It's okay to ask for help
It’s okay to ask for help.
Did you hear me? Really, it’s okay.
This has been a lifetime struggle. I have always wanted to do everything myself because how would I feel worthy enough otherwise.
Group projects? I’ll do it all. It was great for the others in my group but not when there was another me in the group who also wanted to take charge.
Serving and bartending? Give me everything I don’t need any help y’all relax. It’s actually funny now that I think about it because when I first started serving, my manager fussed at me one night and told me to just let him help me. I had a huge party and several other small tables during the dinner rush but at the time, stopping to tell him how many sprites table P2 needed would make me forget that P4 wanted extra jalapeños for their cheese dip. And asking for help made me look weak, right?
And then when I started bartending and managing, I learned real quick that I couldn’t do it all. There was no way I could bartend, host, food expo, talk to guests, manage the servers, and make drinks at the same time. I couldn’t do it all and trying to do it all is what led to my complete and utter exhaustion from the restaurant industry.
I didn’t have this issue in college as much except that I wanted to complete double the amount of assignments. My last semester I think I actually had made 14 projects total when I was only required for 6. That was a tough one and extremely demanding, but I enjoyed building and never saw it as a setback really.
When Alex and I moved in together, there was a lot of adjusting on my part because I hadn’t lived with anyone for 6 years at that time. I wanted to do all of the laundry and all of the dishes and all of the sweeping just to make his life easier. But as with all relationships, we stopped trying to impress each other and started just being comfortable with each other and I slacked a little bit in some areas and we pick up that slack for each other.
However, there are some days that I have this long list in my head of “I’ll get all of the housework done today and some clay things and this and that and yada yada” but the problem is that I make these plans in my head and he has no clue about them unless I tell him. And the other problem is that when I don’t sleep enough or I wake up in a weird mood, I tend to allow my list to take over my day and stress me out and I shut down.
Friday night I sat down on the floor of my studio (since my desk is filled with clay) with my planner laid out in front of me and wrote out my Saturday and Sunday plans on a little to-do list paper and taped it to my front door so I could easily keep track of all the little things I needed to do that day. When Alex came to bed, he asked if that was my list for Saturday and I told him yes and he told me to let him know what things he can do around here for me so he could help me (my list was pretty long, abnormally longer than usual but also very detailed). This was such a super simple and easy way to have my “planner tasks” laid out so he could see in order to make him more aware of what I was going to work on that day. Usually he plans his days while I’m in the studio side of the office doing clay, he’ll spend time at his desk so we can hang out together separately.
Why didn’t I think of putting a list out like this before? I mean we always usually communicate about our to-do lists for the most part but he also forgets things within 5 seconds so this ADHD-Friendly setup is perfection and he doesn’t have to go through my planner himself.
Last Saturday, I had my list of things outlined with I wanted to get done with before noon and I did! And then when we got back home after lunch with Ma and Ba, I sat on the couch and did not want to move. Alex and I did spend some time being lazy together which was much needed but when we were ready to be productive, something really cool happened!
I asked if he would put the towels into the dryer for me, since he doesn’t think about that kind of stuff, it wasn’t on my list, and honestly he doesn’t really know when I do the laundry unless I tell him I’m about to start the washer or starts the laundry himself.
And so he did the laundry, started another load of clothes, and he even thanked me for asking for his help! Because he knows my struggle and he knew that doing that one little thing for me allows me to breathe a little deeper.
Now, I already hear comments like, “you have to ask him to help around the apartment?” And “wow he can’t decide to do laundry on his own?”. It’s neither of those. He does so much around the place to help but we’ve gotten into a groove that some things he does and some things I do. For instance, I usually make the bed because honestly I’m better at it. When he does the cooking, I wash the dishes, and vice versa. It’s the “mental load” that is different for us. He’s a planner of groceries and cat food and litter and I’m the planner of laundry and cleaning. And this is his house too and we take care of each other.
Back on topic, I asked him to do something small on my list that he was able to do and you have no idea how relieving it felt. Like, you know when you have this little task you have to do but you keep putting it off and putting it off? And then you finally do it and it took 5 minutes and you look at yourself in the mirror and say “dang all of that for 5 minutes?” And suddenly you’re kind of annoyed that you’ve wasted headspace on it? Same, and that was the laundry on Saturday taking away from my available and valuable headspace.
I couldn’t make any more excuses for the day and I couldn’t procrastinate otherwise so I stood up and started my work.
His help gave me that boost. Just like my turning off Netflix for him after the “just one more episode” episode ended gave him his boost which in turn, gave me my boost.
I don’t know. This could just be us and our dynamics, but regardless, asking for help is okay.
It could be as little as “hey can you dry the towels for me?” or as big as “I need life advice, can you call me for a minute?” and anything in between. We weren’t made to do it all. Remember, we are human and each of us have something special to offer to the world and our community.