We all have needs. I need this. You need that.
Some are easy to ask for, while others are as intimidating as a bull pawing the earth, its eyes and horns locked right on us.
I’m walking into the intimidating ones. The ones that feel dangerous. The ones that feel like I’m bucking against the way the system has been built. I see the Do Not Enter sign. I feel its threatening, menacing words bubble over the surface of my psyche.
And I’m stepping across anyway.
In doing so, I’ve realized something: I can’t take care of what I need while also taking care of another person’s needs. The physics don’t allow for it.
I’m learning that insecurity and low self-worth can make the hard feel impossible. There is a point where loving someone means trusting them to take responsibility for their own needs, while I take responsibility for mine.
Perhaps this is the freedom on the other side of the Do Not Enter sign: not having to carry you, not asking you to carry me, but walking beside one another with our own weights in our own hands.
Love, Jaclynn
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