Analyze This

As I sit here watching the baby stirring, I wonder “how long” and “can I write this in time?” I don’t even know what I am writing. I sat down here with the vaguest of ideas about capturing my recent experiences in therapy. Still, it is hard to know where to start.

I suppose I could begin with the arguments I have been having with my daughter. These violent clashes have been escalating for some time, and it didn’t take a genius to know that something was wrong.

I could also start with my relationship. J. and I were separated five years ago, and after we came back together we had made certain agreements that seemed in need of fine tuning. The most obvious of them was finances. We have been living beyond our means for some time, and I had agreed to take on the bulk of the financial burden for the family. I have struggled to figure out how to do this, and nearly had the job that would have put me on the road to a secure financial destiny, but as of yet I am without success.

Lastly, I could start with myself. As part of the condition to meet those financial goals, I had gone back to school seeking a graduate degree. Unfortunately getting the degree had proven harder than I imagined, as the nature of attaining an MFA in Art is highly subjective, the hurdles illusory. My own stubborn pride in my talent and intellect, coupled with the like-minded faculty turned out to be poison for me. For years I struggled against the invisible foe that took on the guise of ivory towered academia. While I managed to eek out one Masters Degree, in the end my graduate experience ended in a whimper.

I paused here because I thought the baby was stirring. I reread the passages above to find my voice to continue, and found that I couldn’t. None of these places seem like the place I want to start. Though I have been in counseling for all of them, none of them seems like the thread that touches the depths of discomfort that signifies brutal honesty.

I guess I need to ask myself what brutal honesty looks like. What makes me uncomfortable??? What makes me so crazy that I would literally crawl out of my skin if the topic were brought up? My failure as a parent? A husband? A person? What would it take? In my last meeting with my personal therapist I think he was suggesting that this is part of the problem. That I ride comfortably in the wake of these facts without really taking the risk of confronting my own fears and thus live blind to them and, ultimately, at their mercy.

Is anyone so different?

I want to try to take a stab, but I know that any fear I list here would just be the fear that I am comfortable telling you about. I sincerely doubt that I could blog about something so personal, so raw. I mean I fear failure in my relationship with my wife. It is why I am obsessed with tending to her moods, why I am so unwilling to be comfortable in a place when I know that she is mad at me. I don’t want people pissed off at me, I mean, no one does. But I am so afraid of it that I will go out of my way to make sure everyone is happy. I suspect that this is because I was so afraid of my father as a child. But also, because I was bullied by my peers and never really learned how to related to anyone without being pacifistic.

There are exceptions of course. I mean, there is nothing I can do about the Graduate faculty. I am done there. There opinion of me no longer holds any sway. But perhaps this is because I am done there. I have no more emotional investment with these people so I am no longer so obsequious to them.

I have to pause here, because, when I sat down to write I really had no idea what I was writing about, and now I have come to a place where I am, well, obsequious. It might take a moment to get used to. I have to try on that word and see it if will fit. I am not sure it does, but I want to be sure. I hesitate here because I know myself to be willful and independent. I have a clear vision of my identity. I know who I am, where I came from and who I want to be. But perhaps being willfully independent it just a cover for my fears. Because if I am independent then, I don’t have to answer to anyone, and if I had to answer to anyone then I would be, well obsequious.

Have you looked it up yet or do you know the meaning of the word? I thought I did. I thought it mean servile. But when I looked it up just now I discovered that it has a slightly different meaning, one that I think is apropos. It comes from the Latin obsequium and it means “compliance” or more literally, ob- toward + sequi to follow. So it means “a follower” a “tagalong.” You know I sometimes think I am never going to really know myself. But I can tell you this about myself. As a child my family moved around a lot. As a result I often had to make new friends, I had to reintegrate myself into new groups time and time again. As a result I became a stupendous follower…

Well this has been fun, but the baby woke up. Maybe we should talk like this again soon.