Monday, September 24, 2012

Holding Hands

Source

        A few years ago, I joined my college's honor society and shortly after my induction, we participated in our town's “Relay for Life” walk. I was still relatively new to the group and hadn't had a chance to make any friends, so I brought Jay along as a buffer for any social awkwardness.

     We arrived early that cold morning and walked up to register. After being pointed in the direction we needed to go, Jeremy instinctively grabbed my hand as we weaved through the walking path in search of my group's booth.

     I spotted my old teacher first; he was the advisor of our honor society and the only one I actually knew at the time. We walked up and said our hellos, me introducing Jay as my teacher shook the hand he wasn't holding.

     It was then that he noticed our clasped hands. He got that look...that look most people get when they spot such an innocent display of affection. He got the attention of another older member of the group and they started conspiratorially commenting: 'young love, the honey moon phase, puppy love' with fluttered eyelashes and exaggerated gestures.

     Blushing, I told them of our then 6 year relationship, how we were well past the honeymoon stage. My teacher reacted with a pleasantly surprised smile, commenting on how he and his wife hadn't held hands in years, his joking partner commenting the same. I just shrugged my shoulders, but I was a little saddened by that.

     When does that happen? At what point do those little pieces of intimacy just stop?Relationships don't fails due to lack of hand holding, but it's still a nice moment to share. I remember a time when holding someone's hands was enough to create butterflies and blushes and sweaty palms.

     Even now at nine years, Jay and I still holds hands, still kiss before coming and going, still say I love you—with feeling—multiple times a day. By no means do the excited jitters that once accompanied such actions still happen all the time, but Jay's hand in mine still provides a connection I cherish as our relationship continues to grow. Those little things are a sense of comfort for me. If I am heading towards a situation I'm unsure of, I can grab his hand and a sense of calm replaces all anxiety. The simple touch letting me know that he's there, and he'll be right there the entire time.

     I'm not saying that Jay and I have a perfect relationship because we still hold hands. Our relationship is far from it and no amount of hand holding is going to solve all our issues. But, what I'm trying to say is don't take those little comforts for granted. Those things are important.

     Go home tonight, or tomorrow, or right now, and grab your partner's hand and just remember what it was like that first time, when your relationship was new and such a simple gesture told you all you needed to know in that moment. And then take comfort in the fact that that hand is there when ever you need something to hold on to.

     Then take that comfort often.


Sunday, September 9, 2012

Happy Blog Resurrection Day


Much like myself, this blog is back from the dead. Somewhere around the time of my last post I just dropped off the interverse. My twitter stopped (@Nikki_Writ if interested-also back from the dead), not that that ever really got going; this blog was forgotten; and Facebook, the page I used to check and update religiously, was filled with the sounds of crickets.

Chalk it up to school stress, the crushing blow I was delivered from said school, or the fact that my weight loss was stalled somewhere between giving up and fighting to lose one more pound. Either way, the creative well had dried up quicker than my backyard in this drought filled summer.

So, I decided to scrap everything and start over. Hopefully, round two of blogging will be much more successful.

To get things started: what have I been up to these past seven months?? Not a whole lot. I survived my first year at big university and am beyond excited that I am only three semesters a way from rocking a Bachelor degree.

I discovered Instagram and went a little crazy taking pictures. If you have the time or inclination, please check it out: http://web.stagram.com/n/eternalsun/. If you are actually interested in one of my prints, I do have an instacanv.as gallery, but I think the prices are outrageous and will make and sell them to any interested party for less than the price they have advertised.

I also went camping as a final hoorah to the summer about a month ago. While it was a really nice way to end the summer, it was slightly dampered by a run-in I had with a patch of poison ivy. A month later and my legs still look like a red speckled mess, but scars don't itch!

I read a lot. Two books I think all can benefit from are Gillian Flynn's “Gone Girl” and Sol Smith's “Sight.” Im working on full book reviews for the future.

In other news, I would really like to revamp the look of my blog. If anyone is good at html, header creation, or general design layouts and feels like taking on a charity case, please HELP ME!! ;)
I have some ideas about what I want, but no idea how to implement them.