Asking for help

Before K, I didn't like asking for help. I figured it out by myself. I found ways around needing people. I didn't like to show what I thought was weakness for not being able to take care of myself.

Starting with the simple act of making K, I needed support and help. And I wasn't able to power through on my own. (okay, enough of the innuendo!). I needed to get off the island of DIY and swim over to the mainland, where people hung out together, supported each other, and didn't judge me for my weakness (heck, they didn't even consider it weakness--what?!?).

And that lesson has come back to me again and again in motherhood. When I go all "island," I end up alone, starving, sad, and...well, that's plenty, for me.

Mamas get a ton of hormones and permanent changes when we get pregnant and have babies. Couldn't one of those changes be that we gain the ability to ask for help more easily? I'm putting in my request to evolution.

Before I had K I was told by many people, regarding my lack of help-asking, "Don't say no for me." Whoa. I always think I am saving someone from having to reject me or keeping them from feeling guilty when they don't want to help but can't say no. But I am learning, as someone who likes to help a LOT, that when I don't get asked, then I can't flex my helper muscle. And then I use it incorrectly and end up being not as helpful anyway. But if you ask, and I can help without compromising my own priorities, then I want to...I don't want to know that mamas are at home, under a pile of kids, feeling lonely, unsupported, hungry, unwashed, and desperate. Even if it's doing laundry, I want to be of service. And if I can't help when you ask, keep asking.

So I'm letting go of my secret apartment on the island, and I'm looking for a new, permanent home, on the mainland, with all of you. I hope you'll join me, if you don't already live there.