Sunshine and Tulips

My life lately has been filled with entirely too much drama. When you get to the point where you don't dare answer phone calls from unknown numbers, or you don't dare sneak to the peephole in the door when someone is knocking, or when you return home to find tulips on your doorstep and rather than being curiously flattered you get sick to your stomach about who the gifter could be - it's time to seek help.

I've fired my therapist.

I truly appreciated his unconventional methods, his admiration of medicinal marijuana ( a recent suggestion he sprung on me to help me cope with the anxiety...I plead the fifth) , his bizarre little homework assignments (usually involving a completely unrelated support group or a zoo), and I even grew to adore the glass eye. But after spending a good year of my time and a good chunk of my money seeing him on a regular basis, you'd think he'd find a way to remember my name.

So I have no shrink, no drugs (legal OR otherwise), retail therapy is getting old (and by "getting old" I mean that I'm running out of money), I've hit up all the Alcholic, Narcotics-Acholic, and Sex-aholic meetings a non-addict could ask for, and I've just about run out of therapeutic ideas.

So tell me, dear readers, what do I do now?

My mood this morning is more mid-maelstrom-mental than mawkish. (Well hello alliteration, thanks for joining us.)

I’m in the need of a good brain cleansing, maybe something along the lines of an “Eternal Sunshine” type erasure. Ok. I’m beginning to think it’s not such a bad idea after all, maybe Kate and Jim were right in the first place. I wouldn’t mind forgetting about my possible stalker, I wouldn’t mind forgetting about how someone once stole all my money and my car and I’m still digging myself out of the financial debt he got me in, it would be ok to let go of the memory of my first love and how he broke my heart via email, I’d gladly give up memory of the cheating ex and his wild ways, I wouldn’t mind letting go of the time I watched a friend throw his life away over something as silly as a substance, and I’d be more than happy to say goodbye to the memory of the boy who liked boys. ( I sure know how to pick ‘em don’t I ?)

But here’s the thing…there’s no such thing as selective erasure. If it goes it all goes and I don’t want to get rid of the good with the bad.

How else would I remember being proposed to by a stranger in France with the portrait he drew of me after seeing “me” in a dream? How would I manage without the memory of the first time someone told me they loved me and I believed it? Why would I want to go on without the reminder of that night where we baked applesauce cake and then used it as a weapon in the kitchen, the porch, the bathroom and left my tub smelling like apples for days? How could I forget our first picnic on the beach where we were alone and it was raining and we stayed and we laughed? Why would I want to erase the thought of the cd he sent me from Poland with homemade movies of he and the boys, portions of silent sections in black in white? What about that night camping on the roof of the theatre as we listened to Madame Butterfly being performed below? How could I forget apartment shopping, and house shopping, and life shopping? Why would I want to?

So I guess I'll continue starring in this melodrama of mine and hope for the best realizing that with the best comes the worst and it’s my responsibility to fight through. Let’s chalk it all up to new experiences and hope that opening myself up like this is more beneficial than not.

After all, it's better to have loved and lost.......right?

To whomever left the tulips on my doorstep, thank you. Just next time leave a note.