9/90, a thought after a phone call

I have an obsessive need to help people, to dedicate my life to leaving more good than bad, to improving what we've done to this place.

I'm realizing that this is not something I'm very good at. At one point, I was the friend that they came to. The one with the cookies or the beer or the tissues. Or just the being, because it is surprising how often that is enough.

I feel the need to help, to fix, to over-talk until I am convinced that we are okay. Maybe it is selfish. Maybe that's what it always is--just looking for the career or cause that allows us to fulfill a need.

I am not good at making people better--their feelings, their situation, their self-esteem. I try, and then somehow it gets distracted.

There are people that disagree. They're sure that if I suffer through the mathematics and learn to hold my own without blushing each time I share an opinion in class, then I will definitely make it in these public policy programs. I can make it to the UN. I can be a part of it, the Big Change, the shift, an attempt to convince myself that the world is not ruined.

These people, they have seen my in the moments where it all feels like it's coming together. They haven't been in this house, seen the fucking mess of tears all the time, and I often worry what they would think then. As if their believe that I could do it is what makes it real.

I've started to wonder if this is really what I want. It is, in a way. I'm still obsessed with the helping, because if we know and don't do better, what are we really knowing? My magnet, sent with a letter from a friend, asks me "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"

I know what this is, but it is not what I tell people. Not directly. I hope that this is what makes it true, that I can make it on my own with this one. And after I pull that together, I can move on, fix the things that need a'fixin' and do the things I've tricked people into thinking I'm capable of.

We are never okay, and that is a part of it. We find the things that make it less obvious, less invasive, less dramatic (well, ...).

When I look at the magnet, when I sit in nonfiction workshops; when I pick up Kincaid or Pollan or Wolff; when I hear about you having a beer with your colleagues, the writers; I need it. I would try it. I would try it even if I knew I would fail. Even if I had to pay for it--the sin of graduate school, the deal-breaker. Even if I had to stay in Indiana for another half-decade to have the chance. Even if it never got published or recognized. I would try it.

Because when I sift through everything, see it spread out in green and blue and black in through the days, through the journals, and can piece it together and caress the details, it feels like something. Because someday, I could help someone, but now I need to know myself.

Someday, I may be that person again that people come to. I may stop telling myself to listen better and start being good again. I may not become good at statistics or political science, but may study my way into the UN.

I may stop needing so much from you. Lately, I've been promising more that I won't cry on you. I may be telling the truth. I may be on to something, finally. I may help you.