It is slowly dawning on me that I need, I need, to be able to care for someone. Otherwise I am untethered and adrift.

I need to have someone who I am taking care of and trying to make smile and they need to be real. I need to be able to make them a cup of tea, it doesn’t work via distance, and there needs to be genuine compassion, genuine aroha.

Maybe it doesn’t need to be romantic either. Maybe it doesn’t even need to be another human being. In the past animals, ecosystems, and musical compositions were things I cared for. But I would prefer for it to be a loved one.

As I am growing older little things are getting bigger. How I talk to people, how I pay attention, how I manaaki the people I connect with has become very important to me. It is also what I admire in others.

Just two months back I was living in a connected community, a home. My roles included learner, teacher, mentor, advisor, friend, sensei, whanaunga, partner, customer, confidant, and purveyor of ruffling pats (for the dogs, especially the pups and giants with whom I identify).

Now my roles are just learner, advisor, business partner, customer (big emphasis on customer when travelling). This is all hindsight by the way; I am becoming consciously aware of it while writing this post.

What do I do with this new understanding? Is it something by which I can now navigate? The skeptic in me asks if these feelings are real or yet another avatar of resistance. Not wishing to take jerky-action I will sit with the feelings for a while and see.

But if I came with an instruction manual it might say this: being brought a cup of tea in a swanky café is the opposite of what I need.