Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVIII

T, it is almost Wednesday! I haven't seen you in what feels like 10 years.

Ahhhh why have my last couple of appointments with you been so nice?? Scared it won't stay that way tbh. Thanks for sharing the thing about your Dad. Kind of felt like we were both about to cry.

Thank you for the early contender for the best email of 2022. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Why can I not just leave you alone 😥

Why? Because it wasn't meant to be that way. It was meant to be THIS way. The way we are finding, together. Thank you for being you. I love you with so much of the heart that you helped me to uncover.

I'm not being quiet, YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!

I don't know why your out of of office email showed up in my spam box. But I saw it 23 hours later. So I contacted the office but the only thing they could do was give me a remote session at another time this week. So I just switched my in person tommorow to remote. I'm annoyed at my mom because she knew about her appointment since October. I'm just wondering if what if tommorow was the last chance I got to see you in person for awhile before things start shutting down because of covid.

But thanks for responding to my email this afternoon and confirming the zoom appointment.

Thank you for writing me back to say you are going to write me back but could you just write me back? It's just a text message for scheduling. It shouldn't be too hard. Thanks, Kit.

PS I still love you.

Yesterday, you were surprisingly insightful about a couple of things. Not that you aren’t insightful in general, but I was surprised by what you picked up in the drawings you asked me to do. I feel like I slipped up on boundaries tonight, sending you that email after I got home from work. I’m not sure what time you normally finish, but I should really give myself a hard cut-off point of when I can contact you until, and not bother you after a certain time unless there’s a problem. You were probably fine with it, but I don’t like thinking I’m being a bother.

L,
I love you so much! You quoting the exact verse in the song I mentioned...priceless! Not that it was hard to figure out, but still the fact you quoted it to me. I'm glad you're back working, but I wish you were back here. I'm missing you so very much. It's literally painful. I know you know because I cried all session. I just want to be with you and be safe and secure again. I only get 2.5 weeks of in-person before you leave again. That's not a lot of time to adjust. I hope you will allow a phone call between now and next session. I really need it.

Why do I want to be attracted to people but not actually be in a relationship with them? Like I dont want to have sex with anyone. The idea grosses me out. But I want to have a crush on someone and I mainly just want someone to say random **** that will turn me on. All transference T would have to say would be "hello" and I'd automatically cream my jeans. But the idea of actually being in a relationship or any type of physical contact with her wasnt what I wanted.

I don't know how to explain what I want. I don't want a relationship I just want to get turned on by people. Like what is love to me?

Doing a little thinking/writing this evening re: what exactly I miss about you, and how I can find that elsewhere. Main thing is what I knew I would miss - being seen the way you saw me. And just like we talked about on 12/17 I can find that elsewhere by allowing myself to be seen that fully by the right people of course - like my sister. And a couple of good friends. I'm still awfully good at hiding the real me though.

Thinking also about how weird the therapy relationship is. Convoluted was always my word for it and still is. I mean, seriously. It meant SO much to me, for SO long, was SO important to me... and now, it's just like, poof, it's gone. Almost like it never existed at all, and maybe it didn't since it was pretty much all in my imagination anyway. Yet, I was, am and remain changed by it, I guess that's what I mean by the "magic", not trying to be a romantic here, but well, it does seem like there was some magic involved in some weird way, how through all of my half a gazillion projections that you reflected back to me I learned SO much about myself, and finally reached the point where I was ready to pull them all back and own them, allow myself to be whole.

I really respect you and the work you do, you know. I can't imagine that any of this was easy on you. Especially to put so much heart and effort into building and maintaining a solid therapeutic relationship, all the while knowing that the actual goal is to watch your clients walk away for the last time, walk away from it, from you, at some point with you not having much of a say in it. I mean I know it wasn't easy for me to do, I imagine in some ways it wasn't easy for you to watch me go either. I sincerely hope that you never doubt the positive effect that the work you do sends out into the world. But maybe it also felt really good to you, too, to know that I was ready to go forward in my life.

I suppose that last part I will never know the answer to. But that's okay. I have pretty much always trusted the process, and I'm trusting this part of it too, even when I miss you. The missing you is less and less, and pretty much confined to the wee hours of the morning now when I'm awake at 3:30am and can't sleep.


Friday will be 3 weeks since we said goodbye. I love the you that I knew.


Be well.

That session was so deep. I didnt even realize you were pushing me until you told me you were because you were being so gentle the whole time. I had no idea I had issues with authority figures because I got away with a lot of stuff when I was a kid and I didnt get any discipline from my parents. I told you more about 2020 and the candy and I told you I was telling you all this because you were the first therapist I was able to trust to talk about my transfernce T with this deeply. I even told you the truth when you asked if I ever did the same things as she did. I told you I eat pizza Goldfish because she did. But I told you we both really liked Mountain Dew so I did not drink it because of her. I never in my life told anyone I'll sometimes eat the same foods of someone I like.

We made definte progress today.

Ah yes. The deep-diving into psyche is definitely something that I miss. Not sure how to replace that outside of your four walls... except maybe via journey to speak with FW, but of course that would have to be short and with focused intention. Y'know it kinda works too just to go out into the desert and connect with the energy there, but that's a different kind of conversation.

I do wish I'd asked you about a check-in phone call in like March or something, after 3 months on my own.... Maybe I'll just do it anyway, if I still want to, of course. You can always not pick up when you see my name - that is, if you haven't already deleted me from your contacts by then. Actually I don't even know if you have my name on your phone, maybe you just recognized my phone # or something because every time I called, you have always answered "Hi, Artie!" I don't know, I never bothered to ask.

I'm getting there. I rarely get those 'i miss you' feelings during the day now. At night, yes. Why is it that everything not good is amplified at night?! Less distractions, I guess.


I can think forward now, about the possibility of never seeing you again, and not feel that hollow emptiness in my stomach that I used to get when I would think of that possibility. Sure, we live in the same town and all, so technically I could run into you at Costco again or whatever but not super likely cuz it's a BIG town. I mean since 2015 I've run into you outside of your office exactly twice.

You'll ask me tomorrow what I want to do in therapy now, where I want to go/work on. I have no answer for you. I just envision myself talking with you.

It was so nice to see you after a couple week break! Also, lol to the snow pants.

Dear T,
Was doing a bit of the dancing thing tonight (hey, physical activity!), and one of the songs that came on was The National's "Nobody Else Will Be There." Which seemed like a good cool-down song. But the lines of "Good-byes always take us half an hour--why can't we just go home? Nobody else will be there." They just really hit me tonight. Because "home" in my head is like your office. And I'm bad at saying good-bye to you on Zoom (OK, I was bad at saying good-bye in person, too). And, well, when we're meeting in your office, nobody else is there, but over Zoom, generally at least H is home and D today, too. It just made me a bit sad.

At least when I was talking today about reasons to look toward March, when I said how at least maybe you and I could meet outside on occasion then, with it being warmer, you said that you could see resuming regular in person then, assuming this surge peaks and starts going down soon. So that's maybe something? I'm glad you seemed to understand how I need things to hold onto, how it can be better for me to have that for a couple months (whether a concert, meeting in person, etc.), even if it's eventually dashed, than to have not had it at all. The days or weeks or months of having it to me tend to hold more weight than the time when the hopes may be dashed.

I mean, isn't that how hope works in general? Anything one hopes for might not come to fruition. So is it better not to hope at all? Perhaps you believe that, but I don't. I feel like when all hope is lost, what is there?

Love,
LT

i just saw a facebook thingie asking the question if you had the chance to go back would you marry your spouse again? I can't answer that there because he might see it so I'ma answer it here. NO I would not. I would not marry anyone. I would stay single. And maybe this is a little part of why I felt so driven to end therapy with you. Because eventually we would have come back around to 'that' subject and... what if one of these times I actually did get strong enough to leave him? I don't necessarily want to start over as single at almost 60 years old. But......

eta: i'm probably only even thinking this way because i'm annoyed at the butthead right now.

I like that you are leading the way in our sessions. Instead of just saying "its your therapy what do you want to talk about?" Then we end up talking about nonsense for the whole 50 minutes. I like that you are taking control so that doesnt happen.