Me, Myself-reliance, and I.

This entry's just a little more personal than most. That's either going to send you running straight towards it or swiftly away from it, depending on your personality.

I can only imagine what those who know me personally are thinking when they read my blog entries that deal with self-reliance.

What I hope they are thinking is that "Well, he DOES know what he's talking about. He's demonstrated it in the past, even if he's shown no sign of even a scrap of it lately." Ain't it sad that that's what I HOPE they're saying?

It's absolutely true. I haven't been very self-reliant lately. I'm absolutely guilty of neurotic levels of behavior toward my friends and family. They way that it manifests is almost creepy -- I call them, email them, ICQ them, constantly to make sure they're doing okay.

There is both a method to my madness, and a madness to my method. You see, that's how I find validation -- in caring about others. That's normally not a bad thing, but imagine getting a call every day from someone asking "Is everything all right?" After a while it's like running into a funeral home owner and him asking "So, how's the family?" I'm giving them one of two impressions:

a) I don't trust them to take care of themselves without me;
b) It's a conversational gambit to get them to ask me if everything's all right.

Neither one is really the case. I AM as okay as I'm going to be until I get back to the States, and I know that they can take care of themselves. BUT, I have this need to feel connected. I think that's what it boils down to. I need to know about what problems they're facing so that I can feel like a part of somebody's life.

Posted: Sun - March 21, 2004 at 04:25 PM

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Me, Myself-reliance, and I.