Why me? Well, why *not* me?

The other day, as I was telling my therapist about recently helping some elder friends, she said “you must wonder ‘why you’ a lot.” And I kind of do, but it’s more, like, why does it all pile on top of people I love at once? Why is it that I’ve witnessed an inordinate number of people I love get sick, get injured, die, lately? It’s more like ‘why so much’ rather than ‘why me.’ And ‘why me’ is more like ‘why not me’. I mean, it’s got to be SOMEBODY, right? So it might as well be somebody who can hold it together when everything is falling apart, even if I do fall apart after it’s all over. It might as well be someone who can be empathetic and make the person in trouble feel seen and heard. So why NOT me? And what makes me think I’m so special that it wouldn’t be me? I’m not immune to grief and loss just because I try to be a good person. Yelling out “why me” implies that I think I don’t deserve what’s happening, as if I think it shouldn’t happen to ME. But why shouldn’t it? I’m not any different from anyone else. And also, here’s an important (to me) distinction… it’s not happening TO ME. It’s happening to PEOPLE I LOVE. I’m just watching them go through it.

And here’s a thing. I don’t mind being the one people call on when they have an emergency – especially a medical emergency. I love to make sure people feel seen and heard, so to go and advocate for someone? To help them find the right words to reach the medical professionals, to help them be less afraid to speak up for themselves, to just be there and remind them that they’re not alone and they might be scared but they don’t have to be scared by themselves? That’s not a burden. That’s an honor. That’s a blessing. That’s love in action.

Is it hard? Sure. But not so hard that I won’t do it in a heartbeat. Shit, it’d be harder for me NOT to step in. I’m such a busybody, lol. And I want the people I love to feel safe.

One thing my therapist asked me is if I’d do that for just anyone, at the drop of a hat. The answer is, duh, no, of course not. I don’t like people. I’m not going to exhaust myself for some rando on the street. If someone I barely know calls me and says their so-and-so is in the hospital, can I come speak for them, my answer is going to be “no, but I can give you a ride so that YOU can go speak for them.” Which I gather was the healthy answer, haha, because she agreed that it sounds like I’d go to the end of the earth for the people I love, but I won’t exhaust myself for everyone on the planet. (Dammit, Jim, I’m a shieldmaiden, not a martyr!) I was a little worried that I was sounding like “oh, I’d do anything for anyone, I don’t matter!” when what I was really trying to say was “if it’s someone I love, I’m ride or die; but I’m not going to exhaust and overwork myself so that I can play holier-than-thou and helpful. I absolutely plan to put that oxygen mask on myself first, before I help others.” So I’m glad she understood what I was saying.

Another part of that is that I’m an only child, surrounded by people older than me, who have either not had children or whose children live across the country. I am geographically close to many of the people who raised me (I joke that I was raised by committee, haha), the ones who are still alive, anyway. Losing people who are older than you is kind of the way it goes. It’s expected. So this is all happening “to me” (and by that I mean “around me”) because of the average age of my familial circle. And if they’re getting old, I’m also getting old. Which means that my friend group, people roughly the same age as I am, are also getting old. And for as many advances as there are in science, we live in a world where almost everything can kill us. Accidents happen. Disease happens. In the last three years I’ve watched almost as many people my age die as I have people who are older than me.

In talking about that, I was reminded about the days that I’d come from being in the hospital all day with Tim, so exhausted that I’d turn the TV on to anything and then go sit in the chair in the other room and just stare at my phone. I thought, at the time, that I was being lazy and overtired, that if I was a GOOD and COMPETENT person I’d get up and clean those cat boxes and make some real food. But now I see it as yes, I might have been retreating into myself in those moments, but out of self-preservation. I was putting myself first. I wasn’t cleaning the cat boxes or fixing big meals I wouldn’t have the stomach to eat later because I knew those things could wait. I was resting because I knew resting couldn’t wait. I was carving out space for myself in those obscenely overexhausting days, and I was tucking myself into a little cubby and recharging.

The more I retreated into my little cave of quiet, the more I rested, the better shape I was in for taking care of Tim. It wasn’t pushing people away and hiding, depressed and wounded; it wasn’t me being a fucking slacker and playing with my phone when there was shit to be done at home; it was the bear hibernating for the winter, the caterpillar safe in the cocoon. It was me, learning (even though I didn’t know it at the time) that the more I take care of myself, the more I have of myself to take care of others.

And now that I’ve been through that? The more I know who I will take care of, and who I won’t. The person at the top of my list? Myself.