I’m Touched

When I think about touch, the first thing that comes to my mind is physical touch. Touching that is real and concrete, like my fingers touching the keys of the keyboard. Physical touch can have different sensations and emotions attached to it. Touch can make you feel happy, excited, stimulated, even uncomfortable, hurt or scared. A massage makes me feel relaxed but pain makes me feel just the opposite, even though both involve touch.           

Touch doesn’t have to be taken so literally though. I can ‘be touched’ by something and ‘keep in touch’ with my friends. Diane Ackerman says that, “We call our emotions feelings, and we care most deeply when something ‘touches’ us” (p 70). This kind of emotional touch can be either positive or negative, and create a wide variety of emotions. The worst feeling I’ve ever had was when I was hurt by someone I love. On the contrast, I feel my best when I can express my emotions through dancing.

Just recently I was faced with a situation that made me feel at my worst. The situation involved my boyfriend, another girl, and alcohol, so of course nothing good was going to come from it. My emotions were spinning out of control, and I felt like I couldn’t think straight. At the time I was feeling so lost and confused, sad, let down, incredibly disappointed, and of course mad as hell. I couldn’t even find words to express all of these feelings that I had welling up inside of me. Some of them were released in the countless number of tears I cried, but most of them stayed inside of me torturing my heart. I tried to talk to my friends about how I was feeling, but I couldn’t seem to find the words to say to make them understand. They were kind and consoling buy not very empathetic.

 If I am to feel what another person is feeling by relating to his emotions, what I am experiencing is called empathy. New Scientist Tech magazine says that people who have good gut instincts for what other people are feeling have a condition called “Mirror-touch-synaesthesia, it shows they are also especially sensitive to other people’s emotions” (p 14). It would be nice to have a friend with this condition, someone who could relate to my emotions and help me push trough them. But since I don’t I have to find a way to get my emotions out. The best and only way I know how to express myself is through dancing.

I feel most in touch with my sense of touch when i’m dancing. It allows me to release my emotions, and its also an automatic mood lifter. I don’t have to be in a bad mood to dance though, dancing when I’m happy and excited is such a rush, true euphoria for me. When I dance, my feet fly me away to a place all my own, where nothing can go wrong. I love how I can feel the music in me, and my feet against the smooth hardwood. Sometimes i feel pain as my shoes rub my feet raw or i push my muscles to their very limit. When I’m dancing i can feel different muscles being worked as one released another contracts. Its the perfect detox to rid my body of overwhelming stress and any other negative feelings. Martha Graham, the founder of modern dance said it best, “Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it” (Quote Garden).When I dance I feel carefree, larger than life, exhilarated, and completely empowered and beautiful. Dancing is my short-cut to happiness.

Works Cited

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Guillemets, Terri. “Quotations About Dancing.” Quote Garden. 18 Mar. 1998. http://www.quotegarden.com/dancing.html

New Scientist Tech. Sense of Touch is Crucial for Empathy. Issue 2609, 23 June 2007.