Those three words

I. Love. You.  What’s the big deal about that sentence?  Why is expression of love so difficult for people?  I might not say it often but it’s a reality for me.  It’s a constant state.  I love and I do so unconditionally when it comes to people.  That’s not hard for me.  Sometimes verbally expressing it can be challenging and a bit awkward and so, more often than not, I choose to show my love and I hope the message is conveyed.  I love to different degrees and I do struggle with telling people but it really is just a fact about who I am. 

What’s so much bigger for me is:  I need you.

I made it “policy” in my head when I was a teenager that I did not need.  Especially not people but it ended up extending to everything which is a simple explanation of my eating disorder.  I certainly didn’t want to need food.  I wanted to be superhuman.  But when it comes to people, I remember the time in my life where I decided that I would be okay alone, that in fact, I was meant to be alone and that was just going to have to be okay.  Now, I need.  I need people, I need things, I need food.

That’s so much more frightening to me than loving.  I can love people and they can choose not to love me back, that’s okay.  I can love people and they can leave me, that’s also okay.  Love for me never has to be reciprocated or necessarily provided.  Perhaps it does need to be provided and it’s just been inescapable for me.  I have no experience of actually not being loved by absolutely anyone and I would venture to say that is a common human experience.  Someone somewhere loves you, loves me.  Need on the other hand for me…if I need you and you leave, I am broken.  If I need you and you cannot provide or choose not to be there for me, I am lost.  And that is something I’m really coming to terms with.

I’ve created my own monster by disallowing myself to even recognize need so by the time I realize that’s what I’m experiencing and I finally ask/reach out, I’m getting closer to a desperate place.  I’m working on that, actively, everyday.

I have the right to need and to have my needs provided for.  I have the right to reach out and ask for help and to need someone to know better, to reassure, to comfort, etc.  Above the right, again, is the need.  I need to reach out.  I need people to be there for me.  I need support.

I. Need.

And I’m scared of needing still but I will always and so, I must accept.  I must try to have my needs filled.  I know I am worthy and I know now that it takes a lot more courage to tell people, to tell the world, that I cannot do this, life, on my own.  I will keep asking for help and reaching out as much as it goes against what I have instructed myself for the greater part of my life.  And one day, I will be okay with it.