There and Back Again

How did it come to this? That they have become so miserable, so hopelessly dependent upon others and hopelessly incapable of supporting themselves. Their phone calls are always urgent, always bearing bad news. There is always a plea for help in every nervous response to how-are-you. Listening to them breaks my heart. I wish there was something I could do to help ease their wretchedness, to patch their lives somehow. Erase all the problems and start anew. Yet part of me is angered by their irresponsibility. How could they have allowed their lives to be this despondent, so out of their control? How could they not recognize their slowly decaying self-dignity and pride? There was a time when they were happy, carefree, artistic, and ambitious. Hopeful. Now, aged through the years, they are just helpless, living out of insufficient paychecks, working merely to pay bills…never enjoying anything.