i wanna dance with somebody

remember when big weddings were a thing?

remember when bodies used to cram together on the dance floor and everyone would sing/scream journey’s “don’t stop believing" or--my personal favorite--queen's "dancing queen?" remember when we used to hug and kiss our way across a room packed full of our very dearest loved ones?

we do. we remember it. 
and we miss it. 
all of us.

and i have a feeling that’s got a lot to do with the frustration, anger and unrest in our country today. we miss what we had. we miss what we used to know. we miss our old-normal. 

we miss the gift of embracing without exploding into worry.

 click on video link ——> emily and rick busting a move! 

doesn’t matter where we fall in our heated debates and discussions, we all line up on this point—we are desperately longing for that which we used to take sorely for granted. 

we miss being close to others.

we miss the feeling of wrapping our sweaty arms around our family and friends and singing sloppily at the top of our lungs while swaying to billy joel or billy idol or billy anyone.

those days are gone. and i know a lot of us are grieving. we don’t even have to be the huggy-touchy types to feel that void deeply. it has altered all of us.

how could it not?

touch is healing. in the mid-1990s  harvard neurobiologist, mary carlson, and her husband, felton earls, a harvard psychiatrist, travelled to the orphanages of romania to study the serious issue of touch deprivation taking place. it was their research which opened eyes to the power of touch. they found these children had greatly altered cortisol levels (the main hormone which helps us deal with stress) and were dramatically behind in all areas of normal development. their research unearthed heartbreaking results from children piled into rooms with unbelievably negligent caregiver ratios.

when bella was little she sometimes would climb in bed with us. throughout the night i often felt her arms reaching for me. it sometimes happened all night long.  she would reach over and pat my arm. after noticing this for months, it finally occurred to me that was part of her self-comforting. though nothing like the romanian orphanages, bella spent 2 and 1/2 years in one of the largest orphanages in china with a high rate of disability and special needs. i know in many ways she was well cared for, but i also know that she couldn't possibly have been cuddled and loved enough.  when we visited we saw how they placed beds side by side. there were bars separating the beds, but my guess is that she had a buddy lying in that crib attached to hers and, even as babies, they probably reached for each other throughout the night. of course that happened. it is how we are made. to reach for each other. to touch. to connect. to comfort. 

and this doesn't just apply to children in orphanages, it is true for all of us. in 2018 the university of berkley published an article discussing the importance of touch on people of all ages. dr. tiffany fields writes that with massage or even normal hugging “there’s an increase in serotonin, which is the body’s natural antidepressant and anti-pain chemical.” 

in the area of touch research—a real thing—it is common knowledge that physical touch is the first sense to develop in infants and remains the most powerful throughout a human’s life. 

it is powerful. it is life-giving. it is necessary.

and, yet, here we are living in a world which advertises  "touch-free" this or "contact-free" that. i am seeing the signs everywhere i go. it is a world we couldn’t have imagined just 6 months ago--a socially distant world full of masked men and women scurrying around and suspect of all things touching. and it stinks. for all of us. 

the wide berths we take with our shopping carts.

the quick trips to target for only our absolute essentials.

the beady eyes above masks watching each other, but not able to truly communicate. i know i spend my time looking away. i don't want to stare, or even glance, into eyes which aren't attached to mouths. i can't read them and it, honestly, makes me kind of uncomfortable. i know i'm not alone. it is making us all, pardon the pun, kind of touchy.

i can’t stand it when i am unable to smile at the grocery store cashier letting her know i appreciate her help. recently, i had a funny exchange with one of the grocery baggers. he said something to me through his mask and i tried to reply and neither of us could understand each other and so we just both cracked up. what are we to do? this strange social experiment has definitely shown us how dependent we are on those little smiles and brief human intersections. i may not talk to everyone i meet on the street, but i am definitely a person who at least likes to nod and smile at most.

and, not to be overly dramatic, but i feel like that has been taken from me. stripped away from my social persona and i miss it. 

that’s just the day to day stuff, right?

but then we have the big events. like weddings. 

last night i woke up with crazy wedding dreams. with brooke and tyler’s wedding just days away and emily and austin’s 2 year anniversary yesterday, i definitely have wedding-brain going on. i don’t remember all the dream details, but it was some crazy kind of combination of both weddings and, of course, i was trying to put masks on everyone. 

i posted this video [ emily and rick busting a move! ]  in celebration of emily and austin’s two year anniversary yesterday and i probably watched it 12 times. it made me laugh, but i also kind of wanted to cry. oh goodness, how i want that kind of abandon next weekend for my son and his new bride, brooke. (by the way, she’s in the background of that video). 

i desperately want that.

i want that for all of us in our big weddings and in our small days.

i know you want it in your world too.

this post isn’t answering any of the questions about when that will happen or if large, wild weddings will ever again take place. unfortunately, i have no answers. 

but maybe it is a reminder to hug and hold close those we can. and maybe it’s an encouragement to see the gifts we take for granted and try to appreciate them more. 

maybe it’s just a post to say, i get it. i feel the sadness too. 

i don’t know. 

but distanced as we might be, dear world, we are clearly in this thing together. 

maybe we can’t hold each other close on the wedding dance floor, but we can dance in our kitchens and we can dance along the ocean and we can dance in our driveways and backyards and in the bedrooms of our children. and, best yet, someday, we will dance on streets of gold with Jesus. and based on how things are going lately in our crazy world, that sure seems more sooner than later! 

"there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and time to gather them, 
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing." - ecclesiastes 3

"you have turned my mourning into dancing." psalm 30:11