baby you can drive my car

Not so long ago I was stuck
or was it my car? Stuck in a yard where less than an inch of snow had made the ground so soft and slick that I could not get traction and in my efforts to free my vehicle, it had sunk lower into the ruts in the silty clay. I had to call a tow truck ( no triple A card) to tow me thirty feet. Then I could move again on my own.
Later on, when I was restarting a relationship with a dear woman who probably knows me as well as anyone, the stuck in the mud illustration was useful.
It was not a healthy time in my life. Depression and a large dose of self pity and lethargy had my mental, emotional and physical tires spinning in the mud of life's low point, divorce.
I was not a wreck, I still had my beautiful children with me, and I always had my family ( of origin) cheering me when they could and helping in so many ways. I was not rolled over upside down and smashed beyond recognition ( like some cars I used to drive) but I was going nowhere just as surely as if I had no gas in the tank, or someone had taken the battery out.
The energy that was brought to this 'stuckness' by the best friend was very much like the tow truck. No doubt it was just what was needed, and so appreciated. She helped me get out of the simple ruts of daily despair and loss of vision, and onto a stable place where my own 'drive' was enough to move me a bit further down the road of life.
For that sort of help I will always be grateful. My life was changed and I moved on in respect to getting counseling, finding a diagnosis that fit as well as the quest for proper treatment and medication. Today I have less sad days, more sense of who I am and what I am about, and about nine years of various good and bad experiences to support the claim that "I am better now, than I have ever been".

The real lesson is this: Once the tow truck gets you to a safe place, it unhooks and you must resume driving yourself. No one looks sharp, or feels great going down the road, being propelled by another, and sitting there pretending to steer and work the pedals. Life is a contact sport.
When you get knocked about a bit it is alright to have some one set you upright. It is then your own privilege to continue on in a healthy way toward your goals.