The Art of Asking for Help

I am still forbidden to drive.

It has been nearly a month since my surgeries and I am still completely dependant on others for nearly everything.

I find inside me a resistance to asking for what I need, or to at least minimize what I think I need so as to minimize the need to ask for it; amazing what one can do without.  Today though I needed to get to the grocery store.  I had $25 left of the money my dad slipped into my pocket and I needed food, the kind that doesn’t require much in the way of preparation.

Even calling on friends from AA has gotten old.  People know how sick I’ve been so no one can be surprised to hear from me to ask for a ride, etc., but I harbor this idea that my phone will ring and someone will ask if I need anything.  That doesn’t happen.  I have to bear in mind that I’ve been down for basically a month now.  I’m only helpful for a week before I begin to forget about the needs of others.  I can hardly blame anyone for allowing me to slip out of their consciousness.

I called my aunt today though.  She has health problems of her own so I haven’t called her at all, but I know she usually does her own grocery shopping today so I took a chance and called.

It turned out to be a well placed call as, though she had actually done her own shopping already, she had free time and was just getting ready to leave the house anyway, just to get out.

As we were walking back to the car we talked about how much this experience has been like starting over for me; how I’ve had to learn all over again to ask for help.  My aunt observed that she has had the same thing on her mind recently and how she has wondered if she really had to, who would she be able to depend on.  I hope that I can be one of those people, should the need arise, and I hope that this experience of being so dependent upon others will show me how hard it is to ask for help.

Perhaps then I can exersize the true art of asking for help by being the one who calls to offer it.

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