I'm still learning...a lot...surprise.
About me. About life. About how to let go. About how to love deeper. First and foremost, myself.
When you have spent 40 years taking care of yourself, from a young age when you were the one to grocery shop, cook and take care of the family when your mother got Hepatitis C when you were 10, to living on your own for 20 years and whether that was changing a tire or doing repairs around the house or moving furniture, there are some things ingrained in your mode of operating that you never think twice about.
I am used to doing it myself. Always. Period. On Everything.
This means when a man is walking behind me, I don't think to let him get the door. If my suitcase is coming off the baggage claim, I get it. I have lifted it up 7 flights of stairs when I stayed at hotel that didn't have an elevator, what's picking it up off the baggage claim dispenser? Nothing, so why would I wait for one of my guy friends who came to pick me up at the airport pull it off? I honestly don't think anything when I do these things. I just do them. It isn't to prove something. It isn't to make him feel less manly or not be able to show an action of chivalry, it's simply because I wake up every day and don't think of anyone else doing my tasks. If it needs to be done I figure out a way to do it. Period. If it requires muscles, I find the strength to do it, a bit at a time until I get it done or I hold my breath and do it in one feel swoop because I don't believe in being a wimp.
Yet, the truth is, I was never taught to ask my Dad for help, because the answer would have been first a sound of irritation, frustration for me interrupting him, and annoyance because I was such a bother, and then secondly, he would have asked if it could have waited because he was always busy at his desk in the middle of something. If there was a remote chance that he didn't respond that way then my mother was upset because I didn't ask her if I could ask Dad for help or she would say that we could do it ourselves and didn't need help. She simply controlled everything. Pssssssttt, yah, a bunch of hassle and it left you wishing you had died trying to do it yourself. So I learned young to not ask for help and just do it. With a grateful heart.
I got this reminder again yesterday, I do what I always do, get the door myself as I exit the office of a friends business. And he said: No Misty, really, please let me. I laugh and say I am sorry, I truly didn't mean to do it on purpose.
But the truth is that sometimes, I just wanna cry. I wanna learn to be better at this. I wanna learn to allow myself to be taken care of. I wanna learn to let someone else share the load with me. I wanna learn to not have to do it all myself. I wanna learn to ask for help. I wanna learn to not feel like I am an irritation or frustration or annoyance to you. And deep at my core, I don't want to be thought less of for asking for help.
I know I can do life alone. I am not afraid of doing life alone. I left that scary fear September 1997 when I moved to Texas being told I would die within 2 Years. I faced that fear and more, so doing life alone doesn't scare me.
But I also know the value of doing life together. And this is what drives me to want to work on me.
I get these are my own internal issues, but I share because we all have life's experiences that shape us to be who we are. It may be a lifelong process to get to the point that we overcome them. But I am committed to doing that. I believe in healing one layer at a time and I accept that my childhood wounds follow me every single day. I know they have created me to be who I am. I am blessed to the strong courageous, generous and loving person I am today because of the tough days I have faced.
But even more then that, I am grateful for my guy friends who continue to show me every day that they love me for me and are patient through each layer that I work through.
#TheLifeOfMisty #MyStory #LifeLessons #OneLessonAtATime#MyHealingJourney
