Session Four

I was a bit less anxious this time leading up to the session. It was a big week in many ways but the one thing that came up last time, and that I was determined to at least experiment with if not carry through at every turn, was to practice assertiveness. I know, how typical, right? Doesn't it always seem like everyone is therapy says stuff like this?

Well, maybe it is a pervasive issue in the human psyche. Or at least mine. But we talked a lot last week about how confrontation and assertiveness can seem like a really scary thing to practice. It can cause discomfort and humans do not like discomfort. Well, most don't. I am part of the most don't.

However, I am trying to build awareness of when the need to assert myself is a must and practicing this very delicate art. I'm trying to do it in a different way. The old way that I am trying so hard to break away from is like this: avoid it until it is entirely uncomfortable and messes my mind up completely, then finally say something in a way that leaves me feeling like apologizing afterwards because I came off like a bitch with pent-up rage.

So that old way will not do. I would rather go to bed at night knowing that I made my needs or my kids needs known, in a fair and kind way. The reaction of the other party doesn't matter as much as feeling comfortable with the way I delivered the message.

I stumbled through this task a little bit this week. I can count one time where I didn't do this correctly, one time where I think I did alright, and another time with stellar results.

The stellar results incident was when I had a decent, human discussion with my landlord over this stretch of carpet at the top of the stairs. The dogs like to think of it as an extended version of the yard and, well, it smelled and looked like hell. The tenants before me either used it as a toilet or the designated coffee spill station and it was just horrible. Every night I would find myself carpet shampooing it to no avail, and every morning when I walked over it to use the bathroom it was a sharp reminder that I was a renter with less control than a home owner.

So I asked him if I could tear it up. No big deal to the rest of the world, but I have always had a very...interesting relationship with my landlords. Always fearful of speaking up. Always not wanting to rock the boat. I know, it's weird and it's all wrapped up in my avoidant personality and my desire to really not be a tenant and to rule my own kingdom (aka HOUSE).

He was thrilled with the idea and basically scolded me for even asking. His words were pretty much this: You are a good tenant, a good woman, and you know how to take care of a house. Do whatever you want and don't feel like you have to ask. Well, alrighty then.

His affirmation and this small gesture, plus a lot of sweat, swearing, and bandaids has taken me miles away from feeling like a person trapped by circumstance to a person who just might be able to enjoy the next couple of years here, before Sadie graduates and it's time to settle back down into my own home again.

I know that ripping up some carpet feels like a silly thing to be so joyful over, but it's huge in my world. We talked about this at therapy and came to the conclusion that it is a small victory in enjoying my life now. My life has revolved around modifying my environment to make it more beautiful and comfortable for so many years now that it made me feel powerless to think that I was unable to do so in a rental. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know of my penchant for ripping down wallpaper, spackling, painting, clearing debris, planting things, and basically controlling my own domain. I have missed it and it makes me feel very good to gain some of that back.

My landlord is awesome. My desire, wherever I go, is to leave a place a little bit better than the way I found it. I can do this here and it makes it feel a little bit more like a home.

What I Want

Preface: Things are good. Nothing is terrible right now. In a way I know that I have either everything I need, or at least everything I need right now.

I am 3 sessions deep into this therapy thing and it's good I suppose but it definitely feels like work or some sort. So far I have only good thoughts and feelings about my therapist. He's an older man, gentle and kind in many ways but he also feels very down-to-earth, using expressions like "this sucks" or "bullshit" and such. Oddly (or not) this makes me feel more comfortable. Probably because I am a raging potty-mouth.

I do get a bit tense around Monday or Tuesday because my sessions are on Thursdays. There is always at least one very teary moment. I like to think that these are the moments where we are hitting home in a way, where some sort of progress is being made.

I find the process fascinating. I see the trust building and it's a little bit daunting but it also makes me feel very hopeful. I think a lot of what we are doing now is very task oriented-there are clearly certain things that need to occur before I can move on from this phase and we are identifying them together. However, with my mastery of the art of procrastination, this is difficult. I do have my work cut out for me.

*****

So I really wanted to list a few things here after that I would like to achieve when the I'm able to clear through the greater portion of the muck that I dwell in has been dredged away.

I want my own home again. I want to share my home with those I love and enjoy. I want my home to be an open and welcoming environment. I have this before and I can do it again.

I want to have completely integrated Rob's life and death into my own life and not have it weigh like an anchor on my soul any longer.

I want to be the best parent I possibly can be to my girls.

I want to be able to view life as a series of ups and downs and not take the downs so damn personally.

I want to be able to communicate with anyone, my own personal truths and needs, and not shy away from confrontation. I want to not fear causing people displeasure or disappointment with the decisions I make in my best interests. I want to do all of this in the most loving and respectful way.

*****

I have tons and tons of things to be thankful for. I have sustained loss. I am no longer in survival mode. I am in living mode.

Today

I started therapy today.

Oh dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into? I know it's the right thing to do, I feel very positive about the therapist, and I am sure it's going to help.

But listen: I fear what I'm going to have to pass through in this process.

One question asked of me today, and it was put as gently as possible, was why did I seek therapy NOW and not THEN. Excellent question. When I think of some of the stumbling blocks along the way, I feel as if maybe I could have avoided at least a few of them. However, I am here today, in whatever shape I am in, because of my yesterdays.

There is work to be done for me to clear up some issues before I can move forward in a healthier way. I *HATE* telling my story, Rob's story, what happened to our family and to myself. I don't know if it will ever get easier telling it. Still, there are things to concerning the grief that have spread out like a giant squid's tentacles, into so many small places in my life. It has brought about changes in me, some actually good and some not so good.

All of this is hard to discuss and I really wasn't ready until now. When I really take a moment to exam this, I curl back and block it out of my mind and I think it's time to stop doing that. I need to embrace the joy that I find without randomly flashing back to the pain and loss that has actually made my new experiences, hell-my new life, possible.

The mantra delivered to me over and over again, the thing that rings in my ears daily, the saying that I must believe at all costs is "there is a reason for everything." I was very humble about this in the beginning. I only allowed this to be true, perhaps, for the benefit of future generations, Sadie and Penny, maybe their own children. I believed that my life was basically over and that hopefully somehow the turn of events would allow them to feel some kind of joy, pleasure, or fulfillment that wouldn't have been available to them if our lives had proceeded exactly as I had planned things.

I cannot settle for this. I consider myself as more than a survivor; I am a person who can and will find meaning in her own life through sheer will, good friendship, and an undying spirit. There was nothing that the higher power put in my path that was not meant for me to live through. By and large, most of it has been very, very good.

Spring

This past weekend I had a little getaway to New Hope, PA. Ok, it might not sound like the hottest vacation spot in the world, but it's a great place to stay for a couple of nights while catching up with friends. Great places to eat, comfy B&B's, minimal driving required during your stay.

Which is great if you do the kind of drinking that I do while vacationing.

And the eating! Dear Lord, Eggs Benedict is a hearty dish for someone who mostly eats yogurt, chicken, fruit, and salad these days. With the occasion KFC drumstick thrown in for good measure. I was not prepared for the price I had to pay for hollandaise sauce. But it was perfect. It tasted so good.

Most of the food was excellent, the wineries were comically horrible, and the massage was to die for. Literally. My massage therapist worked the ever-loving-shit out of my left trapezius and neck that it actually made me cry. No, not in pain, but in the dear-God-you-are-releasing-4-or-5 -years-of-anxiety-sadness-and-assorted-atrocities-variety. Unbelievable.

Seriously folks, I worked out some longstanding mental ISSUES while this fine lady went ape shit on that part of my body. So much forgiveness for the things in life that I have been angry about occurred during that session, it would be too much to tell. But I wanted to document it here and remember it always. And as soon as I feel this part of my body acting up again, I will RUN to the next available massage therapist and we will work it out again.

And speaking of forgiveness and working it out, I have decided to delete a few of my older postings and go somewhat public with this blog again. All of my OG readers can just remember in their minds, if they want and/or can, things written here before. Thank you for reading some of that ugliness. Your comments were very supportive and I appreciate it. I don't believe in changing the past but sometimes personal history can do with a bit of erasure. Especially when it's on the Internet :-P

Anyway, this is a new era, one in which I do not stand by, foot on the clutch, idling. The world can be my oyster if I allow it to be. I am thankful for the good experiences, attitudes, and people that have come my way.

Kittens and Things

Things have calmed down in my life considerably. I think this has a lot to do with not drinking coffee anymore. I had a cup or two last Sunday after attending an awesome party which involved a bit of drinking the night before.

In case you were wondering, there was no driving involved. There was, however, a shuttle bus which took us back to a hotel where everyone was able to safely sleep it off in safety and dine on eggs and bacon the next morning. And that's when I had a little bit of coffee, but for a week before and ever since then, there has been none.

I can tell you right now that I will never be a coffee Nazi. I can only say from my own personal experience that the change has been profound. I do drink a cup of tea in the morning, black tea which has caffeine. I am told that this has just as much or possibly more caffeine than coffee, ounce for ounce, but I just feel DIFFERENT. My anxiety is minimal, my thoughts don't race nearly as much, my concentration is OK, and I just feel a hell of lot more in control of my impulses.

Who cares about that when there is a kitten in the house?!

His name is Lucius and Sadie snuck him home last Sunday night despite my protests to her pleas over last weekend. As of this writing he is seven weeks old and I love him. He's a grey, tiger-striped bundle of joy with 4 white paws. His eyes are yellowish-green.

When she first found him he was on the side corner of Main Street Lodi and Route 46, tucked up into a guard rail on the exit ramp. He was dirty and terrified, with eyes crusted shut with pus. His belly was hard and bloated and his limbs were skinny. She gave him a few baths over the weekend while I was dancing the night away and possibly making a fool of myself among people I hardly knew but who seemed to like me just the way I was. The kitten I thought I had swiftly rejected was far from my mind but being tended to in the most loving manner possible but my own child.

Her decision to disobey direct orders is probably going to go down in history as the one that makes me proudest.

While getting ready for our day on Monday morning I heard a distinct meow come from her room. We were in the hallway by the bathroom together and I looked at her and she looked at me and she tried to deny the fact that there was a cat in the house but the writing was on the wall. She broke down and begged me to keep him, to just take a look at him, wanting to tell me the story but we were all too busy to get into it right then and there. I told her he was going to the shelter that evening, listing all of the reasons why we cannot keep a cat in this house.

On the drive to work, I started to think that maybe a shelter wasn't the best idea. They are over-loaded with cats just like this one. I have a tremendous amount of respect for animal shelters and what they do and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, we could lighten that load by one cat and take care of matters ourselves. I found myself dialing our vet and before I knew it we had an appointment that evening.

We don't live in a palace, but we do have a little bit of room that can be dedicated for the kitten before he gets too big. We are not millionaires, but there is enough room in the budget to get this guy his shots and get him neutered. We are all busy, but not so busy that we can't take a little bit of time out of each day to make sure that he's played with and feels love.

We already have a few potential placements for him and one in particular feels like it's really going to work but they aren't sure if neutering is in their budget right now. I have told these people that I will absolutely cover the costs of neutering if they want to bring him into their home. I am prepared for this and I really wouldn't have it any other way.

I can't help but feel very good about what we are doing. We took in an animal that would have, in the best of circumstances, become just another feral cat-diseased, malnourished, populating the area with more and more feral cats. Instead, he is now well-fed, playful, attended to medically, and not going to reproduce. Again, my pride in Sadie for over-riding my decision is great, and I am humbled by her wisdom.

Lucius means "bringer of light." Our home has been a lot brighter since his entrance into our lives. Lord knows, judging by the last handful of posts, I was looking for the light in all the wrong places. I feel like the light found me.

Let's Not Pretend

Relationships issues haven't been the only issues that I've been dealing with.

I am at a major crossroads concerning career and family life. Every single day I drag myself off to work, which is beginning to feel more and more like an absolute dead-end of career with a lot of potential is I felt like scrambling to it at the crack of dawn, standing for 8 or 9 or 10 hours, scrambling back to daycare 2 minutes before closing. Instead, I get to work from 9 to 5 and watch my clinical skills go down the toilet as I fight on the phone with insurance companies and just deal with a ton of other annoying crap.

I will cut to the chase: I am considering leaving work and going back to school, not necessarily for nursing either. I spent the better part of this day on the phone with various administrations and entities, including but not limited to Social Security, my state's insurance program for children, Blue Cross/Blue Shield or myself, and more of the like. I have crunched out two separate budgets, one for the way it is now and one for the way it might be if I left work.

Can there not be a happy medium?

If I leave work, I retain my benefits, but I will only keep my head above water if I stream-line EVERYTHING. I will no longer have to deal with a ton of nonsense, the by-products of the most expensive and yet broken system imaginable. I will have tons more free time with Penny and be more available to Sadie, but I will be saying good bye to a lot of the extras.

All I know is that something, SOMETHING, has got to give. I certainly don't want it to be my sense of sanity that pops loose. Maybe after having a little bit of time to gain perspective I can return to work but in a different way. Perhaps mental health is just too intense for me, hits too close to home.

I don't know if it's the insurance battles and other red tape, or if it's something else like "delivering care" constantly that is driving me up the wall. I just feel like I don't have a minute to myself, a minute to think clearly, or what. All I know for sure is, I feel like I'm clawing for a way out of this mess. Everything feels so complicated and I wish it wasn't so.

I am really good at...

I am really good at just maintaining.

I am terrible at starting.

I am even worse at ending.

Maybe I can blame it on the time of the year I was born in because Scorpio is a fixed sign. This means that once the project is underway, I am really good at keeping it going and tweaking the bugs out along the way. I know this is a blanket statement and there are a few things I am really good at starting. Meals. Opening bottles of wine. Turning the washing machine on.

When introduced into a broken system, other than my own, I am superb at fixing it, stream-lining it, maintaining it. I derive a great deal of satisfaction out of cleaning other people's messes.

Right now I wish to find direction.

That is all.