We're all taking care of each other

I've waxed intellectual on this blog, and it's time to return to my roots (melodrama).

23 June 2025

When I was 18 years old, I moved into the dorms of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Having been raised in California and Arizona, I didn't know the difference between a coat and a jacket. I didn't even own a coat, except for my ski coat, which I called my ski jacket.

One Sunday morning, as was ritual, my roommate Lexie (also an Arizona native) and I dressed for church and went to the lobby to wait for our friends to walk to church together. It was early November, and outside, wispy snow was falling on green grass that had been watered by a rain fallen only a few days before. The air temperature had, as instantaneously as a light switch, just crossed the threshold that crystallized rain into snow and catalyzed the unpacking of winter wear from storage closets, a custom Lexie and I were altogether unfamiliar with. Claire Hendricks (Colorado native) met us on the ground level of the dorm and asked "where are your coats?" My zip-up hoodies and sweatshirts had remained dutifully in my closet, unfit for the Sunday best occasion. A puffy, waterproof coat that sounded like plastic wrap when your arms brushed your sides? Not something Lexie or I owned. We had done our best with long-sleeve dresses. Completely unsatisfied by our sad attempt at warmth, Claire brought us to her room, where she lent a coat to each of us for the quarter-mile walk to the classroom that doubled as a chapel on Sundays.

The phrase "taking care of someone" often takes the shape of a matronly role in my mind, like how a mother takes care of her children. I grew up surrounded by powerful, charitable women who cooked dinner for each other, organized service projects for the impoverished, watched each other's children. I learned what it means to take care of someone by watching my mom teach our neighbors how to read and do math, watching my dad drive our elderly friend to church.

I could list several more awe-inspiring, heart-warming examples, but what I've come to love recently is the casualness in which we care of each other. It grows out of the most basic level of sympathy and takes the shape of a protection over one another. It's a natural aversion to seeing any one of our fellow humans suffer. And it manifests itself every day in subtle ways, like lending a coat to a friend.

In my college town, I and most everyone I interact with have semi-recently left our nests and learned the hard truths about self-sustainability and independence. But we're also rotating turns being Mom for each other. We plan each other's birthday parties. We scratch each other's backs. We wear each other's clothes and do each other's makeup. We exchange knowledge, talents, advice. We take turns driving each other and we never Venmo for gas because it'll all even out in the end. If it doesn't? Nobody was keeping score anyway. It's casual and unspoken, the way we're caring after each other.

We sit on the sidelines of each other's intramural sports, because our mothers and fathers and siblings live in different states now. We read each other's research papers and buy each other frozen yogurt and sing each other songs.

Of course our friends are inclined to take care of us, but I've been warmed by the realization that this is a natural human tendency that requires no prerequisite emotional connection. Even in the loneliest stages of life, strangers hold the door open for each other, tuck in each other's shirt tags, offer each other directions. We're all just walking around on this big blue planet holding each other's hands.

I'm a subscriber of the gifts and favors economy. In fact, I am a disciple of the gifts and favors economy. Unfamiliar? It's something like this: instead of making every interaction financially transactional, we do favors for each other because we're all here on Earth for the first time and everyone needs a ride to the airport once in a while. I let you borrow my shirt today knowing somewhere down the line you'll share your french fries. It's a beautiful philosophy to subscribe to because it both encourages selflessness and admits humility. I want to help you, and one day I will probably need some help in return. Alexis Long, my dear friend, once wrote:

The girls have formed a gifts and favors economy
Trading sweaters for sourdough
Wearing each other's pants
Doing each other's hair

It's one of my favorite pieces of poetry ever written. And it's all true! We swap, share, lend, help, hold, drive, hug, and listen. I lay in Sophie's bed while she combs my hair and reads aloud. The next day, she lies on the lawn while I tell her "it'll all work out".

I am often jolted alert by the realization that I have been moved out of my childhood home for five years. I have fed myself, watered myself, granted sunshine to myself, kept myself alive for five years. I am pleasantly surprised—but surprised nonetheless—at this realization. I recall the times I was fed, watered, and granted sunshine by others, which leads me to the conclusion that I have been kept alive by others. And that's kind of the whole point, isn't it? Every ride to the airport, every coat lent on a November day, every sourdough loaf baked and shared serves the purpose of making it a little easier for the recipient to be alive. Let us not be too proud to admit how often we sustain one another.

Acknowledging and appreciating all the times I've been taken care of makes it that much easier to surrender my time to take care of others. I'm as independent and self-sustaining as they come, and I have had to learn to relinquish the tight reins I hold on keeping my schedule and optimizing my time. But when I think of all of us brand-new humans skipping around on this earth, driving each other to airports and painting each other's fingernails and sharing sunscreen, I realize how wasted my life would be if I stayed in my lane, eyes fixed forward toward finish line. Everyone needs to take a turn being Mom once in awhile, because everyone needs Mom once in awhile.

The point I'm getting at is that in between the grandiose gestures of service and the unrighteous fits of selfishness, we all have a natural inclination to take care of each other. It's as subtle as brushing a piece of lint off a friend's shirt or lending a curling iron. We're all so new at being human beings on Earth; I think that is why it tugs at my heartstrings so dramatically to see all of us naive little creatures granting each other small tokens of love. We're figuring it out for the first time together. We're all taking care of each other.