I Want You To Need Me, But Also Need Yourself

If we’re in love, I want you to need me.

I want to be the thought that keeps spinning through your mind, the longing you feel in the deepest part of your soul, the person you crave in every situation—bad and beautiful.

I want to be the one you turn to, the one you rely on, the one you simply cannot exist without.

But I also want you to need yourself.

I can’t be everything to you, though I want to.

There will be times when I cannot lift you from your pain, when I am not strong enough to carry your burdens, when you need to fight through your battles alone. This doesn’t mean I won’t stand by you, but it means that when your back’s against a wall, you know how to save yourself.

Because I can’t save you.

I want you to need yourself—to trust yourself, to be confident within yourself, to make your own decisions.

Love is beautiful, but it’s beautiful when two souls are their own, independent people.

People with desires and goals, strengths and weaknesses.

And I want you to chase your dreams. I want you to see your future as your own, interconnected with mine.

Though I want to be the reason you smile, I don’t ever want you to lose sight of all the ways you’ve smiled on your own before me, before us.

You are an incredible person, just as you are. That’s why I fell in love with you in the beginning. Because of your demeanor, because of your confidence, because of who you already were, without me in the picture.

Please don’t lose sight of that person.

Though I want you to fall for me, I don’t want you to fall away from yourself.

I don’t ever want you to stop having faith in the things you believe, ever stop challenging the world, ever stop chasing your goals, or ever stop doing the things you’re passionate about.

Because our love should bring out the best in each other, not hold us back.

We’re allowed to lose ourselves in love, allowed to get lost in another person. But we always have to keep sight of who we are and what we want.

We come into relationships with our stories, our burdens, our pasts, our incompleteness. But even if we begin to feel more complete with another person, we can’t be afraid to stand secure within ourselves.

This makes us more attractive. This makes our relationships stronger. This makes us better people. People that grow both independently and with another.

Believe me, I want to be your everything, but I simply cannot. But I’ve realized this is okay because you cannot be my everything either. And we can both be strong in who we are.

I want you to need me, yes. And I so desperately need you.

This is love; this is natural.

But I want you to need yourself.
And I’ll need myself.

We’ll be our separate people, with our wishes and quirks and strange laughs and inconsistencies. And we’ll be even more weird and wonderful together.