Growing up I was always the protector, I loved to watch over my friends, siblings and even my parents and make sure they were doing alright and had everything they wanted or needed at the time. HOWEVER this year that role has been reversed, I have had everyone running around me and making sure all my wants and needs are pandered to. Of course, this is lovely and there are no words to explain how much I appreciated it BUT it does also make me feel a little lost, like I’ve lost my purpose. While this is what I needed, a reality check to make sure I was putting myself and my health first it doesn’t mean that it felt ‘right’.
This last week I took a break and went to visit my sister at her country town university in South Australia. I say break but I’m sure as you read this it will sound like anything but! My sister is an incredible Jazz musician in her final year of her jazz degree, as part of her assessments she had to write and arrange a recital that went for 50 minutes, sounds stressful, right?! While I was there it was in the middle of the recitals, so trying to see my sister outside of meal times was next to impossible…come to think of it, if I wasn’t reminding her to join me for meals she probably would have forgotten to eat!
I actually enjoyed just helping out where I could, making meals and ensuring my sister was eating, doing a bit of cleaning up and just focussing on someone else’s wellbeing for a few days. It made me feel ‘normal’ and accomplished… it made me feel like nothing was going on in my life (in a good way). See when you are used to not only doing everything for yourself but also helping people around you, it’s very disconcerting and in a way makes you feel a little bit useless when others are jumping to your rescue the whole time or telling you what you should or shouldn’t be doing because of your current state. As I have already said in no way am I saying this to discourage the help but it is just frustrating to need it.
It was just such a nice and heart-warming feeling to be needed again.