I have officially managed to procrastinate on my Therapy Homework for almost the entire 2 weeks that I had between appointments. The jury is still out on whether that is an acceptable thing…or NOT. Fortunately, I’m not the one making THAT decision, since I suck at making decisions ANYWAY. And if there is one less thing that I HAVE to worry about in life, I am thankful for whatever break I may get.
Unfortunately, therapy doesn’t really GIVE me a break. I’m always thinking about my past now, and I’m always trying to psycho-analyze why I think the things I think. It’s rather similar to to having a discussion on why gay people and black people are still, in fact, PEOPLE with my father. I might as well save my breath, I’ll need it when I’m 80. So the latest thing that I have to ponder over is why I had a rather detailed dream about one of my high school boyfriends last night. I haven’t really thought about JM for, oh, I dunno, 6 or 8 years, but for some reason last night, I had a present day dream about him. Since I’m a retard and didn’t write it down immediately, as was suggested to me, and I kick myself for this as I so rarely remember my dreams anyway, I can only recall certain key aspects of it at this point. For example, we were together, and I think in that sense. As in, together together and we were here, at my home, and we were just hanging out, talking. Talking about general randomness like how our respective days were and how so and so was creating drama at work and how the dogs had managed to reek havoc on the kitchen in our absence and how I needed to get some laundry done. To be honest, I don’t really remember what it was that he was doing for a living, but I do distinctly recall that I was in the same job that I currently am. Why I dreamt of JM all night, and why, 8 years later he would even CROSS MY MIND is beyond me, and so you can bet your ass that I’ll walk into therapy next session insisting upon answers. And my wonderful therapist will probably look at me and go “Well, is there some sort of unfinished business with him?” And I will of COURSE say “Hmmm. I don’t THINK so.” And then we will dive into these horrible EMDR therapy sessions (and by “horrible” I mean absolutely fantastic) and I will eventually come up with some tangent which will lead me to WHY I dreamt of JM last night and then I will be able to move past it, without so much as another thought. Yeah, I never claimed that ANY of it would make sense. Welcome to my life.
And then she’ll ask me about my homework – and I’ll have to admit that I showed up 20 minutes early to produce THIS! and I’ll hand her a post it note that I found at the bottom of my purse while I was in the waiting room, covered with furious scribbles of words and incoherent sentences. Afterall, why would my physical life be any different than my emotional one? It’s all just gibberish under guise of intelligent thought. She’ll then go to work translating what rounded and not religious FAITH and universal and PEACE have to do with my topic and why it is that I struggle so damn hard to fulfill those medial aspects in my life. And she’ll explain to me why I need to have a better sense of self worth, and how I am an “interesting” case for her because I walk in there with a smile and joke about all the hardest things in my life. She’ll realize that I laugh because the other choice is just unacceptable. No one ever got anything accomplished by crying about it. Then she’ll ask me why I think that, and I’ll say “Hmmm. I don’t know.”
Maybe every relationship that I have ever been in has been a failure, maybe every man that I’ve ever been attracted to has had nothing to offer me (sans one in particular) and maybe, just MAYBE I seek relationships like that out so as to avoid all my own shit. I like to think that I am changing that behavior, I like to think that THIS TIME, I really do FEEL what I feel. I like to think that I know what love is. Hmmm…It’s a known fact that everyone is a work in progress. It’s seriously slow going, and I haven’t gotten very far, but I know that every realization is a step. And every step, brings me closer to the person that I know is in there somewhere – and is HAPPY. So, dear therapist. may I present MY HOMEWORK!
I realize that GOOD relationships should include, but are not limited to the following: sharing, equality and having that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are looking forward to seeing someone in particular where you teeter totter between nausea and excitement. They should make you feel like MORE of a person, instead of less. There should be commitment and no resentment. Never wavering trust in the other, never ending understanding and never compromising compromises. Respect and regard should be common place while insults and frustration should be strangers. Each would need time to themselves, whether it to be out with the girls for dinner and some wine, or out with the guys for some kind of manly body-odor-inducing activity, and should not be afraid to ask for it. And yet each should find time for the other. Dinner, a movie, a massage…simple things often times mean the most. I would expect peace and assistance. Yes I made dinner, but would you be so kind as to HELP clean up? There should be brutal honesty for all the right reasons and discussion about all the wrong ones. It’s never safe to assume that you know outright what the other is thinking. I guess, in the end, a good relationship is everything that none of mine have ever been…and everything that I want them to become.
Maybe that was why I was dreaming of JM last night? I mean, there was never any drama with him. He always wanted to do whatever I wanted to do, unless he didn’t. And that was ok when that happened. He held my hand in the hallway, he liked to spend time with me after school and on the weekends unless he was out with his friends. He was the least effed in the head, to the best of my recollection, and maybe those high school gifts of stuffed animals and notes in my locker, and him driving all the way out to where my parents lived just to spend a couple hours together and letting me borrow ANY cd I wanted, even though I sucked at giving them back, was because he really liked ME? Not how I loaned him money, or let him crash on my couch. Or how I was his emotional pillar or because he knew that I’d bail him out of jail every time… Maybe that juvenile relationship was the closest to “normal” that I ever experienced and THAT’S why I’m dreaming about him NOW?! Maybe it was meant to be, in some kind of weird, sub conscious EMDR induced partial dementia, an epiphany that I AM a good person, and that there will ALWAYS be someone who accepts me for me, so I might as well get on with it and ACCEPT MYSELF?! Hmmm, I don’t know.
~footnotes of an unrequited life~ 