"It's a lot of rain in one place"
Those are the words of a character on a show I was watching. They were using them to describe their situation. In that episode, there had been a series of losses to death of people in this character's world in pretty rapid succession. They were wrestling with the weight of it all.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
I had almost turned off that episode a few times, as it was hitting on my own grief over the many of losses to death - of family members and people at work - that 2021 had brought. I wasn't sure I could handle watching a show about that. But, for whatever reason, I kept watching. When I got to the end, I was glad I had.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
Those words resonated. They gave me way to describe what a series of losses of any kind coming one after another felt like. It put words, in a simple way, to the journey I've been walking. And then gave some insight into what it takes to get through these times.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
The impact of each loss is like a rainstorm over you - a downpour. It soaks you and it soaks the ground. Nothing about it is pleasant, but it passes eventually and things dry out again.
But sometimes another downpour comes before things have dried out from the last one. The already soaked ground becomes saturated - muddy and sticky. Your already wet clothing soaks up more water and starts becoming cold and heavy.
As the rainstorms keep coming, everything gets more soaked. The ground is a muddy, sticky mess that sucks you in. Instead of keeping you warm and dry, your soaked clothes stick tightly to you, feeling cold, heavy, and restrictive.
Eventually, you realize your stuck. The ground too muddy and sticky for you to get your feet to move by yourself. Any attempt to do so just sucks you deeper in. Clothes stuck to you with water - feeling heavy and restrictive.
You only have one choice at this point. You have to ask for help. You need some people who aren't stuck in the mud to help pull you out. People standing on solid ground who you grab hold of and who grab hold of you to pull you out.
But that's not the only help you need. Once you're unstuck from the mud, those soaked clothes need to be removed and replaced with dry ones. But when they're clinging to you so tightly, restricting your movement, you can't do it yourself. You have to allow others to help you do this.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
Asking for help isn't something we're taught to be good at in our society. Being able to do it all by yourself is praised and held up as the goal we should be working towards.
I think there are different types of help we need to ask for and some are easier to ask for than others.
Asking for help to get your feet unstuck? Not easy, but probably something we'll eventually be will to do when we really need help.
But, how many times do we ask for help beyond that? Not very often.
Once we're unstuck, we go back to trying to do it all on our own again. We've determined we're going to figure out how to remove those soaked clothes ourselves. And sometimes we might succeed, but we're exhausted and defeated by the time we do. Often, we find out we're unable to do it ourselves.
Why do we do this? Why do we fight the help we know deep inside we need?
It's because once we're unstuck, we don't want to let anyone see what comes next. To admit we still need help means letting a least one person into places we usually hide from others. It gets close. It gets personal. It's vulnerable. It's scary.
But, it's necessary. It's how we get those soaked clothes removed and dry ones in place, without exhausting and defeating ourselves in the process. It's how we learn to live with the losses we've experienced.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
I don't know what your "a lot of rain in one place" has been. But, my guess is that after the last few years in our world, you have that place. That place where you feel stuck in the mud and took heavy and restricted by the weight of your soaked clothes to move. The intensity will be different for all of us. And the help we need to ask for will be different for all of us.
But, if there's something I've learned in the last few months: asking for help is the best thing we can do. It's not a weakness. It's not a sign something is wrong with us. It's the absolute best thing we can. Even if we do it shaking and terrified, it's the way forward in our "a lot of rain in one place."
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
But we don't have to figure it all out alone. We can ask for help.
"It's a lot of rain in one place"
What is your "a lot of rain in one place"?
Who can you ask for the help you need? Family? Friends? Church? A counsellor?
