Strength

Who will be strong for me?

This has always been my core question.  And my answer has always come up "I will."  Not because I have any particular wish to exclude support from my life.  I do not.  At least, I do not think that I do.  But I seem to have been born with an overly developed self-reliance gene.

Or maybe I just don't trust other people to get the job done.

Some days I just don't know the answer.  When I face down catastrophies, do all the chores, pay the bills, make decisions all day, I end up just tapped out.  And then I wonder, what would it be like if someone stepped in and did some of this?

People frequently comment to me what an amazing thing it is for me to what I do.  When I first moved to the country, women would see me walking one of the dogs, stop their cars to introduce themselves.  Inevitably the woman would say "I could never live alone in the country!  Aren't you scared?"  That always amused me.  When I lived in the city I was burglarized three times, had my car broken into two or three, and was mugged.  Not to mention the woman on Broadway who beat me with an umbrella, or the homeless man who invaded the privacy of my Christmas Parade balloon.   You don't find that in the country.

But I did not move to the country to impress people.  I moved for the peace.  And the open space.  And yes, for the solitude.  It's just that every once in a while the solitude turns to loneliness.  And that nagging question comes back.  If something happened, who would step in?  If I could not be strong, who would be strong for me?