Percale or Cotton

……………….I asked myself this last night knowing I would be changing the bedding the next morning. I know, silly question however nobody knows where I will go from a title.

Something that has weighed on my mind since it was said to me from someone I care for. Their words I understood and had felt myself before. Their words mentioned to me after I told someone about getting into a warm bed with having a heated mattress pad.

Their exact words were with just a few taken out to provide this person with privacy “I didn’t care much for that kind of coldness that ???? radiated, and that pretty much destroyed my desire for body to body contact. I do a lot better alone than to feel that kind of rejection again“.

I think we have all felt some sort of rejection throughout our lives. Whether it was from our parents, friends or someone who we wanted in our lives. Intimate rejection is similar yet harder on a different level. Some of us let our guard down, wanting to believe in what someone else says. Some of us build a wall of steel around our heart to never feel anything ever again. I, myself, was the first example a few times which led me to be the last example.

It was in the early 2000’s when I spent some time talking with someone who would talk of some of his past and what he had gone through. I also opened up about different things. Even though our time talking went on for months, it showed me that I could feel again. I called him my safe place. I felt safe enough to open up, somewhat, of what I had kept locked up for a very long time. I will always be grateful for that friendship while we went on our different paths to living.

It was refreshing to feel so many things once again but the life I led, with whom I was with, started to turn me back into that cold as stone presence. So I kept doing what I had to while never losing the talks my friend and I had had. Love was what I was missing. And I am not talking sex. I missed the comfort that came from being able to be who I actually was without pissing someone off. I missed the hugs, arm around the shoulder and the hand holding. I missed the emotional intimacy.

Everyone thinks that intimacy is all about sex. It is not. It is about having that soul connection, laughing, sharing what is on one’s mind, feeling safe, unspoken understanding, the closeness that makes everything more meaningful, and developing a deeper bond. And with some, no words are needed but both understand what the other is or is not saying. It is not always physical, it is emotional. Sometimes sex may happen, sometimes it won’t but sex is just sex. What one can get from emotional intimacy lasts longer than sex. I am not saying that sex cannot bond people but first, the emotional intimacy is more important than lust.

I decided to go with the percale. It is a bit rougher on the skin. Perhaps it will sand down the roughness I have held for the past few years, while hoping it can soften the heart of my friend.