Love and Need

Howard Stern is a regular part of my weekday commute.  Despite his bad reputation, he is actually a well adjusted, intelligent, and thoughtful guy.  In a show this week he asked a "whack-packer" why he liked counting on others so much.  He wanted to know what benefit did it serve him to depend on others.  He said for himself, when others did things for him, it "...felt a lot like love...".  So I pondered for myself the relationship between love and need, or the idea of need as it relates to love.

I'm convinced my mother crippled me, figuratively speaking, so that I would depend on her more.  She needed to feel needed in order to feel loved.  If I behaved independently, she felt threatened.  I guess, to some degree, I feel the same way now.  If my kids ignore me, especially when I ache to get affection from them, I feel unloved.  If they ask me for something, something they need, I feel loved, and wanted.  It's a sort of fucked up approach to any relationship.

Why do I place my self worth on what others need, want, give to me?  Why does it make me feel better about myself if someone thinks I'm important or needs something I have?  Yet here I sit, self worth all wrapped up in love and need.

When HE plans our dates, I feel immensely important.  When HE asks me to pick something up for him at the store, it makes me feel loved.  Why?  The only explanation I have is that that is my sole experience rests on thinking that need equals love.  I feel stupid for not having another explanation but at this time, either I'm not enlightened or there isn't one.

How else do I feel love?  I feel it from affection.  I feel it from a sincere compliment.  I feel it when I'm included in otherwise unimportant traditions or decisions or activities.  I feel it when I am thought of in the context of anything. 

Conversely, if HE forgets to open a door for me, or doesn't ask me if HE can pick something up at the store for me, I feel unloved.  Not all the time but as a general rule.  Again, it's totally fucked up and I know it, but I don't understand enough of myself to know why I feel this way. 

For now, I continue to ponder and continue to explore when I feel loved and when I feel unloved and how being needed or being unneeded feeds me. Stay tuned...