the positives

I think I’m going to stop seeing my therapist.

Last week he told me to try focusing on the positives in life.

What, I said, like just tell myself that life is good over and over again?

Sort of. Maybe not so much that life is all good, but that there are good things in life and you have some, he said.

I must have been nonstop complaining. I wondered if I complained too much and got under his nerves and this was his way of snapping at me.

I mean, it’s not like I’m unaware that there are things to be happy about in my life, I said. But I come to therapy to talk about my problems. The gratitude thing has never worked for me.

I looked at him through the computer screen, his head rendered in aliased pixels, a little smeary in places and a little blocky in others. I wondered if he cared about any of his patients. I wondered for the thousandth time why I care whether or not he cares about me, wondered if therapy was doing me any good, wondered why I have to pay for someone to talk to about personal matters, why I can’t be like a normal person and drink my feelings away, watch football and make my feelings go away, eat my emotions, all the other ways that people cope with difficulties in life.

I wanted to tell him that people focus on the negative because of evolutionary reasons. We don’t need to remember that the snake that bit us was beautiful and the way the light gleamed off the green skin reminded us of our mother’s jade ring — we need to remember the snake bit us so we will run from the snake next time.

But I catch myself. I’m sure he knows about all of this. Instead of directly telling him to go fuck himself, I pivot to sharing an update about my sick mother. We saw her the previous weekend, out at a restaurant with my sister. She made me fill out a healthcare proxy form so that I can tell doctors to let her die or not intubate her if she is in a coma or something like that. There’s still no real diagnosis for her nausea but I think it’s anxiety-related. She still has covid too — eight weeks of testing positive.

See, I’m thinking about the positive now, I told him.

Yesterday, stormy. Bomb-cyclone hurricane battering New England. Thirty years ago this would have been a blizzard. Now it’s sheeting rain.

stop thinking about the negative, stop thinking about climate change, stop thinking about waste and inefficiencies and the stupidity of people. stop stop stop, just be positive, talk about an upcoming trip you are SUPER EXCITED ABOUT or the fact that you sort of got promoted at work or how you have finally started to grow more muscle mass, this is what normal people do, why can’t you just be fucking normal

Either I can’t or I won’t. There’s something inside of me that doesn’t want to, never wants to.

The fences held against the wind, for the most part. There’s a section near the neighbor’s garbage area that could use some patching — a couple of new slats, a supporting beam. I think that maybe I’ll fix it but then I remember I’m still not done with Christmas shopping or getting the rubber flooring down in the basement and I change my mind.

Some water leaked into the basement, too, in the usual spot. I’d already installed flooring against the edge where the water creeps in and the water pooled around there. I think this is OK. I think the water will slowly exit through the concrete floor, which absorbs water and breathes moisture. I hope it exits before there is a chance for mold to form.

And down the chimney, too. I put a bunch of old towels in the fireplace area to absorb the water and by the end of the day they were soaked and heavy.

Tasks go on my whiteboard.

get a gutter expert to verify drains are working, directing water away from house.

research what to do about water coming down chimney. is it a flashing issue? or something else? do I need to call someone?

I will look at these again sometime in January, after the holidays are over.

Our latest IVF cycle was a nightmare. Next Generation in New York City. Overpriced and shitty service. That all would have been okay if we’d had any success but no. I can’t even talk about the details, it’s just depressing and I’ll have to re-live it. I couldn’t even really get into it with Scarecrow (my therapist.) I just told him it was a failure and I’m tired of the failures and tired of my wife J’s emotional distress. After the cycle we had to wait 5 days to have sex because of the invasiveness of the procedure and she didn’t want to, turned me down even after a date night, I made braised salmon with yams and brocolli and shucked oysters, got flowers, charmed her. She’s going through a lot, I wasn’t offended that she turned me down later, I never want to be intimate with her if she’s not into it, that’s no fun for me at all, but I hate that IVF affects our intimacy. And it’s not just IVF, two days before that she was dealing with her parents who are old and demented and pissing and shitting themselves at home and it makes her cry, spikes her anxiety, complain complain complain. I wonder if I should take a page from my therapist’s book and tell her to focus on the positive when she is telling me that her dad is talking to the kitchen table as though it is his old friend Nico from 50 years ago while sitting in his own filth. All Saturday J she was alternately tense and lethargic and I couldn’t get her to be interested in anything — finally I took her out shopping even though she didn’t want to, and after half an hour of walking around stores she loosened a bit and became like her old self, commenting on the dumb christmas music (simpleeeee haaaaving a WONDERFUL christmas time!!!), buying some caramel sea salt chocolates for us and puperino treats for a cute doggo that sometimes visits the library where she works — she was finally looking into the future and buying things that might be fun or interesting. Sunday I brought her coffee in bed and saw my opening, she softened, I kissed her where she likes to be kissed, rubbed her where she likes to be rubbed, and we bonked around a while. After the second round she looked happy again, messy sex hair, relaxed, no more talk about our dying parents or our dying planet or therapists or anything at all, just soft skin and big brown eyes and love.