Therapy Session #1

Hi. I'm here today because right now, this is the healthiest way for me to digest my life.


When people ask for help, the listener usually wants to know the back story to the problem, so they can have a better understanding of the full picture.


I was independant. I had a good job, making a decent wage and I lived on my own. I didn't have any debt; my life seemed as stable as any American citizen would want it to be. I had my own car, and I could freely move about my life without supervision.


At my job, I met a guy. He didn't catch my eye because he was handsome, he didn't try to swoon me at all. He was approchable, likeable. He was a genuinely good guy. 6'2, 500lbs. He was the nicest person I had ever met in my life. Smiley, and shiny. His heart and personality shone through him every minute of every day.


I thought he was just like me. Somebody in this world looking for another person just like them. Nice, helpful, thoughtful, a care taker by nature. I had lovers come and go in my life, of all races, creeds, stereotypes...none of them were as magnetic as this guy. People loved him. And if they didn't love him, they judged him for shallow reasons.


Time goes on, I keep trying to hang out with this guy because everyone we work with is older, our parents ages, and we were the only people in close proximity to each other that were in our late 20s.


He would always tell me he had an obligation; he had to get up early for work, he had to work a double, he didn't have the gas money in his budget. He was always talking so responsibly. I thought, well, maybe he just doesn't want to hang out.


I had my 26th birthday party, January 5th, 2013. Every year, my very good friend and life coach, Marian Boesen, would come to my apartment in Sycamore, IL, and provide her Psychic-Medium services for me and my friends.


"Who is this Robert? I see a Robert around you," she told me. "Oh he's just this kid from work, I don't really know about him," I was wishy-washy on hanging out with him at this point.


"I like him." This was a serious statement. Marian didn't mess around, she could read people like a book.


"I don't know Marian...he's..." and I was going to go into how big he was and how he still lived with his mother and brother and paid all of the household bills, but she cut me off.


"I. Like. Him." There was no arguing with a woman who could see souls for what they were, instead of what humans superficially judged.


I trust Marian with my life. With my kids life and with my future. She's the only person that has ever given me authentically good advice. She sees circumstances for what they are and she sees people for who they are. She can set anybody on the right path if they want to go there.


I'm one of those people who ended up on my path alone. Save the details of my childhood and growing up, I decided that trusting myself was the best option I had at living a full and decent life; as free from control and manipulation as I could possibly be. But if you've been one of these loners like myself, you can appreciate and understand that this is a lonely path. It might be free from the bullshit you can't stand, but it's also free from the joyous moments, the togetherness and the fullness of a unit. Tribes have their tribulations, but they also have their benefits.


Fine. I let it go and trusted my gut. Marian is always right, so I asked him if he wanted to come over again.


"I don't know..." he started. But, something visibly changed in his thought process. I could see it on his face, a eureka struck his frontal lobe.


"You know what? I am going to come over. I'm gonna come over to your house tomorrow." He was excited.


"Wait, I'm sorry, can I come over to your house tomrrow? Is that good for you?"


That shit made me laugh. "Yeah, that's fine. I can make you breakfast and we can finish off the Edible Arrangement I got for my birthday yesterday." That was the beginning of my marriage.


Bob made the hour and a half drive down to Sycamore to meet me for breakfast. I made bacon first, then I made pancakes and put the bacon in the pancakes to make it seem way fancy. He showed up at my apartment and knocked on the door.


"I left it open, you can just come up the stairs," I yodelled from the second floor.


Here he came, with a twelve-pack of sprite in tow. "I wanted to bring something but I didn't think orange juice would keep on the long ride, so I brough this pack of Sprite." He was very thoughtful.


As he got to the top of the stairs, I was standing there smiling, and I finally looked down and noticed his tattered shoes. He had these gym shoes that looked like a paper shredder had gotten to them. Ripped up, squeezed tightly around his foot with stretched out shoe laces. His one shoe made him walk on the side of his foot.


He had told me before that these shoes were made special for him, and that they were supposed to give him extra support. They looked like the support had left long ago.


He could see me grimace at him for the first time. He knew I was looking at his shoes, and wondering why a guy who made 50 thousand a year could not buy himself some decent footware. Especially since we were on our feet all day at work.


"I know my shoes look bad, but they're $300.00 shoes, and I just don't have it in the budget right now." It was the saddest I had ever seen him look in the year I had known him.


I wanted to immediatly change the subject and make him feel better. "Come on into the kitchen, I made somethin' good for us."


The rest of the morning was hilarious. We talked, we laughed, he felt comfortable sitting on my 1990's Ethan Allen I had gotten from the Salvation Army.


"I have never sat on a couch and felt like I wasn't going to break it," Bob laughed. I felt comfortable around him. We picked at the Edible Arrangement my cousin had sent me and talked about people at work. We were ourselves.


That was the beginning of my Marriage. And today, I am at a crossroads. Thinking about these memories makes me want to sob, because I can't believe where we are today. How different the dynamic is. How hard it is to be in the same room with each other. The tears just come. I'm 3 months pregnant with our second child and I feel like I've isolated myself from the father because I feel so hurt.


I want to go back and erase all of the contamination to our relationship, to our Marriage. I want to weep and stop everything I'm doing and be silent.


And I don't know what else to do or how to let go, or move forward. I don't know who to turn to for advice, or who I would even trust at this point.


I'm in the allegorical cave and I don't wanna go outside and see what life is really like. I just want to drink my coca-cola and take a long nap until this new baby is born.