Touch Points

Collaborating instead of Colliding

Luis’s hand gently pulled my cheek to rest on his shoulder on the red-eye flight home from Colombia. Too tired to overthink or resist, I succumbed to the more comfortable sleeping position offered by the man who had been a handsome stranger just two weeks prior to the mission trip we were coming home from. 

“I can't explain it,” I told one of my best friends that weekend, “I don't know why I can't get over the airplane ride. I feel like there is something between this guy and I, and I have NEVER been this attracted to someone before. I have no idea what's happening, but I'm beginning to feel crazy.”

Luis and I met up for a walk a few days later, where a spicy kiss on a remote lake trail was a prelude for the 4th of July fireworks we would watch separately that evening. Obviously as a person with zero chill, I blurted out, “It's been a long time since I kissed someone.” But conversations that day sealed it, we were either going to leave as friends or in a serious relationship, there was no piddling around and wasting time in our life trajectories.

Holding hands as we hiked and kissing at red lights became our weekend routines when we traveled to see each other. On our wedding day, I buried my face in his shoulder as I cried for a moment, his arms around me already felt like a haven. We danced in the kitchen of our new home after long days of work.

During labor and birth, he held me and spoke words of encouragement as a breathed deeply. His hands have been squeezed with a contraction-like grip as I pushed new life into the world.

Pushing Lucia into the world

These days, connection often resembles kissing in the girls’ room, hugging in the kitchen as lunch warms up, or the way I slip my arms around him and nuzzle my face into his back as he works on the dishes. I still relish his hand slipping into my hair and massaging my head while driving, or the squeeze of his hand as we walk into a new setting. We discuss potential real estate deals and giggle at funny reels, and we are trying to have once-a-week logistical meetings.

In a recent therapy session, our therapist draws a circle, then proceeds to draw a square around it, creating four touch points between the two shapes. It resonates as the perfect visual for us: the lives of two independent individuals sharing marriage, parenting, managing a household, and multiple business realms as we work to collaborate instead of collide. We are learning how to trust each other, how to make our connection a mooring like a boat in the safety of a harbor, instead of cumbersome fetters binding us in a personal prison. All these small touches add up.

At the end of the day there is no one else I'd rather live life with, have babies with, build businesses with, laugh at corny jokes with, and sit on a counseling couch with. Laboring onward together, one touch point at a time keeping us joined in spirit and in covenant.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Ours".