You are allowed to need people

You are the one who helps. That role fits you so completely that the reverse has become almost unthinkable.

You will show up for anyone. You will drive across town, stay up late, drop your own plans, carry the heavy end without being asked.

But let someone do the same for you, and something in you tenses and refuses. "I am okay," you say. "Do not worry about me."

You have built an identity as the capable one, the giver, the person who does not need. And somewhere in there, needing began to feel like weakness, or like a debt you would rather not owe.

So you carry things alone that you would never let a friend carry alone. You hold your own hard days in silence and call it not wanting to be a burden.

Here is what that costs you. It costs you the particular closeness that only comes from letting someone in when you are not at your strongest.

People feel trusted when you let them help you. By always being the one who gives, you may be quietly keeping the people you love at arm's length.

So here is the permission, and it may be harder to take than to give. You are allowed to need things from other people.

You are allowed to ask for help before you are drowning. To let someone bring the meal, hold the worry, carry the heavy end for you this time.

Needing others is not the collapse of your competence. It is the ordinary way human beings stay close to one another.

Let someone in this week. Not because you have failed to manage, but because being cared for is a thing you are allowed to have, too.

Maya Angelou said to ask for what you want and be prepared to get it. She was not only talking about boldness, but about the quiet permission to have wants and to voice them. You are allowed to be a woman with needs, and to say them out loud.

What would I let someone help me with, if I believed it would not make me a burden?

See you tomorrow.