I think sometimes we higher primates get so tied up in our wondrous cognitive abilities that we forget the basics. When in truth, we'd do better to remember nothing else matters as much as the basics.

Relationships are complex. And in the complexity that can develop, one can lose oneself and what one really needs at the basic level. And when that happens, one's course gets lost, and one finds oneself on a path mired in sticky webs of diversion, until you're coated in them and can barely move. And then you're so busy trying to fight off your constrictions that you lose all sight of why you were making the journey in the first place.

Or in short, one loses one's basic needs.

I'm sorry I keep letting myself forget my basics. I'm sorry I keep letting myself accept being asked to forgo them, or to accept substitutes.

I don't want much. In relationships, there is really only one basic thing I'm looking for. Otis covered it a long time ago, and he got it right:

Tenderness. Openly expressed. This is and was all I've ever wanted from anyone, at any level, and most especially my lovers. To be held and valued and loved, and told I am so, daily. It ain't hard; it costs nothing to give. And yet, I've not been with many who gave it entirely freely and willingly.

I make a vow with myself from today forward not to forget this basic of mine ever again. From now on, if my basic need is not present or openly given, I will declare it not for me and I will move on. I won't beg or humiliate myself for it anymore. I won't stay, hoping it will change or that the person will suddenly, miraculously wake up and realize what they've got in me.

I deserve more than that. I won't punish myself like that anymore; and I won't let anyone else punish me like that anymore.

From now on, anyone who doesn't have Otis's credo in his heart doesn't get to have me.

Because, really, who doesn't deserve a little tenderness?

Two stories from this weekend.

First story:

I was a having brunch with a (married) friend and I mentioned I was going to go get a massage afterwards. She said something like, "Oh, that's nice," and something in her tone felt weird and made me want to rationalize why I was going...I guess I thought that she was indicating I was being extravagant or something. So I was in the middle of this spiel about how I rarely can afford a massage anymore and how since I'd gotten laid off I couldn't afford many luxuries but blah blah economic stimulus check blah blah new job blah blah extra paycheck this month blah blah blah..." And she said, "Well yeah, but also it's nice because as a single person, it's not always easy to get a lot of human touch and that can be unhealthy to be lacking in, so massage can help with that."

Second story:

I've been doing a massive cleaning project that will probably take up many weekends. This weekend I successfully concluded cleaning out a really huge filing cabinet full of more than 15 years of saved records, writing, and other random stuff. At the back of one of the bottom drawers was a shoebox, which when first opened seemed be full of forgotten electrical cords. But it turned out under those were a whole bunch of letters I'd saved from friends and family and old boyfriends. Two things about this:

1) Some of the cards and letters were so inane, or just running on about nothing special that I couldn't understand why I'd kept them. I thought to myself why I'd saved them, and I know I always used to do this kind of thing because I thought someday when I had kids or grandkids, it might be interesting to them. Now it's looking unlikely I'll have either. But I thought this weekend, "Why the hell would I want to show my grandkids this boring stuff?" And the answer that popped into my head was, "I guess I wanted to show them that I'd been loved." And then I thought, why did I think I'd need to prove that to anyone? Why did I think any future readers wouldn't have believed that without proof?

2) At the bottom of this box I had saved a great number of letters from the man I had a long-term, live-in relationship with for many years. I had no memory I'd saved any of this, or certainly not the extent of what I'd saved. There was even the letter he left behind for me when he moved out of our house for good (why did I save such a painful thing?); and letters from when our relationship was falling apart. But there were also a lot of letters from all the years before that when things were running smoothly; valentines day cards, birthday cards, random notes he left me at different times...many of them expressing deep sentiment. One of them ended with him calling me "my love." I stared at that. And I just couldn't remember anything. I couldn't remember receiving the card. I couldn't remember him ever calling me anything akin to "my love." I couldn't remember those feelings of tenderness exchanged between us. I couldn't remember feeling anything but cut off from that kind of a feeling. I can't remember if when I read that for the first time I felt happy about it or if I returned that sentiment of if all along I'd just felt dead to it and thought I felt something else. I can't remember what it feels like to think you're really in love with someone.

So; concluding question for the weekend:

Is there a point at which, after too much neglect of touch and real mutual affection, that it just becomes impossible to tap into that stuff anymore? Is there a point at which the it becomes irreversible and it's just all numbness; like the receptors for that get wiped out?

Does it mean reminding myself I had connections with others through old letters and getting massages and having occasional sex with someone I'm not completely into, just to be able to have sex, is about all I'm going to be able to expect at this point?

Because that'd just about break my heart.

I shredded the fucking letters, by the way. All of them, from everyone. It felt like a curse on myself if I kept them. I don't want the future me to have to need evidence to prove to someone (or myself) that once, long ago, I had love in my life. I don't want that to be who I become.

I'd like to die with people loving me right until the end. If that happens, there would be no need for proof. So I got rid of them in a gesture of faith that maybe it's not too late. But for some reason I still am feeling afraid of those questions above.

Because if there isn't a point at which tenderness disappears and doesn't come back, wouldn't I have been feeling it by now already?