by mssinglemama on September 7, 2009
“If everything works out with John, Benjamin won’t know a time when he wasn’t around.”
As my therapist’s words sink in the last three years of my life flash through my mind; from the beginning when I packed everything up and moved into my mother’s, to the quiet nights at her house in the woods wondering and wishing myself away and back to some semblance of independence and then to the moment when Benjamin and I stepped into our own sweet, little apartment – ready to begin our new life.
What followed is all here, on this blog in my eBook, or safe in my mind.
I sit on her couch, staring off into a painting on the wall as I try to grasp this idea of him not remembering anything before John Bear. The memories wash over me – the adventures big and small – like the time we were yelled at by a hair salon owner or the countless grocery store trips that typically ended in knock down drag out tantrums. Then there were the big adventures like trips to find Joshua Trees
or deep forests and mountain coves in Vancouver.
And smaller adventures like hours of puddle jumping for no reason
or sweating it out on a hot summer day in August to hear our future president, a man also raised by a single mom, speak to us from about twenty feet away.
or chasing bunnies with Sydney.
Now, looking back, it is these moments – the moments when I forced myself out of the house with him, braving the book store, the library, the festivals, the camping trips and the road trips all by myself, trying to fill the time – that are the best memories I have of the two of us.
Memories of the moments when we both forgot where we were or when we just took our time
because we didn’t have anywhere else to be.
“So they’ll all be gone? He won’t remember a thing?” I ask my therapist or, as I fondly call her, Wonder Woman. She’s helping me to straighten out my trust issues and to figure out why, in the past, I had a pattern of choosing bad boys dysfunctional men. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on February 27, 2008
Do you know yourself? I can’t say that I truly do … yet. But I’m getting a bit closer – thanks to Tim Chard. A man who commented on a post I wrote months ago, titled “Do I Need Therapy?” At the time I had started pushing Kris away…I was acting bitchy, demanding and closing myself off from him intimately. And I didn’t know why.
I stopped and told myself, “if you do this, you’re nuts. Because there is no reason not to be with him right now. He’s perfect!”
I was chatting with my best friend about it and she suggested therapy as an option. After all, since my divorce (technically one year ago but coming close on two since the separation) I had been dating steadily but after a few weeks – I would drop them like flies. Done and done! See ya! Now, granted, they weren’t the right ones…however, there was a pattern. That pattern being that I was scared of something…of commitment.
So here I was letting my irrational fears get the best of me at the risk of losing a sweet, adoring boyfriend who meant the world to me. So in my “Do I need therapy?” post I explained my fear of commitment and my fear of losing someone. And then I asked – do therapists make house calls? And then Tim showed up. He started commenting and I felt like he was reading my mind. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 21, 2007
My best friend, who’s also a single mother, told me yesterday that I should probably be in therapy. I have no problems with therapy. I think it works wonders for people and has for me in the past. But how will I manage the time it will take to go – and let alone find a decent therapist?
So here’s my list of what I need therapy for.
- My father died of cancer when he was just 51, I was 21. My mother is still nuts over it and my siblings and I are constantly wracked with guilt over what we have or have not been doing to either help her to wellness or ease her pain. (She refuses to go to therapy). [click to continue…]
because we didn’t have anywhere else to be.
