Need vs. Needy.

I'm a fairly independent person, I would say. Although I love the company of my family, I have always been one to feel comfortable being alone. While other kids played outside, I would read books. While college friends went out partying, I was content to spend a quiet night in with a friend or two. I just feel comfortable in my own skin....usually.

Lately, with all of my ramblings about connections and such, I got to thinking....about the difference between needing something and being needy. I think they're two entirely different things, really. Needing something, like air, is just natural. If you want to breathe, you need air. Being needy is wanting an oxygen tank to make sure you don't run out.

While I need things, I'm not needy. Does that make sense? Because if you get nothing else from this post, that's the most important point. I need you to understand that. Ha! The irony.

Continuing with the air analogy...I'll take the air when and how I can get it, enjoy it, relish it, and take pleasure in the fact that I can breathe. And trust me, after feeling like I couldn't breathe this summer, I delight in the fact that I can and don't want to lose that. But, I don't want to bottle it up, stuff it into a neat container and transport it around with me, always afraid that I'll find myself without it. What fun would that be? None, I tell you, and breathing is a lot of fun...and necessary. So, give me the raw, natural, unfiltered air every time, thank you very much.

If all of the air suddenly runs out, it runs out. There's not much I can do about that, because it's out of my control and I refuse to live in fear of things I cannot control. Or at least, that's what I tell myself while working toward actually getting fully to that point. I'm working on it. But really, besides Al Gore, who can see the future of the earth's atmosphere? Not me, so I will just keep breathing and laughing. I will enjoy it, have fun breathing it in and letting it out, and delight in the oxygen rush to the cells in my body.

Need is good. Being needy is more trouble than it's worth. And I want life to be good. Also another important point.

Let me summarize: Girl, who is not needy, enjoys needing...and rambling aimlessly. I swear this blog makes me just throw out my thoughts in the most random ways. And just to clear up any other confusion or possible misunderstandings, no, I don't think any of you are needy in the least.

TIP: If air is not your thing, please substitute cupcakes, chocolate or coffee (just not Starbucks - blech!) into the analogy. For example....while I need cupcakes with sprinkles and enjoy them fully when I am devouring them, I am not carrying the oven and recipe around with me. Got it? Need cupcakes, not obsessively needy over cupcakes. (Although, this may be a bad example, because I can really see becoming obsessively needy over cupcakes...)

Happy Friday!