On being a lifeguard

One of the most difficult lessons I’ve had to learn is that I can’t do for other people what they aren’t willing to do for themselves. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, especially if that person has an “I hate you, don’t leave me” approach to life.

I’m getting a midterm exam in that lesson right now. Sometimes I imagine I’m standing at the end of a dock, with turbulent seas below me. Someone in my life is flailing in the water, crying out for help — but when I toss her a life preserver, she shoves it away. When I throw out a rope, she screams that she didn’t want a rope. When I get in a rowboat and try to reach her with the oar, she refuses to grab it. The only option she seems to find acceptable is for me to dive in and swim to her…so she doesn’t have to drown alone.

I’m not sure how this is going to end. (Probably not well.) I suspect the best I can hope to achieve at this point is a modest goal: to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say honestly, “I did everything I could, within reason.” This is someone I feel obligated to help as much as I can, and it hurts to be unable to help, but I feel my obligation ends at the point where helping someone else requires me to sacrifice myself.

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