It's 11:49pm on June 16th as I write this. Bloomsday is almost over.
Standing at the top of the hill behind my house, looking out over the boistrous green earth and the glinting streets in the city below, I realized that it's been ten years since I first read Ulysses. I don't feel this far from 18. I feel even more devoted to the ideals and plans I had at that age. You grow up, yes, but (what a relief!) your heart does not die.
Today was my last day with my therapist (I'm moving, she's changing jobs). She totally cried. Then we laughed about how ridiculously different I am now than when I first came into her office. She said she's not at all afraid that I'll lose the ground I've gained. She said "You're out of the habit. You're not treating life like a slot machine anymore, throwing your heart in at random and hoping somehow it'll all pay off. You're making choices now, you own your future. And you're not resentful about the past. That's what I admire most about you - you are very fair with people, even when those people have caused you so much pain. You give me hope." Really, though, she's the one that's helped me find my way back to hope. I have written about her here before, which I guess must've been a pretty ineffective entry because nobody really got what I was trying to say. I was trying to point out that by being patient and kind with me, she helped me get out of the habit of being a cynical, hypercritical bitch. She helped me learn how to notice which people in my life make things easier for me. Before working with her, I took those people for granted or shot myself in the foot by writing them off for not meeting my unrealistic standards.
They say that therapy isn't really about anything that's said. It's about the changes in form and function that occur in your brain after a certain period of unconditional, non-threatening, and regular contact with another of your species. People who's parents were...say...hammered all the time have jumpy, underdeveloped brains. Therapy is basically a process of parenting for those people. The regular and supportive contact with another person basically teaches the brain that not every situation is life or death. It gives your nervous system some time to connect up all those neurons that, for so long, were too busy trying to solve problems like "Is my mom going to kill us in the car tonight?" to function normally.
I know I still need a lot more therapy. If I had to guess, I probably need three or four more years until my brain has permanently and fully taken a form that will keep me anywhere near sane. But it feels really good to have my therapist validate how much progress I've made and to realize how easy it really is to admit that you need some help with...oh...life.
So this year, I'm not going to stop celebrating. No, I'm flying Bloomsday's snotgreen flag for the forseeable future. Maybe I'll treat the rest of my life like it's just one long, long day in June. A day on which we owe it to our countrymen to drink, to lust, to examine art, science, religion, and war with equal parts reverence and gall, to offer confession, to run laughing through the streets at death...a day on which we are brave enough to say yes.
Standing at the top of the hill behind my house, looking out over the boistrous green earth and the glinting streets in the city below, I realized that it's been ten years since I first read Ulysses. I don't feel this far from 18. I feel even more devoted to the ideals and plans I had at that age. You grow up, yes, but (what a relief!) your heart does not die.
Today was my last day with my therapist (I'm moving, she's changing jobs). She totally cried. Then we laughed about how ridiculously different I am now than when I first came into her office. She said she's not at all afraid that I'll lose the ground I've gained. She said "You're out of the habit. You're not treating life like a slot machine anymore, throwing your heart in at random and hoping somehow it'll all pay off. You're making choices now, you own your future. And you're not resentful about the past. That's what I admire most about you - you are very fair with people, even when those people have caused you so much pain. You give me hope." Really, though, she's the one that's helped me find my way back to hope. I have written about her here before, which I guess must've been a pretty ineffective entry because nobody really got what I was trying to say. I was trying to point out that by being patient and kind with me, she helped me get out of the habit of being a cynical, hypercritical bitch. She helped me learn how to notice which people in my life make things easier for me. Before working with her, I took those people for granted or shot myself in the foot by writing them off for not meeting my unrealistic standards.
They say that therapy isn't really about anything that's said. It's about the changes in form and function that occur in your brain after a certain period of unconditional, non-threatening, and regular contact with another of your species. People who's parents were...say...hammered all the time have jumpy, underdeveloped brains. Therapy is basically a process of parenting for those people. The regular and supportive contact with another person basically teaches the brain that not every situation is life or death. It gives your nervous system some time to connect up all those neurons that, for so long, were too busy trying to solve problems like "Is my mom going to kill us in the car tonight?" to function normally.
I know I still need a lot more therapy. If I had to guess, I probably need three or four more years until my brain has permanently and fully taken a form that will keep me anywhere near sane. But it feels really good to have my therapist validate how much progress I've made and to realize how easy it really is to admit that you need some help with...oh...life.
So this year, I'm not going to stop celebrating. No, I'm flying Bloomsday's snotgreen flag for the forseeable future. Maybe I'll treat the rest of my life like it's just one long, long day in June. A day on which we owe it to our countrymen to drink, to lust, to examine art, science, religion, and war with equal parts reverence and gall, to offer confession, to run laughing through the streets at death...a day on which we are brave enough to say yes.
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Blowjobs are pretty good. Almost worth the crap you have to put up with to get one.