Raise your hand if you are a little bit stubborn...

You learn things about yourself when you move.

Among the things that this move has taught me:

• I have way too many pairs of shoes.
• I over-estimate my own abilities.
• I have strong opinions about where things belong and how rooms are to be set up.
• Loading a U-Haul is way harder than unloading it, and flip flops are not a good choice for moving day.
• Few things make me both exhausted and exhilarated at the same time like settling in to a new space.
• Moving a queen size bed by yourself is HARD.
• I'm not great at asking for help.

I guess I should just own it. Sometimes I try to pretend, and even succeed in convincing myself at times, that I am not stubborn. I am though. I think both of my parents kind of are too so maybe I get it from them, but the thing about being stubborn is that most of us adamantly argue that we are not. We are stubborn about our stubbornness. I am most definitely stubborn about my own stubbornness. But alas here I am, owning it, because it's being shoved in my face at the moment.

When you are single and moving yourself across town, stubbornness and inability to ask for help NEED to be thrown out the window. So I stretched myself and asked for a bit of help in my move. And you know what? It was hard. Harder than it should have been. I have amazing friends who were offering, willing, even down-right cheerful about helping me out. But I still felt like a burden, and I still tried to do as much as humanly possible all by myself. As I was sitting on the floor of my room at midnight on Saturday night balancing my wrought iron queen-size bed on one leg (where I now have a fatty bruise), holding the other side up with the other leg while simultaneously balancing and unscrewing the bed frame awkwardly with both hands, an Allen wrench and my forehead for support, I thought of my little self at three years old, insisting often that "I CAN DO IT MYSELF!" How silly a little kid looks trying to do something so outside of their abilities; but as they are growing and learning independence, we grant them that stubborn pride and it warms our hearts at the same time as something good and necessary.

But my stubborn pride is neither good nor necessary. At times it feels necessary because I do long to have someone to do life with - especially in those moments where a man with tools would come in quite handy! But stubborn insistence on independence and strength of will are defense mechanisms that have worked almost too well for me in my young single adult life. It's hard for me to face rejection and even harder to admit defeat (refer back to the mental image of me trying desperately to move my bed), so I am bad at asking for and accepting help.

I learned quite a bit in this move. I didn't learn how amazing and selfless my friends were, I already knew that. But I did learn that it's okay that I can't do everything on my own. It's supposed to be that way and I am glad that it is. I learned that asking for help both feels good and gets easier with practice. I learned about humility and having patience and grace with myself. In a healthy way, too, I learned that this is an area of great weakness for me; one that deserves some attention. I won't ever be truly rid of my stubborn tendencies and I don't think that is a bad thing. But there is room for growth: vulnerability to be practiced, help to be asked for, and guards to be let down, if I'm willing. And I think I am, in baby steps.