Day Five

So, when I first took the beta blocker, I wondered if I would still be able to feel stuff. I wondered if I'd be able to cry, you know, if I wanted to. This is my superpower, being able to cry at will, and also to be unnaturally attuned to other people's moods. I wondered if I would feel like a sociopath without the excessive attention to everyone else.

Well, no problem there. I had such an ordinary day for me that I kind of wonder if that microscopic pill didn't land on the floor and I didn't even notice I didn't take it.

I guess we will see tomorrow. But, seriously, I cried about a normal amount today, which is a ridiculous amount, I'm sure. I got completely frustrated by the attendance policy for SFUSD. I swear, they do everything in their power to make everyone who possibly can, put their kids in private school. I did get things sorted out so that my daughter won't actually fail half her freshman year, but still, you would think that if they cared so much if I sent a note they would either make it easier for me, or they would let me know before I got a truancy notice with 3 times the number of absences that will get us a hearing. Dumb, stupid, shit. This is actually her second truancy notice, her first one was in kindergarten. We went out of town for a wedding, which isn't a good enough reason to miss school. We went anyway. We've gotten a lot more out of the wedding than we did out of kindergarten.

I also cried to an episode of Law and Order: SVU. I can't decide if I am a sucker for Patricia Arquette or if it was because there was a priest with a significant role, and not as a pedophile. The reason I think I took the beta blockers is there is this heaviness in my chest that I don't recognize. Since I'm taking heart medication, I find this either ironic or troubling. My arm isn't numb, though, so I'm going to chance it.

I also met with my therapist again. He is still really confused by the whole ordination process thing. I got the distinct impression that he found people putting themselves in the position of working so hard for something so arbitrary to be a little clinical, if you know what I mean. And I know that he has no idea what needs or desires or whatever I was fulfilling but he is sure that I will be able to find something else, even if I have to have different training. This makes me feel a little strange - not necessarily because I disagree, because I have already found more than enough to do with most of my job skills, but because it means I am moving out of one language and into another.

In other therapy news, he was really interested in some more of my background. I kinda blew over the serial monogamy and alcoholism. Probably, this will come up again. I wonder if this is going to be like that time I went to a chiropractor and he was so concerned that I'd been in a major car accident that he couldn't believe that the two years of weekly chiropractic I had at the time would have fixed the problem and the 35 pound baby I was carrying hanging off one shoulder for years wasn't and the man nearly broke my spine but didn't do a damn thing for my shoulder. Idiot. But I wonder if the therapist is going to be really concerned with the childhood issues. I don't know. I'm sort of over my childhood - it was fun while it lasted, the working through it in ACOA, not actually the childhood, but I'm not particularly interested or avoiding it in any anxious or desperate way. Or maybe I am, what do I know anyway.

I know that I wasn't unsuited to the ministry because I'm a narcissist. I sure know that. I guess it is an open question still if I am unsuited because I am  not politic enough. Probably. Ever since THE THURSDAY MEETING, I have been pretty sure that I don't ever want to be that politic. I am sure that I have hurt people in this life, and that I have hurt people I don't even know about - but I am absolutely positive that I haven't hurt as many people as I have cleaned up from the mess Sara leaves behind.