The thing about coming from a long line of obnoxiously independent people is the crippling inability to ask for help. I mean, sure, this is mostly a positive thing. I’m capable! I can do everything! I don’t need anything but me!

Except, you see, it means that I can’t ask someone to carry a load that’s too heavy for me.

Both literally and figuratively.

I won’t ask you to carry a too-heavy photo prop in the same way that I won’t ask you to watch one of my kids so I could take another somewhere in the same way I wouldn’t ask you to come and use your wi-fi when mine is broken.

It’s just really, really hard for me.

But then that thing called LIFE slaps you in the damn face and you have turn up the Wu Tang Clan and sing out loud in your superhero underpants and do the things that make you uncomfortable.

Ask.

I asked my mother-in-law to buy me some dog food.

I asked friends to invite me to their homes for holiday meals.

And you know what? I now have dog food and meals I don’t have to cook.

I asked my kids to step it up a little bit.

And now I have kids who brought the garbage cans in from the curb without having to be asked. They are setting alarms in the morning and getting their own breakfasts and putting their dishes in the sink and their lunch boxes in the kitchen. They are willingly doing homework and not whining about dinner.

Gold stars for them.

And gold stars for me.

For asking.