I am a proud and stubborn person. I am determined to carry my own weight and responsibilities. And I do. I loathe asking for help or depending (even figuratively) on anyone else. It isn’t always a healthy construct, for who can be always independent and singular? Plus, who wants to be? I suppose it originates in being disappointed by others, that once I believed in the idea of interdependence only to be let down repeatedly. I once entertained the romantic notion that there was someone there to pick me up when I fell, carry the load when I was tired or to shoulder the burden when I was infirmed. It was a lie or at least just a fictional notion. There has never really been a solid, dependable anchor to which I can occasionally tie off. And that is all I’d need….just an occasional port of rest. Like I said, I am proud. I carry my own pack, I do my own measure of labor. I don’t ask for special dispensations. Ever. And on the very rare occasions I have NEEDED assistance, it costs me greatly to NEED help. There is a tax assessed by others and I reprimand myself for being needy. Why? I don’t want to be needy. I never want to be rescued. I don’t want people in my life because I need help or am broken. I want people to WANT to be in my life because I am strong and competent. I don’t want people in my life because I NEED rescuing.
But, when I get in tight jams, when I am faced with a crunch or an obstacle, I have only myself to rely on for solutions either because people have learned I rarely ask for help OR that I rarely NEED help. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Some days, rare days, I get tired. I wish for the Fairy God Mother to come along and POOF! away my problems and provide me with the perfect solution to all my dreams in one swoosh of the magic wand. I’d like the courageous handsome prince to gallop in and rescue me from the Big Bad Evil Thing. And yet……I am a proud and stubborn thing and would likely shove away from the handsome prince and say, “I’m fine, I can do this.”
Too often we confuse femininity with weakness and with needing rescuing. It is a more difficult process to learn to see strength and competence and fortitude as sexy and feminine. The words themselves are quite masculine: strength, competence, fortitude. Not sexy. Not princessy. But….there is no rectification for this. It is what it is. I am what I am. And I sure a hell prefer being competent and independent and in control of my destiny instead of being dependent on someone else. I prefer to be responsible for myself. I’ll take care of me. You take care of you.