Friday Part II

 That is vulnerable.

And you couldn't rush your way through it. You couldn't read one inspirational quote about receiving and suddenly feel comfortable taking money from somebody. You had to encounter the actual moments, feel the resistance, and let the help reach you anyway.

Which brings me back to Friday.

Your friend gave you money for laundry. You accepted it. You bought ice cream for your son, and then your friend bought ice cream for you. You got to enjoy that without having to turn it into a debt, an obligation, or a reason to feel ashamed.

I'm not saying all the old resistance has disappeared. But look at the difference between having to fight your way through receiving and being able to experience a friend's generosity as a lovely surprise.

You weren't required to carry the whole day, provide everything, or make yourself indispensable for the day to be good.

You got to be there. You got to receive. You got to enjoy.

And after what you lived through in Miami, I can understand why that feels deep. ❤️

chat:

Yes. ❤️ And I think there's something beautiful about the fact that you're seeing these lessons three years later, through the life you're living now.

In Miami, you had to learn to receive under difficult circumstances. You had to live through the discomfort of needing help, not having much to give, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. You couldn't skip the experience and go straight to understanding what it meant. You had to live it day by day, including the parts that were humbling and painful.

And now, here you are in New York.

Last year, you didn't know these people. You were in a new place, grieving the community you'd left, and trying to find your footing. You describe that time as empty, and I hear how much you were missing ordinary human connection.

Then Friday comes a

chat:

What stands out to me is the difference between receiving help because you're in a difficult situation and receiving goodness simply because you're alive and participating in the world.

You needed practical help in Miami, and learning to accept it required you to confront shame and vulnerability. But Friday wasn't primarily a day about your needs. You weren't spending the whole day explaining your circumstances or asking people to help you. You were out living your life, and generosity and connection were woven through it.

You were allowed to enjoy being a person who receives good things.

Yes! at the core of it all, that's it.

chat:

And I think that's why the phrase a year's worth of connections and provisions in one day resonates. It's not that you've literally caught up on everything you missed this year. It's that Friday gave you such a concentrated experience of things you'd been hungry for: people, spontaneity, laughter, kindness, and the feeling that life was meeting you along the way.

You didn't have to earn every good moment by first fixing your life.

And perhaps now you're able to look back at Miami with a little more understanding of what those difficult years taught you. You were learning how to receive when receiving felt almost unbearable. You were learning to be vulnerable without losing your dignity.

ME:

Yeah there was a loss of control there. Also, in receiving you don't know what the experience is going to be. When I'm giving I know I'm giving good things. I know the person will be pleased. I am confident in that. In receiving, am I gonna like it? Is it the same? "Restore my dignity." That's an interesting line. I didn't have the chance to restore my dignity with returning something. I gave what I can, my energy, my presence, and sometimes that's all people wanted. but it was hard for me to see my value. and I felt like I was too down too broken. It's funny because i'm actually broken now and depressed lol. I was so strong back then because I kept getting up and showing up and that is a different kind of strength. endurance. how much suffering can you still stand. Yeah there was a loss of control there. Also, in receiving you don't know what the experience is going to be. When I'm giving I know I'm giving good things. I know the person will be pleased. I am confident in that. In receiving, am I gonna like it? Is it the same?

Yes. That distinction about control is important.

When you're giving, you know what you're bringing to the table. You know your intentions, you know what you want the other person to experience, and you have some confidence that you'll be able to make them happy. There's a kind of security in that. You get to be the person who makes something good happen.

Receiving puts you in a completely different position. You don't choose what someone offers, how they offer it, or whether it will meet your expectations. You have to let the experience unfold. Maybe you'll love it. Maybe you won't. Maybe it will feel awkward. Maybe you'll feel indebted. Maybe you'll be surprised by how good it feels.

And you can't control those feelings in advance.

I also keep coming back to what you said about dignity. You were used to restoring the balance by giving something back. If someone gave you money, you could return the favor somehow. You could make sure the relationship wasn't one-sided. But sometimes, you didn't have the material resources to do that.

So you had to discover that you could contribute to a relationship without being able to repay what someone gave you.

Your energy. Your presence. Your company. Your ability to listen, to laugh, to share a moment with someone. And sometimes, those were precisely the things people wanted from you. They weren't necessarily waiting for you to get back on your feet so you could become valuable to them again.

But you couldn't easily see that, because you were measuring your value through the lens of what you had lost.

And that brings me to what you said about being broken now. ❤️

I hear the irony in it. You remember yourself in Miami as too down, too broken, too far gone to have much value to offer. Yet you kept getting up. You kept showing up. You were enduring circumstances that demanded so much from you, and you were still finding ways to connect with people, participate in life, and be present.

You were measuring yourself by how broken you felt, while your actions were showing you how much you were still carrying.

And now you're depressed and struggling in a different season. That doesn't erase the strength you had then. Nor does the strength you had then mean you should be able to endure everything now. You can be the woman who kept getting up in Miami and the woman who sometimes struggles to get up in New York. Both are you.

I think there's a difference between the endurance you described and another kind of strength: the ability to let yourself be cared for without having to prove that you can endure more.

In Miami, you learned how to keep going when life required endurance. You also had to learn how to let other people give to you when you couldn't make things even. That second lesson asked something different of you. It asked you to tolerate being vulnerable and let your value exist outside of what you could provide.

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