Okay, so today’s post is very personal. Only a handful of very privileged people know about “covers” but I’m putting it out there today, for the sake of humanity. I know, I know, so selfless. Here goes… Covers are what lay-people would call my security blanket. However, they are not that. They are Covers. And yes, they are plural despite the obvious fact that there is only one of “them”. Perhaps their plurality represents the infinite, abundant universe, or perhaps I was 2 when I named them and didn’t yet have a strong grasp of the English language. Regardless, throughout my life, Covers has been a sacred, almost holy entity in my life. On many levels Covers represents love, security, comfort, and well love. Needless to say, when my now ex-boyfriend used them to wipe his face I COMPLETELY freaked out. What the hell man?! Yes, at age 33, I freaked out over Covers.
While I was upset at his misunderstanding of the sanctity of Covers, I quickly got over the whole ordeal and we had a good laugh. That lightheartedness, however, was not exactly easy to come by. Which reminds me to get to something of a point with this post. So in my quest to make feeling good a priority on this 34th year, I have been diligently and almost annoyingly getting curious about anything and everything that bothers me. “What’s that about?” has been a recurring question in my head. On one level I know that everything that bothers me out there always comes back to something in here. When I can clear up the misunderstanding within myself, the outside world tends to become a kinder, gentler place.
So, having ended a long-ish relationship in the not-too-distant past, I’ve been having a LOT of opportunities to ask myself, what’s that about? And then repeating ad nauseum. What I figured out was that in my past relationship I had quite a lot of attachment going on, which upon further exploration appears to stem from the false perception that the relationship was meeting a need that I myself didn’t believe I could meet. Hmm… is that true? Basically there was a lot of neediness and I’m not sure about the love part. Not that there wasn’t love, but it seems I mistook needing for loving. Not uncommon in our society. Interestingly, if you think about it, “need” is almost by definition a lack of love. Well, it certainly is a lack of something, which is what I felt much of the time. Having this clarity around the situation now is kind of painful. I mean what happened to me in there? I didn’t start out needy at all, but something switched and it triggered all sorts of grasping, attachment, and well, suffering.
Right, Covers. After this big realization, and subsequent attempt to not completely feel like shit about it, something else occurred to me. A memory of Covers snuck in and blew me away. When I was in 6th grade my family went on a short vacation and I somehow forgot to bring Covers. It was horrible, I couldn’t sleep well, I felt empty at night, just completely off. When I got home and back to Covers I had a serious talk with myself. Approaching womanhood and 7th grade, I knew something was weird about my relationship with Covers. I was completely attached. I couldn’t really function or go to sleep without them. Something had to be done. Somehow at age 13, I made the decision to go a year without covers. I told myself that after a year without them I could bring them back into my life, sort of like reintroducing lion cubs into the wild. On some deeper level I knew that needing covers didn’t serve me, and it certainly wasn’t loving towards Covers. In fact it was needing; loves subtle opposite.
My 14th year was difficult at first, not sleeping with Covers, but I did it, I made it through the entire year. And then at the end of the summer I took Covers out of my closest and brought them back into my life. I knew I didn’t need them, which made having them back so sweet. My love for them wasn’t tangled up in all the needing. It was just love, take em’ or leave em’.
