Pomp and Circumstance(s)

I graduated from therapy today. In case you have some big judgment against therapy and its tendency toward self-indulgence, let me just say that two years ago, on my first session (April 10, 2008), I needed therapy. I was so depressed I could barely see straight.

Two years later, I have tapered down to one session a month, and at this point I feel like the therapist and I are just chewing the fat. I was trying to think of a way to gracefully suggest that I stop going to therapy altogether, when the therapist told me she was going to retire. A perfect out!

I cried tears of joy on the way to my appointment. I feel like I have made so much progress. And sometimes I get down on myself and think my life hasn't amounted to anything, but I can say with pride that I pulled myself out of the darkness (with some chemical help, which I'm not ashamed to admit). And ending therapy just felt like the end of an era.

The therapist kind of cried, too. I mean she got all choked up. She told me it was truly a pleasure to work with me, because sometimes she sees people for years and they're pretty much the same when they come out as they were when they came in. I like to think I at least helped the therapist feel like she was doing something worthwhile. (I know, this paragraph sounds kind of braggy, but seriously, who brags about her progress in therapy?)

The truth is, the woman was an excellent cheerleader. I would come in and tell her about my new workouts at the gym, or my new revelations, or some new hobby I was trying, and she would always say how great I was doing. And I kind of like gold stars, pats on the back, etc., so truthfully some of my decisions were motivated by what would my therapist say?

My last therapy appointment kind of felt like the last episode of a sitcom. You've shared so much of your life with this person, and now she's never going to see or hear from you again, so you feel like you have to at least leave with some kind of closure and/or hint as to the next chapter of your life. But, of course, life is not really like that. There aren't always logical endings and beginnings.

But I've been thinking lately about maybe trying to find some sort of part-time or freelance employment, now that Nathan is getting a little more independent (and I'm not planning to bring any more little dependent beings into the world, at least for the time being). So I had a good talk about that at my last therapy session. It was a good topic for the last session because it helped sort of sum things up while also looking ahead toward the next chapter. We talked about what kind of job I might like, and, long story short, I decided I don't have a freakin' clue. I'd love to do something a little more on the creative side, but all those fields are hard to break into and involve years of possible rejections. And I'm not a person who handles rejection well.

Anyway, this whole job search thing is a huge topic, one that could be the subject of several blog posts. Which is a good thing, because I'm gonna need a lot of material to do NaBloPoMo for April. The theme is "Big," which you can pretty much tailor to fit any topic. So, stay tuned for 30 days of posts with the word Big in the title.

And P.S., sorry my blog header is screwed up.