is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
H-E-double hockey sticks-P
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 I have a hard time asking for help.
And if you know me (even a little bit), this is not news. If you know me really well (or even more than that), this has made you roll your eyes many, many times -- at Thanksgiving dinners with a child sweaty and sound asleep in a sling on my chest when I couldn't scoop my own mashed potatoes but tried desperately to do it myself thanks very much anyway, and in college when I sobbed into the echoey stall because I couldn't wash my own hair with a cast on my broken arm until my roommate forced her way into the shower with me and told me to breathe while she shampooed and conditioned and later blow-dried and brushed my hair for me, and when I've sputtered into paralyzing panic attacks over mice in the (shiver) apartment and into humor-masked rages over jackass men and when the little unattended girl in the restaurant where I waited tables in grad school jumped up and under the tray I was holding full of Mother's Day mimosas and champagne and Old Fashioneds and sodas and hit the tray, spilling the drinks all over me and the tables around me and thank the goddesses, shards of glass narrowly missing her but not the concrete floor and I just needed someone to smile at my customers for a moment while I gasped after I cleaned it all up and before I returned to my tables soaked through with orange juice and bubbly and red wine. So yes, you all are aware. I am fiercely independent.
It has served me well often. It has moved me through and helped me rise above. It has helped me survive, persevere, buck up, pack up, walk away, come home. As often as it has helped, however, it has also hurt.
Independence doesn't have to, but often does, I've have learned through many dollars in therapy co-pays, precluded reaching out for help. Knowing when to ask for help, especially when it is hardest, is as important for me as knowing when I really can go it alone.
Slowly, surely, with practice and some wincing, I am trying to reach out. I am trying to tune in to what I do need and when it is OK to ask for it. When my friends and family say they want to be there, I am really trying to say OK rather than nod politely and note-to-self that I will never take them up on their generous offers.
So today -- and this is small and significant, which is how I like my lessons these days -- I asked a friend who loves music like I love music to please send me a mellowish and nice song. A feel-good song. A song that would speak to where I am today. A song that would help me move into tomorrow peacefully, calmly after some real turbulence in the days behind me. I asked for a Song of the Day, please, in the spirit of a little help from my friends.
And this is the song I got. How did I miss this song on the Oscars? It is so lovely, so perfect for right now, it is speaking so much to me, that I have had it on repeat for almost an hour.
And considering my last post, I love the congruity of the image of the boat. That wasn't planned. Just a little bit of that daily divinity I so adore, so appreciate and so welcome. The best part is, it came my way when I asked for a little help.
I am learning. Slowly. And tonight, I am listening. Serenely.
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