When I was seeing a therapist, I eventually confessed to her that I have no ego strength.  If someone tells me I suck, I’m all, “I suck?  OK, yeah, I can see what you mean.  Lemme see what I can do to fix that.”  Someone tells me I am awesome? OF COURSE I AM.

Doesn’t really matter where this information comes from. All feedback must be entertained, and requires HUGE mental gymnastics to reject.  Say for example, you call me a boy?  Well, even though I’ve given birth 3x, you still might have a point – I have been sporting a wispy midlife mustache these days.  And what about gender fluidity?  Who amongst us can deny our boyishness and still call ourselves women?

Anyway, when I revealed this flaw in my character to the therapist, she nodded at my complaints, eyes all shiny with empathy.  When I was done, she said, “Well, I don’t believe that’s true.  Look at you – you are confident and well spoken and definitely have a strong sense of who you are and who you want to be.”

I nodded grudgingly, finally smiling. “Yeah I guess you are right,” I acknowledged.  After all, I am pretty confident, and I know who I am.  It felt really good.  Glad I had her there to set me straight.

It wasn’t until quite a bit later I realized OF COURSE I AGREED.  THAT WAS SYMPTOMATIC.

Anyway, I am writing a story about my dad in my free time.  I mentioned it to my mom, to warm her up to the idea.  By no means am I showing her any drafts, because that seems like lobbing emotional grenades – even if the story was entirely all about how Dad was The Best Dad Ever, it seems like dredging up memories would be too sad right now.  But I also don’t want to hide from her.  (PS: At some future point, let us discuss how I’m going to get her to sign off on this story.)

In this context, I was recounting to her my nervous breakdown after my 2nd child was born, and how I asked my parents to move across country to help me.  The conversation itself wasn’t as dour as the content makes it sound.  I was actually making a joke about the scenario.  After we were done chuckling, my mom said. “You were so brave to know you needed help.  You didn’t have any role model for knowing how to save yourself and your family, but you knew what to do anyway.”

And of course, me being me, this thing I had never considered before became TRUE, and I was so proud of myself.  It made me realize my mom used to do that for me all the time –- see me in this rosy colored light, and reflect that vision back on me, and help me form a kind hearted opinion of myself.  So I’m writing this one down because I wanted to commit it to memory.  Because the thing that SUCKS about having no ego strength is that soon enough, I’ll forget she said this, and someone else’s opinion will write over her words and become what I think of myself.

In more uneasy news, Mom also confirmed she and Dad are coming for their third (?) annual Beach House Visit.  Mom thinks Dad can do it, because they are renting the same old familiar beach house in the same familiar old town.  However, this time they are only staying 2 weeks.  Also, last year in this same beach house, we had Little’s Baby Shower.  I’m fairly anxious that 1) Dad won’t tolerate the trip this year or 2) Bad memories for Little will be overwhelming 3) some unknown horror-shit-show in this little beach house will overwrite my fairly good memories of the past visits.

As for Dad Update, he’s still in a low place.  Mom’s anxiety seems to have settled down, presumably fading along with her hopes he’d come back.  She’s spending a lot of time in the garden these days.  Then she called to talk to me about wills and death stuff again, so I guess that tells you where it’s at.

ALMOST FINALLY

Swistle has a lovely post up today about funerals.  In it, she references a book cover entitled, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*CK, and although I saw it this morning, it has been bothering me ALL DAMN DAY.  If one truly doesn’t give a fuck, would they bother asterisking out an offending U?  F*ck no.  LOL, just kidding.  FUCK NO.

FINALLY, FINALLY

You may recall I did The Cool Thing a while back.  This week, as I was minding my own business, surfing the internet, I ran across some artwork done for The Cool Thing, which someone had re-purposed online.  I bookmarked their page and am following them now.  I guess I could be (super hypocritically, since I link to repurposed internet fodder all the damn time) offended they used the work, but am actually weirdly thrilled, like I have leveled up into Human Centipede Degree of internet usage.  Something I helped put on the internet has been digested and spit back into my grazing grounds, partially recognizable!! I AM IMMORTAL NOW, yes?