The Long Hands That Have Held Me
I have been held by quiet hands during this long season. I let myself receive what is offered. I do not have to walk alone.
Have you let yourself notice the small, true list of hands that have helped you through this season? Some have helped in large visible ways. Others have helped in small invisible ones — a phone call at the right hour, a single line of text on a difficult morning, a parking spot saved, a shift covered, a pet waiting at the door, a book reached for again and again, a song that holds you in the car when nothing else will. Each of these is a hand.
You are not walking through this alone, even on the days when you feel most alone. There are hands holding you that you do not always notice — the hand of the morning routine, the hand of the long friendship, the hand of the practice you keep doing, the hand of the small daily acts of care that you offer yourself, the hand of the body that gets up again. These are real hands, and they are doing the slow work of keeping you upright.
You may, in this long season, have started to feel that you are using up the patience of the people around you. That you have been struggling for too long. That your need for support is becoming a burden to others. This worry is honest, and also, in most cases, untrue. The people who love you are still loving you. They are not keeping score. They are not measuring how long this has gone on. They want to be present for your life, including the long difficult parts of it.
Ask for what you need. Specifically. Practically. A meal. A walk together. An evening of company. A ride somewhere. A few quiet minutes on the phone. People often want to help and do not know how. Telling them the small specific thing is a gift to them as well as to you. First the asking. Then the receiving. Then, slowly, the felt sense that you are not the only one holding you up.
And let yourself receive what is offered. The accepting is itself a kind of trust. It says: I am willing to be held. I am willing to not do this alone. That sentence, lived out in small acts of accepting help, is part of how the long season becomes survivable. Other lights have been burning along your shore the whole time. You did not always see them through the weather. They were there.