sidestep / amoroso

today was different.
good.
different.

i go to my therapist on wednesday mornings. i say that with full selfconscious awareness that it is the consummate crunchy glowy california thing to say. i don't care. therapy is rad, suck the pipe haters.

i'm not defensive or anything.

but anyway often i come out of there feeling nurtured and supported, you know, the glowy california stuff. but some days i walk out thinking "man i really don't like her! isn't she supposed to be NICE to me? isn't this supposed to make me feel good?! what a rip."

those are the days when shit starts to change.

so i had this friend a long time ago and i really cared about her a lot and she really fucked me over and somehow then ended up hating me even though i never did anything and yeah of course i would say that, i'm not exactly unbiased, but it also is the truth. and now i keep thinking she's the one who won't let shit go. and that also is true, she won't. but in some ways that maybe other people don't see or even believe, she's kept me in this power struggle for two years and somehow i never noticed that i was running around in a circle going "i hate this i hate this" but never stopping to think...the only way out of a power struggle is to refuse to participate.

cj (therapist) told me about how at the highest level of some martial art, i can't remember, where someone rushes at you and without even defending you simply step aside and allow their own weight and momentum to topple them.

i said but what am i supposed to do about...
she said "just factor her out."

she said are you really worried about h? that she won't love you anymore, or that she will start believing things that aren't true? i said no, of course not.

she said are you afraid of her?
and that made me stop.
i don't know. i just know that i don't wanna be in this anymore and maybe it is as simple as choosing to sidestep.

cj also said ummm so knowing what she thinks and says about you, WHY would you go and read her blog? why would you choose to stay engaged in that? and that kinda pissed me off (hey...i'm the victim here! be nice to me!) so that i couldn't give the answer which i know now is: because i'm a dumbass. because maybe we all have this sick tendency to create for ourselves what we fear the most.

some days i come out of there thinking god what a mess i am.
those are the days when i can feel things getting better.

***

when i walk from campus over to icsi i pass a building on center street in berkeley that is under construction. the banner informs me that the name of the company doing the work is:

AMOROSO CONSTRUCTION

this is delightful to me because amoroso is, i believe, cognate with 'amorous.' so i walk by and i have this image of a group of amorous construction workers, but they're all macking on the building, right? 'hey building, you lookin' fiiiiine today. yeah baby.' all rubbing on the building.

it's good being able to crack yourself up 'cause you rarely get bored that way.