Tag: people

I Broke up with my Therapist

Jodi has been my email therapist since my break-up in February. It was when I was still sleeping fourteen hours a day, not showering, not eating, not leaving my house that I realized it was probably best to reach out to someone. I stopped recognizing myself and that frightened me, because I spent so many years trying to get to know me better. Suddenly, I wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t being in the dark – it was being the dark. 

The break-up was the breaking point, I guess. There were the deaths before that; the stress of the relationship before it imploded and then released an amalgam of lies and cheating and false identity. It amazed me how repulsed I became by someone I loved so deeply, and the true root of it was he didn’t know who he was – he never got to know himself. He couldn’t face his past in a way that allowed him to grow upwards out of it, rather, he rolled around in the filth and tried to play himself off as polished.

Polished shit is still shit.

I just didn’t think I was able to have my heart broken further than it already was. I didn’t think anyone could hurt me after seeing the hurt I had been through for sixth months prior. But that’s what’s funny with people – selfish people – they do what they want, oftentimes devoid of conscience. And I still loved him for a time after. I wanted him to be alright because I knew I was stronger than him and I honestly thought he broke himself in the process. I knew he didn’t break me, because I already know me. I just became afraid of myself in the end. That’s when I reached out for someone to talk to. 

My counselor was at the tips of my furiously typing fingers for months. I was reaching out to her multiple times a day, lost and wandering around in the shell of myself. I had zero guidance and for the first time in my 28 years I truly was unable to figure out how to unlock my torment. Things came out of me that I thought I cleansed years prior; moments and experiences that unfolded like a flower and I realized that no, I was not completely OK to begin with. But that was OK. I needed an unbiased third party who I could tell my darkest secrets to without having to look them in the eyes. It was critical for my healing to say things that I never said to anyone, for some weird Catholic fear that I’d be punished if the words existed in the open. I whittled myself down – once again – for the sake of un-becoming the dark that I took on in the winter of this year. I realized too, unfortunately, how many awful things I’ve endured in my life. I know I’m not the only one, but there were so many moments that peppered my youth that I thought at one point were normal. The stupid saying panged the back of my head, “God only gives you what you can handle. Remember that!” I chose to remind whoever that I can also handle an abundance of good. 

Therapy made me question if I’m truly grateful for the things I have, or if I’m selfish for constantly wanting more. It helped me to establish for myself a boundary point of striving beyond my means and living beyond my means. I have felt less materialistic in the last few months. I haven’t tried to reach out for disingenuous connections with men who couldn’t care less that I’ve seen death or that my youth molded me into a person who is hardened while maintaining an unbelievably sensitive core. Therapy made me look at myself in a way I wasn’t able to alone. 

Then I woke up today and realized the last email I sent my therapist was a four-month progress photo of my rescue dog, Randall, who I took into my home this April. That was twelve days ago. My mom’s eight-year anniversary is coming up next month and I don’t feel overly anxious or depressed about it like other years.  I am no longer ashamed to say that I resented my mother – not for who she was – rather, for the choices she made that destroyed who she was. Her reliance on alcohol fueled her belief that she could not function as a human without ether as a catalyst. Booze was her God and her Devil – her Heaven and her Hell – and she just existed somewhere in the middle. And while I don’t find myself reliant on booze to be someone in the world, it scares me to be like her one day. It’s why I ask for help even if I’m embarrassed or afraid because, yeah, sometimes we can’t handle it all on our own. That’s when we get sloppy and selfish in a way that is detrimental to ourselves as well as those who care about us. 

I emailed Jodi and I thanked her for her help. I told her that I’m me again. I’m not the dark anymore – not completely enlightened either – but I’m balanced. I unfolded upwards and I look down at all the dirt I came out of, and I am appreciative of how the mess below me nurtured me to be the person I grew into – someone my mother would be proud of, more importantly someone I’m proud of. 

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Magenta

I have a garden that’s in front of my condo and unfortunately the soil is a sand/soil mixture but mostly sand and not many of my flowers flourish in these conditions. Sand/soil mixtures are great for succulents or cacti but I prefer a nice menagerie of color in the summer. My main reason for maintaining a garden in the warmer months is because my condo sits on a busy street and everyone on my row has a garden – manicured, clipped, mulched. The first year I lived at my home, my neighbor asked me probably a dozen times if and when I was planning on putting a garden in.

“Everyone here does a nice garden.”

Well keep your eyes open, lady. As a houseplant mom, I prefer to keep the inside of my dwelling sprawled with greenery but I can get dirty no problem. I used to manage a greenhouse in Massachusetts. I know how to not kill things.

This year I completely disregarded a color scheme and slapped every possible flower that I thought would live in my front garden. Of the mess I made, my African daisies bloomed. They’re an amazing shade of bright magenta and they basically just scream at me when I walk past them to get into my house. I love it. They stand out so much and they’re loud and vibrant and they bring me joy. What I learned about magenta, though, is that it isn’t actually a color.

Magenta is defined as “an extra-spectral color, meaning that it is not found in the visible spectrum of light. Rather, it is physiologically and psychologically perceived as the mixture of red and violet/blue light, with the absence of green.” I find that absolutely fascinating. It’s amazing that our brains are so thrown off by the absence of something as common and known as the color green, that it creates an amazing hue using whatever it has left to work with. It also makes me wonder, since magenta is our own brain’s perception – how different magenta will look to other people who see it. Do people walk past my house and see the African daisy as loud and bold and beautiful as I do? Or is it perception, like happiness or sadness?

People can be lacking so many things, like money, or a new car, or a boyfriend, or a parent – but what magenta are they creating? What, with every other color available – with every other thing they have (or blessing, however you want to see it) – are they creating? If magenta was a life, how bright would it be? I get down sometimes and I always embrace a good cry, but I also have one of the brightest fucking African daisies on the block. How does everyone else see their own garden?

It was you all Along

It’s kind of messing me up, as I sit here at 4AM, to re-read the last email I ever received from my mother in which she describes me as being the way I am from the influence of my two deceased grandmothers.
“You’re kind to others, but you don’t take shit.”
I always saw that email and thought it endearing, because she used curse words and praised me. It has since been a point of reference I go to when I’m feeling low, or want reassurance that I made her proud when she was alive, so I can continue to strive to make her proud of me even in death. Call it melancholy, call it cynical, but I noticed something missing from the email last night: her.
My mom was the person I always tried to be, not my grandmothers. While I loved my grandmothers dearly, they were not the image I saw. My mother had a razor tongue and a wicked sense of humor. She was stylish and stood tall. She was an entrepreneur and a philanthropist. Most importantly, she didn’t judge others, but saw no hesitation in pointing out someone’s bullshit. I realized last night, though, that she didn’t credit herself for how I turned out as a young adult, when she was all I was trying to embody as I was growing up. At her funeral, so many passersby commented on my smile, and how it looked just like hers – but dear God let me have her sense of humor. Let me have her businesswoman prowess. Grant me her sarcastic tongue. Let me hear a roaring laugh from my friends and see her sitting in the crowd smiling at me, throwing her head back with everyone else.

Addiction – alcoholism in this case – made her lose her confidence to the point that her know-it-all “You’re not the parent” mentality eventually turned into, “Don’t judge me” as she looked down at the floor, vodka in her hand and the hot August sun showing truth against the living room walls. My mother showed me what not to be through her addictions. She showed me that I couldn’t allow the future of my existence to be controlled by any outside forces, and to only give control to myself. She showed me that even the toughest people can be small and weak. Ultimately, she showed me all the facets of a human. For all of that I hope to be her. For all of that, I credit her wholly for who I am – negative, positive, complete.