I am really good at giving advice. Good advice, I think. I don’t find it hard to put myself in someone else’s shoes and I pride myself on always trying to be constructive and supportive to my friends. Naturally, I have a lot of friends like that as well.
Funny how when crazy shit happens, sane people are still unable to follow the good advice they’ve been doling out for years. I can’t count the number of times that my mostly sane friends have come to me with totally absurd relationship questions or admitted to me some crazy scheme they’ve devised in reaction to some emotional trauma. And I just sit there like,
wow, you really can’t be your own therapist.
And here I am now, in the Crazy Boat. Let me tell you, things look different from inside the Crazy Boat. The shore looks miles and miles away. I mean, the Crazy Boat is really just Out At Sea. And it’s small, the Crazy Boat; just a wooden dingey really, and there is only room for one person, and the water around the Crazy Boat fluctuates between rough and choppy, and eerily calm. When the waves are crashing, you just have to hold on to the sides and let the water wash over you until it subsides. And the calm water can be just as bad, like now you can peer over the edge of the Crazy Boat and that terrified feeling comes over you, like
ahh, the water is infinitely deep!
and you shudder with the knowledge that you have none. As the captain of my current Crazy Boat, I now turn to my friends, who have never let me down, and will eventually help me will this vessel ashore. I suppose it is that certainty that keeps the Crazy Boat from capsizing.
Some advice I’ve been receiving lately has included never becoming dependent upon someone else, as a rule. I like this thought, in principle. I think everyone should be able to find happiness within themselves, be self-sufficient. But the beauty of sharing things with others is human, and the line between sharing, and becoming intertwined, being interdependent…I just don’t know where it is. Isn’t it wonderful to give to others? Isn’t it magic to let someone else know they can depend upon you? I guess you just have to know how to go on if something doesn’t pan out the way you hoped it would.
This idea could use developing over a bottle of wine.
In the meantime, I’m just going to give a shoutout in the spirit of pre-Thanksgiving, to all of my friends and family who are always there for me, and who consistently show me so much love and support. I’ve got your backs, too.
Tags: friendship, interdependence, rebirth, therapy
