In Jack’s Absence

Jack tells me that whenever I’ve gone on a trip without him, I come back just a little different.  More confident, more relaxed, somehow stronger.  Whenever he says this I change the subject, not because it’s not a compliment, but because I’m afraid of what that means for the rest of my life.  If I come back independent, confident, and strong to the point that my husband is startled, it must mean I’m less these things in my daily life.  I’ve written on this blog before about my insecurities about being a wife, my fears that maybe I only married because I thought I needed a man, and that I’ll never be truly brave and strong.

A couple weeks ago I stayed home, and Jack went on a trip, which I don’t recall happening in our marriage before.  As I dropped him off at the airport a 5am, I wondered if he would come home to a more independent and confident wife.

The first day, I reveled in my aloneness for a good 10 hours, then I got bored and lonely.  So I invited a friend over for dinner.

Wait, what?

Spending time with people is usually a much more complicated process for me.  I’m never sure if I’m lonely or just exhausted.  I don’t know whether I want to see people or just see them on facebook while a movie runs in the background.  I hem and haw and fret and just don’t know what I want.  And eventually I decide to see people, or not see people, but I don’t feel at ease.  I spend the evening thinking that maybe I would have preferred the opposite.

But for some reason, on the day Jack flew to Boston I knew that what I was feeling was loneliness, and what I wanted was company.  To know what I wanted was, I’m sorry to say, the strangest feeling.

The whole week without Jack was marked by me knowing myself… as if my desires had cleared their dusty throats and started singing with shocking clarity.  And I was like, wait, who are you guys and what is that beautiful song?

I made french toast for dinner three nights in a row.  I left dishes in the sink overnight, not worrying about whether I’d regret it in the morning because I knew I wouldn’t.  I had 10 people over for a study group and loved every minute.

It was such a delight-filled week, but I was also scared.  Jack would return, and I didn’t want to have to say, “the week you were gone was one of the best of my life.”  I brought my ambivalence in to my counselor, asking her why just the presence of Jack (who is a very kind man) muddles my own thoughts and desires.  And we talked and came to some realizations, and I cried, and I left with more wonder and joy and sadness than I had come with.  PEOPLE, THIS IS WHY I’LL BE IN THERAPY TWICE A WEEK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  That’s $12,000 a year, if you’re curious.  But it’s worth it.  It really is.  Go to therapy.

The day before Jack came home, I read a chapter from a book called She Who Is, by feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson.  The chapter was on conversion.  Johnson writes about how religious conversion is often talked about in terms of “disowning oneself,” but this language is only really useful to those in power.

She writes:

If pride be the primary block on the path to God, then indeed decentering the rapacious self is the work of grace.  But the situation is quite different when this language is applied to persons already relegated to the margins of significance and excluded from the exercise of self-definition.  For such persons, language of conversion as loss of self… functions in an ideological way to rob them of power, maintaining them in a subordinate position to the benefit of those who rule.

Okay, there’s more, but take a deep breath.  If you’re anything like me, your stomach is churning and your heart is saying “more!” and “stop!” simultaneously.

Johnson continues:

Analysis of women’s experience is replete with the realization that within patriarchal systems women’s primordial temptation is not to pride and self-assertion but rather to the lack of it, to diffuseness of personal center, overdependence on others for self-identity, drifting, and fear of recognizing one’s own competence.

(Johnson, She Who Is, 64)

And my first thought after reading this was, NO FUCKING WONDER humility never worked for me.  I remembered myself at 20, a new convert, presenting myself and my new faith to roommates, family, and friends.  I tried to appear joyful (because that’s the image I was supposed to project), but was dying of fear inside.  A few people, mostly men, men who were probably used to power and privilege, scoffed or laughed or bragged about themselves in response to me.  It was painful and infuriating.  But I thought they would come around if I was more humble, if I listened to them and laughed at their jokes and was nice and gentle.

When really, I probably should have thrown some tables around.

Diffuseness of personal center.  Overdependence on others for self identity.  Fear of one’s own competence.

It’s heartbreaking to admit that all these phrases describe me in relationship, even in my marriage to a truly humble man—the kind of man who, when I told him that I was more free and alive in his absence, responded, “let’s keep working on a way to let you be free and alive when I’m around, too.”

I do have parts of myself that are capable of harming others for my own benefit.  But most of my sin comes out of the belief that my identity is tied up in how others think of me, that my opinion of myself is secondary, and that I should check with someone else before doing, thinking, or even feeling anything.

Before reading this Johnson excerpt, I kind of worried that I was going about personal healing all wrong.  That all this therapy was “secular,” and God was impatiently tapping his foot waiting for me to get back to humbling myself and diffusing my personal center (God-construct, anyone?).  But Johnson gives me hope.

There’s theology and then there’s theology.  Some theology is like, “Oh, so that’s what perichoresis means.  Interesting,” and some theology makes you go, “Holy fuck, maybe God is good to me.”

A Counselee’s Week

I see my counselor, Susan, on Wednesdays.

On Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, I look forward to my next appointment.  I have conversations with Susan in my head, drawing on the memory of our last meeting and the many before that one.  I try to formulate her response to the things that frustrate and confuse me, like the seemingly normal conversation I had with a stranger that left me feeling angry and dirty and powerless.  Being unused to compassion, I practice it like a stubborn new sonata, transposing Susan’s kindness into the key of my everyday life.

Then on Sunday Jack and I rest from work and everything else, including imaginary conversations with therapists.  I read magazines and take a bath, or maybe two baths.

On Monday and Tuesday, I resume my imaginary conversations, but by then it’s been too many days since my last appointment and I’ve forgotten Susan.  Stronger and deeper memories eclipse her compassionate words from the previous week.  My imagination changes her into a more familiar figure, one whose kindness masks rage and disgust.  I try to win over this harsher imaginary counselor by being witty and insightful.  Then I worry about what she’ll think of me when I go back to her office and am not witty and insightful, but stumbling and confused.  I imagine she thinks I’m incompetent and wonders when someone at Mars Hill will tell me I’m not cut out to be a therapist.  On Monday and Tuesday, I’m afraid of Susan and her silent judgements.

When Wednesday comes again, I trudge in for my appointment, hoping to be witty and insightful, but within five minutes on her couch I’ve almost certainly a) stuttered, b) opened my mouth only to let out a tiny squeak, c) giggled inappropriately, or d) started crying.

A couple weeks ago I was in Susan’s office being particularly mean to myself, narrating the contempt that I’m convinced (on Mondays and Tuesdays) she feels toward me.  She had tears in her eyes during that hour, which I didn’t notice because I was too busy being afraid of her, but she pointed them out to me.  She asked if, in the following week, I would remember her compassion, or if I would instead believe the relentless criticism I project onto her.

I was honest… I told her I’d remember the compassion for a few days, then I’d have trouble holding on to it.  I didn’t tell her that Sunday is a day of rest from work and thinking about your therapist, and sometimes I take two baths, because that sounds crazy.

There are more technical ways to talk about therapy, using words like “transference” and “splitting” and “introject.”  But those words don’t feel right when it’s your life being examined, your heartache exposed, your butt on that damn couch.  I talk about my own counseling in pretty simple terms:  I’d like to remember Susan’s kindness from Wednesday to Wednesday.  Maybe once I can do that, her kindness toward me will become my own.

At the zoo

Last month I went to the zoo with Jack, and we discovered the indoor tropical exhibit. The first cage held an ocelot, which I had never even heard of. I took one look at it and immediately told Jack three things:

1) I want one.

2) If I were in Harry Potter my patronus would be an ocelot.

3) That face just turned my insides to goo.

It was seriously the most beautiful creature I could imagine:

A few weeks later I was sitting in class thinking about ocelots when it hit me: what do the babies look like? I googled, “Ocelot babies” and found out that two kittens had been born to the Woodland Park Zoo ocelot in September. I immediately gmail-chatted three things to Jack:

1) Ocelots have babies.

2) Ocelot babies are near my house.

3) There is a God.

Yesterday my friend and co-student asked if I wanted to go to the zoo and talk. It seemed like a good place to go on a February afternoon. Because February is tough, especially for students. It’s a good month for ruminating and brooding. I liked the idea of brooding with Grace while watching otters play. It seemed like such a ironic, both/and, already-but-not-yet, ambivalent, “hold everything in tension” thing to do.

When I saw the sun this morning I thought, “No no no, this takes away February’s usefulness. How can I possibly brood when the sun’s out?” But of course, it was wonderful. The animals were displaying their best quirky/horny spring behavior. AND. The ocelot kittens were to be in their exhibit at 2:30.

We had an hour to kill, so we meandered towards the day-and-night exhibit and talked. February has been hard. Grace talked about her tears, and how she had hoped that Mars Hill would erase them, but instead people call them a gift. I’ve been realizing my own secret fantasy that Mars Hill would teach me how to be bold and outspoken, so I could be seen and heard and fully accepted.

Mars Hill is not known for fixing problems. One of our professors says that a therapist’s job is to make things worse before making them better. I’m beginning to think that the “better” is much more beautiful and painful than I can now imagine.

There’s a little walkway between the zoo’s indoor day and night exhibits. The walls are painted with dark, shadowy forest against a night sky. A Wendell Berry poem leads you from the day exit to the night entrance:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

We stopped. “I’m reading that really differently today,” said Grace.

Yes, I thought, me too. It’s not just about bats and owls today.

Maybe things don’t get better. Maybe I will be lonely and unseen. Maybe Grace will always have tears. Maybe everything is always and forever dark.

We paused, and Grace finished both our thoughts: “But it’s been traveled before.”

Why I pay $95 a week

All of my counseling sessions start pretty much the same way.  My therapist asks, “So… where to today?”  And I say that I hate that question.  I spend every Thursday morning worrying about how to answer it, and after our hour is done, I worry that I didn’t answer it right.  I tell her that she’s the expert, why can’t she start us out?  She should be telling me what to talk about.

Then she says something like, “it sounds like you want to conform yourself to my agenda.  What if I don’t have an agenda?”

And I say that of course I know there’s no agenda, no right and wrong.  But I don’t know how to operate as the leader, the expert of anything, even my own thoughts and feelings.  The she asks about my history of conforming myself to others, and my stories spill out.  In that office, I have this strange feeling of terror and freedom.  I am who I am, and there are no unspoken expectations.

Then my hour is up, and I leave, thinking, “Did I do that right?”

For the Prospective Mars Hill Graduate School Student

Dear person who browsed here from the MHGS Blog Hub,

Last week we had an assignment that was nicknamed The Tragedy Paper.  We were to write the story of a “defining personal tragedy,” and reflect on how it affected our Faith, our Hope, and our Love.

I have not led a tragic life by most standards.  The story I ended up writing had never been called a “Tragedy” by anyone, including me.  When I first told this story to my Practicum Facilitator in September, I spoke of my adolescent self in third person.  I had very little love for her.  She had embarrassed herself.  Surely she deserved what she got.

My PF looked horrified.  “Do you hear the contempt in your words?” she asked.

I tried telling the story again, through a different lens.  I started to listen to that teenage girl.  She was scared, and trying so hard to do the right thing.  She asked for an advocate, because her world silenced and dismissed her.  I spoke for her, not with contempt, but with compassion.  In defending her, I grew more and more angry.

If all that sounds weird, but also intriguing and maybe a little bit wonderful, consider applying to Mars Hill.

I made the mistake of going to the coffee shop where I used to work to write my paper.  First I typed out the part that I remembered best: the horrible words that were spoken to me, the ones that have echoed in my head for years.  Then I went to the bathroom to weep.

For three hours I sat at Peet’s Coffee, reflecting on my tragedy as well as my Faith, Hope, and Love.  The customers I used to serve came over and asked if I was okay.  And I really didn’t know the answer.  No, I’m not okay, this hurts.  But then again, Yes, I’m wonderful!  Writing this paper feels right and good, and the dead part of me is beginning to stir.  And did I mention that I’m furious?  Yes, I’m very angry, and I think that’s part of the new alive-ness.  Thank you for asking, how are you?

I turned in that paper along with my 90 classmates.  We were exhausted.  All week we had wept, raged, and posted not-so-clever facebook status updates (“Christine is working on her tragedy paper…. FUCK EVERYTHING”).  Some had shared their tragedy papers with new friends.  None of us are the same since handing it in.

In the end, I was proud, so proud, of that paper.  I’ve rarely heard my own voice freed from the demand to please others.  It was unapologetic, furious, explosive.  It blew open a space in my soul for God’s words: I grieved that too.

I like this school.  Maybe you would too.  Drop me a comment or email if you want to talk.

Comparing Notes

Every once in a while my brother Jacob will call me just to say, “Your pizza really smells bad,” and hang up.

Don’t you love inside sibling jokes?  That one refers to my first prank phone call, which Jacob lovingly guided me through when I was 4 and he was 8.  He didn’t do too many things lovingly back then, so that memory is particularly sweet.

I get revenge sometimes by calling him and singing the entire “Inspector Gadget” theme song on his answering machine.

This past week Jacob and I somehow managed to behave like grownups over the phone for five minutes.  I found myself saying, “Jacob, we need to compare notes.”

What I meant was: Jacob, who the hell are we?  There must be some overlap (and also a great divide) in our perceptions of the world.  What did we think was normal as kids?  How did the world surprise us when we left our parents’ home?  What are the aching questions that we live with?

I’m visiting my older sister in January, and I have a similar list of questions for her.  What were you proud of growing up?  When did you feel shame?  What did it mean to be feminine?  When was anger okay, and when was it not?

If there isn’t already a book of questions for brothers and sisters, I might need to publish one.  I would call it:

If Mom could hear this she would shit herself: 50 questions for your siblings.

or

Two-buck Chuck and a shit-load of kleenex: 50 questions for your siblings.

Either way, the word “shit” would definitely be a part of it.  Hi, Mom and Dad!

What questions would you add to my book?

Why I’m having trouble blogging

… it’s because of the therapy.

Therapy is doing what it’s supposed to do… that is, it’s helping me express my feelings with increasingly dramatic adjectives.

Here’s a game:  One column contains words and phrases I used pre-therapy.  The other column has new words that I’m finding more suitable.  See if you can guess which column is pre-therapy and which is post-therapy:

Sad  …………………………………………………………………………………. Heavy with grief

Kinda vulnerable ……………………………………………………………… Completely exposed

A little down …………………………………………………………………….. Burdened

Angry…………………………………………………………………………………. Enraged

Anxious……………………………………………………………………………… Terrified

Fine, thanks, how are you? …………………………………………….. Oh God.  I… I just don’t know.

Why yes, it’s 2:15 ……………………………………………………………. [Breaks down crying]

And as I laugh at my own jokes (someone has to), I’m so aware of hiding behind them, too.  They give a satisfying non-answer to the question, “How’s therapy going?”

I can hear my counselor gently reminding me, “pearls before swine, Christine.”  The Internet is a pig, and my counseling stories are far too precious for its hairy snout.

But in my lighter moments, I’ll make the best counseling jokes I possibly can.

Therapy

Mars Hill requires their counseling students to receive 40 hours of counseling outside the school with a Licensed Mental Health Therapist.  Licensed Therapists in Seattle charge at least $100 per hour.

$100 X 40 hours = ____

Yup.

Counseling students are going crazy with all this therapy.  We’re surrounded by therapists.  We pay $100 to talk about our parents.  We sit with our Practicum Facilitators (who are also therapists) twice a month and discuss why we were so anxious in Practicum last time, and why we panicked and said that one thing, and why we felt such shame for a whole week after we said it.  And then we talk for an hour about that shame, and our therapists teach us how to listen to it, be curious about it, wonder what other words connect to the word “shame.”  And then we find ourselves telling older stories, stories of really embarrassing times… times when we got it wrong, so wrong, again!  Can’t I do anything right?!?  Didn’t God promise me his Spirit of Love, so I could love others?  Then why do I just hurt people, over and over, why didn’t God change me like he promised?

Then you realize you’re talking about something different… not shame, but disappointment.  Disappointment with God.  How long have you felt that disappointment?  Oh I don’t know, since day 3?  What do you do with that disappointment?  Mostly I just ignore it and worship God with only part of me, a very small part, which really is no worship at all.  Then your therapist recommends that you journal about “What would a faithful God look like?”  And you think, that would be admitting in writing that I don’t think God is faithful.  And she says yes, that’s okay.  He likes that.  He likes to wrestle.  And through her kindness you see just the briefest glimpse of God, a terrifying and beautiful God that wants you to call him unfaithful so the wrestling match can begin.

But your 50 minutes are up!

So you head downstairs, to the student lounge.  Your mind is spinning and you feel that dammit, you’re losing it.  You’re losing that glimpse of God that was in the room during your therapy session.  By the time you hit the first floor you’ve already transitioned back to regular life.  Can I get to Taco del Mar before class? Then someone who knew you were in your 1-on-1 session sees you and asks, “How’d it go?”  And you say:

“Amazing.  We talked about shame.  And shame-cycles, and I realized that I just need to SIT in my shame, you know?  Just SIT in it!  And befriend it!  And love myself!  And we talked about how I hate God and need to wrestle.”

Which of course makes no sense.

Here’s what I’ve decided: describing therapy sessions is like describing dreams.  You just won’t be able to do it justice, ever. You can talk about the man who, in your dream, was your husband…but he wasn’t your real-life husband, and he made you go back to work at the coffee shop because he was mean and didn’t like how powerful you would become in graduate school, so you went back to the coffee shop and everyone made fun of you.  You can tell all that to your groggy husband when he wakes up but it won’t convey the horror and shame, the fury and dread that still linger even after the alarm went off.

Because only half of therapy is what you talk about in the session, the “aha!” and “oh, shit” moments of realization.  The other half is, as Buber would say, the I-Thou connection, the in-between, and the glimpses of the Eternal Thou.  Which Buber can describe only because he’s a late-romantic German philosopher, and most thankfully you are not.

So, many apologies to anyone who, in the next three years, will have to hear me describe my therapy (maybe even regularly).  I know how much it sucks.  And thank you.