Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heartI’ll send an SOS to the world
—the Police/Message in a bottle
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me–Divinyls/I Touch Myself
Love.
Wow.
What can I possibly say about love that hasn’t already been said a bajillion times by far more compelling writers?
Not a damn thing.
Luckily, it’s an inexhaustible topic.
It’s an inexhaustible resource, too. At least I hope it is.
But I don’t really want to talk about love exactly.
Here’s the thing. Most of us are surrounded by people who love us and who we love. It is pretty fucking fantastic, right? We are surrounded by people who would love nothing more than to show us how much they love us by supporting us and helping us when we are in trouble.
If they knew.
That’s the sticky part, isn’t it? We all know people who need help all the time. Who are constantly asking for favors. Who can never do anything on their own. And we do not want to be those people.
So what happens?
We don’t ever ask.
We don’t want to be one of “those people.”
(Unless you’re reading this and suspect you might be one of the people in the preceding paragraph, that is. In that case–cut it out. Try some independence. You might like it.)
(Do you suppose “those people” know they are “those people?”
I always wonder about that.)
For most of us, it’s hard to ask for help. Pride? Independence? Not wanting to be a bother? Embarrassment? All of the above? There have been many times in my life where I really needed help and have not been willing to ask. It made things harder than they needed to be for me. Situations spun out of control that maybe didn’t need to.
Sometimes I’ve been lucky enough to have people who care about me intervene without my asking. In one case, not to be overly dramatic, with possibly life saving results.
Other times, I’ve been…um…oh let’s not be diplomatic…I’ve been an idiot and turned down help. Or just not listened to advice offered. Good advice, too.
Ideally, in my mind, people would magically just know what I need and give it to me without asking. Because if they ask, I will say I don’t need a thing. Yeah, I’m perverse that way. I also realize that it’s just not going to work out for me most of the time.
So, what’s the solution?
I don’t know. Like I just said, sometimes I’m an idiot.
The solution is to not be an idiot, because expecting people to read your mind and come to your rescue like magic is just not realistic.
Hey, what sort of advice do you expect from me? I’m in IT support, not psychology. I don’t even play a psychologist on TV. I played a cowboy once in a musical, but that’s not a psychologist either.
Yes, a singing cowboy.
I really wanted to play a sweet young thing, but one of the cowboys moved away, so they recast me as a cowboy because I already knew all the lines. I had to take off my pants onstage and prance around in long johns. In the sixth grade, it was moderately traumatic for a shy girl to prance around being a male cowboy in long johns.
I’m pretty much over it now.
Oh we just got in from Abilene and we’re meanWe’re the roughest toughest men these folks ever seenOh we smoke and fight and sing the whole night throughAnd when we talk the atmosphere turns blue.–The Saga Of Dead Dog Gulch
Maybe I’m not as over it as I think I am….
Someone help me.
Please.