Eternal Sunshine

I really hope this works.

The idea is, is to get me all hyped up about the fear.  Get me all hyped up about the perceived situation for which I am catastrophizing.  Get me thinking about it.  Get me living it.  Get me living it in my head right there as I am sitting in the therapy chair.  And once I am in it, she comes in with a  D9 Cat

D9 Caterpillar Bull Dozer

 And a wrecking ball

Wrecking Ball

and begins the long arduous process of tearing down the deeply flawed building that is in actuality my brain.  And so the first swings were swung and the first tracks were made through my poorly constructed head.

Have you ever seen a  building demolished?  Have you ever been in one as it was being demolished?  Have you ever lived in one that was being demolished.  I have.  It is weird.  You can be at the other end of the house and you hear some creaking.  You see some drywall dust stream down from the ceiling here and there.  You'll feel the vibrations and maybe hear a far-off bang.  But the room that you are in is not changing.  There could be carpet in it.  The walls could be painted nice.  There could be furniture in it. Like a bed, a chair, a desk, and dresser. And to the room, it is just another day.

My dad remodeled our house when I was a kid.  It started on a Sunday night with the bathroom.  All he wanted to do was just renovate the downstairs bathroom.  A hammer and a crowbar and the first bit of filthy carpet that was our bathroom floor began to peel away. In the end, no room would be untouched.

I remember being amazed at how my bedroom looked just as it always did while only two days ago so did the stairway.  And now! There was no stairway - just a ladder down to the first floor.  My dad did not consult OSHA.

You would open up my door and there was nothing — just air with the top of a step ladder about two feet below the door's threshold.  So for the latter part of high school I climbed up to and "down-climbed" from my room.

And then through the end of my senior year to the time I left to go to college my bedroom became basically a loft.  A ladder spanned the two to three foot gap that wasn't there because the first floor below my bedroom had been removed.  This required that I learn to negotiate getting up to and down from my bedroom in a variety of states of mind both day and night.  I managed quite well I think.

There is actually a lot more to tell here.  Perhaps another time.  I kind of digressed.  I am thinking about putting a little bit of this on facebook.

Anyway the work has begun.  The house actually never did get finished.  It suffered from what I now understand as "Scope Creep"  My dad just kept finding more and more shit to change.  This can not happen here.   We tore some stuff up today.  Before I leave she kind of puts a bit of a band aide on it and tells me to put whatever trauma I talked about in a "little box" and we'll open it up again next week!

One day I will talk about the guy in the Dr. Seuss hat wearing, high heal boots, nylons and a sort of "Santa Costume" that a stripper might where during the Christmas holidays?