Relaxing Back into Relationships

+ a new essay in Seven Days

I wrote an essay for Seven Days called Squishy Feelings. It was published in this week’s Love & Marriage issue. It feels so special to share these thoughts and feelings around platonic intimacy with my community :)

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Lately I’ve been thinking about relaxing back into relationships. How do I enjoy what’s here without pushing the narrative forward with such force? My friend helped me articulate this. I sent her a voice note with some relationship ramblings and asked her what she was thinking about. She responded with:

The aspect of not needing to push things forward. We want stability and definitions to feel secure but how can we just be, slow down, and enjoy the things that are right now instead of looking to secure that future?

So I’ve been mulling on this balance between structure and letting go. With a lover or potential partner I can feel this desire to label or put the relationship into some box with a neatly-tied bow. Last night my friend and I were eating dinner and they said that they’re trying to allow relationships to reveal themselves rather than dragging them towards a preconceived place.

I’ve been allowing myself space to notice discrepancies between my mind and my body. When my mind asks for labels or feels pushy – when it is taking me out of the moment – I remind myself to relax back into my body and ask how it’s feeling. It will often say this is enough, this feels good and my practice is to trust that.

This inquiry doesn’t feel passive. It doesn’t feel like I’m giving up on what I value – communication, naming things, being open and honest. It doesn’t feel like I’m giving up. It feels like I’m giving in, burrowing into the moment and being able to appreciate what that person and I are offering each other, whether it’s airing our hearts out or playing a card game at the kitchen table; whether it’s more verbal or more body-centric. My knee-jerk reaction is to verbally process, but sometimes, that’s not what fits. Sometimes I need to soften that reflex.

I slide off the chair and crawl onto my rug, push the coffee table over until it’s pressed up against the couch. I make room, throw some bolsters down so our bodies can languish on the floor. You sit down, open your legs. You grab my ankles and pull my body towards you. I ground my hands behind me so I can lean back and thread my legs over your thighs. I have to round my spine forward to hug you, nuzzle my face in your neck. I feel like the 6 month old I was taking care of earlier that day: her tiny body rounded, the side of her face smooshed into my chest as I bounced her on one of those exercise balls, rocking her to sleep.

My mind wants to make sense of this, wonders what this is, but then I let my head relax on your shoulder, take in the scent of your hair, feel comfort in the fact that you smell like you. I try to crystallize these precious moments of silence when we are just two breathing bodies wanting to be held, for whatever reason that may be. I may not know the depth of your desires but I know that your body feels warm and that there is nothing to figure out when you hold the weight of me like this. We are somehow connected, albeit mysterious to each other in so many ways, wanting similar and different things, I don’t know. I don’t know who you spend your days with, who you might love or hope to love, who or what your mind is preoccupied with.

I want to relax into that soft shell of my body without trying to draw lines when we speak in general tongues. I want to relax back into this bubble we’ve created, into the space of these few hours spent on my living room floor where we’ve configured and reconfigured our bodies several times to read, to watch something, to stretch, to massage each other.

I have been trying to carry that lesson into my life; allow life to unfurl at the pace it wants to; soften expectations that are rooted in some kind of insecure attachment. One of my philosophy teachers said that what sets our species apart from others is that we can ask the question what more? We can diverge from inborn behaviors, which also means we can drift from instinct, we can be lifted from the affirmation of our bodies.

I can feel when my communication is distorted by this need to push things forward or have a label or definition. I think and rethink texts, wondering how they’ll come off. Too strong? Does this sound like me? It feels nice that this hasn’t been the case lately, especially as I reflect on all of this. I’ve come, more often, to a place where I am allowing, allowing myself to be who I am no matter who it is in front of.

I keep coming back to trust. In the physical presence of someone, I am more trusting. I am present. I am noting the ways lines appear and disappear on their skin as they talk. I am noting the way their hands feel as they run down my back. I am studying their face as they look at their phone, wondering why their brows are furrowing, what information they just took in. I am breathing into their neck, allowing myself to be fully embraced. It’s in the absence of their physical presence that I am most at risk of those dysregulated thoughts, the ones that are ultimately rooted in old wounds around worthiness.

When something feels good, when I am in a healthy dynamic with someone, it’s often not a matter of do I trust them? but do I trust myself? Do I trust the validity of my own worth? Do I trust that not just this moment is enough, but I am enough?

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