“When it comes down to it, that’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.” ~ Rebecca Walker

I’m not asking for much—all I want is someone to just fuckin’ show up for me.

This isn’t going to be about how independent of a woman I am, or how self-reliant. This won’t even be about finding my “other half” or being such a fierce feminist that I debate whether I even actually need a man.

Because the truth is—I am fuckin’ tired. Exhausted, really. I’m tired of not having someone just show up for me in the simplest way possible, and the only thing I really want is someone to just be here.

I want someone who can show up in the evening, and stay until morning—but more than that, I just want a life with someone. I want to sit in bed next to my lover on a windy, snowy morning while he reads, as I lay my head against him, letting my dark hair trail over his arm. I want to feel the way his morning stubble tickles the soft skin of my collarbone.

I just want someone to fuckin’ show up for me.

Sex is great, and adventure is better, but life with someone who has your back is the best magic there is.

I want to sit over take-out containers of Chinese food, scroll through Netflix and have nights where our biggest decision is which movie we are going to watch. I want to talk throughout the day about what we will do in the evening, and who’s going to cook.

I want to hear about your plans and your schedule, and I want to spend quiet Saturday nights roaming the market aisles laughing as we collect the ingredients for the meal that we’re going to enjoy later.

I want you to see me in the first morning light, and I want to feel your strong hand slide in between my warm breasts and you nudge yourself even closer to me, meeting me in the moment when dreams and reality collide.

I just want someone to fuckin’ show up for me.

Life isn’t all quiet and bliss, but it’s made up of moments of the “in between,” because anyone can smile when the sun is shining—but what I’m after is someone who will give me a reason to dance in the rain.

I want to have someone to take care of me while I’m sick—someone who will stop and pick up medicine and my favorite drink on the way home just because he knows what I need.

And I want to take care of him, even if he never thought he would need it. I want to bring him a cold washcloth when he’s fevered, and run my hand alongside his sweet face as I kiss his forehead letting him know that I will be there no matter what.

I’m done with being alone and pretending that I can somehow find what I want between the distractions and chaos of online dating and Facebook profile checking, because I’m so over the superficial and way beyond the inconsequential.

What I want is the real deal—not just someone who shows up, but someone who stays.

I want to navigate family holidays and laugh together in the middle of the night when we both can’t sleep. I want to kiss him first thing as he walks through the door and lay my head against his chest as the moon shines overhead.

I want to plan a future with him—vacations, dreams, ambitions and the sacrifices to make them happen. I want someone who I can build with, someone who can sit with me in the quiet and just simply be.

I want a man who I won’t need to explain my every thought to, because somehow he’ll just get it.

I want to bump hips as we navigate my small kitchen, and I want to see the way laugh-lines break out around his eyes as I turn up the music and dance, moving my body alongside his, tempting him to let his desire make the most of this moment.

Because all I’m really after is just someone to fuckin’ show up for me.

Show up when I need someone, when I need help—when I don’t know what I need. Be there without me asking him to be, not because he has to, but because there isn’t anywhere else that he would rather be.

I want to have an emergency contact, not just on the forms we have to fill out, but in life. I want a lifeline—someone who will always be there to help me with the things that evade me. And if something happens, and I find myself stranded on a dark road at midnight after having drinks with friends, I want to know that if I call him, he’ll be grabbing his coat before I even say what’s wrong.

I want to be a priority. I want to be important.

I want to someone worth showing up for.

Sure, we can make this relationship as difficult as all of our others have been—and we can go in and out of intimacy, never really appreciating one another—but all of that wears on a soul like mine.

And the thing is—I’ve had enough.

Because in the end, all of the passion and love in the world don’t really matter if someone can’t show up for the person they say they care about.

But more than that, I know that I’m worth it—I know that I am one helluva woman, and that I deserve someone to show up for me every day in all of the small little ways that people often take for granted, but that end up meaning the most.

I want a partner—but more than anything in the world, all I really want is someone to just fuckin’ show up for me—and never leave.

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**Author’s note: Love and gratitude to the woman who inspired this piece—may you find someone who will just fuckin’ show up for you soon, and never leave.

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Relephant bonusland:

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Author: Kate Rose

Image: Flickr/Silentmind8

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina