This situation/event happened back in October of 2012 and I’ve never published it (I hadn’t even started this blog at that point). I can’t sleep tonight for whatever reason and there’s a lot of things happening in my head and maybe if I just write for a bit, I can chill out and then, as Samuel L. Jackson so affectionately puts it, go the fuck to sleep.

M first told me, many moons ago, that she would be leaving on vacation for a week in October…and when she told me this, I naturally had a mini panic attack…but I quickly recovered because I was offered a chance to see K in her absence…because by this time, I had finally let her tear down my wall and trusted her enough to make more than just eye contact with her. (For those of you who do not follow me on a regular basis and/or are new to my blog, M is my primary therapist. She facilitates a DBT therapy group along with K, who is also a therapist, just not my personal therapist…but once I agreed to go to group, K became part of my care team. Group is over now [I “graduated”] but K still remains my “backup” therapist, as you will read, when M is gone/not available. The two bitches are double-teaming me…and I don’t mind at all. But don’t tell them I said that…) This appointment was scheduled many months before it happened and while I knew it was going to happen, I hadn’t given it much thought…until it was time to start thinking about it because it was here. M asked me if I was anxious about seeing K and I said anxious wasn’t the right word…I was more intrigued…curious. I could see our appointment going in many different directions and my awesome mind was running rampant thinking about all of the possibilities of what 50 minutes one-on-one with K might look like (I hoped she had a fire extinguisher handy).

My one-on-one session with K got a whole chapter to itself in my journal. I really wish I could have recorded that session (along with other eye-opening sessions) so I could play it again and again. I wanted to remember every word that was said…the kind words (I don’t hear them often), the validation and the encouragement…I want to hear that “Yes, you can!” and that “You are awesome.” over and over. Like taking a picture of a great/memorable moment…a memory you want to remember and have forever. I want an audio recording so I don’t forget and so I can “look back” and remember meaningful moments…my warm fuzzies. This appointment was bound for something from the get go…I don’t know what but for one, it was my first individual appointment with K and two, when you have an appointment with me at a time that required me to get up before the sun, shit’s gonna be kinda…something. I do not like mornings and I like them even less when I have to be up before the sun is (still being awake as the sun is rising is something TOTALLY different). The night before this appointment, I made the very stupid mistake of setting my alarm tone on my phone to the song “Good Morning!” from “Singing In The Rain.” It sounded (no pun intended) like a really good idea when I downloaded the tone at 2 AM…it didn’t sound so awesome at 7 AM. I heard that first “Good morning! Good morning!” and I was like FUCK NO and hit the snooze button with a bit more gusto than I should have. I’m glad they build phones to withstand beatings like that. It took me a minute to get going but I got up and out the door and managed to make it to the clinic on time without receiving a speeding ticket (which is not as easy as it sounds if you know me at all). I checked in and told the lady to not even give me a clipboard and I just filled out my P90X right there on the counter. (I know that P90X is a workout program…but the form I have to fill out every time I see M, K or go to group has a form number that has a P and a 9 in it and because I’m a smart-ass, I just started referring to the form as the P90X. If nothing else, it makes M and K smile and laugh.) THEN (if an early appointment and it being with K weren’t clear indications, this next moment should have been one of my first solid clues that the day was going to be anything but “normal”) I ran into a former co-worker from the clinic I used to work at as a pharmacy technician. Homicide was preempted because she is an LPN and I actually happen to love her to bits and had ironically just been thinking about her/missing her the previous day and then to see her there in the lobby threw me off for a minute. You usually don’t sit in the lobby of a mental health clinic expecting to run into people you know…and my guess is that we usually hope we DON’T run into anyone we know for fear that our “secret” will get out or be turned into gossip. We were able to catch up for a few minutes before she was called back to her appointment. I sat there, waiting for K, when I realized that I had written my medical record number on my P90X mixed in with my bank account number…323/393…toe-may-tow/toe-mott-oh (clue #2 that that day was going to be off….but also remember that it was morning and I still wasn’t totally coherent)…so I cursed and fumbled for a pen to change the # before K came to get me. I finished just as she swung the door open and asked me if I was ready. This should have been my third indication that today would not be normal because K seemed to be armed and ready for me….hell, even seeing K one-on-one was not “normal” so…screw anything and everything that made me think that day would have been just another beautiful day in the neighborhood (a beautiful day for a neighbor…would you be mine? could you be mine? won’t you be my neighbor? I’m done…sorry…). As we were walking down the hall, I explained my number goof to K in case she couldn’t read it and told her that her only saving grace that day was going to be that she was seeing me in the morning and I wasn’t quite functioning yet, despite being up for about 2 hours at that point…therefore, she would not be forced to endure the full impact that is me after 11 AM. (I, as stated many times, am not a morning person and I think I kind of tend to be a little more incoherent, “prickly” and less talkative when I have early morning appointments. Note to self: ask M if I am a bitch when I come to early morning appointments). I also told K that my own mother had walked out the door as I was finishing getting ready that morning and as she did so, told me to, and I quote, “Cut K some slack today.” (My mom was joking of course…well…in how she said it…she was probably quite serious in telling me to behave/be nice to K).

I tried not to go into this appointment with an agenda or plan of any sort…I wanted to see what would “naturally” happen if you were to put K and me in a room together and close the door. Nit-picking through the diary card was all fine and dandy and took up the first 20 minutes. (And this is probably irrelevant and stupid, but I laughed to myself when I was led into her office and she told me to cop a squat in the black chair because I was GOING to remind her that she said I could have the white chair [which is K’s chair/position when in session…but it looked SO comfy] if I did an awesome job on my diary card and that I could play with the dollhouse if I did an even awesomer job…but I didn’t argue with her and took the black chair…only to watch her sit in her computer chair the whole time…so I’m like…wasted white chair usage! I also noticed the toys in her office. I was all over her office like the rover on Mars because it was all new turf to me. She told me that M has toys in her office, too…but M hides them better than K does. Note to self: seek out M’s toy collection. Like I said…completely irrelevant and dumb….but not unnoticed!) I stated in my “Diary Card Decoder” instruction manual that I knew I would find myself explaining things to K and giving her more details about me and my life and my journey than I would if I were with M because K doesn’t know all that M does and I didn’t know what K knew…so I spent quite a few minutes here and there filling in some blanks. I would also like to note that K said I wasn’t just M’s patient…I was everyone’s…as in the entire DBT team’s patient…which is true if you want to get technical…but I never thought of it like that. It was many many months before I learned that all the DBT therapists had weekly meetings to discuss the group and the people in it. I still don’t know how I feel about that…people that I’ve never met knowing my business…especially since I was clearly a hot topic at one point because of my refusal to speak…and was or am a hot topic now because of my refusal to shut up. K started out by talking about my journey, namely my DBT/group journey because that’s pretty much all she has seen/been a part of. And so we rehashed the “early days” of my DBT journey…when the group was conducted in the head honcho’s office. I don’t remember if K said anything to me that day about what she initially thought of me when she started facilitating that group. She knew I wasn’t talking or making eye-contact or doing much of anything in group besides just sitting there, but I don’t remember if she mentioned any judgments she had made before getting to know me better. She saw that I had a solid wall up and I was making it quite clear, without words, that ain’t nobody gonna tear it down. And so she watched me continue that behavior for a few more weeks…until I walked into group one day after Christmas. I have a “conviction” that we, as group members, don’t know what others take away from a session/group and we, as patients, don’t know what the therapists take away. This is one of those moments. I hadn’t EVER given this a second thought…yet it is K’s defining “J Moment”…the moment she knew that there was more to me and inside of me than what I was showing people. Do you know how she knew that? For Christmas 2011, I asked for (and surprisingly received) a pair of bright pinkish-purple (‘cactus flower’ is the name of the color on the box) Ugg boots. I LOVE these boots…obviously, if they made it on my wish list for Santa. The simple act of me walking into group, wearing those bright colored boots one day (with a closely matching backpack that I had no intention of pairing with the boots…it just happened) is what made K look past my wall…and it was then that K knew there was someone awesome behind my wall.

She asked me during our session who, in their depressed emotional mind, goes out of their way to wear something so…bright and joyful and…awesome? After she asked me this, I was like…what was I supposed to be doing, walking around wearing all black? And she said no J, that’s not the point…the point is that you didn’t care what others thought…you loved those boots SO much and they were/are SO you that you wore them until it got too hot to wear them (and then we noted that it was time to get the boots out again because the weather had changed). I was literally rendered speechless after hearing this. Something I chose to wear…something I didn’t think twice about wearing regardless of how I was feeling…was the defining moment for K and is what led her to believe that there was some awesome somewhere inside of me. And it was that day that K set her sights on me and decided that she was going to fight for me and not give up on me. A whole year had passed…ten months without words…two plus months flooded with words…and many more days passed where I asked myself how in the hell K got to me. How did she break down my wall? Why didn’t she give up when I pushed her away? Why was she so persistent but not obvious about it? Because I chose to wear a pair of bright pink boots. And those boots told K that there was more to me than just tears, than willfulness, than a wall…there was/is some awesomeness in here just waiting to be let out. (Cue appropriate song here: “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper) I don’t think it’s all out or that I am all better…but I concede that I am a bit better than I was two years ago. I’ve told M before (maybe K, too…I don’t remember) that she will never look at a starfish the same way ever again. I will never look at and wear those boots the same way ever again. They are no longer just made for walking. As I sit here on my bed, looking into my closet and seeing my shoe rack…I can easily spot those boots because of their color. And I see them now very differently than I saw them before my one-on-one session with K. I see ruby red slippers now. I see indirect opportunities to let some of my awesomeness out just by wearing those boots. I now call those boots my “Boots of Awesome”. And I now also get a warm fuzzy feeling whenever I see them or wear them, knowing that it was those boots that led me to K, however directly or indirectly. If I had never wanted and received those boots…would K have seen what she saw in me that day a year and a half ago? Everything happens for a reason. (Anecdote: I wore those boots to an appointment and group the day after my appointment with K and yes, I purposely chose to wear them because of their new-found meaning…but unlike before, I walked with my head held a little bit higher and I also now paid more attention to people’s reaction to them. In the few short hours I had the boots on, I received no less than three direct comments about my shoes, said in some variation of, “I like your boots.” [This included one from K…but I think her comment had a double meaning. “I like your boots, J.” translated into, “I like your boots and I know you’re wearing them because of our conversation yesterday and I am glad that you were listening and I know your are choosing to wear them to flaunt your awesomeness, if only indirectly, and I think that’s awesome.”] But I also observed other people commenting on my shoes indirectly. One incident involved two girls in the lobby of the clinic…one pointing out my shoes to her friend and a few similar incidents at the mall later [peripheral vision is an amazing thing..so don’t think I don’t see you when you point at me {or my feet} and whisper]. In my head, as I noticed this, I was all, “You better be talking about the awesomeness of these shoes and not talking smack about the chick wearing them…but thanks for noticing anyway.”)

I told M (and K indirectly via a dissertation) to NOT ever make assumptions about my progress or about how I’m feeling based on my behavior because yes, I can walk into group and take it on like it’s open mic night…but I still rehearse my death every single day. This is the point during the session where K turned out to be absolutely right, offered me a new perspective and touched on a subject M and I had only briefly touched on before: fear.

Therapists and their metaphors…I swear to God…first I got a boat, then I got a cliff, now I have a ladder and a door. The door is my own door that is currently “open” to suicide…as in I choose to let that still be an option for me. The ladder is my…how do I put this…my getting better/healing scale? A mountain to be climbed and conquered? With rung one being not really okay sorta kinda working on things…and the highest rung being all out better and awesome and no longer requiring therapy. K again brought up another group moment that I never thought twice about. This was many months before my incessant talking began, when our group was down to about five people. I don’t remember everyone who was there that day but K noting that I had even talked that day tells me that they were people I had been around for some time and I was comfortable enough to talk in front of them. And K reminded me that, on that day, I had brought up a recent epiphany of mine wherein I acknowledged/admitted I was a little scared to get better because I didn’t want to get better and then be constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for the next heartbreaking moment to happen. Why bother to get better when you know there are going to be more things in the future that will knock you back down? Is it not easier to just stay down and endure that pain while you are already on the floor than it is to get up and better and fall back down to the floor? I don’t want to be on that top rung of the ladder and fall through the open door of suicide. I would rather stay “unhealthy” and “comfortable” by staying close to the choice of suicide like it’s a security blanket and wavering between rung one and two or not even holding on to the ladder at all instead of giving myself even a CHANCE to get better and climb higher…because if I fall off the ladder from rung one, it won’t hurt nearly as much as it would if I fall from rung ten. And K was/is absolutely 100% right. She knows it. I know it. And she knows I know it. Her final question to me that day was this: What would it take for me to close my suicide door (maybe even lock it and throw away the key) and climb up to rung ten on the ladder? And I honestly told her that I didn’t know. She then said something that implied I WANTED a better a life and to move forward and continue life. And I interrupted her and said no, that’s not what I want. If you ask me right now what I want…I will tell you I want to die. I don’t want to get married anymore…I don’t want to have children…I don’t want to explore the rest of this life. And K again rendered me speechless by telling me I don’t want those things because I have my suicide door wide open and I’m barely hanging on to the ladder. Getting better scares me and I want a clear, unobstructed escape route in case things get bad. Goddammit…she’s right. JOHNNY! TELL HER WHAT SHE’S WON!

I later wrote a letter to K and firstly, thanked her for the headache I got from thinking about that session all day (literally…because I had been up all day) and I wanted to thank her for not giving up on me and for seeing past my wall of “dark colors” and seeing instead, my bright awesome colors…my “true colors”. I had absolutely no idea that anyone could see that in me at that point in my journey. And yet I am still floored that K saw it at all, much less at a time when I was trying my HARDEST to not let my “true colors” show. When I thought I was really good at hiding is actually when I slipped and let someone see that there was more to me than doom and gloom. Who knew?

Here is a reminder of J’s philosophy on life: all things happen for a reason…there is no such thing as luck or accidents or coincidences. Yes, I initially freaked when M announced her vacation, but I was offered a chance to sit down with K, one-on-one, for the first (and probably the last) time…and I took it. I took it not having a single fucking clue what I was getting myself into or what I would take home with me that day. My mind was running rampant about what a one-on-one session with K might be like…and through ALL of the scenarios I envisioned…what actually happened was not EVER one of those scenarios or even close to anything I imagined or came up with. Is it not true that the things we worry and think about most are often the things that never happen; the things that actually happen are the things that never cross our worried mind and blind-side us? I feel speechless yet I’m filling up this blank white space with words. I go to type or open my mouth to say something about that session…and I pause at the beginning of every sentence and at every attempt to find the right words. Neither K nor myself liked the idea of M going on vacation…but in what other instance would it have been possible for the two of us to have had that time together? The appointment was made to keep my sanity in check and allow me to have my verbal/physical Xanax in the form of another person I trusted…but what I walked away with (aside from a headache) is a moment where I’m like…fuck. I don’t have any other words, I’m sorry. And it’s not a bad fuck…just like a…fuck…a stunned “fuck”…I’m floored, I’m speechless, I’m grateful. K knew more than I gave her credit for…and she knew it long before I knew it and before I ever even said a word to her. And if we hadn’t been given that time together, would I have ever known about her J Moment? Would it have made a difference before now if I had known? Would it make a difference if I never knew? Would I have been touched the way I have been? While I knew I was scared of getting better before, would I have been able to discuss it like I did today? So honestly? K hit the nail on the head and I give her full credit for swinging the hammer. I had been aware of being scared…even bringing it up to M…but no one had ever talked to me about it the way K did that day. (Don’t take that sentence to mean that M and I didn’t do this theory justice, that we didn’t talk about it…because we did…just not in depth. And sometimes, hearing it and talking about it with someone else/someone “new” gives you a new perspective.) Not only did I believe K and I were given that time for a reason…the no accidents/coincidences conviction continues when I tell you that that day only got better (or more eerie, depending on how you want to look at it). Guess what song I heard after I got in the car and turned the music on. Are you ready for this? “Reach” by Gloria Estefan. No big deal, awesome song…so what? Read:

Some dreams live on in time forever
Those dreams, you want with all your heart
And I’ll do whatever it takes
Follow through with the promise I made
Put it all on the line
For what I hoped for at last would be mine

If I could reach, higher
Just for one moment touch the sky
For that one moment in my life
I’m gonna be, stronger
Know that I’ve tried my very best
I’d put my spirit to the test
If I could reach

Some days are meant to be remembered
And those days, we rise above the stars
So I’ll go the distance this time
Seeing more the higher I climb
That the more I believe
All the more that this dream will be mine

(Remember here that I have a very “special talent” for finding the most appropriate songs for the most appropriate situations…and/or they find me…this was one of those moments…I was like, “Really?!”) This song may have been written and sung for Olympic athletes many moons ago…but who’s to say I’m not competing in my own version of the Olympics…competing against my heart and the world to win a gold medal? When people ask me what it is I want, what my goals are, I answer, “Death.” And even though I give you that answer, I hope you know me well enough to know that deep down…maybe wayyyyyy deep down…I really do want an awesome life…marriage and children and all the perks of growing up and growing old. That’s the American dream, is it not? When I say I don’t want those things anymore…it’s because I don’t think I can have/deserve them. It’s not that I can’t have them…but in order to get them, I have to climb up a ladder that scares me and it’s a ladder I don’t think I can climb. I guess I just realized I have to “reach” for that dream and climb the ladder K spoke of to get what it is I want. The part that stops me from doing that is fear, yes…but I’m not sure I know how to climb that ladder either…much less get to the top of it without looking back and shutting the door marked “Suicide”. I try to picture what my future might be like if I could even just get to that next rung on the ladder…never mind getting all the way to the top. (It’s too overwhelming to think of how to get all the way to the top…I have to just focus on the next rung, the more attainable/possible thing at the moment. One foot in front of the other…I have to get to rung one to get to rung ten…I can’t skip a step/rung.) But I can’t see anything….I can’t envision a life without chaos and sadness and pain. I can’t see a happy me. I know that life isn’t all butterflies and rainbows for even the most “normal” of people and even if I can make it to the top of that ladder, no one can promise me that something won’t come along and knock me down again…but can I find a spot…achieve that dream…where I’m at the top of that ladder and when something does go wrong, I only get knocked down a rung or two instead of knocked all the way down? Your guess is as good as mine. For now, I suppose I will hang on to the first rung or just hang on to the ladder in general. I’ve gotten this far (hell, I never even had a ladder to climb before)…and I need to try to just keep on keepin’ on and hopefully, I will be able to answer those questions and achieve that dream…preferably sooner rather than later.

I have told this story to many people over the years and as simple and humorous as it is, it is a total J-ism…the way I have lived from the time I spoke my first words: “Do it self.”…(or it’s at least what I used to be and that part of me has gotten lost somewhere among the chaos). There are about eight and a half years that separate my half-brother and I in age, so when he was 18 and graduating high school, I was only about 10. I remember, distinctly, sitting in the stands of a high school football field. I had never been to a graduation before and I sat there in the stands with my mom and dad and watched in awe as the senior class filed into the stadium. For most school graduations, all the students match so it can be very difficult to spot your brother among the estimated 400+ other students. As they filed by, not only did I see their matching green caps and gowns and their yellow/gold tassels…I saw something else…something that made some students stand out among their peers. I nudged my mom and asked, “Mom, what do those ropes mean and why do some people have them and others don’t?” My mom told me that those were called honors cords and the students wearing them had earned them because they did very well in school and got very good grades. I pondered this for a moment…as much as a 10-year-old can ponder such things (back in my day and at this age, I was still in elementary school and grades came in the from of + signs and – signs, simple “pass” or “fail” and annotations about what needed to be improved). After thinking about those cords and what they meant, I turned to my mom and said, “Mom…I want those cords some day when I graduate.” Without any further mention about this moment or the “goal” I had unknowingly set for myself at such a young age, I proceeded to earn those honors cords…three…separate…times. I remember my high school graduation (my first of three graduations) and receiving my honors cords. I had forgotten about what had transpired at my brother’s graduation by then. But as my mom proudly took pictures and glowed with that glowing proud mama look…she reminded me of what I had said 8 years prior at my brother’s graduation…about seeing the honors cords and wanting them. In June of 2002, I earned them. I had a goal (even though I had forgotten about it)…a dream…and I wanted it bad enough to make it happen. This is usually how I operated until about two years ago. I had a dream, set a goal, wanted something bad enough that I did everything in my power to obtain it. I set the bar high for myself in many situations involving school and life in general…and not only did I clear the bar several times…I usually cleared it by several feet…above and beyond the minimum effort needed to reach that goal or dream. By high school and then even more so in college, people were learning that if I was told I couldn’t have something or wouldn’t be able to do something…I set out in my stubborn ways to prove them wrong…and I did it every single time, never faltering. (I have experienced failures of course, but I cannot ever recall failing to achieve a goal I set for myself, even if it meant I had to try more than once to do it.) After I graduated high school and continued my education at a local community college, I sat down with an adviser at one point and outlined my goals…the major I wanted to focus on, how I wanted an AA degree first and then transfer to a four-year university. I also told the adviser that I planned on being a full-time student and take as many classes as I could while ALSO working full-time. Obtaining an AA degree in two years (the normal time it takes to complete it) usually requires full-time enrollment which leaves little time to devote to much else. That adviser told me that I would not be able to get my degree in two years with a full course load made up of mostly night classes while balancing a full-time job. She told me it was impossible…I said, “Watch me.” Not only did I graduate in two years (I actually finished the quarter before the graduation ceremony was to take place), I did so with about 20 more credits than I needed to meet the requirements of my degree. I also did it with honors cords around my neck…again. There was also an incident in high school where I was in a class that was teaching Microsoft certified training for their Office programs (it was sort of a self-guided hour where we were allowed to go through the material at our own pace). The time it typically took to go through the training for all five programs and take their accompanying tests (and pass them, which wasn’t easy) took about a year or more. I hold the record, to this day, for not only being the first student to obtain certifications in all five (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook) programs (including core and expert level) but for doing it all in less than six months. (Expert level completion of all five programs earned me the title of “Master MOUS”: Microsoft Office User Specialist.) In the ten years since I graduated, no one else has ever done that. I used to love proving people wrong…not so I could rub it in their face and say I told you so…but to prove not only to them, but to myself, that I could do anything I put my mind to. Telling me no was the ultimate challenge to me. “Oh yeah? Watch this.” I don’t know what went wrong or why I can’t do that anymore. Back my “healthier” days, if I had been given a task such as taking care of myself and getting better and then had a lot of people telling me I wouldn’t ever be able to get better…I would have gone to the ends of the earth to prove people otherwise. If I had thought about suicide during “healthier” times yet was told I had exactly one year to fix myself and make that choice disappear…the old me would have gone out and done it in six months or less, just because she could. A year? HA! I don’t need a year…”Look, Ma! No hands!” And while me getting better was not assigned a specific date or deadline…it’s been communicated to me that I’m taking too long. I don’t know where or when I stopped caring about proving people wrong and doing so with flying colors. I lost that part of me somewhere over the last seven years. There is a goal I have, maybe more, that I want to achieve, meet, and exceed people’s expectations. There is a part of me that wants to prove everyone wrong. Yeah, I fucked up…yeah, I made some poor choices…but watch me as I come out on top…like a firework…showing you what I’m worth…letting my colors burst. I wanna go boom, boom, boom and be even brighter than the moon, moon, moon. I very much want to do that…but I lost that drive/desire somewhere and I don’t know where to find it. I don’t know how to get that part of me back. I am fiercely independent and stubborn as hell, especially if you tell me I can’t do something. There was a time where I would have run your ass over in order to achieve a goal or dream…even if it was stupid or futile, even if I didn’t care about it or wasn’t passionate about it. I would do it anyway just to prove to you that I could. I wish I still had that kind of passion…that drive…that tenacity…that incentive…be it the result of achieving a goal (e.g. good grades) or just for the opportunity to prove you wrong…to prove to you that yes, I can do it…and don’t you ever tell me that I can’t. Secretly, I want nothing more than to come out of this as one BAMF and be able to contact M and K and say, “Look guys! No hands!” When people tell me I can’t do something or am incapable of obtaining something I desire, I see as it a challenge…a dare. Or at least…I used to. (As a side note: M now knows this about me and she often “challenges” me, using my own “powers” against me for the greater good. Even if I don’t want to do something she asks of me, she knows that more often than not, I’ll cave and do it anyway [with flying colors and a dash of awesome] just because I was inadvertently “dared” to.)

I know the answers to all of this, as in I have the information and can tell you what I should be doing and thinking. What stops that information from being executed? As I see a long and emotional day winding down, I wonder what is keeping me from climbing a little further up the ladder right now…right this very minute. I didn’t know when I finished processing my appointment with K and I don’t know now, seven months later. And chances are, after a restless night, I won’t know the answer tomorrow either. But I suppose, as long as I keep on keepin’ on and stop trying to push K and M away, I will be given more days and more opportunities to try to find the answer…to find the “Real J” people keep talking about and remembering. This J is lost right now and doesn’t know if it’s safer to just stay on the bottom rung and cower “just in case.” I want to meet (or see again) the J who wants so very much to be on the top of that ladder, not afraid to fall. If (or when) I find the answer, M and K will be the second to know…right after me.

Now excuse me while I go put on my Boots of Awesome…

Post thought after original post: After my first attempt to take my life, I made I guess what you could call a vision board. I clipped a shitton of quotes, words and pictures out of a bunch of different magazines and made a huge collage out of them. Everything I clipped out and glued to the board pertained to things I want to be, things I want/want to achieve (i.e. being debt free, being happy, etc.), things that make me smile, things/people I love and am passionate about, things/people that inspire me and things that represent my personality and who I am/want to be as a person. After I finished making the vision board, I hung it up on my wall. Later on that year, I had to kill some time before an appointment with M and her office is close to a mall, so I went window shopping. It was that day that I first saw those cactus flower colored Ugg boots in person and I wanted them enough to ask for them for Christmas. I see my vision board everyday, mostly just in passing or in my peripheral vision…but every now and then, I take the time to really look at it. One such time was a week or so after the aforementioned session with K. As I was reading all my quotes and words, taking time to really look at each thing and remember why it was put on the board, something caught my eye: a picture of a pair of pinkish-purple Ugg boots. As for why I clipped out that picture in the first place: 1) I wanted a pair [not necessarily that color] and 2) I loved the color…I love color period and I love having/wearing things you don’t see everyday and things that not everybody has. There are a lot of people who have the beige and black Ugg boots…but I had never seen anybody wear the ones I put on my board. And to this day, I have yet to see anyone else with the same boots. The expression on my face, had it been captured, upon seeing that picture on my board after my session with K would have been a priceless Instagram moment. Eerie? A bit. Coincidence? I doubt it. Goosebumps? Me too.