Monday was a rough day.

  1. I was picking fights with the Dude. Leaving angry voice mails and texts.
  2. I was still cutting back my smoking. (old habit back in the last few weeks . . . now down to 3 cigarettes a day.)
  3. My boobs hurt. PMS anyone?
  4. I realized I had forgotten TWO days of Zoloft. Crap.

That quadfecta left me with limited patience for Alex, who of course decided to be a complete shit about swim lessons that morning. I was worn slick by noon. Then the phone rang.

I had an initial therapy appointment on the books for July 18th. They had a cancellation – How about noon on Tuesday? Uh sure.

My head and my heart weren’t in it. I wasn’t mentally prepared to go in and drag all my daddy issues out to look at.

I went. Then found out she doesn’t take credit cards. Shit. No problem she said, just run back by with money after the session. Okay. Good.

I only remember fragments of the hour. I talked about Dad. About the family. About Alex. About Scout. About the Dude. Which really, I just wanted to focus on Dad and Alex – the alpha and omega of this challenge I have with men. The other details were just there to give support.

She was impressed with things I had already figured out. Like Dad’s disconnect had everything to do with him and way less to do with me. Like seeing my disconnect from Alex and really trying to do things with him – like take him to the store WITH me, withOUT an agenda – focusing on the togetherness rather than what was easiest.

I told her about my suck-fest Monday. How he was on my nerve. Breathing my air. She said – yannow what? on days like that, just ask him to sit with you. Tell him Mommy’s having a bad day and you don’t mean to make him feel bad. But ask him to be with you. Or read a book. Or lay down. All he wants is to connect with you. You don’t know how to do that – but you are learning.

She made me laugh when she asked, “How are you at finishing projects?” I think I snorted even. She added, “Yeah, you are here. . . here. … here….” as she made random, invisible dots with her finger in the air. “You are a firecracker and your mind jumps around all the time. You love to follow conversations that are all over the place because you are never bored.” Uh yeah. Hammer. Nail. Head.

She also made me cry. Talking about affection. And that I wasn’t a touchy feely person. But I wanted to be. We talked about affection with my parents, with my past partners.

“Who hugs you now?”

And I cried. Just a bit. But I wanted to sob. I wanted to let out all that pain. All that mourning. All that angst of being touch-free. Oh my God. I held it in, mostly because I wanted to hear what she had to say next. I didn’t want to miss anything. Because this woman had my number, and both hands on my chain and was gently yanking it.

For the rest of the day that question would echo and a tear would fall. Just a single tear. Because it’s lonely over here as the untouched.

I can tell I make perfect sense to her. She sees me clearly. No bullshit in her soul, and won’t let me be anything but true. But also a lack of judgement there. Even after I gave the nutshell on the Dude and the Tatskank. All she said was, “Are you in love with him.” and nodded when I looked her straight in the eye and said yes. “There’s a long connection there with him. That’s what you are wanting and needing.” She already can see the work I have done. She knows I’m there to do this thing. She’s all ready to look at my connections to these pivotal people and see what is going on.

“You’re ready. You can do this. Do you want to come back?”

“YES.”

As we walked out to make the next appointment I said, “I will run out and get your payment.”

She says, “Just bring it with you next time.”

I’m so stoked for July 7th. Here I come! 🙂