Reading · I am fine, really

My sister and I used to think our father was a spy when we were kids. Or a killer. There were more options, but these were at the top of the list. He taught us two main things:

Not to tell anyone anything.

Not to need anyone for anything.

Like any good teacher, he practiced what he preached. He took the “not telling anyone anything” part to levels that explained our hypothesis. He never told us where he was going. He could be going to the supermarket because we had run out of yogurt, but to the question, “Dad, where are you going?” he would always reply: “Somewhere” That is why it wasn’t unusual for us to think he was secretly working for the government. Then buying some milk to cover it up.

He gave us these instructions to carefully follow: hide in a corner, do not talk to anyone, achieve everything, then come back with that everything so I can show off. If I could not do everything by myself, if I needed help, if I asked for a hand, if I became dependent on another person just for a second, that would inevitably turn me into a waste of space. And that is how easily you turn a child into a woman who tries to carry her new sofa up the stairs to a third floor by herself.

Being raised to believe your value lives inside your independence can become dangerous. So can putting all your worth into being able to assemble an IKEA furniture by yourself. Not even letting yourself watch a YouTube video.

It gets worse as you grow older. You assume your friend is calling you useless when he offers to pick you up at the airport. You give a threatening look to the cashier when she helps you put your groceries into bags. You see help as an accusation. And you see kindness as judgment.

Thinking that needing others is bad can especially fuck you up in situations where you actually need others. I remember saying I could handle the sofa to the third floor, the abuse, my childhood trauma, the master’s degree, my new situationship, living alone in a new city, cleaning a toilet or , worse, the fridge. And the truth is I couldn’t. So I had my first panic attack. Alone, of course. Because I could handle it.

The reality of spending your whole life collecting independence medals is that there comes a point when they are too heavy to carry around. So when the time comes when you need help, because the time always comes, there is no one around. Or worse, the people around you are clapping for your independence, so they cannot give you a hand anymore.

So you find yourself on the bathroom floor, in a fetal position, rationalizing breathing when it is a subconscious act for a reason. Begging for someone to give you a hand. You don’t care anymore if it is the person you love most in the world, the cashier, or even your partner. You really don’t care who it is. You just want someone to come in and prove that your body was right.

You want to yell so badly that you got it all wrong. Everything. Because maybe needing people is not weakness. Maybe being a person alone is too much. And you cannot take it anymore. Not the shopping bags, the sofa, or the years of abuse. You want to yell, please: make me dinner when I am tired, pick me up from the train, or from work at 3 p.m. Please help me with the bags. And with this IKEA Billy bookshelf that, apparently, every adult person should own. Because I really want to be a real person. But not a lonely one.

There’s this Fleabag monologue that made me think. Because, (probably to no one’s surprise), I am fond of Fleabag. So when I heard Fleabag say she wanted someone to tell her what to wear, what to eat, what to believe, who to love, how to live, I don’t think she was asking to be controlled. I think she was tired. Tired of carrying herself alone. And for the first time, I understood that wanting guidance is not always weakness. Because sometimes carrying yourself becomes unbearable.

My worth is not defined by the things I do alone. And why the hell do I even want to be worth it if I am alone in the first place?

So it’s been a minute since I discovered life is better if I carefully go against every single thing my dad taught me. And life has been treating me pretty well since then.

Actually, something just happened to me as I write this. I am at the library right now. And there is this kind security man I am friends with at the library. He knows I am writing a book about what my father was doing as a spy. That is not exactly what the book is about, but anyway, he knows I am a writer. So he introduced me to the library’s director, because he had talked to her about me. She was so kind to me and said that I could present my book, fanzine, or anything I wanted there if I wanted to. Then another kind person at the library (everyone is kind in this library) gave me a newspaper as a gift because I told her the other day that I was so happy I had been published talking about my grandfather in such an important publication.

The security man introducing me to someone else. The director helping me with my book. The assistant giving me a newspaper because she thought of me. Everything comes down to needing people. Because everything has always been about people.

We talk to people. We share with people. We yell at people. We laugh with people, sometimes at people too. We introduce each other to library directors. We give each other newspapers. We hold the other end of the sofa.

Even me right now. Alone. Writing. I would be nothing without you. Even a solitary action such as writing is born out of the idea of having a reader. I wouldn’t be here right now writing if you didn’t exist there right now reading this. Or at least I wouldn’t be writing anything coherent, because what I write for myself is something different. It feels like vomiting, kind of disturbing and disgusting, involuntary, and often meaningless.

I like a world based on give and take. I want to live in that world. Give. Take. I would get a house in the distance between those two words. To remind myself I would not be alive if it weren’t for someone. And I wouldn’t want to live if it weren’t for someone.

Maybe wanting guidance, structure, and people is not weakness. Maybe being a person alone is too much. And maybe that’s okay.

This one goes out to all my hyper-independent people out there. I know you are fine. I really am too. But seriously, you are not alone. I am also alone, so that makes us two. You are amazing. Taking someone else’s hand is not going to make you less amazing. I love you all. Thank you for reading me and letting me be a part of your day <3

I didn’t know I could just ask for help

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