The Ghost of What Might Have Been

I had a former lover reach out to me today.

His Instagram feed suggested he connect with me.

This was my new “professional” Instagram account.

I had decided I would try to do a little light marketing using the social platform for bringing in new clients.

I had met with a colleague this past week and talked about what happens when therapy works–your clients leave and go live their lives.

Which is fucking beautiful and awesome.

And oh shit!

I have to bring in more clients.

I told my colleague that I had been thinking about marketing and what that might look like and I decided to start a professional Instagram account.

I have been on Instagram from the very beginning of the app as I had worked at a hipster bicycle shop that insisted that all the employees use the platform.

I literally have thousands of photos on the app.

I’ve just had it that damn long.

So, I thought, I’ve got plenty of experience posting, I’ll give it a go for my therapy business.

My colleague said, “be careful what you wish for,” when I told her I wanted to bring in more clients.

She predicted a deluge.

I would like that.

I have had a fairly substantial turn over of clients and found myself in a touch of financial scarcity fear.

I understand that there really is nothing to be afraid of, it’s just my first time having this experience.

It will continue to happen.

I will have clients who leave, or drop down in frequency of sessions.

I’m not a therapist who thinks you have to do therapy for life.

I have seen marked, amazing changes in my clients and I’m happy for them and I’ve had some really beautiful things reflected back to me in closing sessions.

Therapy is pretty fucking awesome.

My own included.

I have been doing some pretty big work on early childhood abuse and trauma.

Realizing when I dissociate.

Good grief, I do it more than I think I even realized.

And I tend to do it when someone who is available for dating romantically is interested in me.

Cue today’s former lover reach out.

I got a text this morning from a number I didn’t know and a question about my practice.

I was like, um, who is this?

I knew it wasn’t a spam bot, but I didn’t have the number in my phone.

And something about the tone of the text, tone is very tongue and cheek, how does one gauge the “tone” of a text?

Something nudged me to respond.

He gave me some particulars and it came cascading back.

He was someone that I had talked myself out of at the time.

We had a spectacular date, in fact, even while it was happening I was telling myself that he wasn’t interested in me.

My brain, sigh, parts of my psyche that I am doing a hell of a lot of work around, thanks early childhood trauma, that keep getting pulled into the light of day, talked me out of pursuing something with him.

He was gorgeous, genius level smart and thought I was beautiful.

He told me on the call, I did agree to a call, mostly out of curiosity, but also, not going to lie, he was the best date I’d ever had on an app.

Side bar.

Awful second date tonight on a Hinge date earlier.

Last date off that app, not a great experience with the app or the dates.

I was kind and I know the guy was interested, but I felt deadened and half energy and he repeated the exact same stores, almost verboten that he had told me the first date.

The only difference in the date was the food eaten.

There will not be a third date.

Anyway.

So back to other dude.

We had a great connection, sex that was fire, he introduced me to an amazing album of music, we talked about God, spirituality, Burning Man, natch, I always talk about Burning Man, but this time it was because I was getting ready to head out to playa for a nanny gig. I like dude so much I almost talked him into coming with me, but he couldn’t, he had a crazy intense high powered science job.

Dude was smart.

So we were going to reconnect when I got back from the burn.

Except two things happened.

One, I talked my way out of a second date.

Yes, if you read the big paragraph just a few sentences up, I did have sex on the first date, but it was a Tinder date and that’s what I wanted. I did not know I was going to have in my top five best experiences or have rapport with someone that was mind bending good looking or super smart and introduced me to amazing new music.

So, yeah, first I talked myself out of a second date.

He had reached out to me to say, hey I’m a tiny bit under the weather and would I mind coming over to his place and having soup and just chilling and snuggling?

I remember getting the text, and I have such a vivid memory of it that I can even replay the scenario in my head of what I thought as I read the text, which basically went, oof, he’s not really that interested, he doesn’t think I’m beautiful, even thought the text started with, “Hey beautiful,” this isn’t going any where and I’m just in from riding my scooter across town, it’s cold I don’t want to bundle back up and head over to Nob Hill where he lived.

So.

Ugh.

I turned him down.

Gorgeous, big brown eyes, beautiful mouth, genius smart, funny, amazing sex.

Did I mention tall?

Because, he’s not really that interested in me, blah, blah, blah, brain, blah, blah, blah.

Side bar.

I spend a lot of time helping client unravel maladaptive thinking, this was such classic maladaptive thinking, ugh.

Anyway.

He spent the night by himself, I left the day after to Burning Man.

Now.

I tell myself stupid ass stories, but I was not a complete idiot, and when I got back from the event, I messaged him.

Second thing that happened.

He met someone else.

He responded, “Hey Gorgeous, glad you made it back, bad good news, I met someone, I think I’m just going to explore connecting with her. I’m really glad we met though, take care.” Or something close to that effect.

Years later, they are happily married, have a child, and are living in a big house with huge yard and two dogs in the Midwest.

He’s put on some weight, the Midwest will do that to you, but he was still handsome, we FaceTimed, funny, and whip smart.

I helped him out with the questions he had for a client and we caught up.

We even did touch on the timing of our original connection.

And it was literally timing.

He ran into his now wife, three times in the same day, it was meant to be.

But there was a little part of me that felt for a good few moments, heartbroken.

How many times have I missed something like this?

Too many I sense.

I asked him if he had known I was going to become a therapist, I couldn’t remember if I had already started my program.

In hindsight, I did realize I had, and that likely played a part in me not wanting to leave my house when had gotten home, I was working full time as a nanny and going to school full time, I was exhausted.

He couldn’t remember, but he said, “Maybe, but I do know that when I left I remember being really excited to have connected with you, the things we talked about, it was profound, I felt like you had healed my soul.”

Do you know that the psycho part of psychotherapist stands for “psyche,” which is Greek for soul?

I mean.

Good grief.

We were a great match.

I got off the call with him and actually did cry a little bit.

There is still a part of me that has grief for not being in a relationship that could have meant having a child, a piece of grief I have done, but it is tender sometimes, and here was this opportunity.

But.

I also knew better than to beat myself up in the moment.

I had to be gentle with that part of me that was just doing what it does, protecting me.

Relationships are dangerous, was what I had intuited growing up, violent, and scary. Plus, add on top of that the sexual violence I experienced as a child, and well, one can see how a part of me might act up to protect me from getting into a romantic relationship.

Part of me has placed blinders on my eyes and told me stories that have kept me out of relationships.

Like the former lover.

I couldn’t see it.

I am seeing things now.

And I don’t regret what happened.

In a different universe, we were together.

Just like some of the other loves I have had that did not go anywhere, romantic love that I had for my first high school crush, the bartender who’s sister was a room mate of mine in Madison, the friend who introduced me to the electronic music scene in San Francisco, my ex.

All men I loved.

Lucky me.

I have known love.

And now.

Now I am ready to experience it in a sustainable way.

So when I tell myself the story, that “he’s just not that interested” I will fact check that.

Because, it’s probably not true.

It’s just a defense to protect myself, but it’s not a defense I want anymore.

It might be scary to let myself be vulnerable and open my eyes and see and be seen.

But I think it might be really wonderful to.

I really do.

Random Images

Daydreams and revery.

Blues songs on the radio station you programmed in my car.

The blue of the ocean in my rear view mirror and the trembling thought of wild-fire in my heart.

You like a car in a meadow filled with flowers and tall grass.

A car with the windows open and soft snow falling inside it.

I saw that car today.

Barbara Lewis on the stereo.

A soft kiss of nostalgia.

I wanted to climb into that car in the heat of summer, to cool off, to be dusted with that soft snow.

I would open the door, climb in and settled down.

No need to change the channel on the radio station.

Just lay my head back against the seat and let the snowfall of memory engulf me.

I could ride around all day in that car.

Eyes closed.

Leaned back.

Checked out in the glossy remembrance of your embrace.

Your smell would wrap around me like a chambray shirt.

I want to curl up there.

On that seat.

In that car.

Drive forever.

I would look up at the ceiling and realize that the roof top was open and the snow fell from the heavens above me.

And then notice that it was not snow falling.

But stars.

Soft and cool.

Stars dusting my shoulders and glittering in my hair.

Star shine.

Moon shine.

Love shine.

I would hold your hand.

Press it to my mouth.

Wanting only to drive down the night into the sunset of my never-ending always longing desire for you.

I don’t know where that meadow is.

Full of flowers and light and monarch butterflies.

Birdsong.

Love song.

Heart song.

I don’t know where that car is either.

Yet.

I sense it there.

In the whispering of my psyche.

In the skeins of time.

Waiting.

Just waiting.

For you to pick me up.

And.

Drive me home.

 

Speak To Me

Of the desire in my psyche.

As I try to move.

Closer to you.

Binding my heart.

Against the heart place in your body.

Interconnected.

Landed in heat.

Transcending my day to day human life.

You have given me access to energy.

Star energy.

Dream energy.

Love energy.

The chemistry of love ignites within me–

Binding me with bright prisms of light.

Blinding me to all else.

But.

Your souls depth calling me home.

Descending me into vulnerability.

And.

Embuing my life with purpose.

Through the feeling of love for you.

Sublime you.

My kissling.

My burnished butterfly wing.

My sacred crow calls and whisperings.

Leveling me with your divinity.

Archetype of my heart.

Reflected in your heart.

Transcending my needs.

And.

Glorifying me.

Connecting me to this blue

Incantation of you.

You.

My tether point.

 

 

Bless you my darling.

May the angels of dawn.

Kiss you.

While.

You lay dreaming.

I Lose Track

Of days.

Of hours.

Time.

It slips past and suddenly.

I am here.

Again.

In front of this keyboard sorting out the effluvia of the day, the flotsam and jetsam, the dust and the gold, the indifferent, the libidinous, and the words that strike me in my heart.

I am in graduate school.

I am taking classes from morning til night.

I am not caught up on the reading, but I am a lot closer than I was a few days ago.

For despite wanting to check out into my own little home and nest and socialize with my things, I come home from class and I do more work.

The work.

It never stops.

I am at a place of contentment with this, not complacency or procrastination, just more a space of being alright with what I have done and where I have gotten to in this day, in this place, in this program.

I am doing alright.

I am neither greater than or less than anyone.

Everyone has their own story, their own place, and as I float through the day, sometimes tired, sometimes angry–really, another fucking lunch I cannot eat? I find space to let my hair down and moments to check messages and to take phone calls that seem miraculously placed.

I got to check in with one of my people during a tender time of self-reflection and see how the stress of financial insecurity tries to follow me.

Up the stairs, past the security guard at the desk, into my class room.

To sit on my shoulder.

Quoth the dark bird.

“Nevermore.”

Croaking out a kind of fear that is twisted, misogynistic, and misplaced.

I am alright.

I am ok.

The stress is self-created misery to stir up the bones of anxiety in my graduate school soup.

I am not the only one who is concerned with their finances and how to make it all go and no one, no mattered how privileged, comes without their own bag of problems to unpack during class, in the hallways, on the phone, quiet and desperate in the bathroom.

We all have insecurity.

It is what I decided to do with it that is important.

I acknowledged it today in my T-Group.

I allowed someone else the space to be authentic as well.

I got relief.

Funny that.

How sharing my troubles actually allows someone else to do the same and we become comrades, “brothers in arms,” a dear hearted friend shared today.

I like that analogy.

We are at a kind of war.

But not an ideological war, no, I could see it shaped like that, an incessant desire to wage a siege on ideology, politics, reform, to stratify and dissent.

No.

Rather.

I see this as a way to surrender to that ever illusive idea of love.

Where am I holding onto things that don’t work for me?

Where do I repress?

How does it come out, in my self, in my enactments with others, how do I self-sabotage, do I self-sabotage?

Of course I do.

Don’t be a silly rabbit.

And I am just as attached to these notions as anything else in my life.

What I am finding though, is that I am smarter than I let myself know or acknowledge.

I found myself on the edge of my seat in my last class of the day, keeping up with the professor, understanding the implications of desire and Psyche in Freud, and what the hell?

I’m keeping up, I am understanding it, I am enjoying it, and I am making rapid connections in my brain, despite not having finished the readings for the class.

I will.

There is no doubt that I will.

I am giving myself the time and the space to do so.

Despite other competing desires.

This forum allows me to see that.

I am grateful for my little blog, for my little insights, for the ability to open up and love and be rambling or discordant at times, but underneath it all there is a loveliness, a suturing song that sings to me, a dark wild place in my heart, the smell of wet cedar, the evergreen bloom in the deep black hollow of the night, the moist passionate smell of the ocean.

All my senses alive and here and attuned.

The bicycle ride, you may have surmised, home was good tonight.

I was not so distracted by the length of the day and just having gotten through a second day in the three-day weekend process brought me relief.

Two down.

One to go.

It won’t be easy.

But it also, the day tomorrow, won’t be as hard as today or yesterday.

There is already a sort of habit-forming for me and a way of managing the time and effort needed to get from here to there.

The getting from here to there is not so bad either.

I do feel the need to take care of some more things here on the home front, but I can get away from it for one more day.

The laundry got done today, the bed stripped, a shower taken, morning pages written, the bicycle ride to and from campus–13 miles, thank you very much legs, give or take a few feet, the blog is being taken care of, the reading, the most reading I can do, has been done, and the music is on, a winding down.

A loss of time.

A travel into the here and now.

The ephemeral light and music on my soul.

The reminder of love requisitioned and sought.

To be so busy that I swim in this constant sea of negotiating and time management that the present moment becomes a precious thing of great beauty.

Even when I find it fleeting.

Even when I lose track of it.

It stops there again.

At the door to my heart.

Knocks.

Pushes open.

Crosses the threshold.

And settles itself down by the fire.

A warm glow of love that I surround myself with.

A place of resting I created for myself.

A sound scape of love, desire, and action on the lunar face of my soul.

The plush kissed lip of Psyche on my psyche.

The wife of Eros.

And.

Of the divine.

And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,

With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

To let the warm Love in!

Excerpt from “The Ode to Psyche”

John Keats