Degrees of Vulnerability

My entire life has been spent being a go-getter.  I am an empowered women that was taught by my Nana and my parents that anything I want I can get.  Anything I can imagine, I can do.  With that being said, I hope you all understand how incredibly hard it is for me to walk around in a meditative existence right now.  I am slow, I am blurry, I have no control over my destiny, I have had the floor that I believed with my whole heart, body, and soul to be one that I created out of visualization and magick, vanish with one sentence, "Heather, you have cancer."  I feel like I am a kid again, playing a game of dodge ball in PE and some dumb boy threw the ball as hard as he could at my stomach.  I wasn't fast enough to catch it, and I am down on the floor with the wind knocked out of me.  

But this time, instead of getting up on my own for my own self-respect, I have to ask for help. This is the hardest thing, today.  Or should I say this morning, since I am getting my hair whacked soon and that will then be the hardest.  I have to ask D to pull the clothes out of the dryer and carry them.  I have to ask him to make the bed.  The simple motion of taking our heavy blankets and doing that fluid motion to get them to lay flat is not even possible.  I can't open a jar of pickles, or do a push-up.  Not that I did many of those regularly anyways.  

To look on the bright side, I have the luxury to be vulnerable right now.  I have an incredible husband, sister, Dad, and mother and father in-laws that are an incredible support group for me.  Not to mention all of my friends, so thank you everyone.  If I didn't have anyone and I spent my life so far doing everything on my own and not having the knowing that I can stop and ask for help,  I wouldn't be able to feel what it feels to be vulnerable. 

I hate, I mean I hate answering the question, "What can I do for you?"  The little athlete in me that can and does do everything on her own, now needs to say, "If you made us a meal that would be helpful."  This happens daily to us, and I feel so embarrassed with my reply.  I know it allows people to help, and that is great.  But that means that I am not going to be cooking all the meals each and everyday.  It means that I have to ask for help, sit back, and open my heart to receive. This is hard for me.  But this is the medicine my heart and soul has needed.  I think we as women spend so much time, some of us since we were kids with our younger siblings, giving and nurturing.  We forget about ourselves.  We power through life and in doing so we don't get a chance to be nurtured.  So here's a perfect opportunity to do about ten years worth of counseling, in an expedited year.  I wonder what I will be talking to my therapist about when I am done with this?  I will finally get to tell her I understand now what she was trying to get me to see.  

Heather, it is okay to be loved and to be open and to be vulnerable.  You are still the strong women you were before.  Now, you are stronger.  You have felt the people around you pick you up and carry your weight.  

My vase is deeper now.  I will have more to give back!  So watch for me!  Public speaking, here I come.