The Collision Between Want & Need
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“Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.”
Irish Proverb
I’m staying put. Yes, after floating my dilemma your way, I’ve decided. I will not fly to Buffalo this weekend for Husband’s cousin’s wedding.
Here’s the thing though: I still want to go to Buffalo. So much so that it’s torturing me a bit that I’m not going.
But here’s the other thing: I need to stay. My instinct, my overwhelming instinct, is to remain here at home with my three creatures.
I think I’d forgotten about the profound collision between want and need. How there are things we desire that butt up against things we instinctively need.
As a mother, I feel this collision all the time. This battle between desire and duty, between self and other, between soul and should. But it’s not this simple, is it? As a person, as a mother, desire so often is the same thing as duty, self becomes other and other, self. In this place, this place beyond childhood, soul is laced with (debilitating and divine) shoulds.
And so. I don’t just want to go to Buffalo. I also want to stay. I need to stay. Yes, want and need don’t always combat each other after all.
Thank you for allowing me to wade through this dilemma, to muck through the confusion that grips me even now. I don’t pretend to see clearly these days. Things are beautiful and blurry and I’m doing (and deciding) the best I can.
Whatever that means.
_______________________________
In life, do you often feel the collision between want and need? Do you agree that it is hard sometimes to distinguish one from the other? Do you think I’ve made the wrong decision? (Is there such thing as a wrong decision here?)
Have fun! Rent a couple of movies and have a slumber party just for you girls!
Personally, I think you made the right decision. I could tell by your earlier post that your gut was telling you to stay. Sometimes saying “no” to others is a way of saying “yes” to yourself.
Enjoy your weekend with your girls.
xo
jocelyn
There is no such thing as a wrong decision in this case. You are doing what you feel is best.
I always struggle with want and need. I never need to do something or have something. Most of the time it is want. Want wins out a lot! Wish it didn’t.
Enjoy your time w/ your girls! I have missed quite a few weddings over the past two years. My husband is the best man in a wedding in Anchorage this summer, and I won’t be going to that, either. I think people understand that having tiny babies makes travel a challenge.
I feel that collision on a daily basis, and whatever is on the “mothering” side of things usually wins out.
It sounds to me like you made the right decision for you. Someday the pull of the “want” (or is it the “need” because you’re right — it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes) will be stronger.
No wrong decisions in much of parenting. Only going with our gut, case by case, when want and need (and many other factors) collide.
Enjoy your weekend with your girls!
“As a person, as a mother, desire so often is the same thing as duty, self becomes other and other, self.”
thanks for these words today, aidan. they offered sense on a morning that has felt utterly chaotic.
Definitely no such thing as a bad decision here — you can only make the call that’s right for you, and it sounds like you have. Of course there’s disappointment that you won’t be in Buffalo to celebrate, but you’re doing the best you can — and if that means staying put, stay put. xoxo
I for one, enjoy reading about your wading adventures. Sometimes they help me decipher my own situations…other times they reassure me that I am not the only one “muck through the confusion… I don’t pretend to see clearly these days”
PS: No wrong decisions in this case (or ever?)
Yup, want and need are evil twins NOT separated at birth! How are you doing, my friend? I’ve been somewhat out of the loop lately…
Since becoming a mother, I’ve realized even MORE just how much want and need collides. Way too often over here, especially as I am trying to “grow up,” whatever that means, but still remain true to who I am. It’s tricky, this thing called adulthood.