I need you, and I need you to need me too

Let me preface by saying I have worked a lot of hours this week, spending a lot of time on the verge of losing my patience with the 900 children I'm surrounded with, and I haven't slept very much at all since coming back to Thailand. This makes me a little emotional and reflective, and that results in a blog post like this.

The only thing I really want to say is this: we cannot survive alone. We are not meant to be alone, and we are not meant to just "survive". We aren't meant to simply "exist." We're meant to live, and to love, and to cultivate friendships and relationships, because WE CAN'T DO IT ALONE. 

I'm an "alone" person. It's what I do, and it's how I've been for as long as I can remember. I have two siblings (one older and one younger brother) but we weren't ever too close, and we are so spread out in years that we all were treated as the "only child" at times. Sean was off doing his thing, while I was a teenager, and Hootie was in elementary school. I learned to spend time alone, to try and do and figure things out on my own, both physically and emotionally, and that's what I know. One of the biggest things I've learned since being in Los Angeles, is that there is now way I can survive with that mentality. It's simply not possible: WE ARE NOT MEANT TO DO THIS ALONE.

Let me paint a little picture for you:

2014 was a PRETTY CRAPPY year. Of course there were wonderful, wonderful things, but when push comes to shove, the only emotions I feel when I think of 2014 is sadness and struggle. I lost my job, I was living with an old man in LA, I didn't "belong" anywhere, I was lonely and probably depressed, I wasn't working to push my acting career, and I was broke. B-R-O-K-E: the kind of broke where you drive to work and then drive right back home, and sit in your bedroom alone because if you drive anywhere else, you won't have enough gas to make it through the work week, and you don't have any money to fill up your tank. The kind of broke where you come home to the butt end of a stale/moldy piece of bread in your cupboard, and actually eat it for dinner because that's all you have to eat and can't buy food until you get paid 3 days later--the kind of broke where you then get sick from eating the stale bread, but can't go buy medicine for yourself because you can't drive anywhere and you still have no money. The kind of broke where you have a complete meltdown when your check-engine light comes on because there goes another 600 dollars down the drain (for the 3 time in 6 weeks) on your stupid car because the mechanics keep screwing you over. The kind of broke that makes you feel like you are so worthless and that you have failed your parents and friends and dreams and education and God because there is no reason you should be in this position....but you are. THAT kind of the broke. The kind of broke that breaks you, and breaks you hard. 

Even now, that is really sad and hard for me to think about. That was a really low time for me: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially....all of the "ly's." Don't misunderstand me, or think that I believe that money solves all of your problems. It doesn't. We all know that. But when you are suddenly out of money, you're forced to evaluate what qualities and relationships and things you actually have cultivated in your life. (which is  a really difficult thing to do anyway.)
But I made it out!I made it through the wilderness. I'm on higher ground, ya know? I wish I could say that I did it myself, that I grabbed control of my life, made some changes, took some risks.....which I did.....but not really---not by myself. God definitely had a hand in all of this, of that I have no doubt. But I made it through because of the love and kindness of those around me. It's very difficult for me to ask someone to help me when I am not in a position to help myself, and even more difficult for me to accept the help when it is offered. It makes me feel like I have failed myself (twisted, I know.) But here's a story:

I had just paid every penny I owned for the second time to fix my car--I had to have a car, how else would I be able to drive to temp jobs or interviews/work/auditions? My car had JUST broke down again, and was towed to the shop for the second time. It was a really inconvenient day, because I had a film-shoot that afternoon, and a job I had to work that evening that I could not afford to not work, as it was the money I would use to buy my groceries for the next week. I was stranded at the auto shop, not knowing if I would even be able to make my film shoot. Luckily for me, a friend from my ward named Kelli Erdman offered to pick me up from the auto shop and drive me back home. When I got home, I got my wardrobe together for the film shoot, crying, because I knew that there was no way I could get there in time. My cousin Stephanie Smith showed up, picked my sorry little body up and drove me to my shoot where she dropped me off. The shoot lasted a few hours, just in time to head to my last job of the evening. My dear friend Penny Reber, a single mother who is tougher than any woman I've ever met, packed her little tiny baby in a car, drove across town to pick me up from my shoot, bought me some avocado toast at her old restaurant where she used to serve, and dropped me off at my last job. 4 hours later, Jennifer Whipple and her boyfriend Nick Taylor showed up at 11pm and drove me all the way to my house before returning to her apartment on the other side of the valley.

I couldn't afford to fix my car, and I was too emberrassed to ask my dad for money. Maybe I didn't want my parents to know how bad things really were for me. Maybe I was worried they wouldn't be able to afford to help me either, and I didn't want them to feel bad too. Maybe it was a little of both. That morning, my home-slice Ambree Klemm called me up to say hi, heard my sad voice, asked what was wrong, and listened to my very condensed tale. She immediately venmo'd me the amount I needed to fix my car and simply said "You can pay it when you can. I'm not worried about it at all. Pay it forward, ya know?" (Just to clear my name, I paid her back very promptly---as prompt as I could, and have never forgotten the fact that there was no hesitancy in her voice when she offered to help me. Could she afford it? Hardly--she was a grad student at USC, nannying part time and drowning in her own struggles.

The saga above competes with the time immediately after I had lost my job. I was at Starbucks/Barnes and Noble with Anatasha Blakely and Jennifer Whipple and Chase Dewitt Brown. We were talking a little bit about life, and Tasha saw me crunching numbers on a notebook, and asked what they were for. I was writing down all of my upcoming bills that I needed to pay, and trying to figure out how I could get that money to pay them. My intent was the kneel down in prayer that night and say "God....I just need ________. Help me find a way to get it. Help me find the work, help me see the opportunity, help me help myself." When she asked what they were, I lied, trying to cover up what I was doing. I think I was caught off guard that she asked. She scanned over my numbers, put her hand on my shoulder, and said something to the extent of "I really understand how you feel, because we're all here. But it'll be ok. We can make it through." About 30 minutes later, I opened my wallet to get something out of it, and there was the exact amount of money that I needed to make ends meet. I immediately put it down in front of Tasha and told her to take it back. She denied knowledge of the money, as did Jen. Nobody would claim ownership to the hundreds of dollars that were in my wallet, nor did they seem to have any idea where it came from. "We can't afford to just give somebody that much money, etc" were the things that were said and muttered between my crazy glances. Money doesn't just show up in people's wallets, ya know? To this day, I convinced that I owe each of them that amount of money, but the only thing I remember now is Tasha looking at me and saying "Kelly. You're a good person. You deserve to have good things happen to you. So take it. Be thankful for it. Pay it forward someday, ya know?" 

Just today, I had two very similiar experiences where two people offered up hours of their day to help me with mine. And I wouldn't have succeeded today if it weren't for these people.
My point in all of this, is that we have to be there for people. We have to. And you know what? It may be inconvenient. In fact, it probably will be. It may suck up our only free time we've got that day. It may keep us up an extra 2 hours, even though we know we'll be tired tomorrow. It may even make us late to meeting up with some friends. But in the grand scheme of things, what does it really matter if you're tired, or 20 minutes late, or you didn't get to spend you time pinning pins on pinterest? So what if your living room is messy because your friend is living there for a week while they're in between jobs or apartments. This is the type of person I want to be. Not the type that says "As long as I am in a good space to help, or as long as it is good for me to help, then I will." And though it's really important to have boundaries and know what we are emotionally capable of giving (looking out for ourselves), I'd much rather be the person where helping someone in need isn't a challenge, but a habit. I want to be the kind of person that people feel comfortable calling up and saying "Hey. I need help. This is what I need" because they know that I will come--I will come and be "their person" if that's what they need. I will drive them to the doctor, I will bring them dinner when their mom passes. I will give them money if I have it to give. I will buy them groceries if they are eating stale bread. Asking for help is, well, vulnerable. It's admitting to a weakness that we need help filling with somebody else. And to feel like the person we ask might refuse to help us for whatever reason? No no. Asking is hard enough as it is, and I want them to feel like them asking me is a safe thing for them to do. I want you to feel safe.

Look. I'm not there yet. I think the best thing I've done in a while is offer to take somebody to the airport, which is probably not nearly enough what I could or should do for those around me.

But guys: we can't do this alone. We need each other. I need you. 

And if you need to, you can need me too.