What do you want? What do you like? What can I do for you? These 3 questions that tend to put me into a panic zone. I can usually understand what I want, know what I like and don’t like and have learned how to respond when someone asks me what they can do for me. In the past, and being honest, even sometimes now default responses are: “I’m good with whatever you choose” or “I like everything!” and of course the dreaded – what can I do for you? Now I feel compelled to find something that you can do for me that’s helpful, but not too demanding, appropriate but not overwhelming, not too much trouble because you can’t ever really expect to get what you ask for. I am trying to honor the question when it’s posed from someone who very much so just wants to hear what I have to say. It’s not always easy though.
I’ve spent my lifetime hearing the words of my parents, “YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE! YOU DO NOT WANT!” When anyone asks me what I ‘want.’ At this point, I could drop into the psychology of being the 3rd child in a chaotic household with overbearing baby-boomer parents (one of which was a child of WW2) who were doing their best to raise 3 kids and had their own dose of trauma inflicted on them. I could say this is inherent in my childhood that I can’t feel solid in my own skin to ask for what I want, to ask the hard questions and feel safe in the asking.
The truth of the matter, as an adult, as fully formed person in my own right, I can ask for what I want, would like, need, and ask someone to do something for me because that’s a need I have in that moment. I’m slowly wrapping my noggin around this concept. I am grateful to have a partner who pushes me and provides a safe place to learn about asking and receiving what I want or need. A safe place to share what I’m thinking or feeling without backlash (I do think there’s a bit here and there but it’s natural). Being transparent, it is nerve wracking the sharing of thoughts about things I want or need, and it does sometimes cause me worry that she might just get tired of all of it and tell me to buzz off. What saves that rabbit-hole inducing thought is us having had enough conversations about ‘yes – this is what we’re doing, we’re doing this together come hell or high water.’ (last part – hell or high water – is my riffing on an idea but I think she’d approve) We are committed to the process and to the relationship we have built and continue to build and it’s in that light, I have to commit myself to all those questions and asks for what I want and need giving them the full send trusting the process.
What I still struggle with sometimes is the reaction to the ask sometimes. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not. Maybe I am expecting a response that never happens, maybe the response is delayed and then I don’t know what to think in the meantime but worry. Maybe, just as I am still learning to ask, I think the people in my life who earnestly want to know or hear what I have to say may still be coming to terms with my sudden voice to ask.
What I know is I am very much loved even when I’m a knucklehead. What I want more than anything is to have everything settled, see the people I love regularly, hope they can see me for who I am and not who I have been. Develop deeper relationships with my friends and my family and cultivate a small few folks with whom I can be who I am all the time. With my flaws, with my peccadillos. I’m getting there. Slowly. I can believe my partner loves me for me, even if I do drive her nuts. Meanwhile, as all this percolates, it’s my intention to continue to be me, to love those people I love with everything I can (and not lose myself) and trust the universe knows what it’s doing. It’s not always easy, it’s not always good for my sleep patterns. In the end we do what we can the best we can in that moment.
As I say all the time, I am trying to be kind to myself and others and be a stable place for myself as all this stuff takes a little time to process. I hope if you’ve read this far you can too be kind to yourself, understanding of others and do the best you’re able.