Beyond the Roundels

One of the things I often lament in my life is how rarely I have help for anything in particular.

My mom had a physical disability that made her mobility somewhat limited, but for much of her life she was also a pretty thorough and compulsive housekeeper. This resulted in a lot of my childhood being this pendulum swing between being given chores that I was mostly just supposed to figure out on my own entirely or not knowing how to do certain chores at all because one or both of my parents thought it was simpler to do it themselves than to teach me how. This led to a lot of weird resentment toward basic household chores that I think could have been avoided if I had been taught the responsibilities in ways that were less "figure it out, you should know this through observation," or just having it done for me until suddenly that wasn't possible anymore.

My parents were good and doing their best overall, but it is something I have realized as an adult and had to think about a lot as I figure out how to exist in a space where if I don't do something for myself, it doesn't get done.

Even as I was getting older and my mom was getting weaker, whether she was sick yet or not, it always brought me an incredible rush of feeling loved if anyone just volunteered to do something for me. I can't remember if it was the year she died or sometime before, but I remember being at home with mom and not feeling well for some reason or another, and she offered to make me a sandwich. It really moved and surprised me, because my parents at some point kind of stopped doing small things for me like that, even though my mom did my laundry for an absurdly long time. (It was not even really me being lazy; it was that my mom didn't want individuals splitting up their laundry by person rather than by type.)

Now, I live on the other side of the planet from anyone who actually loves me. I get along with some friendly-at-work people, but none of them is close enough to me to ask to hang out independently of work-related group events. One of my coworkers tried to start a D&D thing at work, but we did it exactly once and then basically gave up on ever trying to do it again because of the fact that, after that, we found that there were such frequent random extra weekend obligations at work that none of us had the clear time to do it anymore.

I don't have it confirmed, but I think that coworker might be moving on again next year. At the very least, I think she is kind of disillusioned with my workplace.

I can see why some of my coworkers are, but at the same time, this is the least-bullshit job I think I have available to me at the moment. Will have to see where things land in April, I guess, unless something weird happens before then.

Yesterday, I had to go into work for several hours for those parent-teacher meetings I'm mostly useless in. A couple of the parents spoke English and asked me a few questions, but it felt like it was mostly a courtesy to me at the end for having sat there during the Japanese conversations.

Today, I had a lovely lady from a Sisterhood Japan group on facebook come over and help me with cleaning my apartment more thoroughly than it's been cleaned in months. It's not that it was completely disgusting, but it was dusty and cluttered, and I just did not know where to start.

I don't have any official neurodivergence diagnosis, and I'm not even sure it's an nd symptom, though I've read about it as such, but I find that I get really stuck on doing menial tasks that aren't daily-maintenance stuff (like hygiene or dish washing etc) if I am all alone. While the lady was here, I let her do most of the actual cleaning, but so as not to be an awkward lump or waste the time or be rude by, like, playing video games while she's working, I organized my closet a lot. Unpacked some winter and fall clothes I had brought here in August and stuck some stuff that's too summery into the vacuum pack bags I had the former in.

I paid this woman, of course, but it felt like it was a mutually beneficial situation. She got paid, and I got the companionship, more than that, the soothing balm of having anyone care enough to do something well for me. I know she did it for money, but she was really kind about it, and I know that the whole love languages thing was really just a conservative Christian dude trying to justify why men need to be waited on hand and foot and to have their wife play mom at all times, but it really does feel like meaningful assistance is something humans need, both to receive and to give. I do try to give it, in work and in personal relationships, in the ways I know how, but one of the reasons I feel like my emotional well runs so empty sometimes is because I don't have anyone to ask for help when I need it.

I found the solution in this case by asking if anyone could come and help me tidy/clean/organize for pay on that facebook group, and I finally followed through on doing it after getting really frustrated with my own efforts last weekend taking HOURS for little payoff. (I was trying to put together a flat pack shelf that I ultimately decided was trash.)

I only got Sunday off this week, and I have to work both days next weekend, too. However, we get Monday and Tuesday off the following week. Still, for sanity and not becoming physically run-down, I might take a day off midweek. I hope nobody gets pissed off if I do since I am very often a pinch-hitter when other people don't show up.