When we touch
I met Otto when I was 28 and I was touch adverse. This meant that I didn't kiss or hold hands. I barely allowed a handshake. The only time I allowed touch was when I was dancing or martial arts. I had learned how to ballroom dance in my twenties in my first aborted try at college.
Yes, it was a boy that made me very interested in dance. Yes, I was more into him than he was into me and he broke my heart. The good news is I broke his heart back two years later when I decided it would be better to leave my home and go on an adventure. My first one was to South Africa and the next one was the Navy. That adventure led me to Japan, Panama, and Germany.
I will only give you a general reason why I was touch adverse. It had a lot to do with how hugs and kisses were weaponized in my childhood. Touch made me suspicious.
So when I met Otto, he wanted to hug and kiss me. He wanted to hold me close and I hid behind "PDA" (public displays of affection). PDA was not allowed in uniform. But there I was around a real man and not the boys I had normally known.
Otto had not had the advantages of growing up in a family. In fact he craved family. He married young and had two beautiful girl children. Both lovely women today. However his relationship with his wife didn't end well. The reason he was so into family is because he was a foster child. He only met his biological parents in the first year of his stint in the Army and just before he went to Vietnam.
He raised himself from the time he was 10 after his foster father died. His foster mother died around the time he was twelve. Both of these parents who tried to raise him were in their senior years. The last couple years of his foster mother's life, he cared for her. When the State found him, he was living in the barn with the cats and dogs at his foster mother's daughter's house.
He was put with an official foster family when he was twelve. He had a lot of good things to say about this foster father, who died in his 40s. Because of this background, he knew that by the time he was 18 that he would have to get a good job. No one would help him through college. He was the right demographic to be fodder for the next war.
So when Otto realized my problem, and I really didn't think it was a problem at the time, his first move was to hold my hand. I remember that we were in a mall and he dragged me to the perfume counter. The lady sprayed a little Shalimar (which is one of the few perfumes I can wear) on my wrist. So he would drag me around and then sniff my wrist. I'm telling you that I was mortified and aroused at the same time.
We sat through an entire movie, Roger's Rabbit, with him holding my hand. The man had a sense of humor that appealed to me.
He would tell me every blonde joke he could find and then make some up.
Sometimes I was annoyed with him, but he was never far from my mind.
When he retired, he disappeared. He told himself that we had had a fine interlude and that he could let me go. I waited for two weeks and then I looked for him. I remembered a name from his past and a city--Sarasota. I called an operator and got a number.
Yes, he was there.
And so he chased me until I caught him.
I still have problems allowing anyone to get too close to me. When he died, it felt like the roots of my heart had been pulled out of my chest and I was a walking body with no heart.
I've read that people who are touch adverse, do better when they have pets to get used to touch. Since his death I have Foxy, a Chihuahua terrier mix, who expects to be snuggled all the time. However, my late-hubby, may he rest in peace, was the person who pulled me from bitterness and pain and brought me joy and life.
I am fully in his debt.