I was talking to someone about my move (upcoming as I’m writing this but past as this gets posted) and mentioned that I’ve got half a dozen people coming to help me with the move. Their response was appreciation that I had such a robust support system. It wasn’t really a response I was expecting, so I was a bit caught off guard by the shift in the direction the conversation was going and it took me a few moments to respond. I managed to do so graciously and warmly, since that’s what the conversation’s tone and depth called for (and it is true that I love and appreciate the friends and family member who are helping, some of them coming from a few hours’ drive away to lend a hand), but there were a few bitter thoughts that popped up so quickly that I barely caught them before they made it out of my mouth.

The people I would have asked to help me move (and expected a yes in response) a year ago are almost entirely different from the people I asked this year, and I didn’t expect nearly as many “yes” responses as I got. Not because the people I asked aren’t kind and helpful and considerate, but because one of them I have only really begun to be friends with in the last six months and another is a work friend who I’ve played online D&D with a few times and otherwise never seen off the clock. Plus, you know, the two people who are multiple hours of driving away. Most of these people I only asked because I was desperate for assistance (since hiring movers was going to cost WAY more than I anticipated) and some offered to help since I wouldn’t have asked them to come almost two hundred miles just to help me move.

I appreciate them so very much, for coming through for me when it is either incredibly inconvenient or when we don’t have the established social capital that most people have before asking for help with something like a move. While I may still be struggling with some bitter feelings about the drastic changes to my support network over the last six months, I am also incredibly touched that so many people I care about also care about me and that people I have only truly been getting to know recently care enough about me to lend their time and their sweat to my move. It isn’t a small task, moving apartments, even if there will be no moving truck involved this time (my new place is close enough to my old place that a truck would be egregious overkill). Maybe especially because there won’t be a truck involved. I did get a furniture dolly and a hand truck, though, so that should lessen the effort a bit.

This isn’t the first time I’ve rebuilt my support network. I built my first proper support network in college, a bit more consciously than most of my then-friends might have thought, and then had to do it all over again when I moved to Madison and so many of the people I had been close to in college basically forgot I existed. I also spent a lot of time pruning and reshaping it after my grandfather passed away and I started removing toxic relationships from my life. I’ve put in a lot of time and effort to making sure that each thread is stable as my entire network has slowly shrunk and contracted in the past four years, to the point where I worry about the whole thing coming down more than about the loss of a single thread. Though, given how the loss of one major thread has negatively impacted my outlook and mental health over the past month and a half, maybe it is all more precarious than I thought…

All of which is to say that this is work I am familiar with, even thought it definitely still sucks to be doing it again. I don’t think it will ever not suck to be in this position, even if I’m also grateful and happy to have all the people in my life who are coming to help me. Both can be true, though I’ll admit that I wish that only the latter was. It is a lot of effort to overcome my hesitancy to ask for help from people I don’t know incredibly well. It’s usually worth it, but that never really seems to make it easier to do beforehand.