pondering chickens, being one

I’m thinking of quitting my therapist. Not the one for my apparent posture issues, but the other one, who works on me emotionally. I just think maybe I don’t need to go anymore. Not that I don’t still have issues, but I think they’re the normal every day neuroses, rather than the nervous breakdown, I can’t breathe, I cry every day neuroses that I was feeling when I first started therapy. But how do you know when you’re done with therapy? There’s not this magic moment when you’re cured and perfect and whole. Life isn’t like that.

I do know that I’m through the really bad stuff. And I don’t feel a wave of panic anymore at the thought of not going back. I also don’t know what to say when I go. It used to be that when I brought things up, they were these big momumental issues that overshadowed my entire life. But now, all my issues seem regular-sized, but my therapist treats any issue I bring up as important, and I feel like my regular-sized issues are magnified under the microscope of the therapy office. And then I spend my time explaining why it’s not such an issue after all.

But sometimes she makes me think.

I told her that I had gotten my ex-husband a Christmas present (“why did you get him a present?”), and that he had called to thank me, and told me he had been thinking about me “quite a lot” and that it had bothered me. That I didn’t want him thinking about me a lot, or at all. But while a part of me wants a clean break and for him to be part of my past, another part of me feels like he was such a big part of my life for so long that I should make some room for him now. And he said he wanted to meet for coffee, and I don’t want to meet for coffee. But I didn’t consider I had any other option than to agree.

And she suggested that I tell him I didn’t want to meet. Not to go and make small talk, and not to decline with an excuse, but to be honest and say I didn’t want to. And that option still, at this moment, is hard to fathom. It’s only a few words, but it’s not easy to reject someone, even in a small way like that, even after you’ve rejected them in such a larger way. Or maybe it’s harder once you’ve you’ve rejected them in such a larger way.

I still don’t know what to think about all of that. He hasn’t called since, so I don’t know if maybe the first call was just an empty gesture on his part too. And I would be relieved if that were the case. Does that make me a chicken?

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