#61: "i need you"
a true sacrifice is an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy
Above is an audio recording of me reading this post for those who prefer listening. Thank you for being here! And thank you, Philipp Kaspar, for the intro music.
We sat at the bar for dinner. Still or sparkling? asked our waiter. Both are on the house, he confirmed. Sparkling, then, we both said surprised. Sparkling water on the house? We must be in for a treat.
A few years ago, my lifelong best friend and I started a tradition of taking each other out to really nice dinners for our birthdays and using the meal as a biannual life update/check in. Not to say we only talk twice a year. I just mean that these are dinners we enter with a level of intensity, dedication, and depth. We show up knowing that a) we will order too much food, b) absolutely anything goes conversationally, and c) we will probably end up sending our shared therapist/coach an appreciation text for how grateful we are to speak the same language as a result of the work we’ve done with her for the past 8 years.
The piece that stuck out the most to me at this dinner was our conversation about who we get to watch life with. It almost doesn’t matter what we go through, we said. The best part is always getting to chat about it before, during, and after. To have constants in your life that will be equally as entertained by the happenings of each day as you are. To have mirrors that reflect back to you the changes that you’ve undergone. To have people that will be on the other end of the phone when you need to be talked off a ledge or to have the honor of being on the receiving end of an “I need you call.”
Last year, I was in LA in the winter. I had a lot going on in my family, a creative project that I was working on with friends had taken off, and I was falling in love. I was overwhelmed and frustrated for feeling self-focused and also frustrated that I didn’t fully feel like I was given the grace of the self-focus that felt necessary for this period of time. I was oscillating between why me, genuinely feeling passionate about what I was working on, and also wanting to show up more fully for my family and friends.
I was in over one day when my lifelong best friend texted me, “I need you.”
It was the most clarifying message I could have received. It left no room for indecision and granted me the gift of being able to show up as the friend that I desire to be. Long gone were the hesitations around how I should be spending my time. I had a definitive calling to clear my calendar for the rest of the day and show the fuck up. And so I did.
We went to a yoga class, cried at a lookout point in Hollywood, and went to a late dinner. We both needed it. I was so steeped in my own bullshit that this vulnerable ask was exactly what I needed to have my head pulled out from under.
I have shared this moment with several friends and family members to express my needs in relationship. I deeply value honesty and vulnerability. And while we all do our very best to be perceptive to the needs of others, none of us are mind readers. Sometimes we need others to tell us when they need us.
An “I need you” call is a gift to both people. For the one in need, the gift comes in the form of the support that’s desired. For the recipient of the call, the gift comes in the form of accountability. We all aspire to be the best friends, partners, children, siblings, colleagues, and parents that we possibly can. But sometimes the smattering of life’s requirements get in the way of our relationship-oriented priorities. So a call from a friend with an offer to get to show up in the way that you ultimately desire is truly the greatest gift to receive.
It’s gentle. It’s kind. It’s direct. It’s healing.
Codependency comes from an entanglement of emotional lives, unspoken expectations, disappointment, and the perpetuation of a cycle of attachment and aversion. An “I need you” call gets you out of these traps. It’s an explicit communication of a need with an implicit ability to opt in or out of the delivery. It’s a vulnerable ask to make and an honorable feat to step up to.
I was on the receiving end of another “I need you” call recently that required me to put one out too. We all got closer in the process. The sobriety felt when we are able to communicate in this way is clarifying. Things fall into place. We get to contribute in places of deep objective need for which the recipient says “thank you” instead of a judgement-based “good job.”1
We get sent a lot of paradoxical messages about relationships in today’s society. On the one hand, there has never been more rhetoric around the importance of “self-care” and “self-friendship.” And on the other, we see glaringly obvious evidence pointing to relationships with others being the #1 indicator of happiness across our lifespans. So what does that mean? Is there a sacrifice that we need to make between perfecting our relationship to self or to others?
No. That’s the short answer. There is no sacrifice in the colloquial sense that we use it. We often mis-use sacrifice because we overemphasize it’s negative connotation. “Relationships always require sacrifice.” “Having children requires you to sacrifice your sleep.” “That’s just the sacrifice you have to make.”
The word “sacrifice” means an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.2
We often overemphasize the loss side of the sacrifice equation at the expense of internalizing what we have to gain through the process. A sacrifice doesn’t mean you let go of something in order to gain something else of the same value. Through a sincere sacrifice, you actually gain something of higher value.
And you can see this through an “I need you” call.
On the day that my friend called last winter, I may have had to shift around my schedule and regroup on meetings, workflow, and plans, but what I gained was way greater. I gained deeper connection in my friendship and the feeling of contribution that stems from knowing I got to show up as the human I want to be in relationships.
In the relationships I hold closest, I don’t feel like I’ve lost a single thing. I’ve only gained: love, value, vulnerability, commitment, integrity, honesty, virtue.
I started this post with a prompt from my sarcastic brother who told me I should write about “the meaning of life” when I was stumped on where to begin this week. I shrugged it off only to later ask my boyfriend the same question and get THE SAME answer back, at which point I decided to commit to the bit.
To me, the meaning of life is getting to sit on the sidelines with a few people that you share your whole self with and watch the miraculous circus of life unfold. We all have our own lessons to learn. Some eerily similar. Others with vast differences. But regardless of the life circumstances that we’re going through, the best part is always the debrief car ride on the way home, the phone call with a long distance friend to exchange notes, and the sleepless pillow talk between two little crackheads in our witching hours.
The meaning of life is to be a witness to all that you have to gain from sharing life lessons with the people that you love.
That’s all for today!
Thank you for getting Caught Up in Char’s Web with me. Catch you again sometime soon!
Charlotte
Xandra’s Curation Corner
Xandra Beverlin is an incredible art curator at Pace Gallery, co-founder of PULSE, and dear friend, who so generously pulls pieces for this newsletter each week. I text her a few short bullets about the main themes of Char’s Web and she replies with the most thoughtful articulations of the artists that come to mind. This is my favorite part of writing my newsletter. Do yourself the favor of reading her curator’s notes!
“I love the simplicity of this theme, specifically with its collaborative aspect. The artist it immediately brought to mind is Jenna Gribbon, a figurative painter known primarily for her depictions of her partner Mackenzie Scott. As you’ll see, these range from theatrical scenes to blissfully everyday portrayals, heightening the extension of their relationship. Her work captures the epitome of expressing vulnerability with a partner (or friend) while also portraying innate (non-idealistic? messy?) comfort with someone — which I think taps into your theme quite perfectly.”
Char’s Web Song of the Week
All past issues of Char’s Web are available for reading here. A few samples below…
#1: A first of many.
#53: spend your time chips wisely
#56: do it for yourself
#58: permission to reinvent yourself
#59: there is no distance
Kishimi, Ichiro, and Fumitake Koga. The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness. Translated by Alexander O. Smith. New York: Atria Books, 2018.
Google search results for “define sacrifice.”
This is so so so beautiful! I love it and YOU