And then there’s the matter of being a burden to other
people. I feel guilty if I inconvenience them, and my first instinct is to pay
them back in whatever way I can.
But the thing is, it shouldn’t be so much a matter of paying
it back as it is a matter of paying it forward. It doesn’t help me if I feel
guilty when someone listens to me cry because I’m not doing anything to serve
that person. For one thing, I don’t always know the impact I have on someone –
I’ve seen that in my own life, when people have blessed my life more than they
could ever know, just by the little things they do for me – but also, maybe
that person doesn’t need anything from me right now, but someone else does. And
if that person ever does need me, then I can be there for them. Not in an “I
owe you” sense, but rather in a “Someone is in pain, and since I am in a
position to help make it better, I will do what I can to comfort them” sense.
And that’s how I let others serve me – in an “I am in pain, and I can’t heal
myself on my own” sort of way.
So it’s cyclical, too; everything in life is cyclical.
Sometimes I need to be focusing on others, and sometimes I need to let others
be focusing on me. That energy needs to be flowing back and forth. I can’t give
without taking and I can’t take without giving. Once I send that energy out I
need to be willing to let it come back in, and once I let it in I need to send
it back out. It needs to ebb and flow, like the tide.
 |
| Ebb and flow, like the tide. Although, I'll admit, this is a lake and not the ocean. Brownie points if you can figure out which lake it is. |
I understand all this intellectually, and yet I still have a
difficult time letting others into how I am truly feeling. The only person I
feel comfortable turning to is my Savior because I know that he loves me
perfectly. I know that he will always be there for me. I don’t trust other
people not to judge me as weak or needy. Maybe it’s because as I child I
thought I had to be tough, that I couldn’t cry when life got hard because
that’s what crybabies do, and there was no way I was going to be one of those.
But the thing is, I am a crybaby. I’m a crier. That’s how I
deal with life. I have a bad day, I cry, and then the next day I feel better
(why is there such a negative stereotype about women who cry easily? It doesn’t
mean I’m weak; I mean, excuse me for having emotions. Don’t the two greatest
commandments have to do with an emotion? Because for all that love is an
action, it is first an emotion. But I digress). I just don’t want others to
think that I’m miserable all the time. I also don’t want to be a burden to
them.
But an important part of this life is relationships with
others, and the best way to build deep relationships is by being vulnerable (I highly
recommend listening to this talk). I can’t give emotionally to everyone if I’m
not letting anyone give to me emotionally; it will drain me.
Luckily, I’ve been getting better at this over the past
couple of years, although I’m not quite at where I’d someday like to be.
In an attempt to find the balance between giving and taking,
I’ve made a list.
I give: to my awesome roommates (meaning all of them), to my
friends, to my visiting teachees, to the people who read this blog (at least hopefully
that’s how you view this blog), to the people I sit next to in my classes, to
anyone in my ward whom I notice sitting alone.
I take: from my family (although hopefully that one is both
a give and a take), from those of my friends that I trust enough to let into my
life (and thank you to those of you reading this who have been there for me. I love
you so much. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much by placing you in my life).
I take from Heavenly Father, and from Jesus Christ. I take a lot from my Savior;
he’s already given me so much, I might as well accept that gift. Goodness knows
I need it.
So I give where I can, I take when I need to, I live one day
at a time, and maybe someday I’ll discover I have found the balance I need.
