Brain Fart 24: Hand to Head!

So my friend from AACF (my Christian fellowship), Jack-E, and I have this inside joke where we touch each others heads and say "Hand to head! Hand to head!!" Weird, right? Ok, well, let me explain. There was this sermon where the pastor was talking about relationships between people, and he talked about this book that talked about 12 levels of contact that measured the closeness with a person. Well, hand to head contact was one of the more intimate forms of physical contact one could have with another. Since it was one of the last levels in the book before things got awkward and inappropriate, Jack-E and I chose this one as our inside joke to show our closeness.

Well, today I got to see her again for the first time in a while, and we did our "hand to head" thing, had our laughs about it, fun stuff. Then, I realized that I was actually truly happy, and had that nice, warm fuzzy feeling inside. Which, by the way, is surprising because I was actually feeling relatively emo and depressed today. I think I was feeling emo because I was thinking about my relationships with people, and was going through my usual insecurities of "maybe I really don't have that many friends, and least not really"-ness. Basically, for a while, I've felt disconnected and distanced from AACF, and that I don't actually have that many good friends there. But somehow, my "hand to head" with Jack-E was able to immediately make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I felt loved again, just after a simple touch. How??

So I was kinda thinking about that as Jack-E was driving me home from our fellowship's dinner event. And I came to the conclusion that physical touch is very important to relationships. Now, now, I don't mean that in a sexual, weird, perverted way. So please don't take this as an excuse to go and harass someone and say, "well, Courtney said it was good to touch!!" No. I don't mean it that way. It's just that, I think physical touch is a good way to see if someone really cares about you. I was running through a list of "friends" in my head. There are friends. Then there are friends. I started separating my friends into each category.

I noticed that the real friends all have a habit of making physical contact with me. Whether it was hugs or high fives, poking or punching me, hand-to-heads or shoulders or arms, there is almost always some form of physical contact between my real friends and me. I wonder what the reason for physical contact between close friends is... Is it that it's a way to get a closer look into how someone is feeling? or is it to get a reaction out of them that most other people don't see often? I really don't know the reason, but either way, it's good. Because that is how I know that those are the friends who actually really care about me, what I'm up to, and even how I feel. Those are the friends who will ask how I'm doing, and ask for details. They are the ones who will look for me if I've gone missing. They are the ones who will search me out at a party and take care of my drunk butt. They are the ones who will probably still seek me out years from now just to see how I'm doing. And they can be sure that I will also be seeking them out, too.

So I guess this is kinda just my shout out to them, to you (you know who you are, or at least I hope you do). Thank you for caring about me, for making me feel loved. If you're one of them, then there's a chance that I may hit you a lot. I know, it's weird that I hit people that I care about. But, if this is you, then I hope you don't take that offensively, because I only do that to people I feel close with, meaning I feel close with you. Anyways, I just wanted to thank those friends out there who really care about me. When I start feeling insecure about my relationships with people, I think of you, and I know that I at least have you, that God at least blessed me with your friendship. I thank Him for that every time. I thank you for that.

<3 Courtney