Define:Yearn

I think crush has everything to do with yearn. I can identify feelings of yearning exactly by their location in my body. When I described this feeling to a friend – explaining the significant differences between the feelings of want and those of yearn – she said it sounded like yearning included the space between the sacral (or navel) chakra and the base (or sex) chakra. I think that’s it exactly.

If I want someone it’s a clear and direct feeling (you know, from deep inside that sex chakra). Generally it comes with a clear picture in my head of how I want them.

If I yearn for someone it’s much more complex. I feel the feeling of want, but along with it comes a burning sensation just below the sacral chakra. It’s a sensation associated with shame or exposure or vulnerability. It feels like hunger. It feels empty and full simultaneously. It’s swimming in need, but without definition. It hurts, yet feels like being on a high.

Here are some definitions I found for Yearn:

1. desire strongly or persistently (synonym) hanker, long (hypernym) desire, want (hyponym) ache, yen, pine, languish (derivation) longer, thirster, yearner

2. have a desire for something or someone who is not present; “She ached for a cigarette”; “I am pining for my lover” (synonym) ache, yen, pine, languish (hypernym) hanker, long (hyponym) die (derivation) longer, thirster, yearner

3. have affection for; feel tenderness for (hypernym) care for, cherish, hold dear, treasure

For me the yearning doesn’t seem to find relief. The wanting can be fulfilled, but the yearning seems to live on – simply changing its object of desire. Yearning seems to create energy for me. It seems to be a life-force behind my creativity – my desire to be awake instead of asleep. It seems to operate in my system like a drug; the more I feel it, the more I want to feel it. Sometimes I think I must be addicted to it. I guess I yearn to yearn.

I want the pain and pleasure combination that comes from feeling the yearn; from being crushed out. And I’ve been hooked on it for the last twenty-five years.

It’s like the flip/flop in the pit of my stomach when the roller-coaster is momentarily suspended in time, just over the crest of the tippy-top of the steepest hill. When the roller-coaster finally comes to a stop and I exit, I am in utter disbelief that I have I survived at all – thinking it was one of the scariest moments of my life. Then I amaze myself by racing back in line to wait for another chance flirt with danger. This time the body memory is fresh and morphs into another wonderful feeling – anticipation.