October 07, 2003
everything's gone...wrong.years ago, i had this therapist (my first) who was really amazing. in one particularly difficult session, i remember her seating me in a chair facing away from her. she stood right behind me, with her hands on my shoulders, and asked me a series of questions...in her deep, soothing voice...ending in, what it was that i was so afraid of—which, for weeks, i hadn't really been able to identify, let alone articulate. later, she explained that she thought i might be able to open up to her if i didn't have to look at her. it worked.
the thing about her, tho, was that her own life was a complete mess. in the year-or-so that i saw her, i followed her from the small clinic where we first met, to a series of apartments where she operated her "private practice"...which, for at least a part of that time, was completely unlicensed. over time, i learned about her life. she was biracial, and still struggling with what it meant, for her, to "look white" when she identified as black. tho only in her mid-thirties, she had two teenaged daughters, who were always in some sort of trouble; one had already made her a grandmother. her father was reportedly wanted by the fbi, and she was somehow involved. her mother lived with her part of the time, and they fought constantly. and over time, she told me that she was a recovering addict (both drugs and alcohol), and that she had once turned tricks to support her habit(s). drama, drama, drama.
i'm not sure what it is, exactly, but people often tell me their problems. some tell me that i am (or at least seem) sincere...objective...a "good listener"...that i seem to have it all pretty much "together," myself. i kinda thought so, too.
in the past few weeks, tho, i've started to feel a little bit like my therapist...dishing out advice and "my perspective," when all is not well in my own house. i didn't think it was this bad. i figured that whatever it was, we could fix it. we could work together, and work it out. like we always have.
i'll elaborate later (at least i think i will)...but suffice it, for now, to say that s and i will be taking a break. not breaking up, but taking a "sabbatical" (the exact terms of which have yet to be hashed out). she is now in the process of looking for her own place. i am now in the process of figuring out—after 6 years of knowing her, and nearly that long being in love with her—how in the hell i am ever going to do this.
as the saying goes...shit done changed.
4:11 PM
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