I went to the CVS this evening to return my redbox and take the landlord to get his McDeath for dinner. As I was driving away from the CVS, my car started acting funny. Thanks be to my misadventurous youth, I know what a car feels like when it's running out of gas, so I maneuvered to a blank spot in the parking lot and had myself a little think.
We ended up walking over to McD to get his food, since he's insulin-dependent, and I don't want to deal with blood sugar issues. He did not have the dog or the cane, so he couldn't walk home.
We get back to the car, and we're trying to brainstorm who to call. His father, the obvious choice because he lives five minutes away, has already turned his phone off for the night. His brother, on a rare in-town weekend, is actually camping with his kid. I could walk to the gas station, but I have no gas can and no money to buy one. He's willing to spring for gas, but doesn't have enough to buy a gas can, too. What happened to the days when gas stations would have a gas can on hand and let you borrow it?
I'm scrolling through my phone and it's all Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, DC, New York, Texas! Oh, wait, he lives two hours away. Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, damn I know a lot of people in OK. I finally found someone and managed to get hold of her after three unanswered calls, and so a ten-minute trip to get food turned into a three-hour sit in the car. She got there, had already procured a gas can and had filled it, and a random guy that she just happened to know was there and offered to come help.
Anyway, car started right up, I got a tank full of gas (I asked for it last week, but this is not the way I anticipated it happening, lol), and I even got my Fossil Felix the Cat watch back, because my friend had found it a week or so ago, and remembered it was mine.
While we were sitting there, I commented that the one time I leave the house without my Kindle is the one time I needed something to occupy my time. After I declared that I was never leaving the house again without my entire purse, including my Kindle, we had a good ten minutes riffing on what would be in the magical backpack in the trunk from now on (included a tent, a camp stove, chainsaw (wtf) and various other goodies).
We also talked about energy exchanges and how he'd come to understand them.
I've never been comfortable asking for help. The last five years have been an exercise in curing myself of that in a big way. Anyway, I've reframed the help thing in my head, because someone once explained to me that everyone likes to feel useful or needed or just have the warm fuzzies, so when I refuse to ask for help, I am depriving other people of an opportunity to do something that makes them feel good. I have to tell myself this a lot sometimes, but it works. Sometimes.
Tonight, though, he talked about it in physics terms - you know, the universe is energy and everything is energy and it flows around and through everything. When I try to be self-sufficient, I'm frakking up the energy flow - I can't put energy out if I'm not taking any in. I'm not explaining it very well, but it hit me that by trying to be all I need no one and can do everything myself, I'm mucking up the flow and that makes things worse for everyone, including the people around me. So I've got some thinking to do and more reframing of the crap in my head.
And on that note, what stopped me from calling any of a dozen people was the idea behind saying, "Hey, I ran out of gas, will you come rescue me?" which is, "Hey, I'm a loser who doesn't even have enough money to put gas in my own car, and I ran out of gas five minutes from my own house, and won't your Saturday night suck if you come help me." Gah! I complain that no one ever calls me for help, even though I would, gladly, even at my own inconvenience. So what makes me think that others don't want the same opportunity? My head is a frakked up place. I'm blaming the 60s.
But. Full tank of gas. Felix the Cat. I bow to the universe.
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