laugh as I was expecting him to, which I appreciated, but instead held me to him as if trying it out for himself. When he did laugh was once I pulled away after an approximate 20 seconds and said, “Ok, thanks, now I’m better, let’s get this food done!” But after that moment it would occur a few more times throughout my time there that I would state, “Just 20 seconds please,” and he would understand what I meant by it. Pathetic side note about long distance relationships: this is the part that truly hurts, knowing that you’re not even given 20 seconds as an option.
The fact is that a hug, albeit a potentially sexual act, is in many cultures accepted as an ordinary and neutral expression of affection. It is neutral but it holds the colors of hope and reassurance, like lavender gray in times of grief, soothing pastel pink between friends, and bright poppy red in those joyous clasps of bodies when we celebrate life.
Not that I aim at making people uncomfortable or depressed, but when was the last truly satisfying hug that you received? Or if hugs aren’t for you, when was the last time you got the equivalent of one in your own affection-lingo? And is it sad that I qualify a hug from a lab tech who caught me while having a syncopal seizure as the last time I was given such a meaningful gesture?
Maybe it is uncomfortable and depressing to realize that our phones receive more of our attention than any other object in our day to day lives. It is disconcerting the amount of time taken up by every device in our lives, because even when my phone is not in my hand, I have constant tabs on its location, or I’m thinking about something I “need” to do on it, or a message I “must” respond to. I find conflict between wanting to “stay in touch” with my friends (the majority of whom are all greater than 4 hours away), and feeling fed up with the inability of those interactions to satisfy.
The fact is that a hug, albeit a potentially sexual act, is in many cultures accepted as an ordinary and neutral expression of affection. It is neutral but it holds the colors of hope and reassurance, like lavender gray in times of grief, soothing pastel pink between friends, and bright poppy red in those joyous clasps of bodies when we celebrate life.
Not that I aim at making people uncomfortable or depressed, but when was the last truly satisfying hug that you received? Or if hugs aren’t for you, when was the last time you got the equivalent of one in your own affection-lingo? And is it sad that I qualify a hug from a lab tech who caught me while having a syncopal seizure as the last time I was given such a meaningful gesture?
Maybe it is uncomfortable and depressing to realize that our phones receive more of our attention than any other object in our day to day lives. It is disconcerting the amount of time taken up by every device in our lives, because even when my phone is not in my hand, I have constant tabs on its location, or I’m thinking about something I “need” to do on it, or a message I “must” respond to. I find conflict between wanting to “stay in touch” with my friends (the majority of whom are all greater than 4 hours away), and feeling fed up with the inability of those interactions to satisfy.
I believe the easiest thing would be to eliminate each social media platform right away. Get rid of the phone, replace it with a dumb one. But the more challenging, more necessary thing to do is to weed out what is no longer needed, be responsible and accountable for the time I spend on my device, and get back in touch with what is right in front of me yet beyond the phone, so often in center stage.
I cannot get rid of it, as much as I would like to, for my long distance relationship requires the phone, so the need arises to learn how to forget about the phone, leave it behind, be offline. Be available when it’s needed, but understand there is and must be a switch between using a phone and living a life. The two cannot be fluid. I do not want, for instance, for every “spare moment” of my life to be spent on a phone since that is all I know how to do. I want to explore. Discover (and not have to share the discovery on social media ASAP). Be disappointed. Feel. Be lonely. Be lonely and not try to hide the loneliness with an instagram photo or a youtube-a-thon. Be together (and not hashtag it). Be artistic. Have a bunch of amazing photos that only I have seen. Share stories in person to an audience of 3 instead of 300.
But most of all, I want to acknowledge the existence of other humans. I want them to know that I care about their presence and I am not offended by awkward silence or eyes turned down towards the floor while we ride the elevator together. Let’s be awkward together. At the end of the day, even that awkwardness feels like more of an embrace than anything I ever see on my phone.
But most of all, I want to acknowledge the existence of other humans. I want them to know that I care about their presence and I am not offended by awkward silence or eyes turned down towards the floor while we ride the elevator together. Let’s be awkward together. At the end of the day, even that awkwardness feels like more of an embrace than anything I ever see on my phone.
Comments
Post a Comment