help

Small Love

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

I haven’t been feeling well for the last few days.  Joe has class from 7-9:40 three days a week.  Even though he wasn’t going to get home until late, he offered to head to the pharmacy after class in order to get me some much needed medicine.

To some this might not seem like a big deal, but to me it means the world.  I know how long class is for him.  I know how much he just wants to get home afterwards.  But he offered to go out of his way to get me something I need…even though I very well could go out myself.  Let’s not even mention the fact that he’s the one who gets me out of bed to marathon train at 5 am most mornings.  That’s more than dedication.  That’s more than caring.  That’s love.  Plain and simple.

It’s the small tokens of love that are the most meaningful and important. These are the tokens that had been missing from my life for quite some time.

Had I been sick before it would have been met with contempt, almost as if my sickness was a major inconvenience that I contrived in order to make someone’s like more difficult.  Or I would be met with the fact that he was also sick…and even though I was working a full time job, along with being a full time wife and mother, I was still expected to take care of one more person.

I think about these small moments when I feel someone judging me for leaving.  They don’t know what it was like; to never feel like someone cared or to never feel “taken care of”. I think sometimes people forget that meanness and non-caring isn’t all about outward nastiness.  It’s not always name calling or a controlling nature.  Sometimes it really is the fact that you are overlooked and feel completely unimportant in everyday life.

Sometimes someone taking 15 minutes out of their day to show you small tokens of love is all you need to realize you’ve found “the one”.  It’s moments like these that make it all worth it.

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The Forgotten Thank You

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“We met for a reason.  You’re either a blessing or a lesson.” ~Frank Ocean

There are very few things we do without the help of others.  Many times there’s the “overt help”, the help you can see and understand, the type of help that never masks itself as anything other than help.  It’s help simplified or help understood.  We can take it at face value for what it is.

Then there’s the other kind of help.  The help that swoops in wearing a mask.  The help that may take days, or weeks, or even years to show itself.  The help that you are fairly certain is actually not help at all.

This help comes in so many forms: toxic friendships, heart break, depression, fear.  At first, these things are a negative force in our life, ripping us apart from the inside out, tearing us down so much that we believe we may never be able to build ourself up again.  We believe there is no way for us to ever be whole.

But you know what I’ve learned? This is sometimes the best kind of help.  While it may change our lives drastically, many times we come out the other side a little worse for the wear, but seemingly better overall. This is the kind of help that forces us to make decisions, make changes, face our demons.  This is the kind of help that not only changes who we are, but makes us who we are.

Usually we vilify those people who change our lives in this way.  We feel that that they’ve taken some essential part from us and we yearn to get it back, to make ourselves who we once were.  But for me, at least today, I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the toxic friends, without whomI never would have discovered some of the truly amazing people in my life.

Thank you to the those who have caused substantial heartbreak, without which I never would have found running.

Thank you to the depression that has overtaken me on numerous occasions, without which I never would have known how wonderful simple joys can be.

It’s time to put the past behind me and move forward, embracing everything that’s gotten me where I am today, both positive and negative.

I finally think I’m ready.

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