I NEED PEOPLE

I need people. I can’t believe I never got this. I mean, everyone needs people but I REALLY NEED PEOPLE. I am sick of living like this I am sick of talking to characters of TV shows. This is painful. This is even more painful than “not getting hurt” aka staying away from people. I don’t even know where to begin all my life people are always around me but how do I connect. It’s like they too are a TV screen of their own. Everyone in this world (well at least my world) is running around meeting friends going for coffee yada yada but not truly connecting. I spent three days in Switzerland and I felt more connection than I have in a long time. It was a blessing and a curse really because now I know what I’ve been missing. In Sweden most people are sort of walking about, not terribly unhappy but not fulfilled, not truly happy, feeling like something is off but they’re not sure what’s missing because no one else has it either. It’s CONNECTION. It is intimacy, emotional intimacy. And of course I am a match to people who have no idea what this is or how to build it because I myself don’t know what it is or how to build it. I am learning, finally, thank god, and this is if not anything else a big post it to myself: I NEED PEOPLE. I can’t pretend anymore I don’t. I feel like you have to pretend to not need anyone, that’s when they feel safe to connect with you. I get it but it’s a catch 22, desperately wanting connection but knowing that if you ask or beg for it no one will step near you. Believe me that’s why I stopped asking a long time ago. Well, consciously. Of course I can’t stop asking because I need people, every single one of us need people. Why do we have to pretend we don’t? Why do we have to “play it cool”? I hate cool. I want hot warm bubbly soft squishy safe intimacy. I want close connections where I don’t have to hold myself back all the time. It’s so painful feeling like people can’t handle all of you. That’s the premise we can stay connected if you’re not all of you, because you’re a little too much (hello childhood). No it’s no mystery to me why this is happening, if you’ve felt the same way your whole life why would it all of a sudden be completely different, these are not fresh cuts. But at least something is rumbling. I’m starting to know what connection could truly mean, and now I know what to look for. Now I know it actually does exist, besides the brief months spent in a womb. That feeling exists outside of it. And not just with intimate partners but friends, people you’ve never met before even. It is scary but I really want to show all of me to people, and receive all of them back. Society is so full of pretence anyways but I want something real now. No more gripping and tensing and hiding. I need people. And frankly, I think they need me too.