My box of cereal

Needing somebody has always been a difficult pill for me to swallow.
I’ve always cringed at the idea of loving somebody so much I felt like I couldn’t live without him or her. Maybe I have the wrong idea of what “needing” is. Maybe I need to consult my dictionary. Again.

Needing for me is wrapped in obligation. Needing means something has to exist in the confines of my life because I would die without it. I need this thing even if I don’t like it. The very concept of needing anything for me has always reeked of imprisonment and violent lack of will. Who wants to love out of obligation? Even worse, who wants to be loved out of obligation? To be loved by default?

Recently, my friends and I were stuck in an apartment in Esson, France due to lack of funds. So we sat there talking about life and loosening our tongues with wine and got to talking about love and relationships and life. And that’s where this weird analogy came in.

The analogy of the box of cereal. #

I present to you Bob. Every morning Bob has the same box of cereal for breakfast.
It could be deduced that he eats that one because he likes it. But what if he picks that particular brand of cereal because it’s the only brand of cereal available to him? What if Bob lives somewhere that limits him to deliveries from that company alone? What if that brand of cereal is the only brand he’s ever been exposed to. What if that brand of cereal is the only brand he’s ever known?

-gasps-

I know this scenario has more holes than the theory of the earth being flat, but bear with me here.

What if it’s the brand he’s been told from birth that he SHOULD have? Does he really pick it because he likes it or because it’s the only one at his disposal? Does he pick it because he wants to or because he feels he has to?

I don’t want my love to unravel like this. I want to be Suzie. I want to be Suzie who has 15 brands of cereal at her disposal but wakes up and picks the same box of cereal every single morning. I want to be somebody’s box of cereal. I want to know he chooses me every day he wakes up because he wants to. I want to know he chooses me not because he has to, but because despite all the other cereal boxes within his reach, I’m the only one he wants.

Sometimes I think my life is a room; a finite space with boundaries just far away enough to give me the impression that it’s limitless. In that room, the person I love is a box of cereal and I want to pick him every morning just because I want to.
I don’t want to need the person I’m in love with. I want to want to love him.