It’s true: I am gifted with an ability to produce emotion through words. It is my love language. It’s also true that I am very thoughtful and think of others often and let them know that I think of them when I do (imperfectly, of course). I make an effort to pick up the phone and call, pick up the phone and text. I do not rely on social media and comments on posts as keeping up with my closer friends. I also don’t assume anyone knows what I’m thinking, because that lesson has been dished out to me more than once now and I don’t often appreciate it.
Why, why do I make an effort to connect? Because I know exactly how it feels when somebody goes out of their way to do that for me. I know exactly how it feels to be seen, and to be told that I am seen. I know exactly how it feels to hear the words “I am proud of you”, “You are doing a great job”, “I care that you’re in this space right now and I just want you to know that you are not alone”.
And right now I need that.
It doesn’t really matter that it’s my job to do these things for myself, which I will hate until forever. I don’t really care if it’s not your job to make me feel better or to bring me joy and love and feel-goods. Because I think it is my job to help you feel better if I have the ability to do so, without attachment to the outcome that I will. Because I do think it ismy job to bring you some light when you can only see dark, without assuming I can. Because I do think it ismy place to nurse you along into a brighter day if I can, especially if it costs me nothing to do so.
I go in and out of pockets of all kinds of feelings right now, as I know is to be expected. Having lost the ability to do for myself as I normally would in an instant, it has been a roller coaster of acceptance, tolerance, patience and self-love everyday since. I have had to learn how to do things with only part of me and accept that there’s a lot I can’t do. I have had to ask for help and remind people that I still need help even if they haven’t asked. I’ve worked from home and set boundaries on what is possible for me to do and been open to letting people show me other ways.
I need some validation right now. I get it some places, and not others. Naturally, as most of us do, I focus on who isn’t giving me this and feel alone sometimes. I hate that I have to ask for what I need, when it seems so obvious to me if the roles were reversed what those things would be. Maybe that’s because I’m more thoughtful, more soulful, more feminine (I am not playing that card as I do not have that card to play, just an observation that by and large women as a species are more thoughtful and emotionally present than men).
We all have certain people whose words and thoughts and opinions weigh more than others. I care a lot about how these people see me, if they see me, and what they think of me as a whole. Because my love language is words of affirmation, words from these particular people go very far, or cut me very hard. And even though some of them know this is how I feel great and am best received, they still don’t do it.
Some days, I wish it wasn’t true that I put so much stock into other people. Other days, I am grateful. I am grateful because it helps me treat other people better. Knowing how good it feels to receive verbiage that I am OK and enough, makes me want to make other people feel that way. It’s not my job if they feel better or even receive what I am sending, but I do believe it is my job to make the effort in the first place. I have no excuse to not, because it’s just not fucking hard.
When’s the last time you picked up the phone, sent a text or showed up for somebody and told them that you see them? How’d you feel the last time somebody did that for you?
Pay it forward – I promise you will be repaid tenfold.