02/2008 Part III

I like therapy. I like it a lot. When I went in just after my divorce, it was always helpful and healing, but very painful, and I fought it and held back a lot. It is/was/has been very hard to destroy the habit I grew over the years of never revealing my deepest feelings, never describing my worst pains, never touching the parts of me I deemed unfixable. I have found moving even the tiniest piece of gravel from that mountaintop creates progress so fast I can sometimes hear it whir like a car engine. I can think of no other place or time in my life in which every day, I can walk out of a conversation and feel, “I am better than I was walking in.”

That wasn’t what I meant to write. What I meant to write was this:

My therapist has advocated that whenever I get caught up in a bad memory of my past relationship, I re-imagine the scenario ending the way it should have, the way I wanted it to but couldn’t admit. She suggests I imagine punching him in the face. My helpful bear, ever looking for ways to improve, suggests a fork in the neck.

I had already been doing this, but it’s nice to have my psychological need for imaginary revenge be given medical sanction. And, too, it provides an emotional end to that constant rerun of bad internal movies. There’s a pretty hefty weight of significance in providing a psychological and thematic end to a bad sensory loop.

Scene: Morning, getting dressed.
Boy: Are you wearing that skirt?
Girl: This is my favorite skirt. Do you remember the time we snuck outside and I was in this skirt and we went down to the park and had sneaky sex? I love this skirt.
Boy: I’ll be embarrassed to be seen with you if you wear that. You look like trash in that skirt.

Three hours of crying screaming fights. A bruised arm because “Don’t you ever walk away from me.” Later have day recounted to friend as, “She’s obsessed with looking like a freak because she had a bad childhood. But I understand.” Smile benignly, find some way to get high quicker. Never wear skirt again.

Wait, no, scribble, edit, cut. Reshoot.

Boy: You look like trash in thaAAAAAGHHH MY NECK WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FORK no don’t TURN IT cough splatter slump

Credits roll, I’m off in the sunset. I’ll spend the rest of my life warning people, “Have you seen the Flint movie? Don’t, it’s as bad as you think it’ll be. But man, what a twist ending.”

Comment from my mother:

i do hear they plan to make several sequels where he is the undead
he is following people around ghosting them really loud
why did you ruin my life?
look at what a shambles you have caused me to be …. in …… like …. where i am….well u no
oh aaaah whoa is me i never did anything to her
forking impossible…………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it’s gonna be really big in japan