Discontent , Illusion and Isolation

In a recent email a very old friend wondered why I sometimes sounded so down- based on what she's heard from me my life sounds pretty good. Why the discontent? She observed that this was a common American problem : "having it good", yet never being content or truly happy.
She indicated that she had achieved the life she wanted years ago, but was still feeling that something was missing or wrong or something. I hope it's nothing serious.
Until then, I'd had the impression that she was truly content these days. It made me glad to think that she was.

I thought she was happier than she is and she felt the same way about me. Funny, in a sad and very human way.

Last night I got a call from another friend who also has a "good life" on the surface but who is unhappy and scared in reality, mostly about a long-running problem. There are issues involved that go way beyond my ability to understand , much less offer advice on; no words, no hugs on long-distance calls. I felt powerless. Despite knowing most of the details, I was stumped and unable to say anything helpful or even very encouraging.
Useless me.
Helpless me.
No white horse in my stable, just a car that barely runs.
All I could suggest she find someone smarter and wiser than myself; someone that she could trust- and talk to them instead. Oh yeah, I reminded her that the situation was one that she created and if she had to change her life as a result, then that was something she had to accept and deal with it.

I felt bad after I said that, then I realized that there have been some times in my life when I really needed someone to take me aside and give me an ass-kicking of honesty far harsher than I could dish out.

Once upon a time I moved in with a Bad News Girl. After a few months she stole (and used) all my drugs, threw me out of her house and tried to sic her Wolf-Dog hybrid on me. (The mutt liked me and just sorta sat there and whined. She hated it when we fought)

I showed up at a pal's house and it turns out he'd been pretty much saving a couch for me, since it was widely known -to everyone but me -that BNG did this to all her boyfriends and I would be homeless inside six months- seven, tops.
Why didn't you warn me? I asked.
Would you have listened? he responded.
No. Probably not, but I wish someone had tried.

Nobody wants to believe that someone they care about is unhappy , unfulfilled or embarking on a very unwise or destructive personal endeavor, but the reality is that we do care for people who have those feelings and do those things.
We are those people.

I'm not a strong person, and I probably need more help than I'll ever be able to ask for, but I think that makes me normal, or at least average. I'm afraid of trying to help too- it's a tricky business, a fine line between advice and intervention. Bad meddling can be ruinous, but pretending that things are fine when they aren't can be deadly.

For example , I wish someone had stopped my drinking before I wound up in intensive care, but I don't know if anyone could have. I'd cut myself off from the world in ways that would have made it difficult for anyone to attempt to help. Maybe I needed that experience-perhaps nothing else would have worked. I'll never know.

I'll never know what do when someone I love is suffering in ways that I can't change. It's an angry, helpless feeling and it's inevitable in every lifetime, yours, mine , ours, theirs- and so much of it is hidden inside because we're afraid to ask someone to listen or we refuse to admit someone is hurting as bad as we really know they are. It hurts to feel the pain of others and it hurts not to.

So talk. Or listen. Or both. Be brave.

Sometimes that's all you need to do. In any case, it's the only way to start.