Letting yourself be cared for
I felt like an evil person recently.
The dynamic between a good friend and me has shifted recently, as we both admitted feelings for each other thanks to a deep emotional bond that makes us feel safe with each other. We're still trying to work things out, so we decided to try having a serious chat a couple weeks ago.
I insisted we go to a café to chat.
Of course, I didn't know he was going to spill his trauma to me. I wouldn't have taken him to a public place if I had known. But he did try suggesting going to a park instead, and all I wanted to do was get a matcha latte and avoid baking in the humidity. The most I could offer was going to somewhere next to a park, which we never ended up visiting.
We were sitting across from each other, trying to understand how we could be so fond of each other but both be broken in different ways and unable (and perhaps unwilling) to define whatever this is between us.
It came out of both nowhere and somewhere as he chronicled his upbringing and past relationships. I felt bad enough for making him further detail what I was only vaguely familiar with before, and then he just started shaking uncontrollably. I tried comforting him with a gentle touch on the arm, but it was of no use. Suddenly my leg was wedged between his legs, not in a sexual way, but rather like a plea for help.
He confessed that only a few people in his life know this about him. That he was molested.
I came home that evening feeling awful. Awful that such a sweet person had gone through such a thing, awful that I put him in such a distressing position to share something that he clearly did not want other people to hear, and awful that I was somehow making this interaction all about myself.
This was the one opportunity I had to care for him in the truest sense of the word, for someone who went out of his way to look after me for months. He offered to console me at our university's library some days after my best friend had a stroke, and I couldn't help but cry in front of him because I had reached a breaking point. He left a class that he was so enthusiastically auditing early one day so that he could pick me up from my endoscopy, and he offered to buy me soup afterwards. Anything that he could do for me to make my life easier—he offered to do it.
And I didn't even have the human decency to put him in an even slightly less uncomfortable position to share something with me that smothers him with shame.
I cried a lot after I got home.
Thankfully, he wasn't bothered and admitted that he felt cared for and maybe even loved.
And even though I still find myself ruminating on this interaction, maybe that is the point. That despite the circumstances I inflicted upon him, he nevertheless let himself be vulnerable in front of me.
I'm not very good at letting other people care for me.
To be honest, my life is shit right now. I'm losing my job, and I cannot afford my rent by myself for much longer but had to renew my lease. My best friend had a stroke. I cannot find a new job. Instead of moving abroad now like I had hoped, I'm stuck in my current city until next spring at the earliest. I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore. I couldn't be more helpless if I tried.
I hate accepting help from anyone, especially if it's financial. It's to the point where I'd almost rather tolerate the consequences of withdrawing money from my Roth IRA to cover rent, or maybe even become homeless if it meant my friends who insist they are very comfortable financially did not have to pity me and offer to cover my rent for me for some time.
But the reality is that they care about me, which unfortunately makes me uncomfortable. I need to just let that happen though because doing so—rather than being stubborn and insisting I can do everything myself while openly grieving over the family I will never have to support me—will be better for both me and our friendship.
I have to let myself be loved. My heart craves it, but my mind fights it, thinks I am inherently undeserving.
It's not the right time to be broke. It's not the right time to find myself in a situationship. It's not the right time to know nothing.
For now, I think I'm meant to stay here a bit longer and learn how to be cared for. I'm trying to lean into this.