Massage therapy is (relatively) new here. We can thank other cultures for its introduction into the American culture, but back when I was a kid there was no such thing as going to get a massage. There were no massage therapy schools… it just did not exist. Now this has changed. Massage and it benefits are well and widely known. You can buy massage oil anywhere however…

However when I re-hooked up with the soldier, I found to my shock he had never had a massage in his life. That may be hard to believe but it’s true. He has not been with women who care all that much about him and seeing as he has spent most his life in the jungle… well all these cultural changes took place unbeknownst to him. So long story short, I was of course going to introduce him to massage.

And that right there was new territory. He was going to be touched in a way that was not familiar to him but I’ll tell you what happened… fourth or fifth time out.

I was rubbing his back and I came across something. I didn’t know what it was. You know how you can find things when you massage a person? You can find a pissed off muscle or become acquainted with a scar or a birthmark but this? Well it was mysterious until I pushed on it hard enough to determine it was shrapnel. Shrapnel! Damn. (Mars – metal / Saturn-skin)

The soldier has quite a bit of shrapnel in his body and he doesn’t like it much. Price you pay and all that, but it’s painful. It is very painful at times. For example in cold weather it feels like tin foil held to filling in your mouth except you can’t affect it in anyway. It’s not like you can take the foil out of your mouth, the metal is embedded in your body but beyond that he doesn’t think it’s attractive. Lumpy arms and so forth.

Now I don’t mind his shrapnel. It makes no difference to me. Actually I’d probably like it if it didn’t hurt him but here’s the point:

He didn’t know that pea-sized piece was in his back. See the affinity between this and his discovery of something inside of me? We don’t like this.

Because in the moment when this is discovered, I know this can’t feel good to him. I have come across something he didn’t know about that he feels is unattractive. Further it’s painful and right there in that moment, something happens. There is a shared pain. There is empathy and understanding and a bond formed but it goes much deeper and far further out.

Because we also both know by instinct we’ve no idea what we have actually stumbled on only that it’s something and there is going to be an impact. Because now knows it’s there. He is acutely aware considering how hard I pushed down on the thing having no idea I was pushing sharp metal into flesh. So what happens now?

Will he wake up in a week with the memory of how it got there? 

Probably.

And if he does he will tell me and we will both hurt because of it. And we will have to process it.

The moment it happened, the story involved, the story of when, why and how this bit was discovered will all blend together, 8th house, feelings swirling. We will also remember a time when there was no shrapnel in his body and have feelings around that and via this experience we will become more closely knit. And both of us will freak to some extent for reasons hard to articulate.

But this is it. This is my story of the real world way two people become fused.

Can you relate?