How to Love Claire Mason

Hug Me

For the better part of the first two years after I was released from the hospital, I was untouchable. Distant. I feared contact with those outside of my small circle of friends. I was, essentially, an ice queen. Hugs were forbidden, and when given to me, I was stiff and awkward, a stranger and enemy to the feeling of another being's arms around me. For so long I had felt that I could never be wanted, or much less needed, by anyone. I felt that embraces were a demonstration of a kind of love and affection I didn't deserve then. They always say to love yourself first, before others can love you. I was far from loving myself. How was I to let anyone else in?

To me, the people who deserved the feeling of another's arms around them, squeezing tightly as if they might lose the person in an instant, were people who were worthy. They were popular and if not that, well-liked at the least, and they made people happy. If they were absent for the day there was sure to be someone to ask "Where are they today?" That's another thing that hurts me. A friend or acquaintance with enough in common with me to sit down and start up a conversation will walk up to me, and I will almost begin to grin to myself thinking, "oh someone wants to talk to me!" But the words out of their mouth will not be "hey, how are you?" Or "hey, what's up?" But instead: "where is so and so?" (Insert name of friends that are liked better than me).

How degradingly disappointing it is to here that time and time again. The people who inquiry about the whereabouts of my friends unwittingly make me feel like shit every time. I have rarely, if ever, known the warm, uplifting feeling of being wanted, of knowing that my presence is missed when I am absent. As if I mattered, like the hug receivers. They are the ones who are missed when they're gone. They are the ones who do not doubt for a second their social status because they now where they stand and it is a good place, and they are content. They never run out of friends to hang out with when their closest ones are gone. They are like bright, shining lights that attract any wandering, lost souls.

I could never be one of them. When people want someone, it's my best friends they go to, or anyone around me but me. I am the one parent the children steer clear of when dealing with their woes, as if I cannot handle the weight of them, the weight of another person's pain or even joy. Of course not. I was too weak to handle my own. But now, I have since let arms be wrapped around me without flinching. I have let others in. But those who do embrace me are selective. The people who hug everyone around me will often skip over me, attempting to be subtle, but I can see it in their faces.

And who would I be, to reach out my arms expectantly toward them? They would awkwardly, unwillingly comply, but I would know, deep down, that they did not wish to hug me. Knowing that, I could not accept the hug gratefully, could not let myself feel wanted and liked. Because it'd be a lie. When I am gone, there is no empty space. Things continue as usual. There is nothing about me to be missed. Not my laugh or my smile or jokes. Nothing. Sometimes I try and think of something, anything I could do that would be missed if I were gone. But there is nothing. I am a wallflower, a one dimensional wallflower that only a few choose to embrace because, like a wall, I am not much to hold.

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