Sugarless

Yesterday CW sent us a therapy manual she wrote for her work with narcissistic personality disorder. On the cover of the manual she lied about her credentials, and I took a couple of deep steadying breaths designed to calm the brief moment of emotional chaos. Stifled laughter but also something darker that I prefer not to acknowledge yet.

A. continues to send me small notes which I refuse to answer. I will not be forced into this conversation; I just won’t. These thoughts about these people are connected by the DSM thread. But let’s not forget that the DSM is just a construct, and a colonial one at that. 

Shawn is going away for a week and I feel a little adrift in anticipation. We have been together a lot since I left the old job and started working from home. We share a staff room. Codependence might creep up on me. 

Nothing.

I don’t really say things here anymore. I wonder what changed, exactly.  Many things, maybe. 

Everything is different now. I am about halfway through the doctorate. I am really doing it, resplendent with imposter syndrome. In some spaces I feel like the smartest, in some spaces I cannot speak. Mutism is my theme.

I have taken over an important portfolio at the university where I work now. My manifest destiny persists. 

Shawn is going away for a week with his work. I was meant to be with D-dog but this has not worked out this way; our D-dog died. We don’t have dogs anymore. And that is a strange thing; we were a house full of canine madness for so long. I will be alone for a week and I will not mind that, I think. The quiet is okay. I am choosing differently now. But I miss being buried in the pile of sweet pups who just want my warmth, and nothing more. 

I live more in my head these days, less in my heart, and this is a challenge because I trust my heart more. 

Inhale. Outhale.