Out of Thin Air

In the spirit of honesty, let me start by saying that I have nothing in particular to write about. I have been working with a new therapist for several months. We’ll call her “Stephanie.” I am writing this today in an effort to make her like me; to make her proud of me; to show her that I can, indeed, follow her recommendations.

I am a very good codependent.

But truthfully, Stephanie and I click well, and I have made good progress with her. To give myself some credit, I’ll say that I’m a recovering codependent. (I can’t divluge all those details yet. I don’t know you; you are a stranger. And I am a Scorpio. We’ll give it a minute.) I can say I have been blocked creatively for several years (I keep trying to put a number to it. 6, maybe? 7? Several. A lot). Recently, I’ve been working with Stephanie on unblocking whatever it is that is blocking me– keeping me from writing– which is what I say I want to do.

I’ve got ideas about what’s blocking me and why, but I may never know. According to Stephanie, we don’t need to know all the details. In fact, we can’t usually know all the details. And sometimes the search for the answer really just serves as another way to keep us blocked, stuck. To keep me blocked, stuck.

I told her the last time I felt remotely interesting or creative was in grad school. So, we’re talking over 15 years ago now. (Surely, I’ve been interesting in the meantime from time to time, at least a little?) One thing that I loved then was writing a blog. It was on myspace, for those of you old enough to remember. Livejournal before that.

Stephanie loved this, and she asked me to start a blog. This idea energized me in the moment. A blog? What fun! I thought about it off and on, off and on over the last month. I let all the negative and critical self talk keep me from finding this old account I knew I had created once upon a time or starting a new one.

But I have an appointment with Stephanie tomorrow, and I want do my homework. I may let myself down over and over, but I don’t want to let her down. I am, after all, a very good (recovering) codependent.

full disclosure: I wrote this yesterday. I did not publish it. I met with Stephanie today, and she said that’s fine. She also said, “maybe publish it.”