One Single Loud Clap (Blog #57)

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In 2008 I started uploading dance videos to YouTube. At the time I wanted a way to keep track of what I knew and what I taught at my dance studio, and I also wanted my students to be able to review what they learned. So each week after class, we’d film a review, and I’d post it online. Nine years later, I’ve posted 1,101 videos, which have a combined total of 5,149,733 views. That last number really blows my mind, since oftentimes the classes I taught at the studio had no more than eight or ten people in them. Sometimes, there were only one or two.

Witness the power of the internet.

Over the years, there have been quite a few comments on the videos, and most of them have been positive. I’ve even had a number of emails and phone calls from total strangers–people in Tennessee, Florida, Europe–who’ve said they’ve learned a lot from the videos. However, for the longest time, it was the negative comments that stood out to me, like the person who ripped me a new one for starting rumba on a quick instead of a slow, or the dozen of people who were pissed off that I wrongly referred to Triple Two Step as Texas Two Step, or the guy who loved the videos but said that dying my hair blonde was “a mistake.”

Five years ago, bullshit like that would upset me for days. Now, thankfully, I’m able to take most of it in stride. For one thing, I have no idea who these people really are. Maybe they know what they’re talking about, maybe they don’t. But I finally decided that if you have nothing better to do than criticize the hair color of a total stranger who’s giving you dance lessons for free, that’s your problem–not mine.

This afternoon my friend Sydnie and I performed at a local nursing home for National Lindy Hop Day. I used to get really worked up and nervous about this sort of thing, but I had a great time today. Sydnie was on her way to another dance event, so she was with a friend of hers, another dancer. He took the above picture of us, which is why he’s not in it. (Thank you for the picture. I didn’t know if it’d be okay to use your name.)

Anyway, Sydnie’s friend told me that he started watching my dance videos on YouTube a few years before he started dancing, and then he continued to watch them once life slowed down and he was able to actually learn. He said the videos had been helpful on his journey, so I was kind of like a celebrity to him. (This sort of thing has happened a couple of other times, and it always makes my day. Still, I’m never sure how to properly react other than to say, “Thank you. That makes my day.” Perhaps if it happens again, I could add, “Thank you for not criticizing my hair.”)

Ironically, when I saw the picture of Sydnie and me, I didn’t like my hair, so I sent a message to my friend Bekah to see if she could cut it. Well, sometimes miracles happen, and she said to come right on over. When I got there, both her teenage sons were there too, and although I’m sure they were speaking English, I really didn’t understand much of what they were saying. (This is one way you know you’re getting older.) But at some point, Bekah’s older son, Christian, suddenly raised both his hands over his head and struck them together in one single loud clap. He explained that when he wants a high-five from a friend but he either doesn’t have one present or his friend won’t give him a high-five, he gives himself one.

Strange, I know, but I still think it’s gold.

(Here’s a picture of the haircut. This last year, for the first time in my entire life, I started parting my hair on my right side instead of my left. I’m not sure why. But Bekah added a hard part to the right just for emphasis. The lady in the picture is my friend Betty. She’s one of the friends I was with in 2008 when I went to Dubai and was told by a witch doctor that I had “weak brain.” She was in town tonight and invited me for dinner.)

As I look at the picture, I realize you can’t actually see my hair, but I promise this won’t be the last selfie I post, so don’t go anywhere. (This is called a cliffhanger. Sort of.)

After dinner I went to return some headphones to Best Buy, and while I was there, I got a notice on my phone that a friend had commented on the blog. Like almost every other comment I’ve received so far, it was positive, but my friend asked kindly that I not use the F word. Well, I responded and said (in the spirit of honesty) that probably wasn’t going to happen.

What I don’t want is for this specific blog post to become a conversation about whether or not cussing is okay. Obviously, for me it is, although my boundary about it is that if I’m in the grocery store, the doctor’s office, or a home where people don’t cuss, I don’t cuss. Clearly, other people have different boundaries regarding the words that come out of their mouths or keyboards. But this is my blog, and I pay the bills around here, and the result of that logic is obvious to anyone who reads a single one of my posts. (I think there’s only been one post completely void of a cuss word, and it just happened that way.)

When I first started therapy, my therapist told me that she didn’t care what I did the other twenty-three hours of the day, but she said, “During the one hour we’re together, we’re going to sit in truth, and we’re not going to judge ourselves.” So for the last three years, that’s exactly what’s happened. If at any point I’ve tried to bullshit myself or her about something, she’s called me out on it. And if at any point I’ve judged myself (which I have plenty of times), she’s called me out on that too.

So my goal with the blog is the same. Here, we’re going to sit in truth. More specifically, I’m going to sit in truth because I’m the only one currently in this room, sitting behind this keyboard. Secondly, I’m going to do my level best to not judge myself. And if I do judge myself at the beginning of a blog, I hope to use my writing as a way to work myself into a more compassionate place by the end of it.

What you see here is what you get.

Those two rules being established, what I can promise anyone who is interested and kind enough to spend your precious time here is that I’ll be as honest with you as I am with myself, as honest as I know how to be. I know there are plenty of other things you could be doing, and there are plenty of other places you could go for fake news. So I promise I won’t bullshit you and pretend to be someone I’m not. God, I did that for the longest time, and it sucks. It’s the worst feeling to pretend you’re straight when you’re not or, maybe worse, pretend you just don’t have a sexuality when everyone else around you is talking about the person they’re interested in, or in love with, or go home to when you go home alone. Likewise, it’s the worst feeling to pretend you’re “just fine” when you’re actually falling apart.

So that shit stops here.

What I would say to anyone on YouTube who doesn’t like the way I rumba or doesn’t like my hair, or to anyone who doesn’t like the F word, is that I understand. Honestly, sometimes I don’t like the way I rumba, and I wasn’t crazy about the blonde hair either, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if the person I thought I was going to marry cheated on me and then later lied and told me he had cancer when he didn’t. And as for the F word, I remember (twenty years ago) when it used to bother me too. So I get it. We all have our opinions about how to act, and I don’t believe mine are the only ones that matter. But, again, I’m doing my best to not judge myself for failing to live up to a certain level of imagined perfection.

But back to being honest. What you see here is what you get. This is the most authentic I know how to be, and this is currently who I am–warts, cuss words, and all. Personally, I don’t like any sort of negative feedback. It never feels good to think I’ve disappointed someone, especially someone I care about. But as Abraham Lincoln said, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. And what I’ve learned about authenticity is that it doesn’t have to. Better that you’re true to yourself and the whole world be disappointed than to change who you are and the whole world be satisfied. And whereas I’m eternally grateful for every positive comment on YouTube and the blog (and there have been hundreds, thank you), I know that it has to be enough if only one person–the guy behind this keyboard–raises his hands above his head and strikes them together in one single loud clap.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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As taught in the story of the phoenix, a new life doesn't come without the old one first being burned away.

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Taking Ownership in Therapy (Blog #50!)

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Tonight’s blog post is number fifty, which means that every day for the last fifty days, I’ve snuggled up in a chair or in bed with this blog, held the keyboard in my arms, and poured my guts out. (You’re welcome.) In other words, this blog is quickly becoming my longest and most intimate relationship.

Over the last fifty days, I’ve had several conversations with my friends and even my therapist about the benefits that writing this blog have provided me. First and foremost, it’s the reason I’m writing, and even though I’m not getting a check in the mail, it still feels really good because writing is one of the things I want to do with my life. But above that, it’s given me a huge sense of ownership regarding the last three years in therapy and all the things that I’ve been learning.

For most of my life, I’ve felt like a child, like everyone else was a grownup and had it all figured out (whatever the hell that means), but I didn’t. Well, at some point during the last few years, I was able to look around and realize that everyone else is just as fucked up as I am. (Sorry if you’re hearing this for the first time.) As my therapist says, some people just hide it better than others.

Still, that tendency to feel less-than has hung on. Once during therapy, I was talking about how it felt like a lot of other people were “further ahead” in terms of sexuality. Maybe I was talking about a guy I used to date that had a lot more experience than I did. (I heard somewhere that the definition of a whore is someone who’s slept with one more person than you have, so he was definitely a whore.) Anyway, my therapist said that we all mature in different areas at different rates. If someone isn’t as far along sexually, it’s probably because they’ve been spending their time growing in other areas like self-awareness, business skills, or spirituality. She said it’s simply impossible to be advanced in all areas of life.

We all bring different things to the table (or even the bedroom).

I think that conversation has gone along way in leveling the field for me. It’s often easy for me to compare myself to others in a particular area of life (looks, talent, money), and walk away feeling less-than or even more-than someone else. But when I consider that all of us are good at certain things and not so good at others, I’m reminded that we all bring different things to the table (or even the bedroom). Life, it seems, isn’t a competition, but a potluck.

Sometimes I think that the very act of going to therapy has reinforced my tendency to feel like a child. What I mean by that is that since starting therapy, I’ve had A LOT of dreams about being back in school, so it’s felt like being a kid again and starting over. And even though my therapist has always treated me like an adult, the process has often been awkward and new–childlike–on my end. I can only imagine it’s what many of my dance students feel like, maybe why so many people quit. It’s easier to not learn something new than it is to constantly be reminded how much there is to actually learn.

Of course, in both dance and therapy, I think the growing pains are worth it. And here’s something interesting. For most of the last three years, I’ve kept a dream journal, and I just went back and did a search for my dreams about school. Well, for the first year of therapy, all my dreams about school placed me in high school. And then at the start of the second year of therapy, I graduated from high school in one dream, and my dreams after that placed me in college. Earlier this year, I had a couple of dreams about being a substitute teacher, and just last night, I was a teacher. (When I woke up this morning, I wanted to call my therapist and say, “I’m not a student anymore!”)

But I have boundaries, so I didn’t.

I can only assume that the progression regarding school in my dreams has to do with the work on my mental health and the relationships in my life. (If anyone ever tells you that those things aren’t work, tell them to eff off.) And even though I think the teacher dream had a lot to do with the fact that I’m sharing my experiences online, I also think it was my subconscious saying that I’ve come a long way. Sure, there’s more to learn. In the dream, I was five minutes late to class. (If you know me, this won’t come as a shock.) But just because there’s more to learn, doesn’t mean I haven’t come a long way.

And that’s the sense of ownership that I mentioned earlier that the blog has given me. Flannery O’Connor said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I see what I say,” and I’m finding that to be true. There have been so many times over the last fifty days that I’ve typed something only to start crying or get angry as soon as I read it. Like, Oh my god, I didn’t realize that hurt me so much, or, Obviously, I haven’t let that go. But more than anything else, I get to the end of a blog and think, Wow, I really have learned something. My life is completely different than it was three years ago. I don’t feel like a child anymore.

So to everyone who has shared any part of the last fifty days with me, thank you. And for those of you who have known me before and after the last three years and are still around, I’m grateful for your sticking by and all the space you’ve given me to grow in. I hope each of you have people in your life who do the same for you.

And, of course, if the people in your life don’t give you space to grow in, tell them to eff off as well.

[Tonight’s photo is of me as a child—in school. I was probably writing a math problem, but I like that I was writing nonetheless.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Just as there’s day and night literally, there’s also day and night emotionally. Like the sun, one minute we’re up, the next minute we’re down. Our perspectives change constantly. There’s nothing wrong with this. The constellations get turned around once a day, so why can’t you and I? Under heaven, there’s room enough for everything–the sun, the moon and stars, and all our emotions. Yes, the universe–our home–is large enough to hold every bit of us.

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the prison doors (blog #33)

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Last night I dreamed that I was in a dark, dank prison. It looked medieval. You know–guys with bad dental hygiene locked behind bars–the whole bit. But then later in the dream, the prison was cleaned up. The guys behind the bars were gone. The doors had been taken off the cells. It was like a museum, and as I was walking through it, I saw a few ghosts fly across the corridors.

When I woke up this morning, I was sick. Like feeling gross, coughing, hacking up box-of-crayons-colored snot. As I type this now, I can’t say that it’s gotten any better. All day I’ve been fighting disappointment. I mean, I just had this sinus surgery to help cut down on sinus infections, and here I’ve probably got one staring me in my face, or more accurately—I’ve got one in my face. I guess the word that comes to mind is hopeless, as if it’s never going to get better.

I’ve really been trying to be patient with my body, to consider that there are a lot of other factors that contribute to getting and staying well besides having a surgery. I’ve heard that nutrition and sleep are important, and I’ve pretty much been giving those things the finger for the last month. Plus, there’s this new thing called stress that’s supposed to be a negative influence, and I may have a tiny bit of that in my life at the moment.

This afternoon I saw my therapist. I told her about speaking at the writing class yesterday, about how I read a story that I’d written six months ago and how the whole time I was reading it I was thinking, God, Marcus, you sure say “fuck” a lot. And I can’t believe you just told this group of total strangers that you’re gay! But then I told my therapist just how liberating it was to be myself, and I figured that’s what the dream with the prison was about, like my subconscious was saying that I was finally free.

My therapist agreed about my interpretation and added that the ghosts in the dream are like those people-pleasing or self-judgmental voices in my head, the guests that are welcome to come to the party but not sit at the table. She called them “the ghosts of Christmas past.” She said she thought it was an INCREDIBLE dream, and both her eyebrows shot up when she said INCREDIBLE, so it felt like my subconscious had just gotten a gold star.

Another thing we talked about was unexpressed emotions. For pretty much my whole life, I think I’ve put most of my emotions in a really big jar with a really tight lid on it. Over the last few years, I’ve given myself permission to take the lid off, which has been both relieving and terrifying. The terrifying part has to do with the fact that you don’t get to pick when emotions come out of the jar. I mean, if it were up to me, I’d get out my planner, look at next Friday, see that I had some free time, and write down “Cry” between three and five in the afternoon.

But that’s not how emotions work, apparently.

My unexpressed emotions always show up unannounced. Once I was on a massage table and ended up crying as soon as the lady got to my stomach. My body was shaking, and I had memories of the fire that burned out house down when I was four. Another time I got extremely angry in yoga class when the teacher kept telling me what to do and it reminded me of my father because he likes to do that. And then at the end of class, as soon as I went into Child’s Pose, I started sobbing. Another time on another massage table, I couldn’t stop laughing. The guy said I was probably laughing at how shitty my life had been. (Isn’t that perfect?)

So I told my therapist today that I feel like there are a lot of emotions left in the jar. My hip pain always feels like frustration, and my sinus issues always feel like sadness. And I want it all to come out. I want it to all be over. But my therapist has said before that emotions happen in their own time. You can’t force them. And she reminded me today how much progress I’ve made since I first walked through her door three years ago. She said that I had started the journey long before I came to her and that I’ll continue it long after, but she said that I had gone through the dark part of the woods, that I wasn’t lost anymore.

So I think when it comes to my health and my sinuses, I could look at having the surgery like coming through the dark part of the woods. And whereas I always want a “one and done” miracle, the more realistic viewpoint is that I’ve come a long way and that’s something to be proud of, but the journey is not over.

Last night a dear friend gave me a small notebook. She’d read one of my blogs where I quoted a bookmark I used to have that said, “If at first you don’t succeed, lower your expectations.” So the front of the notebook said, “Lowering my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.” (See the picture at the top of this blog.)

Well, I think that’s amazing. I also think it’s an excellent reminder to not put so much pressure on myself. I can lower my expectations. I don’t have to cry today. It took decades to shove all those emotions in the jar. I’d probably have a mental breakdown if they call came up at once, so a little bit here and a little bit there is fine. It’s enough that the lid is finally off. And I don’t have to fix all my sinus problems all at once. Isn’t it a big deal that even as I sit here feeling sick, I can actually breathe? And really, the prison doors are finally off. I can handle a few ghosts.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Everything is progressing as it should.

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Jesus and dolphins and oxygen (blog #21)

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First, my immediate goal, other than digesting the tacos I just ate and trying to keep my head from falling on the keyboard due to sleep deprivation, is to keep this blog post short. Or at least be finished within an hour. I mean, a girl’s gotta sleep.

Second, I’ve been thinking lately that it would be worthwhile to make an effort to blog about only funny things, you know, to not be so fucking serious all the time. Like, I could probably stand to spend an entire day watching The Golden Girls and picking my nose and not try to make a life lesson out of it. It would probably do us all some good. The problem with this idea, however, is that just about every day, there’s something that gets under my skin, sort of like a soul chigger, that won’t leave me alone, and writing about those sorts of things seems to help.

But good news—nothing like that happened today. Surprising, I know, since Mercury is in retrograde, and that’s supposed to screw with everybody’s life. But really—today was a wonderful day. Like, if you were in a bad mood, you wouldn’t have wanted to be around me because I would have been THAT PERSON that just LOVES Jesus and dolphins and oxygen. (Isn’t breathing GREAT!)

Don’t worry. I’m sure it will pass.

The day started with lunch with my friend Ray. He’s the one with whom I usually have “therapy after therapy.” But today, we had “therapy before therapy,” which my mom later referred to as foreplay. (I’m just going to pretend she didn’t say that, but I guess that therapeutically and professionally speaking, she had a pretty clever point.) Anyway, Ray and I caught up on the latest with each other, and when I talked about living with my parents, he said, “I’m sure that has its charms and challenges.” Isn’t that a great phrase—charms and challenges?

After lunch with Ray, I showed up to therapy early, so I got to hang out for a while in a waiting room that could—quite honestly—use the help of a gay man. I mean, it looks like someone went shopping for furniture at a yard sale once a decade for the last thirty years. (My therapist knows I’m totally judgmental on this point. And to be fair, it’s a shared office space, and they recently got some new chairs that aren’t half bad. And my therapist’s office is LOVELY. Her answer to the waiting room is, “Look down.”)

Anyway, while I was waiting, I ran into a friend of mine whom I must have known in another life, since our paths seem to cross every few years, and it’s always in a different context (dance, therapy, etc.). So we hung out for a while, and it was like even more therapy, since my friend works in the field and is a good listener. Each of us shared about our lives, and we laughed a lot. We were THOSE PEOPLE in the waiting room. The whole time this was going on, there was a lady across the room that was waiting (on an ugly couch) for her therapist, her head buried in a magazine. I kept wanting to draw her into the conversation, like, So, why are YOU here? But I assumed that wouldn’t have been appropriate.

Well, therapy was great. (And we all lived happily ever after.) For the longest time, I almost always come to therapy with what we call “the list,” which is simply all the things that have happened since the last visit that I want to talk about. (Can you say, “Anal retentive?”) When I used to do a lot of construction work, “the list” was always written on a paint stick, and I called it “the paint stick of truth.” But now “the list” is on my laptop because that’s much easier. Anyway, I’ve had a number of things on “the list” that have been there for a couple of months, nothing major, but a lot of times I like to ask questions about psychology or self-help books I’ve read. For me, it’s like an educated version of Fact or Crap. So I got to do that today, and it was like my little heart went skipping barefoot through a field of pink tulips.

We also talked about the blog, which she told me before it went live that she supported, and she said the same today. (#winning) I told her my experience with it so far had been nothing but positive, that it’s helped me to figure out what I’m feeling and thinking, work toward solutions for problems, and even cry (to which she said, “Get the poison out, get the poison out.”) And then she said that the term therapists use for what I was doing was “self as instrument.” When I asked her to say more, she said that I was using the blog as a form of self-therapy, so I was using myself as an instrument of healing. (#morewinning)

After teaching a dance lesson this evening, I caught up with my friend who likes birds. (I’m assuming he wouldn’t want me to use his name, and I can’t think of a better way to describe him at the moment.) Anyway, bird friend was probably my original therapist, as we joke that he has “tell me everything” written across his forehead. I’m sure you have a friend like that—a good listener, a straight shooter, someone fundamentally kind.

Well, before I left the birdcage, my friend showed me a gift someone had given him. It was a Mickey Mouse calendar, one of those ones you have to change by hand every day. (Sounds like a lot of damn work to me.) And at the top of the calendar it said, “My, oh my, what a wonderful day!” (Doesn’t that sound like the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?) And you probably already know this, but bird friend said the quote was from the tune “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” his favorite song. He said you just can’t listen to it and stay in a bad mood. And then he started singing it, kind of moving his shoulders up and down, dancing ever so slightly around his kitchen. (He was THAT person.)

Okay, it’s been an hour, and I’m at twice my anticipated word limit. I’m not exactly sure how to wrap this up, other than to say I think we all need days like today. Ray calls them Self-Care days, those days when you only spend time with people you LOVE being around, your BEST friends. And maybe you get a massage or do something decadent. You know, stop for tacos. That’s what I did on the way home tonight. TALK ABOUT SATISFACTUAL.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"I believe we're all courageous, and I believe that no one is alone."

Marcus at the head of the table (blog #18)

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For the last hour, I’ve been sitting in bed staring at a (digital) blank page, looking through all the photos on my phone, twirling a necklace around and around my finger, hoping to Sweet Jesus to be inspired to write about something worthwhile, but everything that comes to mind seems to fall flat. (Are you hooked yet?)

I recently heard the writer Kurt Vonnegut say that writers are paranoid people, always looking for meaning in everything, like, Why did they put me in room 471? Well, he says, of course, it doesn’t mean anything, but that’s what writers do, try to connect things that aren’t intrinsically connected.

(If you don’t believe him, just watch what’s about to happen.)

Since starting this blog, I spend the majority of my day thinking about nothing else, just bang, bang, banging my head against the wall, trying to shake out a decent idea. This afternoon, I went for a walk at the Van Buren City Park, and I kept noticing the turtles. There was this one tree limb that had fallen in the water, and at least a dozen turtles of all shapes and sizes were hanging out, catching some sun rays, talking about the latest gossip, whatever turtles do. And I tried to sneak close and take a picture, but turtles must be camera shy, since they all just plopped back in the water and disappeared. (Here’s a photo to prove it—not a turtle in sight.)

So I started thinking about turtles, like, maybe that’s what I’ll write about. You know, turtles take their time, slow and steady wins the race. And then I just wanted to gag because it sounded like a bunch of contrived bullshit.

When I got home from the walk, I started talking to my parents, and somehow we got on the topic of Mom’s stomach, which has been bothering her lately. So I’m just asking if the scan of her gallbladder came back, and she says it did, and it looked fine. And then before I know it, she’s talking about really personal things, using words like “constipated” and “gas” and “bloating” and “laxatives” and “straining.” And Mom’s in the living room with her back to Dad and me in the kitchen, and Dad gives me a look like, Aren’t you glad you asked? So we both kind of laugh, and Mom says, “Well, I know. I used to be a nurse, so it doesn’t bother me.”

So then I started thinking about whether or not it would be okay to write a blog about my mom’s bowels and if there was somehow a moral to be found (in the blog, not her bowels), since my friend Marla recently pointed out that all my stories have morals. (No pressure there.) Well, the only connection I could come up with was that listening to my mom talk about her bowels made me want to run away, kind of like those turtles on the log. Like, See ya later, bitches!

And then I thought that’s the same feeling I have when I watch videos of myself dancing, which I did earlier this evening in preparation for a dance class tomorrow. It’s like I look at myself, and my first instinct is to jump ship and throw the phone down because I immediately see something I’m doing “wrong,” or I think, That guy needs to drop a few pounds. Either way, I rarely end up feeling good, and instead end up feeling like eating Cookies and Crème straight from the carton.

Tonight I had a dance lesson with “the guy whose voice sounds like Darth Vader” and his fiancé. And partly because I saw a picture of myself a few days ago that I didn’t like, I was overly-focused on my posture during the lesson, so I kept looking in the mirror. (Usually I just look in the mirror because—to borrow a phrase I learned in therapy—I’m vain. And no, that’s not an apology.) Anyway, I noticed in the mirror tonight how rounded the area in between my shoulders looked, and that made me think of how I sometimes describe that part of my body as a shell because that’s what it feels like, this hard thing, guarding my heart on the other side.

For a good thirty minutes before I started down this rabbit trail of a blog, I was convinced I was going to write about my first boyfriend, R. I don’t have anything negative to say about him tonight, but maybe I will one day, so I’m just going to use one of his initials instead of his full name. We’re still on good terms, I respect his privacy, and I think the letter R is slightly warmer than “The Secret I Tried to Keep for Three Years” or “The Reason I Drank for Six Months.”

Anyway, R took the photo at the top of this blog, and I thought the head-clutching looked a lot like how I’ve been feeling all day, grasping at straws for an idea to come forth and bless us all with its good presence. I actually started writing an entire post about my relationship with R, but it really wasn’t going anywhere (kind of like our relationship wasn’t going anywhere, either). All that being said, R and I used to talk a lot about the fact that I worried about everything. I’d work up all this nervousness and anxiety about a dance lesson or a meeting with a boss, and then the thing would happen—and nothing. So I’d tell R that “everything was okay,” and he’d say, “On the next thing to dread.”

That phrase—on to the next thing to dread—is something I still use a lot. Mostly I say it to myself, but sometimes I say it to other people. Of course, they have no idea where it came from, but it still feels like an inside joke I get to use, a pleasant remnant of something that didn’t work out.

After two full years of therapy, my therapist gave me a metaphor for my thoughts that has been extremely helpful. (I kind of think it would have been helpful if she’d told me sooner, but if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.) She said that thoughts are like guests at a dinner party where you’re the host, and whereas “all thoughts are welcome,” not all thoughts get to sit down and have a meal. So she said when a self-judgmental or fearful or on-to-the-next-thing-to-dread thought comes up, it’s welcome in the room, but it’s okay to tell it to go sit in the corner. Like, thank you for being here, I understand why you came, but I don’t have room for you at the table. (No soup for you!)

So if I were to talk to my therapist about all the thoughts today that have sounded a lot like “Oh gross, Mom’s talking about gas again,” and “That guy in the video really let himself go” and “That guy in the mirror needs to stand up straighter,” she’d probably say, “And what does Marcus at the Head of the Table say?” To which I’d reply, “Marcus at the Head of the Table says, ‘I’m so glad my mom feels comfortable around me and that she’s just talking about anything at all. She was so sick for so long, that there were years when she hardly said a word. I just love the sound of her voice, and I know there will come a day when I’ll miss hearing it. And as for that guy in the video, he’s doing the best he can. And as for the guy in the mirror, of course he’s protecting himself. That’s usually what people do when they’ve been hurt. And he’s standing up so much more than he used to. Standing tall, after all, isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s something that takes time. Slow and steady wins the race.’”

[This blog post is dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Boundaries are about starting small, enjoying initial successes, and practicing until you get your relationships like you want them. 

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about going to therapy (blog #15)

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This evening I went for walk and listened to a segment on NPR called The Secret History of Thoughts. The program focused on weird or dark thoughts that people have (like “I’m a loser” or “I should kill myself” or “I should kill my wife”) and whether those thoughts are normal or not. Fascinating, but the part that caught my attention was when one of the reporters said something like, “If I were going to see a therapist—not that I need to—” and then continued.

And it kind of pissed me off, and here’s why.

Since starting therapy a little over three years ago, I’ve been pretty open about it. Granted, until this blog, it’s not something I’ve posted about on Facebook—like, Hey everyone, I cried in therapy today!—but all my family and plenty of my friends know. In fact, they’re probably sick of hearing me say, “My therapist says” because I say it A LOT, to the point that even I think, Good God, Marcus, stop talking about your fucking therapist.

Not that I actually stop.

But the point is that therapy hasn’t been something I’m ashamed of. It’s actually something I’m proud of because it’s helped me so much. And whereas most of my family and friends are quite supportive, and although there are some exceptions to what I’m about to say, the feeling I get from most people who hear about my seeing a therapist is like, “I’m sorry your life sucks so bad that you have to do that.” And behind that feeling there’s another one that goes, “I’m glad I’m not as fucked up as you are.”

Now let me be clear—I’m not a mind reader. I don’t really know a hundred percent what people are feeling. But I’ve had a number of friends tell me that they thought they needed to see a therapist because they’re dating a serial cheater, or because all their friends are users, or because they got drunk and started crying in the backseat of an Uber. But they don’t go. One friend told me straight up he knew he should see a therapist, but he couldn’t go because people would think he’s crazy.

Sadly, I don’t think my friend’s alone in his perception. I think it’s why the NPR reporter qualified her statement about “if I needed to see a therapist” by saying “not that I need to,” like, “not that I’m crazy.” (By the way, my therapist says everyone is bat-shit crazy; some of us just hide it better than others.)

To be fair, I think there’s a big misperception about what therapy is. And all I can speak about is my experience with one particular therapist who approaches therapy in one particular way. I’m also very aware that just like medical doctors, dance instructors, and prostitutes, not all therapists are created equal. And a lot of it comes down to whether or not your therapist and you are a good match for each other. All that being said, it’s not lying on a couch and talking for an hour while someone else nods her head and takes notes on a scratchpad. It’s also not taking LSD, which I just read was Gloria Vanderbilt’s experience when she saw a therapist. (Apparently that used to be a thing.)

Honestly, I used to think that I didn’t need a therapist too. Knowing what I know now, it would have been helpful a LONG time ago. But I ended up in a relationship that was a big mess, and somehow was lucky enough to notice something, and here’s what it was. My grandpa always took care of my grandma, who was mentally ill. My dad has always taken care of my mom, who is mentally ill. And I was starting to take care of someone who was, quite possibly, mentally ill. So really, I was curious if I was repeating a family pattern, if I was attracted to someone largely because they felt—familiar. (Spoiler alert—the answer was yes.) On top of being curious, I was fucking miserable (because there were a lot of other issues in addition to any that related to my family history), which was a big motivator. So I made an appointment.

Before I went to therapy that first time, a friend of mine sent me a 22-minute YouTube video about psychotherapy that I can’t recommend enough. It features two psychoanalysts talking about their profession. One of the things the guy in the video says is that we all have a basic understanding of our emotions, and that’s like having a high school diploma, which is fine. You can get by with that. But going to therapy, he says, is like going to college. It’s a way to better understand your emotions, and therefore better understand yourself.

For the last three years, almost every time I have a therapy appointment, I’m excited to go. I’m almost always in a better mood when I leave than I was when I got there. It’s an hour totally about me and my well-being, I always feel listened to and supported, and I never feel judged for anything. And in the last three years, my relationships have improved, there’s way less drama in my life, and I treat myself better. I don’t mean to sound like an infomercial, but who wouldn’t want all those benefits? Who wouldn’t want to spend an hour with someone who tells you, “You’ve got to stop using Tinder because the quality of guys you’re meeting is ZERO POINT FUCKING SHIT”?

To be fair, there have been times when therapy has been really difficult. I’ve had some tough confrontations with people that I love, and I’ve seen more than one long-time friendship come to an end. (My therapist told me that at one point during her own therapy, her therapist was her only friend.) But despite all the changes, I’ve always felt like there was someone there to help me. I’ve never felt completely alone.

Caroline Myss, a spiritual teacher who’s one of my favorites, says that truth and change go hand in hand, that the reason we fear the truth, that we don’t want to admit to ourselves that our partners are cheating or that a loved one is doing drugs, is that we are afraid of change. She says you just can’t have the truth and not have change. So inevitably we end up running from the truth or any place we might find it. Change is just too scary.

So I get why people stay in bad relationships and don’t do anything about it. I get why it takes being fucking miserable, maybe hitting rock bottom, before you’re willing to go to therapy, or see a medical doctor about that lump in your breast, or go to twelve-step program. It’s probably less about what other people think, and more about the fact that it takes a lot of courage to face the truth and the change that comes with it. That’s a hard thing to do. I won’t lie and tell you it’s not. But I believe it’s worth it, and I believe we’re all courageous, and I believe that no one is alone.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Abundance is a lot like gravity--it's everywhere.

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