Dependability

I’m at a lost these days. It’s a new year, a fresh start, and I want to do right by the people I care about. I spent Monday doing my usual, annual rite of fasting, meditating, and reflecting on the old year before transitioning to the new one. It’s a time of self-improvement, me trying to figure out the kind of person I want to be, the habits and traits I should alter to become my best self, and the things in my life I want to prioritize to achieve my goals. After all the reflection and analysis, I make resolutions. I try to keep them simple and concrete, like “I want to run a faster mile”, “I want to finish my novel”, or “I want to stop interrupting people in a conversation”.

This year, though, my resolution is abstract and seems to rely entirely on opportunity: I want to become dependable.

I mention the bit about opportunity because I’ve been thinking a lot about a quote from a Morgan Freeman character in some movie I can’t quite recall. He said something along the lines of “When you ask God for courage, does He give you courage, or does He give you the opportunity to be courageous?” So in my instance, when I say I want to be dependable, what I really mean is I want opportunities in which I am tested and can choose to be dependable.

Because I’m not dependable. At all. At least to the people that matter. I know my family and friends would protest, saying I’m doing just fine and that I’m a good friend/daughter/sister/etc. And I guess they’re right. I’m no less dependable than the average young person. But if I’m being honest with myself, that could be debated given my general, low-level emotional instability brought about persistent mental health issues (i.e. crippling anxiety, clinical depression, bouts of manic indulgence and self-pity. Can you tell I’m a little cynical?).

Anyhow, my youth certainly is a driving component in my dependability because it simply means I haven’t been granted all that many opportunities where someone has really needed me. I’m not married, I don’t have kids, my role in the workplace is minor, and I hold no leadership positions in any of my activities. From a purely economical perspective, I’m easily replaceable.

In fact, I was told that really, no one has ever depended on me. Likewise, I’ve never had to depend on anyone in my life.

And I agree—to an extent. It’s true that adulthood is still new to me and I’ve never really relied on anyone on a serious level. I’ve never been arrested and had to make a phone call. I’ve never gotten my car stuck on the side of the road and needed a lift. I’ve never had to borrow money. I’ve never needed to be saved from a life-or-death situation.

But it’s not like I’m some wildly independent individual either. It seems like to me that I had to depend entirely on authority figures the first eighteen years of my life. Well, that’s not entirely true. I was fairly independent as a teenager in the sense that I didn’t need my parents to chauffeur me around, I managed my schoolwork and extracurriculars on my own, and I could take care of myself reasonably well (anxiety-induced, self-destructive behaviors aside).

But honestly, what even is dependability? And what does it mean in the real world? Unfortunately, there appears to be no simple checklist to achieve that quality (typically the best traits are like that). It takes real-life situations and tough decisions and selfless actions. It means—at least I think it means, because as aforementioned, I know nothing about this—being available and level-headed in a crisis, and loyal even when tempted to give up or desert someone. It means prioritizing another person’s needs over your own desires. It means being patient and understanding and gracious and kind even if someone’s undeserving.

Now that I think about it, it means being like my dad. He has his fair share of issues, and nowadays I think it’d be better for me if I put some distance between us, but my father is a very dependable man and has been my entire life. I know without a shadow of a doubt I can always count on him when I need to.

But this poses the question: if I’ve had such a good role model for dependability all these years, why am I so bad at it?

I hope I don’t sound self pitying. I’m trying hard not to be, because it accomplishes nothing. I write this now because I’m just trying to be analytical and think things through rather than just wallow in self-loathing and unproductivity like I was this morning. This entire reflection was due to a very heavy discussion I had last night with my significant other—ever my advisor in the ways of the world. For a while I felt like he resented me, or at least thought so little of me because of how I don’t meet his standards. But now, having pulled myself from a slump of self-pity, I’m starting to see he cares more about me than I can fathom. If he didn’t love me, he would have given up on me a while ago. And I would even venture to say that because he loves me so much, he wants me to be my very best self and is willing to call me out on my faults to help me get there.

And it’s overwhelming, because I don’t deserve it and feel like I’ll fail him, but those are just intrusive thoughts that I try to let go. No one really deserves love, you just accept it and try to give back as much as you can. Not because you have to, but because you want to.

I don’t know. I’m not good at this. This whole… partnership thing. I suppose I shouldn’t fault myself too much for it, because I’m young. But that shouldn’t be an excuse. I want to be better. I know he hates it when I say that because it’s not about me being “better”, like it’s some kind of talent or competition. All I mean is that I want to try and love him as well as he loves me, and to accomplish that I need to fix my own issues and improve my character.

And just to clarify: I didn’t write this for him. I wrote this for me.

So to wrap it all up, here’s to the new year. Here’s to getting my life back on track, to regular therapist appointments and better coping mechanisms, to serious discussions and hard choices and doing the selfless thing. Here’s to the mistakes I’ll inevitably make and the people who will help me work through them. Here’s to getting a step closer to the person I’ve always wanted to be: strong, powerful, respected, and—of course—dependable.

Here’s to 2019. I really hope it doesn’t suck.

© 2019 Obliquity of the Ecliptic