Duct Tape and Hormones

                                           

For years I hadn’t put on rubber gloves when I would use strong household detergents to do my cleaning.  Nice hands just wasn’t something I was concerned about.  Who would have believed that all those strong chemicals could be absorbed into the skin and cause problems.  Now I wear gloves!

Recently I have succumbed to taking bio-identical hormones, and guess what, some of them get absorbed through the skin!  Who would have dreamed that this was possible….at least fifty plus years ago it was furthest from my thoughts that stuff can be absorbed through the skin.  Now, I am not writing this to push hormones but to give an analogy to help understand the bonding that takes place in relationships. 

The most intimate relationship is probably the one between a mother and her child.  I bet you thought I was going to say husband and wife!  However, as I have contemplated this many times and have gone through the heart wrenching experience of losing a son, I have come to the conclusion that a mother/child relationship trumps the husband/wife relationship (at least, this is my conclusion today but tomorrow I might argue the opposite view).  Why do I say this?  A mother carries the child within her womb for nine months.  You can’t get more intimate than this.  And then, as many mothers do, I nursed my babies and imparted my life to them even after they were born.  If you have been following my blogs you will understand that I am hammering this issue again and again…that of intimacy!  And how do we attain to intimacy?  By sharing our lives with one another…”you in me and me in you.”  So, it stands to reason that there is great closeness between a mother and child as that child was in her.

Have you ever watched the interaction between parents and children at an amusement park?  How willingly parents embarrass themselves as they fuss over the antics or their young child on an amusement ride.  Honestly, I do not see what warrants such ado but hey, I have been known to do the same thing.  In a crowded room my child’s cry stands out above all other cries and moves me to action.  I just can’t help myself…I must comfort my child.  There can be a hundred babies crying and I might feel a little tug to want to hold them, but there is nothing like the drawing power of my own babies cry!  Why?  Because we are attached. 

Science cannot measure this as this bonding between human beings as it is a mystery or materially explain why it happens.  However, I think I know…absorption like the hormones!  Our being becomes part of another when we share a common life of feelings, thoughts, time and space.  Who I am as a person develops and grows as more and more people get absorbed into my being.  This is why I like the food analogy.  When I eat something the nutrients from the food penetrate to every cell of my body.  When I absorb someone elses essence into my soul it becomes a part of me.  The more I openly share my life with another and the more the other person shares his/her life with me determines how attached we will be.  In other words, different relationships have different absorption rates and abilities.  We are created to bond with others as this supplies life and these relationship are meant to move us to action when the other is in need.

Now you can see why the break up of relationships is so painful!  It is like ripping duct tape off your arm…ouch!  This is especially true with husband and wife as they have an intimacy of oneness where it is said of them that they have become one flesh!  If we “stick” to this analogy of the duct tape, and see that our souls were created with the ability to “stick” to others, what do you think happens when our souls are wounded again and again through rejection or abandonment?  You are right, our soul loses its ability to stick or to bond.  No wonder having multiple partners destroys intimacy as we were not created to bond and break-up…bond and break-up.  Have you ever tried to re-use duct tape again and again and again?  Forget it, it just doesn’t work.

Also, we can see how our personal moodiness and times of withdrawal, or closing of our heart, can wound another as they may experience it as the ripping away as duct tape being ripped off!  In other words, the supply line of life between two people is cut.  How it takes courage to trust again and again after we have had others pull away.  Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to just not get attached?  We would think this to be true but just like we cannot live without food, our souls cannot thrive without connectedness to other human beings.  You know the old saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all.”  Our lives are enriched as we absorb others and it is worth the pain.