Tough Love.
I know what it means. I know how it feels. I know sometimes you have to care enough to give it.
But it’s tough, tough love. And it hurts too.
What kind of friend am I? Am I the kind of friend who stands by, longing for you to find your way, wanting to give only encouragement? Or am I the friend that will jerk you up out of the hole when I can see that you’re drowning, and say “No. No more. Get up! Now.”
I don’t know. I’m both.
I don’t want to hurt you. And I want to turn away.
Sometimes I think I can’t bear to watch another friend, or even stranger, slide down into the pit. We have our own personal pits, each of us. When you’ve been in the pit as many times as I, you learn. However deep you slide, the end gets deeper still. The strength to scratch back out is strength that takes everything. If you lose your strength, there’s no hope for anyone else to help pull you out.
It’s not that you have to do it all alone. It’s that without you in the fight, it matters not what another’s efforts might be. You have to get up.
Sometimes, you get up and fight, or you lay down. For good.
So I’ll say it now, because I care; Get the fuck up.
