My grandfather called me to today to discuss their impending intervention with my father regarding his health and his stubbornness surrounding his inability to care for himself. I can’t talk about interventions without thinking back ten years to when my friends all agreed our friend needed help. Somehow I ended up being the one to bring it up, and felt like a friend on each side of me took a step back when I did, as if I was overreacting.

There isn’t overreaction here though. I’m convinced that the speed at which we approach the end of my fathers life continues to increase. I’ve discussed the lack of my fathers living will or advance directives with others, but today was the first time anyone has asked me if I knew if he had burial plans. In early November when I spoke to MA’s mother on the subject, she brought up how her father had been convinced he was going to die but then lived on for decades. Having met him later in those decades, they were calm nursing home years at the end. There’s more to that. I’ll ask M about it. I thought about this, the slow aging process. I thought about it then, and I’ve thought about it before. I imagined my father stumbling around somewhere on oxygen. As the pace of the deterioration of this health quickens, I expect that less.

G and I chat. She says, “I feel like I can’t do a lot the things i want to do with my life until I’m settled with a partner.” We discuss this, I relate the conversations I’ve had with others about this, particularly with M and how thoughts and feelings have changed since talking to M about it in February of this year. What was some day then, is reading, researching, and exploring the possibilities in earnest today. Making plans.

MA and I chat. She says, “it is really good you have support though.” I wonder. I think about K saying, “i realized i don’t think of you as someone who needs help. whoa.” I feel bad that relationship didn’t work out. I think about MB being glad that I had friends to take care of me. Did I? Did she think so? Or did she not want to feel bad about not giving and loving? K would have been really good for me, in this circumstance, because she cared. She later said, “i guess part of my initial impression of you as the ultimate self-sufficient superperson has stuck around. so. attitude adjustment time. feel free to ask for and expect help from me.” I do miss K, and think she would have taken care of me if I let her. I don’t regret that, I’m okay, with the reality of finding a relationship that is mutual. The pessimism and patience talk.

Honestly, as much support as I may have, I think I rarely use any of it. My vulnerability is controlled. Perhaps that is as it should be. Maybe it shouldn’t be let down like I last allowed with MB.

MA says, “i really believe you avoid regret by having your actions guided by love, as corny as that sounds.” I don’t know what else to say to her. “[you] are trying to do your best by him.”