kicking television.

I'm in the same boat as a lot of people. Problem stated, most succinct: I accept the love I think I deserve. How cliche, I know.

I don't feel entitled to anything in particular, and I always want to work for the things that I want. Really, really hard. I feel so lucky when I don't have to do anything, that I usually sabotage it just to make it work for me. For that, I apologize. To about eight or twelve guys, and a handful of friends, both former and present.

For the record, I did give back the engagement ring once. I'm not that girl. Instead, I'm the girl who feels really, really terrible when things don't pan out the way you or I or he and I or she or I thought they would. Especially when we've gone to such great lengths to make them good. And I feel so sorry, no matter how long it's been.

There are situations that take a long time to shape your life. Sometimes it takes less than three seconds. Other times, it's both, and you don't even see it coming.

For example, my father's drinking patterns. I'm angry with him now, but it's been such a long time coming. Ten years ago, I figured we were o.k., regardless. He never hit me, or yelled at me unless I deserved it. Most days, I didn't even know he was off his rocker.

Today, he forgets everything I say, he lectures me about things I've already learned how to do, and sometimes he leans on me so hard that I can barely stand myself. And just like that, I hate the way he smells. Almost sterile, and I can smell hospital, because that's where he's spent a lot of time. He hasn't been back in six months, but I think it's gotten into his blood. The lacking stench of the permanently infirm.

I've smelled it before, when my grandfather was dying of cancer. So clean on the outside, so dirty on the inside. I watched him die in what seemed like a week's time. On the first day, I called the hospital to say he needed help, because he wouldn't get out of bed, and he wouldn't take food or drink. I don't know what anyone else was doing, but I knew it wasn't much. On the fifth day, hospice came. On the seventh day, everyone else came, and then he was gone.

I don't always know that I'm doing so much to hurt me when I'm trying to help someone else. I wrote his obituary because I worked for the newspaper at the time, but also because no one else wanted to do it. I don't know whether this was good for me, but I'm leaning toward 'no'. I think I had to suck it up, and I think I do that a lot.

As for my father, I'm doing it now, because no one's talking about the smell. Maybe it won't be seven days, but I don't think it's much longer. And I don't like that my senses haven't lost their memory.