Dark Magic

There’s a Youtuber I follow who posts shorts about attachment styles and relationships. He’s great. Recently, he shared a letter he wrote to the women he loved but could not have. It was beautiful and sweet. He cried while reading it. I was shocked at the depth of feeling and his unabashed openness.It got me thinking about love and need. Social media portrays a curated journey through everyone’s personal brand. Our vacation photos. Our best moments, edited to perfection. Conversely, our needs look weak. Need equals needy. Suspect. Demanding, incomplete, immature. Definitely not sovereign. Social media makes us look like invulnerable movie stars. But we’re not, or at least we shouldn’t be.We don’t want to become too dependent on our lovers, but having needs doesn’t make us needy. It makes us normal. Needs make us human. Deeper still, when we love someone, need is but a facet of that love. I thought back to someone I loved and needed. I wonder if she saw my love as mere need. As a demand. As pressure. And from her perspective, it may have felt like obligation.But what an incomplete picture of my love and experience. A mere fragment of the splendor, of the all-too-temporary joining of our lives.I saw her. I delighted in her. I loved her so much. I was all-in. I remember the sweet innocence of her eyes. Adorable pictures from different ages. Her strength and resolve. Her divine beauty and sublime humor. Her patient mothering skills. She was resplendent and I cherished her. Yet my deep affection for her is not the whole of the correction, of the reclamation. She and her child awoke my soul in a real sense. I had loved before, but suddenly there were two people who mattered more to me than anyone else. I would have done anything for them—to care for them, to shepherd them, to protect them. And there was nothing more I wanted to do than to be around them, to share my life.I still had my personal mission, my purpose outside of them—my interests, friends, art, and work. But they were the why behind everything. I didn’t consciously see this at the time. Some of it came clearer in their absence. Not just because they had awoken my soul, but because I felt such an affinity for both of them. They were just home. All of my best latent characteristics were unearthed, unfrozen and coming online. I truly didn’t know I possessed husband/father energy. Patience and presence. The desire to serve and sacrifice. And yet, in losing them, I felt like those superlatives were seen as liabilities. Patience and loyalty were seen as self-abandonment. But I didn’t even have a name for such experiences. I just knew I would move mountains for love.I felt deep pain because I chose to be vulnerable and I lost in love. And yet the sense that the culture pathologized the very human drives that came online added insult and confusion. And that’s why I call it reclamation. Because I unwittingly internalized these messages. As I challenge and release these false beliefs, I feel like I reclaim my peace and sense of self.What dark magic is afoot when virtue is mistaken for vice? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit greenmang.substack.com/subscribe