And Scene.

All that optimism from a few days ago?
Half it.
That's about where I am today.
Due to insurance issues I had to take a break from therapy. A few days ago was my first time back in about a month. I was all ready to walk in there and talk about how good I felt and maybe end therapy while continuing the medication until summer. Instead she made me realize that just because I felt better in one respect doesn't mean I had it all figured out. I sort of knew that, but I thought I was more on the way to being able to handle it.
Guess not.
Tears yet again for reasons I could not place, aside from disappointment and the realization that I'm still putting myself under so much pressure one unexpected thing happens and I break.
Sigh.

Phase 5

What is it about time that allows it to speed by sometimes and drag on others? Different cultures perceive time in different ways, but the ones without time fascinate me. Like the Hopi. There is no past or future verb tenses. The closest they come is sooner and later. Imagine what life would be like without the constant cultural pressure to prepare for the future and remember the past because it makes you who you are. In some ways it sounds amazing. It would be so much easier to focus on what's happening now, living life as it happens, rather than suffering the past or worrying over the future. In other ways it seems sad, because memories are a big part of who we are and who hasn't dreamed about something fantastical happening to them in the future?

Time for me feels like it should be measured in phases:
0-6 phase 1: generally, oblivious bliss.
7-13 phase 2: learning the real differences between girls and boys and what's happening to my body?
14-17 phase 3: (for many) testing the boy/girl waters and figuring out who you are.
18-27 phase 4: thinking you know who you are, getting shredded and having to start over.
28-35 phase 5: realizing control is an illusion, a coping device for the human condition, and figuring out what to do next.
etc...

So by definition then I would be 5. That sounds about right. I've reached a point in my life where everything I used to think I would do when I grew up, I should have done by now. It is my experience that the two have not coincided. What I thought I'd be doing and what I am actually doing aren't the same. And for a good while there, it terrified me. It angered me. It depressed, confused and shattered me. And as you already know it sent me down a path of isolation, self-deprivation and sadness to a place where nothing seemed to make sense. Fortunately I finally recognized just how lost I felt and found another path to try to get me back.

To back up my age 5 theory, 3 of my friends in the past few months have told me how full of rage and often sadness they feel. Despite the 4 of us leading very different lives, I think they're experiencing the same thing. There's just a point where no matter how good or bad your life is going, unconsciously you realize it isn't what you had in mind and all you are left with is an acute discontentment you cannot place. Life is harder than that and even harder to accept that you didn't live it how you wanted to, or rather, it didn't turn out how you expected. It just sort of...happened. You end up feeling crazy because your emotions flick back and forth to the extremes and you don't know why. I know I sound like a ridiculous new ager, but it really is about accepting what you cannot control.

And that has been the biggest lesson I've learned. Just to make it clear, I've always known that I've needed to accept what I can't control, but a lot of people don't realize that no matter how your intellect sees it, your emotional self needs to see it too. Being that my intellectual and emotional selves have been separated for so long, it's no wonder why I couldn't actually feel the acceptance.

It has taken five months of therapy (and a little medication I will admit) to bring my two selves back together. That's not to say they're happily remarried and living in the country, it's just a start. I feel like my heart has finally caught up to my head in certain important respects which is what I guess I've been unconsciously fighting this whole time. I don't believe that it will never happen again, but I'm more aware now of how my mind works and that I do need to give myself time to accept things, trust things and believe in things again. I still have fears and other annoying insecurities which I still need to work through, and frankly I don't know if they will ever be resolved by my own doing, but I finally feel like I'm at least headed in the right direction. It's a relief.

Haven't ended therapy yet but I am considering it. I will try to write more about other things I worked through in sessions if you are interested. But as per usual with me it will take some time. Because we all know there's never enough of it!
Hope you are all doing well.
Maybe phase 6 will finally reconcile who/where I am with who/where I want to be. Time's a'wastin'!