Held and Human

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I want to be held.
I want to feel safe.
I want to be seen — not for what I can do, but for who I am.

That longing has lived in me for as long as I can remember, but I’ve often avoided it. Instead, I’ve filled it with food, porn, or moments of fleeting closeness — anything to ease the ache that I’ve been taught to feel shame about. But there’s no shame in wanting connection. There never was.

I used to think I couldn’t meet that need without someone else. But I’m starting to understand myself differently now. I can hold myself. I can ask what that part of me needs. And sometimes, it’s as simple as hugging my dog. She just is. She doesn’t ask me to be anyone else. She wants to be close. And honestly, my body doesn’t know the difference — in those moments, I am held.

Still, I’d love to be held by a human being. Not just sexually — though I’m not ashamed of wanting that too — but emotionally, deeply. I want to be seen, accepted, and met. And I realise now that I was getting some of that at college, especially on Wednesdays. Those days gave me emotional nourishment, moments of real connection. Now that college has ended, I feel the gap.

I see it now — that’s why the girl from college meant something to me. I felt emotionally safe with her, at least in glimpses. That’s also why I felt what I thought was attraction to my therapist. She saw me. She didn’t need me to perform. It might not have been romantic — maybe it was just my nervous system responding to being seen and accepted for the first time in a long time.

The same thing happened with Dave from college. He genuinely saw me — not for what I could do, but for who I was. And in a world where I’ve often been reduced to my usefulness, that meant everything.

I’ve spent a lot of time choosing people who weren’t ready to meet me in that place. People who couldn’t hold what I was longing for. And then I’d feel disappointed — sometimes devastated. But I’m trusting the process more now. I’m learning to stop chasing and start listening.

I know I can meet someone who holds me, emotionally and physically. My attraction to women has never been the issue — it’s the emotional safety that matters. And it may not come in the package I expect, but I’m open to that now. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I’ll probably still slip up sometimes — maybe reach for porn again. But I’m noticing that it’s happening less and less. And what’s come in its place? Energy. Creativity. A sense of possibility.

That’s the shift I want to honour today.

I’m learning to hold myself — and in doing so, I’m making room to be held by someone else, when the time is right.

And that… that feels like a quiet revolution.