It’s been an interesting week; more of some things (arthritis, affection, intimacy, discussions of the future, analytical workload, headaches, adulthood, vulnerability, satisfaction, contentment, excitement about the future being discussed, sunshine) and less of other things (pointless conflict, frustration, tedium, nightmares, ‘extra’ bandwidth at work, whimsy, self-restraint, subtext, cool weather). It is summer, and already the mornings grow light just a little later, and the workload gets just a little heavier. I’m not bitching. It’s the end of my work week, and I’m home, feet up, cold water to sip on, and the entire world at my finger tips. It is a quiet evening.
My head aches viciously. PMS and fatigue. My back torments me beyond wanting to casually call it something as simple as ‘pain’. I will take an Rx pain reliever tonight. 😦 I hurt. It isn’t any more than that, though – a physical experience of discomfort. On other levels I feel serene, calm, balanced, emotionally comfortable, cherished, wrapped in love… nice world to live in. I think about other worlds, other pain, but the thoughts drift through my head space like clouds, casting a momentary shadow and moving on.
Therapy tomorrow. Shit’s getting real lately – I don’t look forward to it, although I know that even this is part of the journey, and that my therapist really knows some things, and that I am ready for this. I’m struck again and again by how profound this experience is. I’ve been in therapy before… it’s hasn’t been solidly effective or actually changed anything, in the past. At best, I felt some relief for weeks or months, and been helped past some moment of crisis – and that has had to be enough to get by on. This? This is an entirely different experience. I don’t talk much about therapy. It’s incredibly personal, as experiences go, and extraordinarily intimate and naked and raw. It doesn’t translate well into spoken language, much of the time, because the things that strike me most are subtleties and…completed sentences, finished thoughts, provoked epiphanies, sudden connections…and something else. Something I feel about me, sense within myself, recognize as being changed…and I don’t know what to call it or how to describe it. I know it is important. BUT, I no longer look forward to it, at least for now.
….
…Huh… I just had one of those baggage dropping, altered-state creating, moments of weirdness… nothing went wrong. I think it went ok. Which feels weird. Now I don’t want to write … because I don’t know what just happened or what exactly is ok about it. Being a grown up is hard sometimes and I don’t always understand it. I’m just going to add some pictures, and finish the moment on a metaphorical note.
Close up…
… or from a distance. Perspective matters.
Evening Light 
I sometimes wonder whether I missed some critical feature of my own therapy. I was exposed to perspective-changing information that enabled me to start healing, but … not much more? I didn’t seem to need much more?
I’m glad it does so much for you.
I am glad it is so effective this time around, too, Jo. I don’t say much about that, but I was at a very despairing place when I interviewed this therapist, and pretty ready to ‘call it quits’ if I couldn’t find some peace and healing. 😦
I think, now, that ones relationship with a therapist is important to take as seriously as any romance… But as a culture, we don’t tend to take romance seriously, either, not the way I think I mean. lol That would involve investing time and study in our experience, our communication skills, and relationship building. 🙂
I think there’s a lot in our culture that would be improved by taking romance seriously – by which I mean approaching it critically and with standards of character instead of expectations set largely by Disney and rom-coms.
Agreed!