“You are worthy of love and belonging.” -Brené Brown

My Interpretation: I spent a long time confusing being needed with being loved. If I was useful, I had proof that I belonged. I could listen, fix, lend, give, show up, carry, or make myself smaller so someone else had more room. There was always something I could do to earn my place. The harder thing has been believing I should still have a place when I bring absolutely nothing to the table except myself. No solution. No money. No emotional labor. No usefulness. Just me. Maybe belonging was never supposed to be something I worked this fucking hard to earn.

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There is something I have learned the hard way.

I do not think I have reliable friends.

That sounds harsher than I mean it. Maybe even a tidbit dramatic. I have people in my life. I have people I love. People I have known for years. People whose birthdays I know, whose kids I ask about, whose bad days I remember. People I would answer at two in the morning.

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So maybe saying I do not have friends is not entirely accurate.

I have people…

I am just not sure I have many people I can lean on.

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There is a difference.

I have been available to people in ways that I do not think people have been available to me.

& that is a difficult thing to admit because I love helping people.

I genuinely do.

Tell me your problem,

⤷ & my brain immediately starts building a flowchart.

Tell me you are overwhelmed,

⤷ & I am figuring out what can come off your plate.

Tell me you need something,

⤷ & I am checking whether I have it.

⇨ Money.

⇨ Time.

⇨ Advice.

⇨ A ride.

⇨ A place to vent.

Someone to tell you that you are not crazy.

Someone to listen to the same story for the seventeenth time because apparently we have reached episode seventeen, & the writers still refuse to resolve the fucking plot.

I will show up.

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& somewhere along the way, I think showing up became part of how I learned to exist in relationships.

I became useful.

⇨ The reliable one.

⇨ The person you call when something has gone sideways.

⇨ The person who knows what to say.

⇨ The person who will listen.

⇨ The person who will more than likely figure something out.

& for a long time, I thought being needed meant being valued.

I think… I have grown too much to continue believing such things.

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Because lately I have found myself wondering something I really do not like wondering:

What would be left of some of my relationships if I stopped being useful?

Not if I became cruel.

Not if I stopped caring.

Not if I disappeared.

Just if I stopped providing.

⇥ If I did not have the money.

⇥ If I did not have the answer.

⇥ If I could not fix it.

⇥ If I said no.

If instead of being the person carrying everyone else’s shit, I showed up carrying my own.

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Would there still be room for me?

That question bothers me because I know what it feels like to need someone & immediately start calculating whether I am allowed to.

Have I talked about this too much?

Did I already tell them this part?

Are they sick of hearing about him?

Am I circling the same problem again?

Should I make this funny so it does not feel so heavy?

Maybe I should just keep this one to myself.

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I have had people make me feel like my problems became repetitive or too heavy when I was in the thick of them.

& apparently I carried that with me more than I realized…

So now?

I edit myself.

⤷ I give people the shortened version.

⤷ The funnier version.

⤷ The version with enough pain removed that nobody has to worry too much about me.

Most of the time… I do not tell anyone at all.

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& the fucked-up part is that I do not expect that from the people I love.

You can tell me the same problem again.

I might point out that we have been here before. I might tell you something you do not particularly want to hear. I might desperately want you to make a different choice.

But I will not ever push you into anything or tell you to leave more than once…

That once is just to ensure someone has told you without the rose-tinted glasses.

But I will never judge you for staying, leaving, or struggling.

I understand that knowing something is hurting you & being ready to change your life are two completely different things.

⤷ People circle.

⤷ People get stuck.

⤷ People leave & go back.

⤷ People know better & still are not ready to do better.

⤷ People need to say the same thing twelve different ways before they finally hear themselves say it the thirteenth.

I understand that.

Until it is me…

Then suddenly I am terrified of taking up too much space.

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& I know I helped create this.

That part matters.

I have let people,

⇨ walk all over me.

I have said yes,

⇨ when I wanted to say no.

I have given,

⇨ when I did not really want to give.

I have solved problems,

⇨ that were never mine to solve.

I have made other people’s emergencies,

⇨ feel like my responsibility.

I have confused being dependable,

⇨ with being endlessly available.

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& maybe the hardest one to admit:

I made myself useful because being needed felt safer than finding out whether I would still be wanted when I had nothing to offer.

Because being needed gives you proof.

⤷ There is a reason they called.

⤷ There is a reason they texted.

⤷ There is a reason they came to you.

You have something they need.

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Being wanted is scarier.

There is nothing to earn.

⇨ Nothing to fix.

⇨ Nothing to provide.

Someone just chooses you.

& I think that is what I have been craving without knowing how to explain it.

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✧ I want someone to call because they miss me.

✧ I want someone to ask how I am doing & actually have enough room for the real answer.

✧ I want to be able to say, I know I have talked about this before, but it still hurts, without immediately feeling embarrassed.

✧ I want someone who remembers the thing I mentioned three weeks ago & asks me what happened.

✧ I want to have a terrible day without turning it into a comedy routine so I am easier to hold.

✧ I want to be able to fall apart without simultaneously monitoring whether my falling apart is becoming inconvenient.

✧ I want to know that I am valuable when I am not being useful.

& maybe that is the difference I have not understood before.

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I do not want to stop being generous.

I do not want to stop being the friend who answers.

I do not want to become colder just because I have been hurt.

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I actually really fucking like that part of myself.

⤷ I like being someone people trust.

⤷ I like being the person who will sit beside someone when their life is burning down without immediately running away from the heat.

I just do not want to be the only person sitting beside fires anymore.

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I want reciprocity.

Not perfectly measured reciprocity.

I do not need friendship to become some psychotic little spreadsheet where we are tracking who listened for forty-seven minutes last Tuesday & who bought coffee in March.

I just want it to move both ways…

⇥ Sometimes you need me.

⇥ Sometimes I need you.

⇥ Sometimes neither of us needs a goddamn thing, & we talk anyway.

Maybe… that is what friendship is supposed to feel like.

✗ Not useful.

✗ Not indebted.

✗ Not earned.

Safe.

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& maybe saying I do not have friends is not exactly right.

Maybe what I am trying to say is that… I have spent a very long time being someone else’s safe place while quietly realizing I do not know where mine is.

That is a much lonelier sentence.

But it is the truest one.

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& I do not think the answer is to stop loving people the way I do.

I think the answer is to stop giving every person unlimited access to it.

To notice who stays when I say no.

≫ Who calls when they do not need anything.

≫ Who asks twice when I say I am fine.

≫ Who lets me repeat myself when I am still trying to find my way out.

≫ Who makes room.

≫ Who shows up.

≫ Who does not require me to perform usefulness to justify my existence in their life.

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Because I am exhausted from being needed.

For once, I think I just want to be wanted.

I want someone with whom I can finally stop earning my place.

xoxo ♡