Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first must help the other. –Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

This is probably going to come as a surprise, she said pretty sarcastically, but I am the type of individual who needs other people. And don’t jump on the I’m crazy bandwagon just yet because I’m not talking about “needing people” in the sense that I need someone to take care of me. It’s not like I need someone to do my laundry or make my phone calls. I don’t need someone to cook dinner for me or financially support me. With all of those primarily adult attributes, I’m well supported on my own. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid because my mom taught me how as a measure that I now know was proactive safety. She didn’t want me to be completely unaware of the stove and what it does on the off chance that I pushed a button and set the house on fire. This is America; stranger things have happened.

I learned how to drive long before I had a license because my mom had knee surgery when I was fourteen and it was just the two of us. I drove my mom around illegally for the longest time and would run in and do all the grocery shopping by myself because it was so difficult for her to get out of our Jeep. I got my first legal job when I was sixteen and before that, I volunteered at a daycare and for a brief stint, even as a candy striper at our local hospital. My mom taught me (and expected me) to save my money and open a bank account. From there she taught me the importance of “saving” some money, “tithing” some money and “playing with” some money. (True story, one time my mom gave her entire first paycheck to a homeless man because we had gone through recent money troubles and she had been too strapped to tithe. I want to say (a lot of alcohol later, it’s fuzzy) she always suggested tithing 32% of her income and as she was unable to do so for a while, she figured she would make it up to Jesus by giving her whole paycheck. She told me a bunch of times afterward that it made her feel really good about herself. This was a time when moms who struggled with money had to work fulltime, they had to figure out the daycare situation, and they always wore stockings to work. My mom always wore stockings and heels when she worked in an office. I have to say, I admire that way of life.)  

I feel like I obtained a lot of those “adult” life skills just from being around my mom as a child. She was, and still is, extremely neurotic but I think it’s only because she wanted us to be prepared for absolutely every situation. She taught us all about situational awareness, about commonsense things that you probably don’t even realize you do wrong. For example, when you’re walking to your car and it’s late at night, are you on your cellphone checking Instagram or are you looking around the parking lot, spotting your car, and getting in quickly? Another example, when you come home to find that your door is open and someone has broken in, do you walk in and see what all the fuss is about or do you back up and call 911? Sure, she watched a lot of Good Morning, America and America’s Most Wanted but she also spent nearly her entire adulthood in a big, hectic city. Honestly, sometimes you’ve got to just come correct, you know what I mean? What’s that saying about being unprepared? Oh yeah, Don’t show up with a knife to a gun fight.

The point is, I’ve always been prepared to be prepared. That’s what parents are for right? To get you settled enough to get out on your own. I moved out a lot earlier than most people I know, for a variety of reasons that don’t merit going into, and I think I did pretty well on my own. I wasn’t always married. I was in control of everything all on my own. I used to carry groceries up three flights of stairs. I used to cook for just myself every single night and make coffee at work because the smells that came from my various concoctions (including coffee, apparently) allegedly made my roommate’s skeazy girlfriend “sick to her stomach”. I even used to have to pump my own gas! Can you even imagine?

So when people like to take hits at me, when they like to talk about the way I was way back when, how I was maybe a little awkwardly clingy to my mom, how people wondered if there was mentally something wrong with me, you know what I want to say to those people? I was barely 18 when I moved out, not well over 21. It took me a long time to get my degree and a car that I didn’t have to dump coolant in every other stop light because I did it on my own. Without the help of anyone. So stick that in your soon-to-be legal pipe and smoke it!

I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things. –Amy Poehler

But aside from all that, and in a completely different way, I need people. Don’t get me wrong, I love my alone time and that could be due in part to the fact that I’m a married woman who works full time. So realistically, I don’t get much of it. But the reality is that I need a person to bounce ideas off of. Oftentimes, it’s my husband but to be fair, he’s got more than enough to put up with without having to nourish my insecurities every three seconds. That’s why God invented my girlfriends.

My girlfriends (and very, very select group of male friends because I’ve only got a couple of those out of respect for my husband) are my saving grace most days. My three best friends (and to clarify, I mean the three women who are immediately closest to me because I’ve been accused of having “too many best friends”) are the literally the three least dramatic women I have ever come into contact with. This is probably why we get along so well. It only takes a couple text messages for them to talk me off a cliff. They can bring me down from “I’m literally going to go to that woman’s residence and burn down her entire fucking street!” to “So, what’s your schedule like for a pedicure, Ma?” These women friends, they know “the crazy” because they’ve got a little bit of it too. I’m just usually that friend that says, “Hold on, hold on! Let me grab my black hoodie! Ain’t nobody gonna see me burn down that bitch’s house!” I’m unsure if that’s enabling or supportive but I’m willing to go with the latter.

The point is, sometimes people just need people. I know sometimes certain individuals like to take the tough guy route by pretending that maybe they’re just better off alone. They think they can more than handle themselves and feel most comfortable facing their problems on their own. They feel like opening up to others, craving support when they might really need it, asking for help from a person that they genuinely trust can look outwardly weak. And honestly, in conjunction with being a social worker and dealing with this literally every goddamn day, I do not agree with that. Sometimes I think it’s the ones that reach out and say, “Hey, you know what? I know things are weird between us and maybe it’s been awhile since we’ve had a meaningful conversation but I fucking need someone who gets me right now,” that are the strongest. And I’ve never seen anything wrong with holding another person up. We all need a little help sometimes, we all need guidance getting from A to B, and sometimes we’ve got to throw our hands in the air and just admit that we don’t know everything.

And you know what? I think that’s okay. I think it’s a practical way to be. You can sense things are falling apart before they actually hit the ground and that takes discipline. Anyone can just ruin their life and flush all the important things down that toilet; that takes absolutely no effort. But realizing when you’re beaten, realizing that you need help or just someone to talk to takes self-awareness and logicality. To look at yourself and say, “I don’t know who I’ve become. I need guidance. I need support.” That’s the realist self-preservation I’ve ever seen.

I have this friend who has been an addict most of his life. He was relatively reckless in his youth and got in trouble a few times for what you might call “petty crimes”. He was in an accident when he was driving well over the legal limit. It was resolved. He was busted for dealing drugs and lost a lot. It was resolved. He got a DUI for something stupid like forgetting to use a turn signal when he was switching lanes and the cop realized he was relatively intoxicated. He never killed anybody, he never hurt anybody, but he continually got in trouble. This was mostly because he was young and stupid and like most kids during that phase of life, he had believed the invincibility fable. He didn’t think anything would ever happen to him; he felt untouchable.

But then things started to change as he got older. His habit of being “troubled” suddenly went from being moderately endearing to relatively annoying rather quickly. Suddenly he was deemed undependable and people grew tired of incessantly bailing him out of various misfortunes. And then what happened over time was whatever he claimed he wanted, whatever visions he might have had, whatever dreams he recollected during the slightest bit of drunkenness became nonsense. It didn’t matter if the things that he spoke about held merit or not; they were immediately disregarded because now he was infamous for being an inebriated idiot and it no longer mattered what he said. It didn’t matter if he actually had something of value to say. No one cared anymore.

I want you to have big dreams, big goals. I want you to strive to achieve them. But I don’t want to see you beating yourself up every time you make a mistake. –Kelley Armstrong, The Gathering

But see, I have a problem with all of this because no one is perfect. You don’t get to just go through life, standing a head above everyone else and pretending like you’ve never made any mistakes in your life. I’ve never really understood that mentality, to be honest. I swear to goodness, I have never been one of those people that’s ultra-judgmental and I know that probably sounds hysterical because you’re probably thinking: “Oh my gawd, she writes blogs every week! Talk about judgmental!” But let me tell you something, that’s just not the case. Not in the slightest. I wish I had as much faith in myself as I do in other people. I am genuinely rooting for most people, even those that have historically hurt me. (And in all honesty, maybe most especially those people because I figure that if I’ve found peace than they deserve some too.) Primarily, I want the absolute best for everyone and unless you’re Michael Vick (that mother fucker, I swear to Christ), Scott Peterson or Casey Anthony, I’m not going to judge you.

And if I can be real with you, I feel like that’s an approach that most people should take into consideration. None of any of you can sit there and tell me you’ve done everything right. Because listen friends, no one has. I mean, Christians will say that the only one who can judge you is Jesus and while this isn’t a religious blog, I’m of that doctrine. Ain’t nobody got room to judge you but the Lord above. I mean, after all, learning from our various mistakes is what molds us into better, more formidable people, right? Over time, we learn what works and what doesn’t. We learn what not to say and what needs to be said. We learn when to comfort and when to keep silent, we adjust to different surroundings and realize that we are not a country unto ourselves. By the time we’re older adults, the hope is that we’ve made enough tragic mistakes to know what’s appropriate and what isn’t. The hope is that time has taught us well.

And so naturally, when this friend of mine, whom I love so dearly, was incessantly beaten down and plagued by his previous transgressions, it started to gradually take a toll on him. He was working so hard on cutting back on his beloved substances and it was like no one had even taken a second to notice. It was more of a residual feeling that he should have already quit rather than praise for his exciting progress. I remember, every few days, I would text him and say things like, “You know what? You’re doing great! Every day should be marked as a success. I’m incredibly proud of you.” And I want to say that this continued to drive him, that I gave him enough random support to cover up all that he wasn’t receiving from everyone else. But if I’m honest, I’m not so sure that was the case.

Moral of the Crazy: I’ve got to say, I don’t have many vices. I truly don’t. But if I was asked to give up even one of them for any reason, I would be miserable. I seriously don’t know how I’m going to get through nine months of pregnancy without alcohol. I mean, I guess if Nicole Richie and Snooki could do it, then I can too. That refreshing taste of Jameson and water, however, is something that I’ll never forget. Or get sick of.

And to be fair, I suppose you could say that I’m in the business of supporting people. I make a living trying to guide people to make the “right” decisions and I don’t take it lightly. Sometimes I sit at work and listen to the way people communicate and it stuns me. There are a lot of individuals in my field who have become so jaded it actually hurts my feelings. My hope is that I never become that brand of person, the type that makes a habit out of looking down on people rather than lifting them up. I guess that over time people tend to change, especially when they’ve been dealing with the same problems for years.

The reality is that people will always have drug problems and alcohol addictions. People will always beat their kids or forget to give them a bath before school. People will always raise their hand to their wife because maybe that’s what they saw their father do growing up. People will always neglect their animals and refuse to keep their home clean no matter how many CPIs are in and out of their lives. There are people that will murder others like it’s nothing, steal money from their families, and drive erratically in the rain when they’ve got children in the car. Friends, it just is what it is.  

But that’s not everybody.

And sometimes, although we try to escape problems that may have been prevalent in the past, they brand us for life. What can be frustrating is when you’re trying to fight against all that, when you’re genuinely making an attempt to make amends for your past indiscretions and the world just won’t let them go. Sometimes it can seem like no matter the compensation you might try to provide, people just can’t see past what you’ve done.

And you know, to be fair, I have been guilty of this myself. I notice it especially with the men that I incessantly hold accountable for “the things they’ve done to me”. This man that I really, really valued lied to me once and I never let it go. I held onto it for a really long time because I was just so upset that he didn’t care enough about me to tell me the truth. And you know what? I don’t condone lying in the slightest but maybe he had a reason. Or maybe he just didn’t feel up to owning the truth at that moment. No one can speak on that but him and who am I to be so relentless about forgiveness? Who died and made me queen of anything? Who am I to judge his seemingly limited transgressions when heaven knows I’ve done a lot worse in my life than tell one little, measly lie? I am no one to judge, that’s who.

And with that aforementioned friend from earlier? I think that was what was the most upsetting to me. It didn’t matter the good he was trying to do or the support he was begging for. No one could see far enough beyond the drunken asshole that made a few relatively minor mistakes to pick him up when he really needed it. They were too far up in their ivory towers to realize that sometimes, you just have to start from scratch.

Sometimes you’ve just got to give people the opportunity to do better. And sure, I’m in the business of giving people second chances but I’ve always been sort of plagued by my tendency to be always willing to forgive. Sometimes it turns around and bites me; certain individuals can and will take advantage of my sweet nature but I won’t punish the future people I come into contact with because of them. And honestly, more often than not, I’m usually the one that ends up thankful I gave someone another chance. Not the other way around.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that sometimes, people need people. There are moments when people need support. And it doesn’t really matter all that things that occurred in the past or what has happened since any proverbial debacle took place. Sometimes you’ve got to forget that someone’s made a mistake, you’ve got to remember that no one (including you) is perfect, and you’ve got to realize that if the situation was reversed, you would want someone to take that same chance on you.

So today I want you to look back on your life and think about all that’s changed. Maybe it’s a personality change, maybe it’s a physical change, or maybe you’ve altered the crew that you used to run with. But what I really want you to center on is who was there for you. And then I want you to think about whether or not you deserved it. Because I know for me, personally? The time I really needed people the most was when I probably didn’t deserve it. But no one gave up on me. Even though it probably would have been a lot easier to do so.

The bottom line is that we can’t give up on each other. In today’s world, there are so many readily available things that could lead us astray. There are so many things that could so easily hinder us and as time goes on, it feels like resources just get fewer and fewer. On a personal level, I would like to promise that I could be there for any one of my friends in need. And for the most part, I have been. I’ve struggled lately with some of my friends because I get frustrated when they don’t make the choices that I think they should make, the choices that I would have made.

But then I realize that the choices were never mine to make.

Here’s the thing, friends: If you make the same choice twenty times and it’s the wrong one, I’ll be there for you. If I feel like you’re leading yourself down the rabbit hole and you’ve got crazy tunnel vision, I’m going to try and positively redirect you. If I think you drink too much, party too much, don’t take care of your kid, or have a boyfriend that incessantly cheats on you, I’m going to let you vent and then I’m going to tell you that you deserve more than you’re giving yourself. But despite whatever choices you make that I think are ridiculous or how many times you continue to make them, I’m going to be there to help you up when everything falls down. And I would hope that you would do the same for me.

Take care of each other, friends. We’re all we’ve got.

A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the whole world has walked out. –Shannon L. Alder