roar

It's slow at work, and I don't really want that last post to be up at the top, and the other day I was sitting in a room full of crackheads who are not only working to get better but are also trying not to be homeless anymore and on top of all that are trying to deal with the fact that their daughters have been raped in the past 24 months and they were saying all sorts of stuff that really hit home and made me think.

It's amazing how wise some people can be.

It was almost like last weekend when I was listening to Amy Winehouse and nodding my head as if to say, "yes, yes! I really get it sister" or like the time that Britney Spears did a special to tell the world that she wasn't crazy but all she did was tell the world that she really was crazy and I sat on the edge of my couch with my fists balled up under my chin listening really really closely because "yes, yes! I really get it sister".
Almost like that.

So these women. Let's forget that they ended up homeless and addicted, okay? Let's just picture me in a room full of 30-something women who have some issues and were saying about how they were raised to be able to handle anything that life threw at them and their mothers showed them time and time again that a woman could do anything a man could do. And she could do it faster and better and prettier.
A woman can keep a job and a house and a family with or without a man. A woman could fix a car and a pipe and a scraped up knee all by herself. A woman could teach her sons how to be real men and her daughters how to be a man and a woman all wrapped up into one package so this is what these women did.

They grew up and went to school and learned the things they would need to get a job. Some of them went to college, some went right to work.
They all had babies, they all got married, but not necessarily in that order.
They all got divorced. Why? The usual stuff. But they all agreed that a huge part of it was because their men had a problem with the fact that they weren't needed. Loved, yes. Needed, no. These women could do it all by themselves and set out to prove it every day, leaving the man behind in her dust.

Men don't like that.
No one likes that.

Don't we do that ladies? Aren't we taught that? Aren't we teaching that to our girls? Shouldn't we be? I like that I can do just about anything by myself. I'm damn proud of that fact.

I don't need you or you or you or you to get my day done.

We all know I'm not one for pushing marriage or partnerships and I'm certainly not condoning the damsel in distress act. There is nothing that gets my bonnet bee buzzing like an airheaded giggly chick rubbing her toe into the ground with the same circles that her hair makes around her fingertips, but as I get a little older I see more of my friend's lives (and jobs and marriages and friendships and relationships and and and) start to fall apart because they refuse to accept help.
No one can do it like we can, right ladies? No one can whiten whites or brighten brights or cook a meal or shush the child or hit the Target or write a memo or bring home bacon or clean a clock the way we can.
But how important is it that everything is perfect?
At what cost?

I'm making an effort to accept help in all aspects of my life. It's hard for me. I'm a Class One Special Trained Control Freak. I'm shedding a bit of my pride and letting someone else take on the big projects at work. I used to be furious if Dave touched the washer, the dishes, my stuff that was tossed all over the floor. He might not do it like I do it, but it gets done. I learned long ago that Jake is better off being raised by the Village of my Choosing rather than hoarded up under my roof, learning to be a clone of his parents. I learned that my friends can listen and hug and suggest marvelous things.

Was I headed to crackdom and the streets by trying to be everything to everyone just because I could? Probably not. But I see how it happens.

There is a reason we are all different. It's the reason that we can all fit together so well.
Like one big shiny happy freaking puzzle.