The hosting website is asking what the most expensive thing is that I ever bought (specifying NOT my home or car), and that’s easy. I’m a very simple man with simple tastes. It was the ring I gave to the Angel when I asked her to marry me. I guess those last 2 sentences contradict a little, I say I have simple tastes, but then I tell you that I married the greatest woman on the planet. That’s not a simple taste. That is wildly extravagant, isn’t it? OK. I have simple tastes, except when it comes to women. I wrote a book called Be Very Careful Who You Marry – I gave it that title because my dad used to say that to me A LOT, and before my dad passed, he knew the Angel, so he knew I certainly was listening.

But what I was thinking about when I read that site writing prompt was not money, but the cost of many of our behaviors (1 in particular.)

We are raised to be independent, to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps (one of the most misunderstood expressions, making it absolutely ridiculous – the joke is that IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, it’s not a prescription for something we’re actually supposed to aspire to), to suffer silently…and the only thing it assures is that we are lonely while we stay sick.

We don’t share our burdens, struggles, or pain. We love to tell stories that begin, “ I was going through a hard time…” because that story is actually one where we were able to figure it out, where we conquered, where we are the heroes. We don’t need your help, we can handle it. Who wants to start the story, “I AM going through a hard time…help?” Nobody. That’s not a superhero narrative, that’s not the self reliant cowboy. That’s honest vulnerability, and who wants either of those things???

Last night, a Very Good Friend called me in the middle of the night, in an ambulance on her way to the hospital. This is not what we typically do, and we’ll even apologize for calling (which she did), usually saying, “I hated to call (which she did not).” Hated? This is what we reserve our hate for? Reaching out when we are in need is really something we hate? Sure, it is. I sat with my friend for 5 hours.

No one should have to sit in a hospital room by themselves.

The cost of not calling, of not starting with “I am going through…” is that we are in hospital rooms alone, and that our friends feel not at all like friends. My friend allowed herself to be loved, and allowed the Angel and I to love her. If she had not called, we all would have lost, and that is a decision that is just too expensive.

We’re made to call, made to ask for help, made to hold each other’s hands while we cry, hold each other‘s hair while we throw up. Life can be pretty hard and it can really hurt, sometimes. That’s why we have each other. The most valuable gift we have ever been given is each other, why would we ever want to absorb the cost of ignoring that gift?