I need to try
People around me are always so kind and forthright with their offers of help. Whether it be security at an event, cabin crew on a plane, friends on a night out… wait who am I kidding I don’t do nights out are you kidding me… friends at a comfortable dinner together in front of a fireplace with a second helping of pudding.
But I have a pretty considerable character flaw. I am defiantly, belligerently independent.
I was pushing my wheelchair up one of the more challenging hills around Winchester, I do a tough walk uphill until my legs begin to collapse like an overworked soufflé, before switching to sedentary mode and bicepping my ass the rest of the trip. The first time I made this new regular journey I discovered that the route involved an imposing hill. To be honest describing this hill as imposing is like describing the moon as ‘big’.
To be honest the hill triggers my defiance in a similar way to any obstacle, and I want to fly right at it at top speed.
So I did.
I had no business pushing up this hill, the pavement was impassable so I was in the middle of the road. Roads are much easier to traverse than pavements and at times like this are the only real option.
I brute forced the 100kg boulder that is my wheeled frame up this hill with all the strength I could muster, spinning wheels on wet leaves. I was struggling. Down the road slowed a van and the driver stopped, opened his door, stepped out, and approached me directly to offer help. A true hero.
This guy is deeply kind and I do feel a swell of gratitude, but I fairly firmly turn him down.
I want to explain what was happening internally, what always happens when someone offers help. Whether someone offers to open a bag of crisps, to find me a seat, or to push me up Mount Vesuvius, as soon as the offer comes in I snarl internally. The offer draws my attention to my limitations, to the obstacle, and my instincts take over. I always immediately refuse, often before they’ve finished offering. I know it’s weird and counterproductive, even self-defeating. I imagine if Frodo was at the elven council and Aragorn declared ‘you have my sword’ and Frodo was just ‘no thanks, I’m fine, I want to see if I can do it on my own…’
But I do want to do it myself. I think there’s a difference between what other people assume is the objective and what the objective really is. Onlookers think my destination is somewhere up that hill, and they can help me reach it. But that destination isn’t what I’m trying to reach. My true pursuit is my strength, my ability to overcome, the fire in my heart that I feed with this labour and the progress it earns.
So when I’m struggling up this hill, and please allow me to clarify that I was s-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g up this cliffside, the van driver offering to help was more than understandable, it was wise, virtually necessary.
But I looked at him, red faced and, uh… perspiring… and I said ‘I’m ok’. He was incredulous ‘but I can help!’. The moments that then passed were a kindness battle as I parried his increasingly forceful offers of help with stronger and more insistent refusals. Eventually he relented, mostly because I’m so belligerent he did not dare approach further.
What I need this very kind person to know is that if he helped me I’d get up the hill, sure, but that’s not the only hill I’ll face. There are bigger hills, gluier crisp packets, stealthier seats. And he won’t always be there. I know that someone will always be there, and I know that if I was in need some kind soul would stop to help. People helping other people is a Human universality. But I want to get stronger. The desire to get stronger is itself more powerful than any I experience, it’s a fundamental drive. So when this kind man began to relent, resignation crossing his face, a little shake of the head, I looked at him with what I know was a pained expression…