Comes from Snow Patrol's "Lightning Strike'" a 16-minute song at the end of the band's album, "A Hundred Million Suns." It goes like this:
"And in the middle of the flood I felt my worth when you held on to me like I was your little life raft. Please know that you were mine as well."
In my 32 years, this best sums up what I think most of us are looking for - to need and be needed simultaneously. To feel the worth of being able to selflessly give to someone else who we rely on for similar sustenance.
There's nowhere I'm skilled enough to go on this topic without slipping into a graceless melancholy, but every time I hear that song, I'm struck by that lyric and just felt compelled to share tonight.
So in this holiday season when we tend fixate inward upon our insecurities about our worth (material and otherwise) to those we care for, and as we all grope for meaning in the wake of a far-reaching national tragedy, my wish for you is this: give freely when you are needed, and let those who you rely upon know what they mean to you.
We're only as alone as we allow ourselves to feel. Just reach past it. You might be surprised to find outstretched fingers at the other end of your grasp.
