Beautiful Goodbye

Disclaimer: It is hard for me to get these words out. They dry and crumble up just when I want to release them into the vastness of this universe. The writing is not mine. It is short and choppy. The words did not approach me with the eloquence they often carry in their heart. However . . .

It was a beautiful goodbye, and I'm glad it happened the way it did. On Monday, I said goodbye to Therapist.

I realized when I was saying goodbye that I was resentful and bitter about the way we were treated this year by Therapist. It all began earlier this year when we appeared to Therapist broken, suicidal, and defeated over our job. It appeared he was ignoring us and not taking seriously the depth of our despair. He kept trying to shore us up with positive reinforcement, which was so antagonistic. I thought he didn't care and wasn't listening to us. Now we realize he was only acting in our best interest and letting us stand on our own two feet. As much as I loath to say it - and as much as it hurt when it happened - we learned a valuable lesson: we can make it on our own without using Therapist as our constant crutch. I will miss that crutch.

Nevertheless, we said goodbye. The bitterness and resentment I felt are gone, but I'm not sure the relationship could be the same. The bond was broken, and time won't bridge the break back to him. I cried all last night. It isn't easy. It makes me hurt at my heart. 

In any case, I think every now and then we will pop in on Therapist. I think emotionally it was goodbye, an end to a beautiful therapeutic relationship. However, the door has been left open, and as they say in AA, “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” I will not shut the door on how we evolved over the past nine years with Therapist, and I will keep the door open to the possibilities the future might bring. . . in and out of Therapist's office.

T.C 

Isn't that what we have to do?

I'll do what I have to do.

I had skin cancer removed today.  The doctor scraped and grated the cancer right off my shoulder, then set to cauterizing my skin with fire.  The smell of burning flesh and a trail of smoke encircled me and lit my memory ablaze.   I relish the burn. I am pleasantly reminded of a time when I would burn myself with cigarettes.  It looks the same.  I am surprised at how the desire to self-harm has been . . . rekindled, shall we say.  I'm tempted.  I now have a beautiful burn mark on my shoulder that will compete with every other inch of skin on my body for occupancy as a scar.  It's precious.  It reminds me of a time when I needed more intensive help and received it. I miss those times.

Isn't that what we have to do?  Think back to a time we are able to cope by any means necessary, because without those mechanisms we would have withered to dust?  Don't we have to do what we have to do?

But really I'm fine.

I stress because my job will probably be cut at the end of the year, and I don't want to face what I need to do.  The numbers are not promising a need for me next year, and I'm the easiest one to kick off the island.  A job that looked so promising is now going to terminate, just like me.    No job.  No money.  No purpose.  No me.

I'm really fine.  I'm keeping it together like a good little soldier.  Isn't that what we have to do?  Keep it together no matter what?  Don't we have to do what we have to do?

And the paradox is that I should probably return and see Therapist because I might be needing some help, but I won't go back.  I have too many bad memories from this year where he didn't listen to us.  And I don't know if we should be hurt that he hasn't checked in with us since we left.  Yes, we should reach out if we need help, but doesn't eight years with Therapist count for anything so that he would want to check in.  Do the boundaries have to be so damn stiff and unrelenting that he couldn't cross the line for a second to see how quickly we are dying?  Maybe I'm being passive-aggressive.

But isn't that what we have to do?  By any means necessary to survive?  We do what we have to do. 

But really, I'm fine.

Miss On-Her-Own

It is very unsettled.

Trouble is brewing and I'm caustic with questions.

I don't know who I am.

I never did.

I just knew what had to be done, what had to be preserved and what had to be let go.

I guess I am a casualty of my own purpose.

It's hard to tell how we are.

We are too well to be sick, and too sick to be well.

We are in a category of our own.

Sshhh.

There is pain inside. A quiet, accustomed, expected sadness.

I think the sadness is that I have integrated with the others and am left unsatisfied. There really is only me left and I'm devoid of all emotion. And if I'm all that is left, why do I need therapy? I think it is my own silence I hear. I am new. I have no childhood. I was born into my thirties, a full adult. There are no ties to me and what might have been endured in someone else's childhood.

I feel therapy is failing us. I only keep appointments just in case I need them. But I haven't needed one in a while. I'm getting by on my own. I no longer feel a therapeutic bond with Therapist. There is nothing productive that comes out of our meetings. And being self-sufficient, there is nothing for me to work on in therapy.

Maybe feeling this independent and grown-up is just another faction of my imagination. Maybe I exist because the others are still around but too broken and damaged from the stress they incurred at the beginning of the year. And maybe I was created purposefully without emotion if simply to get through the day without incidence. Maybe just because I deny them doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe when things settle down this summer, they will reemerge.

But, maybe and really, I did kill them off and am here all by myself.

I've never felt so simple, basic, empty, and needless in all my existence.

There is no help for this, but, oh how I wish there was.

Silence . . . 

You are like a whisper in the wind, Uncatchable, and gone before You are heard.. There is a bare spot on my heart where you used to live. You are starting to fade from my memory. The sharp ache has turned into a dull rusty throb.

I hide my feelings in a dark secret room, safe from the auspices of others, those who would steal my pain and steal you from my heart. The only way I know I'm alive is when I mourn for you, when I feel your ache rising up my throat to scream. I can't tell you I love you anymore. But I do love you. And if you could just hear me say it to you one more time I could maybe breath again.

Two weeks

It has been two weeks tonight since we parted.  The night is not so gentle with me.  I fear it will suffocate me with memories of you.  Oh, I how I want to be with you.  It's so stormy inside my head, filled with a million voices with words I can confide to no one safely.

No one understands the independent loneliness that generously spreads its way into my leaking bones.  My thoughts are more than I can bear.  If you were here you would be licking the tears off my water-filled eyes and propping your head upon my shoulder to let me know everything would be okay. Now who will kiss my tears away?  And how will anything ever be okay again?