A Snail's Pace

On the other side of TGD's office door, life went on with it's usual bumps and bruises. When close friends learned that I was in therapy with a specialist for Post Traumatic Stress, questions about therapy abounded. Well-meaning friends with well-meaning questions would call immediately after my therapy appointment to "see how it went."
It soon became clear that Tuesday night was NEVER the night to call. I was uncommunicative more than ever and to be quite honest, pretty pissed off at the world. No one said anything right, no one cared or understood enough and the questions were stupid. "Was she nice to you?" "No," I answered, "she was mean." "Did she make you feel any better?" "Oh yeh, in just 45 minutes everything was resolved," I would answer like a snot. "Does she think she can help?" "No, she says it's totally useless but thinks I should spend the money anyway." And my personal favorite, "did you tell her about your weight issue?"
"Um, I didn't see a white cane by her chair or a German Sheperd Guide Dog by her side, so I ASSUME SHE ISN'T BLIND," I yelled back.
Yeh, Tuesdays. Gotta love 'em.
On the inside of TGD's office, issues were popping up like a child constantly playing with their Jack in the box. Cranking up my childhood when,"POP", a memory of abuse that I supposedly had resolved would rear it's ugly head. It seemed I had this memory bank of run on sentences when it came to my childhood.
At one point TGD said, "You mention that you were alone most of the time and no one was around. Can you try and go back there and remember what you were feeling and thinking as this little girl?" Once again TGD's shoes came into view. Shoes, always shoes. "I remember sitting in the front on a fence. It was a summer morning. I think I'm about 5 years old and I'm just sitting there swinging my legs back and forth and looking at my sneaks. They were red keds with white tops. I loved those sneaks. I felt taller, I felt like a grownup. I had shorts and a plaid shirt on. I think it was the first time I remember being able to think. I watched the cars go by. There weren't that many back in 1953. It was early. I had to get up because my mother had just come home from work after working the 11pm to 7am night shift at the White Tower. She always slept in my bunk bed. Never the big bed that Big Frank, my stepfather slept in. It was always my bed. Everyone had to be out of the house so she could sleep. The plastic curtains in the front room and the kitchen were drawn as were the venetian blinds. It always looked like night time, no matter what time of the day it was."
"Suzy, those are very good descriptions of what things were like, but were you happy, sad, looking forward to the day to play?"
"I remember feeling that there was nothing to do, no one to play with that early in the morning. I was on my own."
"And just what does that mean, "you were on your own." Shit. This woman and her shoes were relentless. WTF!
"It means just that," I snapped back. I took care of myself. I walked around, roller skated, and just sat around until I saw the "signal" that it was ok to come back into the house."
"What was the signal?" TGD asked. "My mother would open the front blinds. That meant she was up and I could come back into the house."
"What happened when you went back into the house"? What the hell was this? Why poke around these small details?
"Nothing," I responded. "I would watch TV and wait until my mother put the tv dinner in the oven."
"What time do you think this was"? Man, this was aggravating. "I think it was around 4 because the Mickey Mouse Club was on." "Was your mother happy to see you"? Okay, now TGD was getting on my nerves. Where's that clock that says the god damn session is over?
"No, not really. I just kept out of her way. She always seemed crabby and tired and never really had time to do anything else except get ready for work again that night."
"What would she do"? Ok, last straw time. "She would set up the ironing board while the Swanson Fried Chicken TV dinner was in the oven, open the ironing board and dampen the uniform she had washed and hung out to dry."
Then, as I sat there explaining my mother's routine looking at TGD's shoes, I launched into this detailed description of how she painstakingly polished her white shoes she wore at work. She polished those fucking shoes as if she were preparing for surgery. She had bottles of Sani-White shoe polish in the cabinet over the sink. The box had this stupid looking nurse smiling over her white shoes. My mother stroked those shoes with the applicator that came with it, like she was bathing a newborn baby with the utmost gentleness and care. Those stupid white shoes got more attention than I did.
"Well, time is up," TGD said. I would like to continue these thoughts next week.
Now the 45 minutes were up.