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Intervene, 2.

So I didn't want to go out the other day. I had off and told myself I wanted to do laundry, as I've done I now realize so many times before. It's a tempting fantasy, you know? The intention of doing right, of being responsible. There's a weak but still gratifying sense of accomplishment in saying "I'm going to do ____" or "I'm going to be responsible today...". Even if you don't end up doing it at all. Even when you don't end up doing anything at all.

Part of why my friends held an intervention for me was they wanted me to know I'm not alone; that I have people and resources to help me. Lord knows I have spent more than enough time trying to do or change things wholly on my own and never gotten anywhere nor even learned from that. I just keep going at it as self-sufficiently as I can and not getting anywhere by it.

So when Parker asked me to go see our therapist yesterday, I realized what I'd done the day before. I'd taken the impetus of my friends' intervention alone and used it to guilt me into feeling responsible without having changed anything. Without asking for help. So I went with Parker; I tried using some of my resources to make change. I didn't get to see my therapist (I did schedule a time to, though), but I did get out of the house. And although I went home promising myself I'd work on laundry and still ended up not doing anything of the sort, at least I can say I tried a bit harder to move forward than I likely otherwise would have done.

Asking for help, in a way, is asking for accountability. Asking "help me do this" is in a way also asking "help me make sure I do this". Doing everything on my own--or trying--as I have done most of my life has left me only accountable to myself in most situations and with most challenges. It's as easy to "forgive" myself of what I was accountable for as it is to make an excuse for myself or promise to do it later. And thus little progress is made.

My friends, I gather, held that intervention because they saw someone they cared about very much have so much ambition and so much potential but letting it all get away from him instead of working towards his dreams. They saw me withdrawing, avoiding responsibilities and goals, and otherwise not exactly being the kind of person they know I want to be, the kind of person I'd value being.

Just reaching out, as they did, has done a lot to make make me conscious of that, even if I'm not entirely sure at all how to go forward. How to use what they've given me--their love--to make lasting change in this vague, confusing period in my life. But I do feel less alone about it, less helpless and listless. I've got friends--beautiful people who care about me enough to take time outta their lives to sit me down and tell me that--and that feels pretty good.

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Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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