Who Ya Gonna Call?

There was a time when everyone who knew me knew they could call me at any time and I would be there for them.  If they needed a shoulder to cry on, groceries, to be rescued from the side of the road, I was the one they could count on.  I once packed my 18 month old son into the van and hauled him 2/3 of the way across the country to help a friend out.  It was a fantastic trip, I got to see part of the country I'd never visited before, and I made sure my friend got home.

When anyone needed money, groceries, a place to live, they always knew I would help them out.

I still try to be that friend - everybody eats, everybody has a place, call me any time day or night and I will be there.  You call, I come, simple as that.

It was a sad day when I realized that I don't have anyone like that in my life...someone who unconditionally reaches out and says "I'm here for you" whatever the circumstances, someone who would drop everything and come sit next to me and hold my hand while I cry, someone who isn't too busy or inconvenienced when I need them.  I think about who I can call...and this one is out of town, that one has to work, another one has troubles of their own and doesn't really want to deal with mine, and another doesn't answer when I call (too busy, I guess, or they know why I'm calling and just don't want to be bothered).

Most of the last twenty years I've looked to Mum when I needed help of one kind or another.  I feel a terrible guilt when I ask her for anything, because I feel like I have taxed her more than enough.  There are some things she just cannot do, or will not (with good reason), things I wish I could do for myself but can't.

I'm so tired of reaching out only to find nothing there.

Tonight I am deeply lonely.  I can't even manage to get Someone bonded out and home...since Tuesday he's had bond, since Tuesday I have wanted desperately to get him out, since Tuesday I have been unable to do even that one simple thing, and since Tuesday I have felt very alone and in need of the kind of comfort that comes only from having someone to lean on.

Tonight I get to tell Someone, once again, that the possibility of help, of a solution, an offer, has fallen through and I have been unable to get him out, that there's another night for him there, in a place that seems built to cause the dissolution of the soul.