I Spent 1 Week Saying 'Yes' to Support and 'No' to Hyper-Independence. This is What Happened.

I struggle with feeling like I have to earn everything in life. Yes, everything. I feel like I need to earn kindness, love, favors, whatever it may be. Nothing can just be given freely. If it’s not earned, I can’t have it. 

Pair that with my issues with hyper-independence, I struggle to allow people to help me even in the most dire of situations. Sometimes you have no choice, and you still have to, but that doesn’t make it any easier. In fact at times it makes it all the harder. I can’t help but think they’re going to resent or hold it against me, or keep tab of all the things they did for me so the minute I do something that hurts them (as unintentional as it may be) it’s brought back up and weaponized.

Plagued by fatigue, I reached a point where I realized I just couldn’t do it anymore. At that same moment, someone reached out to me asking if I wanted anything from McDonald’s. Seeing the $2 in my bank account, I said “Yes.”

That night I munched on chicken nuggets, and thought about how one three-lettered word allowed me to eat dinner that night. All I did was consent and grant permission, and someone happily took care of me that night. 

Exhausted, I decided to say “Screw it,” and kept it up for a straight week. Here’s all of the things, material and otherwise, that happened within those seven days:

1. I got a manicure and pedicure.

I love having my nails done, but due to budget reasons can’t often get them done professionally. I’m also horrible at doing them myself, so if it’s not done by a nail tech it doesn’t get done. I got blue nails, and white toes. Gonna’ stick to pink for now on for both, but either way I still got it done and that made me smile.

2. All my meals were paid for by friends and family.

Not because I asked, but because people offered and I just didn’t say no. Everything from fast food to lamb chops. I was completely taken care of when it comes to sustenance instead of eating rice every single night for dinner.

3. Someone was able to sit with me through an emergency procedure.

I had to have an emergency procedure done, and a family member managed to sit with me throughout the entire procedure. Granted, now I definitely have the beginnings of my first bouts of medical trauma from it, but at least I wasn’t alone.

4. I was given an iPad.

OK, this was extreme, but I literally was gifted an iPad. This doesn’t happen every single day, I completely acknowledge, but it blew me away. It was something to help my workflow, and also a gift from someone who just wanted to see me happy. Someone was willing to pay that much just to see me smile. That’s not lost on me. 

5. I got to see a new Broadway show.

This chalks up to, once again, someone just wanting to see me happy and me allowing them to. It didn’t pay my bills, but the boost of serotonin from being in my favorite city in my favorite place engaging with my favorite thing still makes me smile. That being said, I really hope they bring back more atmosphere sets and way less digital overlays, but hey that’s another rant for another day.

6. My moving fees were taken care of.

I’m currently moving, and between two parties all my fees between storage and moving trucks were all taken care of. I was losing sleep, and now it’s all done and over with. 

7. Again, my meals are being taken care of.

I have a friend who absolutely adores cooking for others, and she’s prancing around my kitchen genuinely excited to prepare me meals and while it makes me so uncomfortable, I’m letting it happen because I’m grateful and thankful. It’s more than just sweet of her, and as someone who struggles with eating it’s a blessing sent from the divine, truly. 

8. I vented to someone for three hours.

Yep. I stopped holding back. I screamed, cried, and shouted on the phone while talking to a friend about all the things going wrong in my current life and they sat there the whole time listening. They didn’t make me feel bad for it. They didn’t walk away. They didn’t say I was being annoying. They allowed me to exist in my humanness. 

I’m probably forgetting some things, because it felt like little tiny blessings the more I replied “yes,” when people asked if they could do things for me. Airport rides, Starbucks drinks, cupcakes, and even more non-materialistic things. 

Being able to get over myself was the best gift to myself that I could give me. I still struggle with allowing other people to show up and do things for me, and realistically I’ll continue to struggle with it for a while, but if anything this goes to prove that people do want to love, dote on, and support me regardless of if it’s to keep my lights on or just to see me smile, and who I am to stop them?