Let People Show up for you

Support is "to bear all or part of the weight of; hold up." At least, that's what I discovered when I Googled it. But support is more than a dictionary definition—it's something we all desperately need, yet one that many of us fight against accepting.

I've always been the type of person to run away from needing support. Reflecting on my life, I can see that there was always support available—to me, to my family, to my friends, to my community. I just assumed that this was the way life was. You had people. You hung on them. They appeared. It wasn't until I was put on dialysis that I realized how many there are and struggle alone, unaided by the cushions of family and friends who break their fall.

I encountered a woman who had been alone since the age of 16. At 16, my parents were everything to me—they took me everywhere, supported me, and were my first line of defense when things were bad. But for her, there was no one. She rode life's ups and downs, including a kidney failure, by herself. And yet, she survived.

That conversation with you made me reexamine all that I believed about support. What I had come to realize then was that I had always had support but I never ever accepted it. I had become tough and resilient, to get by, to not bother people with my pain. But here's the deal: accepting when people want to show up for you isn't weakness—it's strength. 

When I started my kidney transplant journey, I had to learn, slowly, how to allow others in. How to say, softly, "Yes, today I need assistance." How to allow my friends to help me, drive me to appointments, and hold me during difficult times. And in doing so, I learned something more profound: People want to show up for you. They just need to know how.

Too often, we believe that we need to do this alone. We believe that nobody will care enough to deal with our problems, that to ask for help is to fail. What if we did some alternative thinking, however? What if we considered support not as frailty, but as bridge—something that would build our connections, enable us to open ourselves up and admit love, and remind us that we are not alone things?

Letting someone appear for you is an act of trust. It's believing that you're worthy of love and care. It's understanding that just like you would appear for someone you love, they too want to appear for you.

So, if you're someone who has always had trouble accepting help, I encourage you to start small. Accept when a friend offers to pick you up. Tell the truth when someone asks you how you're doing. Let people carry you when you're running on fumes. Because the thing is, none of us are supposed to do this alone. And when we allow people to show up for us, we allow ourselves to truly heal—not just physically, but emotionally, too.