11:37pm: As I sit here watching Chicago P.D., a barely touched bag of crunchy Cheetos beside me, I contemplate the life choices which have lead me to this moment. I am 29, I started college in 2014, not again, not back at it... I STARTED college 3 terms ago. I work for a local paper, but just helping with advertising, I am not even cool enough to be one of those, on the ground reporters that are all interested and and involved.
I moved home a few years ago and sleep on a twin mattress in my step father's house. I started seeing a therapist roughly six weeks ago and my world has essentially been turned upside down.
Two weeks before I started seeing a therapist, I sort of started dating someone. The Idea I may or may not actually be dating someone causes me night sweats and heartburn on a regular basis. Most people are super happy when they start dating someone and everything gets bright and shiny and the world becomes all butterflies and rainbows. Let's be real, I don't have time for that shit. I mean, I have real issues here, real problems. I'm overcoming real life horror stories, stories which lifetime movies over dramatize and people sit watching like a train wreck unable to look away, hand halfway to mouth with popcorn, but too shocked to actually make it all the way.
The first time I spent one on one time with the guy who causes more anxiety any normal person would care to endure, it almost felt like butterflies and rainbows, but it was like tainted with a murky blue fog which kept the bright and shiny more of a dull and dreary. Like when you see beautiful flowers that are potted in manure and no matter how wonderful they look the smell is just too much. Don't misunderstand, he was so nice and so cute and he made all my insides fuzzy and awesome, but even though he was open about thinking I was beautiful and wanting to date me, I just couldn't actually believe that someone would be interested in me. So after a few days, I sort of freaked out and told him we needed to just reevaluate the situation. My freak out was three days before my birthday. A couple days after my birthday I met with a woman who I immediately trusted and wanted to tell my whole life too. In our first meeting I told her a story, one I had often recited to people who ask about my troubles. The story I told her, to me, is just something which happened, not something I feel. As the words tumbled out of my mouth with no feeling, her mouth dropped open and if I am not mistaken she was trying to conceal the tears in her eyes. I was shocked, she was a therapist, surely she hears things like this all the time. Lots of people have issues. Lots of people have been through terrible things, so why was this story, told with no emotion affecting her the way it did? After I told her one of my stories, she began asking me questions. I answered all her questions and the more I thought about them after our meeting the more I realized how well she knew the me who I don't let anyone know.
