This is probably the most mature, feminist, strong thing I”ve ever admitted to myself in the realm of relationships.
Thinking I didn’t really, or shouldn’t really need a man, I have looked for men who would perhaps be a nice to have in my life- people I couldn’t really depend on, who didn’t really want the same things as I did, or really want me.
They were a challenge, a source of entertainment, excitement, drama, hysterics, and the illusion of some kind of mystical union, the ultimate romantic ideal showing just how far the world has fallen from the perfection of our imaginations. They were all ones that got away, and eventually with good riddance!
I am whole and complete in myself, yes, but to live the life I really want, I do need a man. It would be nice to have someone take care of me for a change Doing everything myself is wearing me out. I can do it, and with a smile pasted on myself, but inside I am sometimes really crying. I do need a man.
And from this place of need comes strength. Knowing I need a man, that it is something I really truly desire and something I can own, being humble enough to want a really good and trustworthy man, someone who will take care of me when I can’t take care of myself, someone who will love me even when I find myself hard to love, someone who will just make my life better.
Before I was looking for someone to make my dreams come true, someone who fit the checklist and gratified my ego. Now, really, really happy in my own life, I am looking for someone to live my dreams with.
I want my happily ever after. I have had my heroine’s journey and received my boon, and fought my own dragons. I love my life.
And there’s nothing wrong with wanting someone to share it with.
The mentality of a single person is different from that of someone in a partnership. Marriage is about real interdependence, the true adventure of trusting your life to another human being, and trusting yourself to rebuild if it all goes awry.
For the past seven years, I have not been ready to trust in either of these things. I have not trusted that both myself and another person would be strong enough to put our lives back together, even better. I have feared harming someone I love in the case of needing to walk away. After one particularly highly placed hero fell out of my life, I finally lost faith in romantic love. I stopped believing in the Notebook, and took time to appreciate my life, and didn’t dare to hope for anything beyond an amicable fling for a while.
But now, with the same consciousness of the passage of time that pushes me to travel, to work, to make friends, and even to experience the vicisstitudes of Romantic love, knowing that this day will never happen in exactly the same way again, that I will blink and another year will have passed, that today may indeed be my last or I could live from tomorrow till another hundred years with the consequences of my present actions, I declare: I am ready.
I am ready for something real. I am ready to let go of my dreams and find a reality that surpasses them- because it is real and good and better than anything that I imagined in solipsistic reverie.
I am ready for the cracks in the sidewalks of Paris, and the gritty reality of the places I have always dreamed about. I am ready to experience, and step out of my cocoon.
Life has been incredibly good to me so far. Now I have to really trust, to really take that leap of faith, in order to rest in my beloved’s arms.
I do need a man, and in admitting this, I am liberated.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
Now it’s just a matter of finding my man, and finding courage in the fact that he needs me too.
I need a man, not a provider, a caregiver, a hero, a lover, a best friend. I need all those things, and more, a flawed human being to love and be astonished by. A hand to hold and a set of roots who will give me wings and help me fly.
The tears on my face show that my writing is true: I need a man.