Someone who has made my life worth living.

Here's the thing about me - I don't feel this way about people. I love the people in my life more than I can explain, but I know that I can live without them. I realize that nobody truly thinks they will die if they lose someone, but that's not what I mean. I would be fine. Sad, yes. Heart broken, in fact. But, over time, fine. 

This is what bothers me about romance novels, love stories (ahem, Twilight), and chick flicks. That kind of "love" to me is kind of pathetic. Maybe I am jaded and the fucked up one here. I am fine with that. I really am. I just do not think it is healthy to have your entire self wrapped up in someone else.

Let me back up a little bit to explain why I feel this way.

When I first moved to Ohio, Krackle and I became very close friends and were roommates for years. When we first met, I wouldn't go to the grocery store by myself. I wouldn't do anything by myself. I was the neediest person in the world, but I probably had some form of social anxiety and was chronically shy as a child. Sometimes she humored me, sometimes she didn't. But, mostly, I learned something from her independence. 

Skip forward a few years and a long term relationship of mine ended, leaving me living alone. In fact, alone for the first time in my life. I had no one to go to the grocery store with me, no one to be there for every little thing. I was forced to get over it and found out that, for a long time, I wasn't very true to myself. I hid facets of my personality that I thought were uncool. I did a lot of things for other people's approval. I never really did anything for myself. 

So, I got to know me. Just me. I spent a lot of nights in tears, lonely. I spent a lot of nights on the phone with people making small talk and keeping them from their own lives. But, I also spent a lot of time doing the things that I really love. Like, reading books about dragons and elves. I dove into politics, finally finding a voice for what I believe. I became me. At least the me I am today. 

There are people in my life that I want there, that I choose to love and, hopefully, they choose to love me back. And, I suppose, in some sense of the word I need them, but I prefer to think of it as wanting them. I don't want to be needed, I want to be wanted. Therefore, I feel that way about the people I love. 

In answer to the question at hand, I make my life worth living. I need myself. I want everyone else to be there with me, laughing, crying, and going grocery shopping. But, in the end, it's just me making it all worth living. Everyone else is just a really fucking awesome bonus.