Gratitude

My therapist wants me to write down one thing each day that im grateful for. 

This is the third time I’m seeing a therapist in my life and I really like her, so you guys don’t laugh at her Oprah: Eat Pray Love advice...she assures me there’s science behind it. I believe in science. Plus she’s free. Mental health is a very important agenda item in college universities and as a student, (albeit an old ass student) I’m entitled to help. This, by the way, is another reason why college totally screws up kids. This is not real life. In real life, this session is $100 an hour. But, that’s a whole other subject for a whole other blog. 

Anyhow, this is the third time I’ve been in therapy. The first was after what I considered the “true love” of my life totally screwed me over. These were in the young, innocent Christina days. My favorite days. When I was everything that’s good about me without the side effects. Like the first time you do (insert any drug here). The highs without the lows. The happiness without the bitterness. I was totally in love and I was an amazing girlfriend and then --- I found him soliciting prostitutes on Craigslist. Oh yes, Gen Z’ers this was a thing. You guys are worried about your little DM’s, but back in the day people actually went on Craigslist to look for sex. My response was to print out his ad and make several copies of it, and tape it around his mothers house. So his whole family could see. I followed him to one girls house and knocked on her door asking for him. He came to the door. I had nothing to say. I hadn’t thought the plan that far through. So, you see, I had gone to drastic crazy person levels of obsession and I felt I needed help because obviously I was crazy. I thought I was going to kill myself. I couldn’t imagine a life without him. 

The second time I went to therapy, was kind of fake. I really just wanted xanax. I was having problems with my boyfriend and I had anxiety and blah blah blah, I really just wanted the drugs. But when I got the prescription I couldn’t fill it. It didn’t feel right. In all of my years of crazy, I kind of learned to respect it. My mood swings, for better or worse, were organic. I didn’t like the idea of something muting my reactions. I wanted to be 100% myself. 100% authentic. I had this whole image of me burning myself down to the ground, but hell at least I’m the one lighting the fire. If I was going to fail I wanted to feel the pain and not have it subdued by some chemically induced coma. 

This time I’m in therapy because my whole life changed in one night. I had finally “made it”. I was getting married. Everything was fine. And then an incident happened that I am still not ready to speak about publicly, but it changed everything. The engagement was broken. He moved out. I found myself alone, 39, with a teenager, in a two bedroom apartment. 

If you hadn’t noticed: each time I went to therapy it had to do with a man. I firmly believe, that I was quite fine before meeting these fine fellows. I have a whole philosophy that the wrong man will absolutely have the power to bring down any woman; I just don’t know how to protect against that yet. I am still too open, still too caring. Still too worried about what I can do for you than what you can do for me. But again, I digress.

Let’s set the scene to my therapy sessions: right now there is a baby screaming in the hallway: it’s 11:39 pm. At any time during the day when you open the front door to my building it smells like weed. Which is great, except nobody is fucking chill. There’s laughter, fighting, sex, babies, dogs. All day there’s all these noises of life from the other units. And I’m just here. In my little 650 square foot jail. It starts to feel claustrophobic. It starts to feel like a sentence I’m serving. 

My soul isn’t here. My soul is somewhere in Santa Barbara riding a horse wearing a flowy white dress with a daisy behind my ear living off the land. But you know, that’s a rich person’s dream. 

So when my therapist calls and tells me I have to write down what I’m grateful for each day, you might laugh but it actually works for me. 

I ignore the sounds of the nasty smokers cough from the neighbor and write down how I am grateful for having the perfect ingredients to make my favorite white bean and spinach soup.

I ignore the barking pit bulls from the guy next door who sells weed to write about how grateful I am that I have a car and can drive to the ocean and watch the waves. 

I am grateful that I am always myself. Except on dates when I feel like I’m being interviewed. Or at work when I feel like I’m constantly being evaluated. But here, in this shitty ass apartment, I am myself and I am grateful.