Eat Lots of Jam!

When I was growing up, my family used to bring us to my godmothers' lake house.  At the lake house we would go water skiing, water tubing, and have intimate family-talk.  This is where I learned how to be in community.  I don't know if other families did this, but we would actually sit down in the evenings and face each other.  We would talk about our feelings, our experiences, and our troubles and joys.  We would listen to each other, support each other, and learn from each other.  Yet, we were usually always gathered into couples.  My mother with my father, my godmother with her partner, and other couples who'd come and go.  I always felt lonely around the dinner table--wishing I could have a partner of my own.  Somehow it seemed that I wasn't complete, or that I wasn't able to participate fully in this family/community without a lover of my own. 

Well, sense then I have realized that this conclusion is simply an artifact of my naive childhood. 

We are taught not simply that straight relationships are what's right (in all the straight songs, and all the straight movies, and all the straight TV shows).  We are also taught that we are not complete unless there is another with whom to share our lives. We sometimes impute our inward-dissatisfaction onto an external situation.  I am feeling empty because I don't have "X, Y, and Z."  So now I'll buy this new phone, this new computer, and hope relentlessly that my next boyfriend will be able to save me.  But he can't!  He won't.  You are the only one who can save you (and/or your inner-Jesus, if your beliefs take you in that direction).

If my recent breakup has brought me any gifts at all, it is to show me that I don't need someone else to make me complete or happy.  I am already complete, and realizing this means that I can create my own joy with or without a partner to share it.  

Of course it's never quite that simple because we all need connection, intimacy, love, and sex.  But getting these needs met (or unmet) still doesn't add (or take away) my own sense of worth.  I am not more or less a human being when these needs are or aren't getting met.  This is a very important distinction to be made.   

And so then, I write my own crudely rendered lyrics in the vein of all the songs I’ve heard in which the star-struck performers sing to their as-yet-to-be-discovered one:

I don’t need you;

I don’t need you;

I don’t need you.

And my happiness

is NOT contingent upon your

brooding attraction.

You will not keep me

from owning my

independent beauty;

by being a stupid distraction.

My own sweetness;

my own bright, dimpled smile;

my sexy legs and studly chest—   

You are second to my love

for myself,

at best.  

I don’t need you;

I don’t need you;

I don’t need you.

If you think you can have me,

then you have already lost me—

because I am not something you can own,

nor am I something you can loan,

I just want to be boned.

I just want to share in your story,

and let you share in mine,

and drink up your satisfying

stare, like real fine wine.

Maybe we can go walking

together on Sundays, and

laugh at each other on Tuesdays,

and tomorrow we’ll find that

all we can do sometimes…

…is keep from balking,

at how beautiful you are.

But you’ll never complete me,

you’ll never replace my

own sense of worth and

my own impulses:

to pleasure

to connection

and to meaningful work.

I won’t need you;

I won’t need you;

I won’t need you.

To do anything at all,

but simply to be who you are.

Because I am already complete.

So for as long as we can,

let’s just love each other,

and get it on,

and make a family,

and eat lots of jam.