A Make Believe Therapy Session

Sit down in a make believe therapy session. The therapist has out her pen and writing pad in a chair across from the couch.

"Do you think he'll call soon?" I think to ask, but don't. I just sit there on the dark pink couch with my eyes out the window. The butterflies are thick this time of year.

"Did you really think you two would end up together?" She thinks (in reality that question has been asked to me from another therapist).

Love is the biggest dreamer, is it not? It doesn't help if every time he's on the phone he dreams with me. He told me once I was the prettiest girl in the world.

"It takes more than sex and charms to make a relationship work," she says to me.

For how long? Because we have been doing this for four years. I have heard of worse stories, people and sex staying together for twenty years even though the rest of the relationship was bad, having sex right up until the final papers were through the court. People underestimate good or great sex. WE stupid people call it being in love. Define sex. Define being in love. YOu find yourself searching for words for a reason. They go together, and we can't easily separate them out.

I keep playing it out, over and over again, sitting in a little room, the children's room for kids with mental disorders--which has a big window to look out--my escape. My therapist sitting there, not wanting to talk about mOprheus. I ask the same silly questions a five year old would, no doubt his does when Mommy and DAddy fight. He says the fighting is so bad, he has to leave, and then come back later. I dissociate--Mommy and DAddy don't affect me anymore. Still, I ask, "What do you think he'll say?" My imaginary therapist is critical and sensible. When will Daddy be back?

"Yes, he will get a separation magically just because you finally said so." She replies with some humor.

In reality, no one has shown any humor. INstead, they want me to find out odds. 70% chance? 30%? What are we working with here, Lacey? All the while, the therapist(s) nodd and then sigh and want me to admit that the situation is hopeless. There's a maze. A rat. And some cheese if you get away from the married man. IF you grieve enough, you are rewarded. For most of this, I can't tell if I lie.

"Maybe he will hurry up then if he can't see me." I've never really said that, but that's the point right? WE break up. He has incentive now, more anyway, to get his separation. This says nothing about the odds. I don't have my calculator out. I didn't take statistics in college.

"And just exactly how long are you planning on waiting for a man to divorce when his mother runs a Bible bookstore, and his wife comes from a conservative background? A year? Two? Five?" The therapist sighs.

"So, do you think he'll call me this month? Probably not. It's like too late, huh?" This is a dip into the central portion of my thinking. Maybe the Wife took them to the second house for Trick-Or-Treating, and he stayed here in SLO. The therapist is not amused. "I'll know when it's time to give up. Or I'll find someone better." I lie. Even to a pretend therapist I lie. I can't stand talking about MOrpheus in therapy because you're always bound to lie. I can't see the point ahead in my future where I give up. That was closer to the truth. Was I just a kid who learned to bash his brains into the wall repeatedly? Was this my punishment, therapy?

She rambles on about how he isn't good for me. They all ramble at this point. He's not available.

I'm more of an act in a tragic play. CAn't they see that?

"NO. He's just taking advantage of you."

IN therapy, there was always that angle, which I loved. He was taking advantage of me, yet I went willingly and happily into his house without exception and this was not 1800's. It was hard to explain how happily I went into the bedroom without giving gross details of the sex to a new or bashful therapist. We were equals in how bad we were fucking with each other. Lately proved an exception (the psychotic break), but you can't say that was directly his fault. Even if it was (some of it, sure), did he do it on purpose? NO.

People confuse lack of insight into behavior with malignancy.

The whole circle is "people want better for me," and while I'm in love with Morpheus.