Learning to Ask for Help

I'm not sure why asking for help is one of the hardest things to do in life, but it is. 

Is it that it feels like admitting defeat? Is it the feeling of failure? Something else? 

Personally, I'm an only child who has lived on my own for most of my life. I'm used to doing everything on my own and I am more or less good with it. Also, I have trust issues. If I do it, I know it's getting done the way I want it to get done. 

But as I write this, there is a stranger cleaning my kitchen. I hired her from an app and immediately started second-guessing the decision. What did it mean to say I needed help? 

I flashed to my female elders. My mother - the perpetual stay-at-home mom who rarely worked outside the home while I was growing up. She would tell you that that's simply how it's supposed to be. She would call herself "traditional" and "a rule follower." 

And then there's my grandmother - the Italian one who barely cleared five feet in height but almost single-handedly took care of her husband through years of illness and his eventual death that came almost 20 years before her own. She lived alone those last years and died at the age of 97. She didn't even stop driving until a year or so before she died.  She did everything herself.
The first sign that anything was wrong, that her health just might be declining, was that she accepted help around the house from one of my aunts. 

Is that who I was becoming by hiring a professional cleaner? 

I could see my mother tsking and shaking her head. Maybe even offering to help herself. As if that wouldn't be even more humiliating than hiring a stranger. 

Fundamentally, I know this is different. I work full time. I have a busy vending schedule that is starting to heat up. Earlier this year, both my partner and I had minor surgeries within a month of each other. We both needed to heal. The end of last year was also extremely busy for me.

All of that to say that I haven't had the spoons or the energy to clean well in months. I've done the basics - laundry, dishes, that sort of thing. Everything else has just sort of piled up. 

So in preparation for this stranger from an app, I started organizing in earnest. There were certain tasks I simply could not leave to someone else. They wouldn't know what to do with all the junk on my dining room table, or my craft supplies. So much of the past week has been spent getting ready to have someone else clean. 

That feels weirder than hiring this woman in the first place. But I maintain that I wasn't cleaning exactly - I was organizing and making things easier for her. 

When this is over, I know I will feel better. The place will look good and I will be happy. Certainly, if this was anyone else, I would be supportive and tell them that of course there's nothing wrong with asking for help. I might even say I was proud of them. 

So why can't I say that to myself? Why must the self-talk always be so negative? Why can't I offer myself the same grace I would offer anyone else?  If I could answer that, I could probably solve all the world's problems. 

Anyway, this is my reminder to be kind to yourself. Give yourself that grace and that support. You deserve it. As do I.