A few weeks ago, I wrote about all the wonderful girlfriends in my life. I have known most of these women for a long time. Therefore, we have been through several stages of life together. We have gone through elementary school, the awkward middle school years, the fun high school years, and then into adulthood. Some of us got married, some had children, and some of us went to college. Sometimes we went our separate ways, but eventually, we found our way back into each other’s lives.
These women are some of the toughest women I know. They aren’t afraid to take chances. They aren’t afraid to go somewhere by themselves. They aren’t afraid to try new things. I have found that almost all of my closest friends pride themselves on being independent and being able to take care of themselves and their families.
As we go through life we learn lessons whether by choice or by circumstance. Even my girlfriends who are married still have a sense of independence. One of my best friends tells her husband, “I don’t NEED you, I WANT you by my side.” Isn’t that how it should be? Many of us don’t NEED each other. We like having people by our side. We like having companionship. We like having someone to talk to in the morning. But if someone wasn’t there somehow we would survive. Maybe we would have to work a little harder to get where we want to go, but we’d figure it out.
Sometimes it’s hard to compromise and allow yourself to be taken care of, especially if you have been single for a long time or if you have had to do a lot of things on your own. You learned how to make your own money, you learned how to unclog your own toilet, and you learned how to smash that big bug on your floor. So once you take that step and say “I do” you have to learn the art of compromise and communication to make that marriage work. I have known many people who are married yet very lonely.
As you know it took me a while to find My Prince. What I was afraid of was giving up my independence or losing myself. The best thing about being a Pilot’s Wife is when he goes to work for long periods of time I need to make decisions about household items, I need to fix things that may break, and I need to kill little creatures who try to invade our home. But when he is home, he gets to squash the bugs, handle the decisions, and fix the things that have gone wrong.
What I see in all of us women is sometimes a dilemma. Many of us were independent women for a period of time. We developed our routine, we became set in our ways, and we learned how to be alone and not lonely.
Eventually what we need to learn is how to let others take care of us. Sometimes it’s so hard and because we were so independent we see this as weak. We know we can do all of it on our own. Why would we need help? We don’t need anyone to put gas in our car. We don’t need anyone to help us run the power tools. We don’t need anyone to get the glass on the top shelf for us.
But what we need to learn is that it is okay to let another person treat us right. It is okay for your husband to wash your car for you. It is okay for your friend to take your car and fill it with gas. It is okay for your partner to get that glass down that you couldn’t reach without a step stool.
Even though it’s hard we need to learn grace. We also need to realize that we all are getting older. We all may face a point in time when we are not physically able to take care of ourselves. We need to learn that is okay to ask for help and it is okay to let someone else do things for us. We need to let these generous humans take care of us. It’s what they truly want to do. Sometimes we need to let our significant others treat us like the princesses we dreamed we were destined to become when we were little.
So the next time your partner offers to make you a cup of coffee in the morning say, “Wow babe, that would be awesome, thank you” instead of channeling your independent self and saying, “No, that’s okay I can do it.” Allowing yourself to be spoiled from time to time doesn’t make you less of an independent woman. Let’s learn to find that balance because someday even if we don’t want to, we may need to rely on others for help.
Photo by Doug Tunison on Unsplash
