Yesterday afternoon was one of those times when you’re shaken, literally, by how awful things are playing out. But by early evening it was clear–this curse had turned into a blessing.

I was working the late gate at the park under the scorching beam of the sun that likes to stream into the ranger station at what is already the hottest part of the day. After an aggressive visitor the day before yelling “Fuck you!” not just once to my face but again as he drove away, I was determined to be extra sweet today so as not to be in the least bit offending, thus avoiding any chance of any such repeat interaction.

That was my takeaway. Can you believe it? ‘Maybe if I asked more nicely how many people are in your car? then you wouldn’t get verbally abused’ was my deep introspective dive as I looked out over the beach last night, waves lapping at my feet, sinking my toes further into the sand. What crap. No wonder it didn’t take away the gnawing in my gut. No wonder it invited another lesson. “Pain will leave once it has finished teaching you,” Bruce Lee said.

Cue the physically threatening cycler. For the second day I am shaking at the gate. This can’t be right. So I ask for help. And when the ranger doesn’t help, and I’m still shaken fifteen minutes later, I call for more help. And I learn that not only is my concern valid and my command for this person to leave the park the correct action but it was retroactively so, going back to the day before. I learned there were consequences to someone treating me that way and the calvary was coming.

Another ranger was making rounds to try to locate the offender. Management called the police. A ranger stayed with me until they arrived. And even though the person was never found (maybe he’d realized his possible fate and had left already) I was touched by the “I have your back” response. As people filtered out of the park at closing time and I pulled down the flags, I caught site of a pair of headlights that were not moving like the others. It was that officer; ready for action, positioned for support. The whole thing was starting to melt me like candle wax.

It had me open, humbled, willing enough to see what the real morale of the story was while I pedaled my bike hard out of the park, music on full blast to crowd out of my mind the replay of the awful scenes I’d endured.

My default is the lone ranger. I’ll handle it. I can do it. I got this. And I’m quite proud of my independence, it has served me well. It’s taken me around the world and through some tough times. But it has also, I can see now from this new place in my curriculum, kept others from lending a hand. Standing with me. Somewhere, I got the idea that the highest level of achievement was doing it all by myself.

“Somewhere!?!” my inner wise voice snorts in a tone so sarcastic I had to laugh out loud. We both know exactly where I got it. I got it from the mother who relished watching me move out at seventeen and a father who left me at four.

Now that I think about it, I have advanced far beyond the age where one finds worth in announcing, “Look! I did it all by myself!” No longer a child tying her shoes for the first time or mastering riding a bike without training wheels. I was an adult. I’d made it already. And besides, my worth was established long ago–by God. I come from Perfect Love, created in His Likeness. There is nothing I need prove.

I wondered as I watched the wagons circle around me, felt their focus on the hurt that had been done to me and their own efforts to try to make it alright again. Had they always, in some version or another, been with me all along waiting for my cue? Was help always just a call away?