Oddly Intimate

This will be prefaced with something that I have said many times. I am a music student. That means that I am used to be in a touchy feely place and being more comfortable with my friends touching me than most other people are. I realized last night there is something I am not really comfortable with. And that is someone touching my feet.

No one has touched my feet for a really long time. The last person I allowed to touch my feet was someone I was in a relatively long relationship with. At least a long relationship for me. It was part of our routine with each other, perhaps one of the most intimate parts of it. I never thought that it would be so hard to let someone touch my feet. For some reason it is though. I had expected to really care about it that much. I had my feet washed at the Maundy Thursday service last night and it was one of the most indredible things that has happened to me recently. The water didn't burn my feet this year, but they tingled. And they still do.

It's amazing all the little things in life that you don't expect to be intimate, or the little things that you don't expect to lead to initmacy. And most days it's the really small things. Somedays it's sharing a bathroom with someone, or making meals in the same kitchen as someone. It's knowing that someone will wake you up if they think you will be late for class, or having someone shout hi when they walk through the door of the house. It can be something like letting someone listen to you practice (musicians - you understand what I mean). There are always things in your life that will be intimate, especially when you don't expect them to. Sometimes it's surprising, and sometimes it's nice. It can also be terrifying.

It's so easy to run away from the intimate moments that present themselves in our lives. They really are scary. Accepting them means that there is something connecting us to another person. There will be more of a bound between the two people who shared the moment then there was before. Avoiding them means there is no responsibility and few possibilities. Accepting them opens up a whole new world of possibilities that didn't exist before.

It's strange how something as simple as someone touching my feet can be so intimate. Strange, and terrifying, and thrilling. And I think I might finally be willing to accept that.