I is for Intimacy

It seems that intimacy is always touted as a couple thing–like you can’t be intimate with different people in your life.

I am intimate with friends and family that I do not have a sexual relationship with at all. They fill pieces of my life that others leave open. Intimacy is the shared history and the giggles and tears that you’ve seen each other through. Without that, life is lonely and less.

My relationship with Snake is a different type of intimacy. It is still the shared history and all that we’ve gone through together. But, it is also the times watching TV where we don’t have to be next to each other or touching. We just are.

It is the times when he texts me to see if I’m OK because I’ve been quiet. It is the times when I ask him if he is OK because he feels off. It is the rhythm of the relationship that plays a tune that the two of us step to without even realizing that we are doing it.

It also isn’t constant. The bumps in the road are a bit like a record skipping. It is still playing but something is amiss. You missed a part or you are stuck in a groove.

Sexual intimacy is just another piece of the song. It can be a riff that is loud and insistent. It can be a counter melody that adds depth without taking anything away. Sometimes it isn’t even there–it is the silence between the notes. A pause.

The pieces all come together to make a song. The song is never the same. It can be discordant and loud and grating. Too much or too little. It can be background music that is soothing and comfortable. It can be complex or simple or somewhere in between.

I do know that the song and the intimacy is what creates our life together. It is real and it is hard and it is messy, but it is us.

Real connection and intimacy is like a meal, not a sugar fix.

Kristin Armstrong