Couch 95: No title required

Art - re sons music - i hate surprises. I think they are more for the giver than the recipient. Canyou ask him what his next purchase would be? Is it the bass? Aside from that, wow you handled it like the Rifleman

Ah but this is the afterlife remember? Drinking wouldn't affect us in the same way - not the same kinda physical body right? I think I'll attempt to write a pretend after-life t session. That might be fun.... especially with the most interesting man in the world as the afterlife-t.

Yeah, I'm weird. I know it.

Thanks, hankster. He said he wants a better bass, and new cables. When we bought him the bass he has now, he didn't know what he specifically wanted so he got what he thought he wanted. Now that he's been playing for 7 months, he has a much better idea of what he actually wants. We basically got him a beginner instrument I guess and he's surpassed that pretty quickly. I've gone with him to Guitar Center a couple times and listened to him play the better instruments, and he's pretty darn good! I'm making too big of a deal out of this I know. I'm sorry to hog the couch with it. I'm just a mommy that wants her son to be happy....

You obviously needed it.

Squirrel your industriousness is amazing. I feel kinda lazy in comparison!

Fly out day after tomorrow. Not ready! Arrrrgh!

I wouldn't say you're making a big deal out of it Art. I would say it is a very big deal. You're setting this kid up for life remember?
I got off the phone with my own mother the other day terribly upset - I had been telling her about meeting a potential new friend and she essentially told me not to mess it up by acting like myself. Except she managed to say it in a way that made her sound like she was just giving me good advice and telling me to remember my manners.
No way in hell would my mother have wanted to buy me a better guitar so I could improve my skills as a teen. I would have been tacitly 'told' that I wasn't ever going to be a serious musician anyway so I didn't need it and she needed to save money for my education. Actually, something very similar did happen - I considered studying music in college (I played classical piano from the time I was 7 til my Leaving Cert year) and applied, but when I got the information about going for the audition my mother told me that I didn't want to do that anyway.
My mother set me up for a life of feeling like I was a weirdo, socially incapable, as well as stingy and selfish, for being like my father's family in personality. I was taught that I didn't know what was best for me - that I had to look outside of myself for that. I was set up for abusive relationships because I believed that I was so odd and clueless that no one decent would ever want me. Funny thing is, my father's family, while quiet and reserved in general are, if anything, the polar opposite of socially clueless...

That turned into a rant... But you see my point?

And atomic bombs

Art, your son may not be ready to hear something like this but…. learning to play well on imperfect equipment may help make him a better musician. Also, working hard for what you want…also will help him be a successful musician not a dabbler. His privileged friends may not develop the commitment he is developing now.

Where are you off to?

I suspect sunny Queensland. But I could be wrong, he might be off to Greenland to work out the depression.

Thanks... I grew up the same way except for instead of music, it was writing. I wanted to publish a book and my parents said "What makes you think YOU are special enough to do something like that?" (Why do we remember these retarded comments our entire lives?) Even after I did finally last year publish a book of my poems, my mother still couldn't be proud of me. And I guess that's why I worry so much about doing the same kind of thing to my son, even inadvertently.

Thanks this is a really good point too!! I was just talking to hubby about this and he said something very similar - that he just hasn't hit the realization that it's up to HIM to get a part-time job or find some way of earning money, and that I don't need to worry because he's a smart boy and he'll figure it out on his own. I have ideas for him of course, but he won't listen to them (yet), maybe he just needs to think they're his own ideas I don't know. The easiest way he could make money, right in our neighborhood, would be to put up a sign on the mailboxes offering to weed people's yards. Our HOA is so strict about weeds and no one likes doing it. Every adult I know in this complex would gladly pay him to de-weed their front yard. Heck, h and I already paid him $100 back in March to de-weed both our backyard and front yard and to spray weed killer, that's how much h and I hate pulling weeds.

Cats are awesome

I have the best T I could ever ask for. Just wanted to share.

spotted belly!!!! squee!

You seem to being going through a lot lately. What's going on? That is if it is ok to ask!

That face! I am in love with that face!!!

I have to move, but I don't want to, because, warm cat!

Hi......

Thanks, growly. Just a lot from my past coming back. Me trying to accept it and come out of the denial. My psyche has seemed to slam me with everything at once so I went from super high functioning which I have been my whole life to barely get out of bed and can't eat in a short amount of time. Just feel like I was driving 100mph and slammed face first into a brick wall.

(((Ellahmae)))
Kudos to you for facing all that hard stuff.

Hi Healed!
Whassup?

Is it stuff you've never talked about before? Just wondering because I'm bringing up stuff that I HAVE talked about before, just with T1 but is all new with T2. It is hard to pack it all up at session's end and go back to normal life.

Correct. I've never talked about it or even acknowledged it in my own life. I started going to T because I was feeling stagnant in life... I never thought that a year later I'd be in all of this. I can't pack it up. I'm very, very blessed to have a T that is consistently there in between sessions for me. (((growly)))

I went through some old photo albums my younger sister found. She had mentioned that in every old photo of me as a baby, I was essentially in a cage -- crib or playpen with no one holding me. I looked at the photos and she was right. There are only a few photos of anyone holding me, even when I was an infant. In one of the few photos of my mother holding me, she looks completely miserable. There are a lot of photos of my older sister giving me a bottle through the bars of the crib or the playpen. None of anyone else feeding me or giving me a bottle. It is weird and a little eerie to see photographic proof of how little my parents cared for me. Birthday photos are really telling also. The difference between my and my sister's birthday are blatant. I showed them to T and I was all triumphant to have PROOF that I was not making things up and I am not a drama queen about the whole thing. T on the other hand seemed very sad. It was a strange experience all in all.