Home Sweet Almost Home

Mentally crossing fingers and toes,
Watching little ducks line up in a row,
Crunching numbers while figures grow,
But, can’t help it – I need to know
If down to the wire we must go,
How do you like your Cherrios?

N.2016

Breakfast Words on Therapy Day

I am nervous, on edge, jumpy as a cat. It is not fear. It’s more like apprehension. It crept in last night and lingers in the morning.

Bread is moldy. I tossed it out in “two points” fashion across the room. It landed in the trash can. Score, as the half loaf of Italian sank into the bag lined can. Milk is spoiled. It passed the expiration date on Saturday. It still sits in the fridge. Scratch my two favorite breakfast choices. First choice is always Great Grains Raisins, Dates, & Pecans poured ye so much into the same coffee mug every day, topped with 2% milk and a splash of Hazelnut creamer. It is 200 calories. I measured everything one day and did the math so all I have to do make it exactly the same and it is always the same. I don’t have to think about it. Damn the milk for spoiling as it has thrown me off my game. I didn’t think about buying more because the containor was so full that I did not think that I needed it. My second choice is out, can’t toast moldy bread. Peanut butter on dry toast, preferably the heal, tastes wonderful with hot coffee laced with Hazelnut.

Got to eat something. It’s going to be a long day. I got to hop the WRTA downtown, wait for my transfer, and hop another and I will still be early. If I don’t eat, my tummy will turn queasy around noon. Protein. Opt for an egg, over easy with sea salt and the smokey black pepper. I reach for the grinder and change my mind. Worchestershire pepper instead. My grandmother’s griddle sizzles, a flat black orb of cast iron, put to use for the umpteenth time. I’ve had it, oh… what year did she die? It’s been a good twenty years and she had it forever. Flip the egg, sprinkle it with real bacon bits, the kind sold pre-cooked in a package, less grease so less calories, a sprinkle of sharp cheddar cheese. Coffee is done.

Why am I so apprehensive? I signed up for this therapy. Is it helping? I don’t know. In major ways, it is… I am pretty much abstaining from what I am supposed to abstain from, not perfectly but I am trying. Some days are a struggle. If/when I do slip, it’s not so bad. I catch myself before too much damage is done. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about it at all. Good days are thought-free. It never crosses my mind, so it is not a problem at all.

Today is session #2 of five behavior modification therapy sessions prescribed after the initial intake thing. I think that I am apprehensive because last time, he asked questions about things I did not want to talk about. He also suggested that I was detached from my emotions and that has bugged the hell out of me more than anything.

How can I be detached from my emotions and make art?

So I didn’t answer the questions he asked about what makes me this or that emotion fast enough or adequately enough. How could I know that most people can just rattle that stuff off?

I concluded that he does not know me… all he knows about me beyond the medical shit in the referral from my doc is that I am a middle-aged disabled woman. Asking about me was mostly asking about my family, my relationships with other people, grandchildren, whatever. A friend suggested that he might think that all I do is typical nothing, sit around and watch tv or something. I should tell him that I make art, etc.

He also does not know my educational and work background. I was trained as an engineering tech, worked as drafter/designer of industrial electrical control systems for prototype machinery. Then I jumped ship mid-career to accept an apprenticeship and became a Journeyman Tool & Die Maker. I was damn good at it, too. We were trained by the best to be the best, lol. Eh, wasn’t good at everything… but I could grind circles around the best. Yeah, I could dress a wheel and drop it to hit those four place dimensions dead on, kiss the steel just right and damn. When it came to surface or form grinding, I was good. Not to brag, just a fact. Hell, I could spin a non-critical ball radius on the end of a pin to three place dims using a “precision belt sander” and laugh showing a co-worker the digital readout when I measured it. Alas, those are things I used to do… things I am not physically able to do anymore.

None of that work stuff matters anymore, but the mind still functions in the manner it was trained. To focus on work, emotions are set aside. Oh, not totally, just when focused on what I was doing… I zoned into it. Even with the art, I zone into it but with art, I shut the idk, technical part of the mind off and let the art, the emotional aspects, flow into the drawing.

I think I have more control of my emotions than detachment from them. Maybe I just don’t convay my emotions adequately in spoken words?

Guess it is time to get ready to go. I’m taking a sampling of art with me today. Writing this has eased the apprehension. Yeah, give me paper, virtual paper, art paper, any paper… let me write or draw how I feel?

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