Farewell Angelina

I think I'm done with the Lucy.

I don't know - the last three or four times I've seen him, it's just felt like there isn't that much to say. The blame for this probably lies somewhere on both sides of the couch, but more and more I come out of our meetings feeling like I really didn't get much out of them. I keep going in with specific questions and concerns, but because of his own travel schedule and me being busy with school it's gotten to the point where I only see him once a month, so when he asks me "how have things been going?" there are usually so many things to catch him up on that there's rarely any time left for anything else.

I remember how nervous I was when I started, how caught off guard I was by a lot of the things he said to me, and the way a lot of the things I said to him got put back to me in a way that made me realize that I was looking at a lot of things in my life in a completely backwards manner.

I remember her saying she didn't
like how therapy had changed me.

But then again, that was when I was seeing him every 10 days or so. Thats when there were two Lucy's, two patients, two answers for every question. That's back when I was doing what I thought was best to try and keep things together, and I felt like every step taken forward was helping us to get there.

Sometimes it feels like such a long time ago..

When things did eventually fall apart, it was good to have the support there. Good to have someone to talk to. But as time moved on and the stages progressed, it began to feel like sitting in his office with him there were just big spots of prolonged silence. He'd helped me to realize a way at looking at my circumstances, but for whatever reason the two of us couldn't seem to get past that to any great degree.

I don't know -- maybe that's why I'm still struggling with this decision. I mean, it's not like I'm fixed or anything. I still screw things up all the time. I still overfocus on things that don't always matter, I still tend to go into situations with preconceived expectations, and I still idealize people and events from my past to the point where my own personal mythology tends to get in the way of my moving ahead with my present and future goals. I'm still selfish. I'm still jealous. I'm still alone.

At the same time, I'm more aware of my own issues, and I feel like I've become more empowered when it comes to expressing my needs. But as much as I know he has helped me with some of that, I find myself thinking that a lot of that progress was made on my own, whether it come from moving out and trying to make it by myaself, or working to restart my life over piece by piece even if leaving wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.

And maybe that sounds selfish, I don't know -- but (especially lately) the ratio of me screwing shit up versus me getting things right seems a lot more like I'm behind the wheel than following anyone else's grand design. So maybe in the end I'm starting to feel like it's just not worth all the money I'm paying to come out of a therapy session with so much uncertainty as to what benefits (if any) are coming from it anymore.

I don't know. I still don't want to believe that sometimes two people can just run out of road together. I still want to believe that there's something I could go back and do differently to try to get things going more forward instead of reaching some sort of point and then just kinda ...stalling. But maybe that's how people are sometimes. Maybe you can travel only so far together when you're not on the same page (no matter how badly you wish you could find a way for that to happen).

I'm done with the Lucy.

[Listening to: Peter Gabriel, "Digging in the Dirt"]