“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” ― Maya Angelou

So the offers for help with washing my clothes have been pouring in.

Thank you.

All of you.

The support has been overwhelming, to put it mildly.

Someone offered the use of her washing machine while she is gone for the weekend.

Someone else texted and told me to drop off a load of laundry anytime at her  house.

Another person has a used washer I can pick up for free.

And someone else offered to buy one for me.

Like I said yesterday, I’ll take all the help I can get.

But that guilt is creeping back in.

A few months back, when I was struggling with simply accepting help and not feeling guilty about it, a friend asked me to read this blog post, written by Mom Gets A Life.

I read it.

It challenged people to accept all help offered to them for 30 days.

It said doing that would be potentially life changing.

Here’s my problem.

And I think it may be a lot of other peoples’ problem too.

The word help.

We’ve forgotten what it actually means.

When you google the definition of the word it says:

1. help

   /help/

   Verb Make it easier for (someone) to do something by offering aid.

   Noun Assistance.

That’s it.

Assistance.

Making something easier for someone.

Nothing more than that.

When I’m leaving the grocery store and someone holds the door open for me, I graciously accept that help.

But when the help offered to me is more than holding open a door, well, somehow it changes.

Then I turn it into the feeling of being indebted to someone.

Why is that?

If someone offers to let me do laundry at their house, well,

then I automatically feel that in order to accept that help,

I will have to be able to return the favor.

When someone offers to buy me a washing machine, well,

if I accept that,

then at some point they will be waiting for me to buy one for them.

I’ve managed to turn an offer of help into something else.

Into an obligation.

I mean, when someone opens a door for me, I don’t feel the need to rush to the next door that person comes to and open it for them.

I’m just happy they held the fucking door open for me.

So where does it say in the Human Being Manual, that whatever level of help is offered to you by someone must be returned equally by the recipient?

I mean, it’s not like a 401K contribution from your employer.

Accepting help from someone does not mean that at some point down the road you need to match that shit.

So why do we do that?

Why does receiving help that is more than opening a door for someone feel so uncomfortable?

Why aren’t we just happy for the offer?

Lately I’ve been feeling like everyone is helping me, but I’m not really reciprocating.

I’ve told you Miss P has helped to fold the laundry.

Another friend has offered to contact advertisers for the blog.

Another friend, and her friend, are helping me do some stuff on my website that I don’t know how to do.

And I told you yesterday what the Y did for me.

So I’ve been feeling like I’m not matching the contributions of my friends.

And my friends’ friends.

And the Y.

But that’s not what help is.

How did I manage to even turn peoples’ selfless acts of offering help into a fucking competition?

I don’t need to outhelp everyone.

Ugh.

I think he’s right.

In more ways than one.

Maybe that’s why we’re in this financial mess.

Maybe I needed to learn how to graciously accept help.

Who knows.

But I’m going to reset the clock on that 30 day help challenge.

And this time, I’m going to try to enjoy it.

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