Blogember: Day 1!

When my girl, Tahnie, asked on twitter who would be interested in doing a daily blog challenge in November I was like ME I WOULD LIKE TO DO THAT THING because hey, it takes away the true horror of having to come up with things to write about on my own and I’m about to be unemployed anyway, so I might as well.

Today we’re sharing one of the best lessons life has shown you.

My first inclination was to toss my arms up in immediate defeat or crack a few jokes and toss in a couple gifs of infomercial people not being able to drink milk like human beings. Because I’m bad at feelings? Not having them, let’s be real. I have about a million annoyingly intense feelings every second of the day. Sharing them, however, is a different story, so sharing personal feelings about life lessons? Nope.

I thought about it for a while and decided to just do it. In the end, I came up with this: It’s okay to accept help from other people.

This might seem like a no brainer to most people but I’ve always been the helper, not the helpee. I will do absolutely anything for the people that I love and ask for nothing in return. I might have a bit of a martyr complex, who’s to say? It has absolutely led to me allowing people to take advantage of me, but I didn’t care and I couldn’t stop.

I don’t need you to help me get this stuck lid off the jar and I don’t need you to talk to me about this horrible thing that happened. I’m good. I’m great. Let’s talk about what you need.

Then, about 5 years ago, I woke up and my leg felt kind of…off. I spent a lot of the work day walking back and forth from my office to the bathroom in a bunch of weird and different ways to try and shake the feeling. The next morning, I woke up and my leg didn’t feel like anything at all. It was this part of my body that existed – I mean, there it was! But mocking me and not working.

I went to some doctors, had some blood work and MRIs and spinal taps before finally getting told that I had had Multiple Sclerosis.

I would sit on my couch and stare at my toes, willing them to move. They didn’t. I would also spend that time feeling guilty that I had needed other people to drive me places. I found myself apologizing to people for not being able to press down on the gas pedal and feeling ashamed of what was happening to me. On mother’s day, I called my mom in hysterics because I had been unable to take myself to a store to buy her a present and while I had tried to bake her cupcakes instead, I simply couldn’t stand on one leg long enough to get it done.

I didn’t tell anyone besides those that I couldn’t avoid telling. But from that small group, I needed things. I needed my sister to take out my trash. I needed my mother to hold my hand when I had the spinal tap. I needed my dad to bring me groceries. I needed my coworker to get the paper I had just printed. I needed a lot of things and I had no choice but to ask for them.

This weird thing happened, though. No matter how much I help I asked for, the people in my life still loved me and they still did things like bring me cans of dry shampoo spray when I couldn’t stand and shower, even if they maybe didn’t feel like it that day.

Now, so many years later, long after my leg started working again and long after the time when most people would ever know anything was wrong with me, I still find myself struggling to ask for what I need. Or want. But life taught me that I can. That it’s okay to not always be a rock. That I can ask for help and the world won’t simply stop spinning.