This is personal. More personal than my mother's abuse, more personal than my hurts about being fired. More personal than cervical mucus, but that doesn't say much, I suppose.

For as long as I can remember, I've had "comfort" fantasies. We all have fantasies about material things, sexual things, or power things. These were different. I'd be walking up a hill, breathing heavily, and abruptly the only thing filling my mind was how good it would feel to be suddenly picked up off of my feet, cradled in a huge pair of arms, and carried to my destination by a giant. I remember visualizing him, learning every detail about my giant. He was the most gentle creature on earth.

My first "sexual" fantasy was really a comfort fantasy. I was only about twelve when first the image appeared to me. I was naked on a sofa, sitting next to my "lover," to whose looks or identity I don't really remember giving much thought. He would reach out and place his hand on my bare stomach... His hands were large, I remember, and calloused. All I really carried with me was the feel of his rough skin on my vulnerable belly, and a feeling of safety. I trusted him implicitly.

And then there's the fantasy I have even now, when I'm feeling particularly low. All I really want is to be held. Not hugged, though that's part of it. I want somebody to come into my room, pick me up, and cradle me. At first I thought I was picturing Eric doing the cradling, but the geometrics didn't mesh. Larger arms and a larger lap would be necessitated...

Or perhaps a smaller me. Here's the point I've now reached: I've come to see that the comforting I'm craving was that which I needed when I was much younger and tinier. I want to be a child, only this time with increased physical comfort.

Mom once told me that when I was a child, I didn't want to be held. "From the moment you could walk, you wanted to be out of my arms," she said. My brother was the cuddler; I remember feeling childishly superior over his babyish need to crawl into Mommy's bed in the morning. I don't remember feeling jealous, only "bigger."

If I'm missing comfort from childhood, then why didn't I take it when it was afforded me? My parents were never big huggers; I remember a more affectionate high-school girlfriend giving me a spontaneous hug, and how both warm and unfamiliar it felt. I recall thinking, "I need to do more of this." Eric was told of my "hug need" when we began dating, and he's been happily supplying me with embraces ever since, but still I have my comfort fantasies. I'm unfulfilled.

You know what? I think it's affecting who I am. On a good day, anymore, I tend towards scatterbrained. On a bad day, it's much, much worse. I have no idea what is causing this; I was never this bad about keeping track of things before I left home. Remember the thesis? I had to literally force myself to finish the thing, with my own husband breathing down my neck for fear we should have to pay another semester's tuition over a few empty bars of music. I sat at the computer, with only a few extra measures to write, and I would find myself craving a candy bar, or a few minutes of web surfing, or anything to delay work. Self-sabotage!

Maybe I'm going out on a limb, here, so stop me before I break my neck, but what if I'm trying to avoid standing on my own two feet? All my comfort fantasies seem to boil down to the fact that I want to be a child, to be cared for, to be babied again. Maybe I'm making myself as helpless and vulnerable as I want to be. Maybe the simple fact that I've been putting off doing laundry till it makes my husband nuts...is all founded in the fact that I want to be, need to be, dependent. Is that sick?