I used to think I didn’t like physical touch.
For years, I associated it with discomfort, with feeling unsafe, with wanting to shrink away. I told myself I just wasn’t the kind of woman who craved closeness. I started to believe that something in me had gone cold.
But yesterday, I had my hair washed at the salon. The way they scrubbed my scalp, the way warm water flowed over my head, the way their hands stayed steady and kind—it completely disarmed me. I didn’t expect that. My eyes closed without trying. I didn’t want it to end. For a moment, I wasn’t thinking or bracing. I was just… safe.
Then today, during a pedicure, I got a foot massage—and I melted again. I realised I wasn’t uncomfortable at all. I felt soft. I even felt… seen. And as I sat there letting someone care for my body, a quiet memory returned: the foot massages I used to get with my mum when I was young. Just the two of us, the only girls in the house, spending time together. That’s what we did to bond. To slow down. To enjoy each other.
So maybe it was never that I didn’t like touch.
Maybe my body was just trying to protect me from the kind that didn’t feel safe.
There’s a kind of touch that feels heavy, disconnected, even threatening. It makes the body want to freeze or flee. That was the kind of touch I had in my past relationship. I hated it. I dreaded it. And eventually, I learned to disconnect from my own skin just to get through it.
But there’s also a kind of touch that feels warm and safe. Gentle. Grounded. The kind that helps your body exhale. The kind that says, “You don’t have to be on guard anymore.”
That’s the kind I’m remembering now.
It’s strange and beautiful to realise that what I thought I had lost—I never really lost. It was just waiting for the right moment to return. And maybe this is what healing looks like sometimes. Not fireworks. Not breakthroughs. Just a quiet moment where your body says, “I remember this. I feel safe now.”
I don’t hate touch.
I hated being touched in ways that made me feel unsafe.
And now, slowly, gently, I’m coming home to the parts of me that still love softness. That still crave comfort. That still carry the memory of being nurtured.
Maybe this is the beginning of something new. Or maybe it’s just a return to who I’ve always been. Either way, I’m not rushing. I’m listening. And I’m letting myself be held—by memory, by tenderness, by choice.