:my roots are planted in the past // and though my life is changing fast // who I am is who I want to be:
03/23/04|10:19 p.m.

Think your day cannot be brightened by cheerleaders? Try this. Oh, and while I'm plugging - we basically all know how much it sucks to be new to online-journalling and waiting for people to notice you exist, et cetera. So: Look! Valeofenna exists! Check her out, yes?

I'm in a weird space. I'm listening to country music, for one thing. More specifically, I'm listening to the first half of Britt's "teach Mary she doesn't hate country music" mix. It starts out with all these songs about angels that remind me of the times she told me I was like an angel, and I'm a little exhilerated by that memory, and by the energy in the songs. I'm outside of my normal pick-me-up songs, and so there's a rare, interesting quality to it. There's been a rare quality to this day actually, definitely "interesting" - sincerely at times, and if not sincerely, certainly as a euphemism. I woke up early; it's warm here right now, and so there's a sense of being outside the season. I'm not sure whether we're entering autumn or leaving spring or what (and of course, we're not doing either, really, but try and tell that to my instincts.) I have no idea what year it is. I had trouble sleeping, partly because I had an appointment in the morning, and that never happens. And I couldn't figure out if I was about to start school, or return to it from somewhere - was I coming? going? from and to where, respectively? I tried to help myself understand that it's 2004, I'm not in school, and I had a very important appointment before which I needed to get some sleep. I know that, technically, today's session didn't carry any more weight than any other session, but to understand that, I need to feel that therapy's a process (cliche, cliche, cliche) and that's really difficult at a time like now, when one day is so long.

I can't believe it was only (just over) one week since I saw the doctor. I can't believe it was only the week before last that I was freaking out, trying to help spring Sara from that horrific "treatment center." I can't believe today is a week since I took That Phone Call. Since I took the call from Dixie's sister. Time simply doesn't exist in this situation; I don't think it ever really does. I think it's a system of organization we try and force onto a life that's far less linear, far more complicated. I can hardly articulate where I've been this past week, but I know it's not restricted to the dates off the calendar. I've been back to the last weeks at Rogers, the first weeks at Rogers... I felt Dave misunderstand again, hurt me, be gone without saying goodbye. I've been back with Tracy, meeting her, losing her, finding her again. And if the past, why not the future? The potential futures, the possibilities. I've been terrified and comforted by those as well.

Still, by the calendar it's a week, and I finally had my own session, my own time to speak. I let all the words that I bit back on the telephone pour out of me. (I've fallen into a not-so-helpful habit of trying to be who others want me to be, so far as I can tell, while on the phone with them. I'm working on it.) At first nothing seemed to come out; the solid facts of conversations added to the information he already had didn't feel like much of anything. We talked a lot about the different conversations, but most of the session passed before we got to Dave, and without that one piece of information, I don't think anything could really start to make sense. It came out quickly when we finally hit upon it, though. The Superdoc didn't think I was a crazy overly-attaching weirdo who Dave was right to avoid (as I'd started to worry after leaving him a rambling message regarding the Dave-situation, the phone call with Jenna, and of course - the awful news of what happened to Dixie), and he wants to contact Dave and explain to him therapist-to-therapist about where I'm at, and how all I want is what I've had for the past few years: a way to write him...so that if Dave makes a decision, he's at least doing it with accurate information. I want to let him because I don't want to lose this, but I'm scared, too. I told him that of course I want to do it, that "you lose too many people as is...you can't just go and give them up without even trying. ...Or at least, I can't." He suggested we talk about that little revision - the movement from "one can't" to "I can't", the suggestion that - as I so eloquently put it to him - I'm a freak. That's another reason I'm scared about him contacting Dave. He's talking about writing a letter and sending it to someone at Rogers to have forwarded. And I'm just imagining how they won't forward it - at best because they're busy - and at worst because it's just another desperate act on the part of that crazy sick Mary Brave. I know that it's good we're about to really break through on this, to really start talking about it...about how I was weird at Rogers for attaching the way that I attach, how it was out of the ordinary even there. The pain I hold onto because of it. Still, when I told him they think I'm a freak, he got quiet and said I have a bad habit of thinking other people view me the way I see myself. True that. And I keep hearing things Sara's been telling me - that she and Lainie talked about me and Lainie said I was the sweetest girl ever, how some therapist I don't even know from Rogers was asking about me because apparently Sarah didn't just pass on the news; she passed on my e-mail to some people...and that means something. They've told me so many things that disclaim the "you're a freak" possibility. But I can't shake it entirely. I did finally get angry (at someone other than myself) by the end of the session. I'd felt it earlier, too; I'd been pissed at Dave for not understanding, at all the stupid (literal) telephone games that led to this miscommunication. But I didn't feel safe really going into the feeling without having someone who really knows where I'm at - like my psychiatrist - tell me that I'm really not doing what Dave worries I'm doing.

So, the two sides poured out simultaneously. I jabbered on about being a freak, and how everyone at Rogers knew. And then I talked about how all I wanted was what I'd had for two years, how I never went to Dave like I was still his client and I thought we'd made it clear what I wanted from this relationship and that it was ok, and how now instead of a boundary I'm facing a brick wall. The doctor insists that the staff at Rogers made a mistake, that part of their job was to send me a clearer message than they did about what's ok in terms of communication, and that certain decisions - like having what Dave told Sara's therapist told to me by Sara - weren't exactly right. That's hard because it's close to a judgment of people I like to think are can do no wrong. But then, it did feel good to let loose the feelings standing next to all those from the last entries. The ones that said, Who exactly was I supposed to go to? I still haven't called Rogers to talk to them, and that's just wrong. It's crazy - (it, not me.) This girl that I knew there, that only people from there (in my life) knew, just died, and I can't call them, can't call them as my home, or as people who knew her, or as people also going through this tragedy because I feel like I did something wrong when (the doctor promises) I didn't. No matter how things go now - whether it gets resolved or not - I hope I end up understanding that. Understanding that I have a right to this home, and I can act on that right.

I don't want to lose him, but even Dave is not the entire place. I want him back badly, but losing him doesn't have to mean walking away from people I haven't lost. These people are proud of me; they can't be proud of me and think the central force of my existence (that love, that attaching energy) is unhealthy. Can't. Do. It. They can't. And that's that, even if it's not. Dave's going to come around because I'm right about this. Because I don't want anything more than I deserve, and after living so long without it, who'd refuse me?

I have a really good pitiful-puppy-dog look. (And I have to admit, I'm grooving to this down-home country-stuff. You know, even a Hallmark movie can get to you some days. And these particular songs, at least, are good.)

We're going to do this, you know. And I'm not going to censor myself, and it's going to be incredibly difficult, so sometimes I will type things that sound really discouraged and final, but they won't be final. Every entry like the previous one will be followed by entries like today's. And better. Because that's what I've committed to, and I'm not giving up. Not after three years. Not with my "tenacious" blood. Not with my heritage and family.

I'm imagining a stack of letters piling up while I wait for Dave to give me his address. I'm imagining sending him a flood of them, just for the mischievous spite. Just to see his face in silent groan. I probably won't do it, but I like the image nonetheless. ...Gosh, it feels good to be back (even this much.) Give a girl a Superdoc, I tell yuh.

She'll run with it. I don't mean to imply it's all him. Give a girl a Superdoc and she'll catch the rhythm in time. (Or out of time. She'll catch it, though she might not be sure of the day, season, or year.)

Public Service Announcement: Watership Down is the best book ever (even though it shares that title.) And, granted, I have a rabbit-thing (well, hares actually - the hare is a main totem for me), but it's still brilliant. Now, I think I'm onto The Great Gatsby, as the library expects it back by Saturday. Hooray literacy.

Literacy, therapy, diary. I'm doing alright in my craziness. And there is some comic relief. For instance, my musical-genius, ponytail-and-sideburns-sporting older brother went in for a job interview at a talent agency and was asked to audition. Now, they want him to fly to LA and try out for All My Children. Which is the most hilarious thing to happen to him in about a week. (He will have the greatest autobiography of all time; just you wait.) Also, the workplace he was recently laid off from (or downsized, or whatever it technically was) is being investigated by the FBI. Never a dull moment. Tragic, difficult, even thoroughly demented - but not usually dull.

I wonder what I could offer my body in exchange for a good night's sleep. I am reduced to bargaining. I've long since passed begging, although I continue to try it intermittently. Maybe prayer. Or some ancient tribal dance. Which I suppose qualifies as the same thing. And now I'm really just typing to keep my eyes on the screen because they're trying to shut whether I'm lying down or not. A good sign? One can hope. One can, and for what it's worth, I will.

~me

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