Saturday Stories

I've been thinking about something lately, I'm not sure I can articulate it correctly. It's about our ability to hold space for people and how we expect people to be able to do that for us.I've been thinking about a few people I know who have ASD kids. I've known them for a while, their children have been diagnosed for years. They know the struggle I've gone through getting Chai diagnosed and yet they haven't offered any help or any kind words.It's bothered me and I've spent quite a bit of time wondering why they haven't offered help. I've come to the conclusion that they can't. It's all well and good that we expect people to help, but we also need to understand that they may not have the capacity to help.A few years ago I had a good friend who was an alcoholic. I tried my best to help her because she said she wanted to quit, but she continued drinking.She went through a really rough stage right at the time I pulled Chai out of school and started home schooling. It was a very scary, overwhelming time for me. She was reaching out and asking for help every few days but I didn't have the capacity to help. I told her that however she continued to ask me for help. She even asked me to pick her kids up from school three days per week. This is all despite me saying I couldn't help.In the end I stopped replying to her messages. I had too much going on in my own life.She's now sober and recently wrote a message on FB thanking the special people who stuck by her. That really got me thinking and it made me realize that no matter how good a friendship or how much we like someone, we just might not have the capacity to help them and that's perfectly okay.So when people don't show up and hold space for me, I won't feel let down, I'll understand that for whatever reason they aren't able to be there for me and that's perfectly okay.