First face 2 face session. 19th July 2021.

-
14th July 2021.
Notes:

A book on attachment theory glows under the afternoon sun, 
by my left knee, 
as I sit here on the sofa.
The sun hot on my neck. 
I'm so sleepy. 
Monday is finally face to face, covid restrictions lifted - and I've got used to this safe distance, this abeyance, this kicking it into the long grass, this avoidance! 


And I'm overstepping the mark in my own, quiet way .

.
But I'm still here, having stated very clearly that I am not your client - and I'm reading your  email - saying that you are so glad I have asked for the sessions to be more in line with what I need... 

Genuinely I am in a fog. 
If I was in your role I would ask 'my client' about her feelings
 unless I didn't want to know! 

OK. I'm cracking up! 

And I've got to be rational, patient and strong. 
And right now start practicing what I need to say. 

OK, it goes like this. 
 I didn't realise that you mattered to me until I felt that I would break apart into a mess of dislocated sorrow to say goodbye. 

As I write this I feel worse and worse... 
You trusted me, so do I now feel untrustworthy? 
Yes, I haven't said directly how I feel about you, 
and because I harbor hope. 
Hope is part of limerence.
Talking only on zoom is like being inside a Faraday cage, no sense of electrics.

And now I'm scared.
Scared that there will be no electricity.
Scared that there will be electricity...

I want to say that I just want to know you and you to know me.


29th July 2021.

I honestly didn't know what levels of openness and honesty to dare, that day. The sun so hot, the cross over from virtual to real promised more information...but the experience was overwhelming.

I had wanted to see how it felt. 

Chemistry - I wanted there to be chemistry.

I had sat in the car for about twenty minutes, noticing that practicing Wim Hof Method really had changed my tolerance to hot as well as cold. 

One cannot arrive early for therapy, or leave beyond one's time. 

Boundaries! 

Then I got out of my car, took my bag out of the boot and set off down the road. 

Everything was dazzling. The sun bleaching my vision. I was floating in pretty sandals, no heals, slightly Goth, black leather with bronze studs! I had on my grey jeans, my black shirt. On my head a nest of dreadlocks, a Medusa swirl. I'm not slim, I'm not fat. I felt that I looked as good as I can for someone so old, who has just sweltered in a hot car for too long, now walking under a too hot sun, down the too hot road, crossing the road and seeing...Oh my goodness! Is that him? Standing on the pavement watching for me. I keep walking, slow and so mindful not to mess this up - the sandals can't be trusted - and I want to appear super cool, super calm, super collected. 

He waves, and I wave a slow, languorous wave back. 

My eyes are fixed upon him; white shirt, dark trousers, his energy, the way he moves.

This is real!

Inside his room, darkness and silence. I open my bag and take out the super perfect vegan chocolate biscuits bought especially for this day. He made a comment about dogs, and not being able to stop eating, and so the biscuits go back in my bag. And my shields (think of a star ship) were up and failing; his first question scattered across my skin like buck shot, and into my mind ripping my intellect and words into babble.

He - "Well we have been meeting for over a year now, what's it like being face to face"?


But here really is a paradox - right here right now in this room, why is he missing what I think is so patently obvious?

And I end the session describing the kitten carousel, an experiment that corroborates or underpins the Gestalt understanding - that we develop through interaction - linking it to the later work of Rogers of course, not Perls. A plea, really - to join me in exploring the edges, to step out of the known, to use experience, not conjecture...But that kitten carousel, it is ironic that it is still relevant for me, albeit for a different reason. I had quit my psychology degree many years ago, over that kitten carousel - one animal experiment too many!

But certainly it is an apt metaphor for where I feel myself to be right now.




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