Hidden Needs

Independence, despite a definition of ‘freedom from the control, influence, support, aid of others’, has the word ‘need’ hidden within it twice.

I basked in the warm security of my infallibility and self containment.
Happy in the company of others,
I felt no tendency to lean,
To rest,
To settle upon.

Content to support and control,
To lend a hand
To share a burden,
To offer help

To push and pull,
To lift and carry,
To open and close…..

How hard it is to flip the coin
And reveal the vulnerable underbelly of dependence,
Which lies there,
Right there,
Underneath,
All the time.
And I am a snail upended on its roof,
A flailing terrapin,
A dung beetle with its world turned wrong round way.

And I must lean and rest and settle upon whatever hand is offered…
Or I will fall,
I must be pushed, lifted and carried
Through opened doors that are closed behind me….
…not forever….
I know that it is
Not forever.

However,
I will never again see independence without hidden needs.