L, I have had a rather big revelation this morning. So I'm sitting here at my desk going through my binder of old poems that I wrote in the late 1970's/early 1980's (one of my poetry prompts for this month is to re-write an old poem, so I'm looking for one to use) and I came across a series of 4 poems that I wrote in 1982 & 1983 to R (you remember, my HS creative writing teacher). As I read over those 4 poems it hit me like the proverbial lightening bolt - how I was feeling about R back then in the months after graduating from HS and going off to college? Well, how I have been feeling about you since I left therapy in mid-December - is so familiar, soft and warm like a comfy old quilt - because it's the same way I felt about R all those many years ago!!


I honestly have no memory at all anymore of the heartache I evidently felt upon first leaving HS and not being able to see her every day anymore (so evident in the first poem of the series). The 3rd poem in the series is where I am now with you. I look forward to getting to the acceptance that is clear in the 4th poem. This is VERY COOL, L. I can't even explain just how cool. It's interesting you know? I saw her every school day, the semester she was my teacher my junior year in 1979, and then also for both semesters during my senior year, we would talk because we were on the same lunch schedule. She'd always eat lunch in her classroom so I'd go there every school day with mine and we'd talk about stuff, look at my poems, whatever. The two of you are so similar in my mind and heart (yes, I know I don't really know you, hush. I mean, the you that I know.) She saw me, in the same way that you did. I felt truly heard when we'd talk, the same way I felt truly heard talking with you. It was only 3 school semesters - but as opposed to weekly or less often with you, I saw her 5 days a week so kinda more comparable than you'd think. I mean duh, it's no WONDER that when my transference was at its peak, that one day when your hair was straight (like hers) I was so absolutely distracted because in my mind your face kept getting switched with her face and it was dizzying and I kept feeling like I didn't know if it was her or you sitting there and I couldn't focus. Totally crazy I know. But that's the truth. I remember telling you about it but don't remember what you'd said. See, that's how I knew for sure that I'd pulled back so many of my gazillion and a half projections/worked through the transference (at least the part that had to do with R, probably never would be able work through the maternal part of it even if I'd stayed in therapy forever), because when I came in for our last session and your hair was fixed like that again - I saw only you, not her at all. This is all so very fascinating. It's funny how I knew that much of it but that I hadn't yet connected all of the dots until I actually left you, too.