I hate asking for help.

In case you need another anecdote to drive this point home, I will generously provide you with one. In second grade we were learning about reading time from an actual ticking clock (because we didn’t anticipate that cellphones would replace the need for all other modes of telling time in just a few short years–however digital clocks were already a thing so I knew this whole thing was really pointless anyway). One of the exercises included filling in an empty circle on a piece of paper with the appropriate numbers, marks and hands. I was a shy child who was fairly competent in most things thrown at me in the elementary schooling environment, and I hated getting things wrong but even more than that I hated asking for help.

It was during this absurd exercise that I realized I had no idea how many notches there were supposed to be between each number. The 12 numbers I had down, but I guess it didn’t click in my head how many seconds there were in a minute/minutes in an hour, so instead of asking, I drew a shit ton of dashes. There were probably 15-20 dashes between each number because if I didn’t know and I couldn’t ask, you can bet your bottom dollar I was going to be thorough in my failure. It quickly became evident to my peers around me that I had no clue what I was doing. There was laughter immediately followed by mortification and trauma added to the treasure trove that is childhood memories.

Fast forward to today and you’ve got an awkward Kensie spending an hour more than necessary at the grocery store, nodding her head instead of asking for clarification, avoiding the hand car washes which are the only ones open now due to this drought and stressing out while trying to network her way into an apartment/job/friend group and be a part of a society that in many ways depends on your ability to ask people for things.

Oh em gee, my life is so hard.

Okay, I’m done.