Okay… I think I found something.
And I’m not sure I like that I found it.
I’ve been writing a lot lately about wanting to be chosen, being tired of earning love, and trying to understand what it means to feel wanted without constantly proving myself.
I thought those were separate realizations.
I don’t think they were.
I think they were all taking me somewhere.
And I think I’m here now.
Because the more I sit with myself, the more I realize that I struggle with the idea of simply existing in someone’s life without doing something.
If I love you and you’re struggling, I want to help.
If I miss you, I want to move toward you.
If I know there is something I can do to make your life easier and I have the capacity to do it, choosing not to feels almost unnatural to me.
People have told me before to pull back.
“Let them come to you.”
“Don’t always be so available.”
“Let them figure it out.”
And I understand the logic. But something about it has always felt wrong in my body. If I care, why would I pretend I don’t? If I can help you, why would I sit there and watch you struggle? If I miss you, why would I force myself to sit in that feeling just to see whether you miss me enough to reach first?
That doesn’t feel like love to me. At least not the way I’ve learned to love.
And then I had a thought. A really uncomfortable one:
I don’t know how to feel securely loved when I’m not needed.
…
I actually had to sit with that for a minute.
Because I know how to be needed. I know how to show up. I know how to anticipate. I know how to help. I know how to carry something when somebody I love is tired. I know how to become dependable. I know how to make myself useful.
And there is something incredibly safe about usefulness.
If you need me, I know my place.
If I make your life easier, I know I matter.
If I’m the person you call, the person who shows up, the person who can help, the person you know will be there… then I don’t have to wonder as much. I have evidence: See? I matter here.
And that realization scared me.
Because suddenly I had to ask myself something I don’t think I’ve ever really asked before: Do I know how to believe someone loves me when there is nothing I am doing for them?
Not when I’m helping. Not when I’m solving. Not when I’m carrying. Not when I’m being useful.
Just me. Standing there. Existing.
And then the thought underneath that one came up: What if some part of me believes that if I’m not useful, I’m not lovable?
That one hurt.
Because I know that isn’t true. I know it isn’t. My value is not measured by how much I can do for somebody. I know love should not have to be earned through service, availability, sacrifice, problem-solving, or making myself indispensable. I know all of that.
But there is a difference between knowing something and feeling safe enough to believe it.
And if I’m being honest, I don’t have many memories, from childhood into adulthood, of feeling deeply wanted just for being me. Wanted without having to be helpful. Wanted without proving something. Wanted without being useful first.
Maybe that’s why usefulness became such a comfortable language for me. It gave me a way to feel valuable when simply being wanted still felt unfamiliar.
Even compliments used to make me uncomfortable. I didn’t always know what to do with someone seeing something good in me and naming it plainly. It felt foreign in a way that being thanked for what I did never did.
“You’re helpful” made sense.
“You make my life easier” made sense.
“I appreciate everything you do” made sense.
But:
“I love your mind.”
“I miss you.”
“I want you here.”
“I love being around you.”
Those things landed differently. Maybe because I didn’t have to do anything to earn them.
And I think I’m only now realizing how hungry I am for that.
I don’t only want to know that I’m loved. I want to understand what about me is loved.
Not what I provide.
Not what I fix.
Not how dependable I am.
Not how useful I can be.
Me. My presence. My humour. My mind. My softness. My weirdness. My body. My affection. The way I see the world. The way it feels to be around me.
I want to know that those things matter too.
And I don’t think love and being wanted are the same thing. Someone can love me deeply and still not express it in ways that make me feel chosen, desired, or personally valued.
I think what I’m realizing is that being wanted is one of the ways love becomes legible to me. Not because I need constant reassurance, but because I want to know that I matter outside of what I contribute.
And maybe that is why being wanted feels so much scarier to me than being needed.
Being needed gives me something to do. Being wanted gives me nothing. Nothing to fix. Nothing to earn. Nothing to perform. Nothing I can point to and say: this is why they keep me.
I just have to trust that they do.
That someone can be completely capable without me and still want me close.
That they can solve their own problems and still reach for me.
That they can carry their own life and still make room for mine.
That they can need absolutely nothing from me… and still choose me.
And I think that is where the fear lives. Because if I stop doing everything I know how to do to make myself valuable… will you still think I’m worth keeping?
I don’t know why that question feels so heavy.
Maybe because somewhere along the way I learned that being useful was safer than simply being loved. Maybe usefulness gave me control. Maybe if I was good enough, helpful enough, dependable enough, loving enough, then I could make myself difficult to leave.
And now I’m sitting here wondering how much of what I thought was simply “the way I love” has also been the way I keep myself safe.
That doesn’t mean the love isn’t real. It is. I genuinely love taking care of people. I genuinely love showing up. I genuinely love being generous with the people who matter to me. I don’t want to take that away from myself.
But now I can’t unsee the question underneath it: Would I still know that I matter if there was nothing for me to do?
I don’t have an answer yet. And I don’t think this is the part where I’m supposed to have one.
Right now, I think I’m just realizing that the boy who wanted to be chosen learned somewhere along the way that being needed felt safer than simply being wanted.
And now I’m standing in front of another door. Behind it is a version of love where I don’t have to earn my place. Where I don’t have to become indispensable. Where I can show up with nothing in my hands.
No solution. No sacrifice. No proof. Just me. And somehow believe that is enough.
I’m not there yet. Right now, I’m mostly just scared by how badly I want to believe it.
