#185 It Was Decided That My Husband Would Be the One I Hold Hands With

During the Christmas holidays, I often went for walks with my children who had returned home.
I noticed something while walking behind them.
My husband and I were holding hands, but...

Come to think of it, I haven't held hands with my sons for a long time, almost never.
Well, that makes sense. There's no way I'd hold hands with a son who's gone through puberty, and even now that they're over 25 and have mellowed out and become affectionate, I still don't hold hands with them.

Saying it's 'only natural' doesn't quite feel right, though. If my son were in need of protection or support, it's something I could do without a moment's hesitation...

An elderly couple lives in the house behind ours. Like the majority of the population in this town, they are white British.
They are about the age of my parents, or perhaps a little older, and they always go out holding hands.
It's just a part of their daily life, completely unpretentious, but they look so good together and are very charming.

“Using Charmy Green makes you want to hold hands~♪”

Does anyone remember that TV commercial? It featured an elderly couple holding hands, with the slogan being gentle on the hands.
When I was young, I used to picture that as my ideal for the future.
I feel like it was cited as a benchmark for elderly couples in the 1980s, but looking back now, it's quite interesting...

I say 'interesting' because I ended up living for a long time in a country where it is natural for married couples to hold hands.
Back then, the sight of an elderly couple happily holding hands must have been a fresh surprise for Japanese people, and
I feel like that hasn't changed much even today.


The top image is one I borrowed from a free stock site, but I had actually searched for one of an older couple that matched our age...
I was looking for one where they were holding hands, and when I found one with a different way of holding hands, the reason I chose it was that it was the closest to how we hold hands.

After all, I was blown away to recently learn that this way of holding hands is called 'lover's grip'.

I felt a strange sensation realizing that what we, nearing sixty, always do is actually a 'lover's grip'.

To tell the truth, I was planning to borrow an image that fit the mood from Note's Min-Photo as usual. However, there were overwhelmingly more images of an adult's hand and a child's hand than a man and woman holding hands.

Since it's hard to grasp social norms unless you are in that society, this is just my imagination, but...
If I may say so,
perhaps there is even a sense of embarrassment in Japan about married couples holding hands...

I found this description in the 'Introduction' of a book I read recently.

And it continues like this.

When you think about it, this seems like a matter of course.
Like when a mother puts her hand on her child and says, 'Pain, pain, go away~'.
Like when a kind nurse gently holds your hand during an anxious medical examination or a painful treatment.
We know from experience, without being told, that skin-to-skin contact promotes the secretion of oxytocin, the happiness hormone.

Last June, I wrote on note about a bathroom-related disaster in Montmartre, Paris. In that story, which was so candid it came with a viewing warning, what I wanted to say was that my husband is the only person in the world with whom I could share such an extreme experience.
I was strangely moved by that fact.

And that brings me back to the realization at the beginning.

When I suddenly realized it, I saw that it had been decided that my husband would be the one I hold hands with.

There are things that became habits before I knew it.

My husband and I hold hands every night when we go to sleep.
We started doing this about four years ago, when I was at my weakest.
When I didn't know my own worth and was plagued by anxiety, the warmth of our joined hands was the only thing that wrapped around my existence.
"I wish I would just disappear."
Even when I felt that way, that hand would never let me go.

Some might call it romantic, but it wasn't done with that awareness.
Even on nights when we didn't speak and felt like we were being swallowed by the darkness, we would just hold hands and fall asleep.

"Holding hands"...
Now, it has also become a kind of silent message for when we can't apologize well after a fight,
or conversely, when I was angry but think, "Well, I guess I'll forgive you."

In a way, it might be a signal of being "partners in fate."

As a postscript to this post, I recently found this photo my son took. It was unconscious, but what kind of way to hold hands is that!? I don't really understand it (laughs).