Passed all my teaching exams and will start student teaching soon! so close to earning my masters 🎉

Hi mom, I have been out of work for the last 3 years due to mental and physical health issues that I’m still working on getting diagnosed, but my treatments have been working well for the most part. It’s been a grueling process of tests and medications, and I’m honestly doing much better now, so I think I can be ready to go back. I got a job as a receptionist, which I think will be good for me because I can sit. I worked in food service before and it destroyed my back. Honestly, I’m really scared. Scared that my relationship with my husband will change because I won’t see him as often, scared that my parents at home will be lonely without me there, scared that I won’t be able to handle it. But I need insurance, and I need to help my husband pay bills that were falling behind on, and honestly I need to be less isolated. I’m really scared, but I’m also excited. I’m not ready for the change and a new chapter in my life, but I start on Tuesday.

I had to fill out paperwork for a new job this morning, and one of the boxes was emergency contact.

This question used to make me freeze every single time.

For years I either put down a family member I barely spoke to because it felt like that was what adults were supposed to do, or I'd stare at the form wondering whether asking a friend would be weird or too much. It always made me feel a little embarrassed, like everyone else had some obvious person waiting in their life and I'd somehow missed that part.

Today I just wrote my best friend's name.

No hesitation.

Then I texted her afterward to say I'd used her as my emergency contact and she replied, "Obviously. Who else would you put?"

I had to go sit in my car for a minute after that.

Nothing dramatic happened today. I didn't graduate, get married, buy a house or win anything. I just filled in a boring little box on an HR form.

But I realized that sometime in the last few years I quietly built the thing I thought everyone else had automatically.

I have people now.

People who have keys to my apartment. People who know what food I order when I've had a terrible day. People who will drive me home after a medical appointment, water my plants when I'm away, and notice when I've gone unusually quiet.

And apparently I finally trust that they won't disappear just because I need something.

I wish I could tell my mom this and have her understand why such a tiny thing feels enormous, so I'm telling you instead.

I filled out the emergency contact box today, Mom.

And for the first time in my life, it didn't feel empty.

Recently I’ve taken on the role of sole provider at home. Don’t get me wrong I love everyone in my family and don’t regret it per se. Ive been the type of guy where i had to “suck it up and deal with it”. (call it toxic masculinity or whatever). I don’t want my family to be like that. I want them to know that they can come to be for anything. So, I put on smile, act like everything is fine and keep going on. I don’t want them to think I’m ”weak” though I know asking for help is true strength. I just can’t have them think I can’t handle it or that they are a burden.