#up1701steps things

If I had not read about people here choosing to get counseling, then I would not have taken the step to get counseling myself. So I am going to blog a little about how counseling is going for me! 

How long have I been in counseling?

Like, barely in. I am three sessions in. It is not a magic bullet. 

Is it working?

It has a grounding effect on me. I feel as though I am able to not do downhill between sessions, whereas before I began I was just steadily getting worse. 

What’s it like?

I talk. My counselor asks questions. 

What’s helped the most?

I felt like I was going crazy, that my life was just out of control and terrible. By having a sane, trusted adult listen to me, I am now regaining the ability to say “yes, this part of my life IS actually abnormally bad, but THIS thing I was actually just blowing way out of proportion.” 

What things were that bad?

Health. Finances. Career. I had experience juggling 1-2 before, but all 3 at once really sunk me. Especially as physical movement was my go-to to feel like myself and heal, and all of a sudden, it was not an option for a year.

Are you getting better?

I do think that, yes.

How much is it?

- Okay, first order of business. Jody and Donna? Gay. Engaged. Right off the bat, like under 5m into the episode. Sets the tone. We are HERE we are GAY we are CHAOTIC GOOD. 

-Claire is back to team-up to save Cas. Eileen is here to fuck shit up like the bamf she is. If Rowena is there too will I complain? Fuck. No. 

- WE RESCUE. KEVIN. 

- Apropos of nothing, THAT ABSOLUTE BOP OF A SONG for Death comes back and we get another oscar-worthy clip; I can STILL feel my bones vibrating into another dimension from the shock wave sent by that scene. Maybe Dean is the new Death, idgaf? Just bring that song back. BRING IT BAAAACK. 

- Sam saves the world (some more), gets an amazing monologue, gets the siiiiiiickest classic car that rivals the Impala. Now, when I say an amazing monologue, I mean it makes me cry from the deep truths it reveals about humanity and is a direct result of Sam carrying at least half the plot solidly on his big strong shoulders.  

- Speaking of which, I demand a wedding for Sam and Eileen because I have DISTINCT visions of like, how that can incorporate lots of people and allow for heavenly visits from the departed such as Mary and Bobby who are force-ghosting themselves there... I love it. I need it. I demand it. I have visualized this scene to Pachelbel’s Canon in D for YEARS and it is TIME to slam it down. 

-- Jack comes HOME. He comes THE FUCK home.

- The cast breaks the 4th wall at some point or every point during this but perhaps especially for DESTIEL. like specifically, it is revealed that Dean actually said “I love you” to Cas first some time ago; a montage of "missing" Destiel moments is revealed from the past 10 seasons; Dean rescues Cas from the empty and/or he breaks himself out which is arguably just as sexy; THE GOOD BARN and THE WINGS and THE HANDPRINT all return; Dean kisses Cas in the style of that WW2 kiss

- furthermore, somehow Dean and Cas are separated one more time, but then Cas comes back in the middle of Sam’s wedding descending in a wave of white light and Dean turns around and BAM there’s Cas, there’s so much crying and kissing, we have never felt so moved in our entire lives

- UNTIL! the episode’s penultimate scene is a there is a borderline terrible but heartfelt and still incredibly moving musical rendition of COMWS sung by the entire cast and we cry like like well-nourished babies that only register the emotion of hunger and have no object permanence 

- Impala flies into the sunset ala Grease 

- Jack is driving it and everyone else is piled into the backseat, except for their new golden doggo who has been formally adopted and named Miracle 

One downside to social media is that you actually have statistics on how little people think of you or your place in their lives. Looking at the number of friends I have on facebook is...depressing. I hadn’t really used that site in YEARS and all of a sudden I go looking for people who meant A LOT to me and they’re just gone. Either deleted their account entirely, or perhaps unfriended me, or blocked me...

I thought I was a good person. Memorable enough. Kind. Funny. And when I can’t find these people I just wonder...am I a terrible person? Forgettable? Or is their choice just not about me? 

Sometimes I unfriend people because we’re past the point of being in one another’s lives physically, and never really bonded enough to feel permanent, and lack similar interests. But the people I’m looking for...knew me. We spent hours together. We had good times. I miss them, I wanted to know how they were...and they’re all just gone. Why was I...disposable?  

Most losses are a mystery that I can accept, can justify and rationalize. 

But the person I cannot move past the absence of is my first best friend. We met in first grade and for two years we had the time of our lives. And then we “broke up.” So young. Six? Seven? It was only third grade. We had a fight because she moved away and the next time I saw her- at her new house, meeting some of her new friends- she said she’d found a replacement for me. Imagine the person you love most in the world telling you you’re replaceable. 

I ran.

In hindsight, she clearly didn’t mean  “let’s stop being friends,” but that hindsight took me years. In the moment, I was just...HURT. I was a child. I didn’t have the language to tell my parents, or tell her parents, or tell her, all the distress that hearing her say that made me feel. So I just said I needed my mom to take me home. And that we weren’t friends anymore. And that was it. 

I moved on. 

I wondered, sometimes. But life had gotten busy.

Fast forward to high school. Senior year, I got to my first and only football game. I look around. And there she is. Top of the bleachers. How did we go to the same school all that time and never see one another? But we had. Never gotten placed in the same class. Different hobbies. The cafeteria was so large you couldn’t even find people you knew existed...so there we were. I didn’t even know what to say. I love you? I miss you? You hurt me? I’m sorry? I don’t remember what I said. But I said something. Something not good enough.

The past few weeks, I’ve been watching She Ra... I feel like the entire arc of She Ra was written for me. The inability to articulate what you feel, except by saying something you don’t mean. By being mean. Childhood friends...and maybe being something more. Growing apart. 

I did not get the peace I wanted with my Adora. I had the chance. I think I planned- always putting it off- actually trying to become friends with her again that summer after high school, when I friended her on facebook. Who knows why I didn’t try. Maybe because she didn’t reach out to me. Or because I was too busy trying to adapt to moving, meeting new people in a new place. Maybe because I knew there was a part of me that wanted more; and she had a boyfriend. So I stayed silent.

 (I’d almost fixed it, anyway. I’d found her. And someday, I would fix it. We’d be friends. Someday.) 

I looked for her last month, when all this started, and last week, when more rained down on us...and I can’t find her. Is she gone? Am I blocked? Does it matter? 

I have no right to her choices. To her time. Everyone deserves their own choice in who they let in their lives, and when they ask you to leave them. My desire is selfish, and irresponsible. I don’t want her back, this stranger that never called to beg me to come back or reached out to try again; what I want is to not have lost her when we were children so we could have grown up together. I want an impossible thing. And yet...

I will always love her. 

I miss her. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. 

I wish you would find me. 

Why did you leave me?

Is it really over? Forever? 

I lost her twice, and twice she let me go. We’ve even. But it feels wrong. Like a snagged thread on a sweater, begging to be tucked back into place. A bad note on the piano on the middle of a song. It feels like finding a sock in the middle of the road- familiar, but in the wrong place. Lost. 

When the phone rings, I am filled with dread. Picking it up is worse. Because when you pick up, you can break things that you should have tried to keep intact. 

I never got over it. And I don’t know what to do, because...there is nothing to be done. It’s just lost, and time keeps moving. 

When I was a little girl, my best friend and I broke one another’s hearts over the phone.

When the promo came out, I think I expected Dean’s “super het masculine performance” to come from a place of Dean feeling intimidated by Wally, or something. But the episode turned that idea on its head. 

Instead, I think Dean looked at Wally and realized this hunter was scared and needed some confidence, and picked good old-fashioned macho talk as a way to try and help him calm down. So yes, Dean is performing traditional masculinity; but the idea that his motivation is to make Wally feel better is a nice nuance to his character this late in the series.

Whether Dean is also reacting via performance to his own insecurities about a latent desire to date Cas himself is another issue worth exploring. Because I do think Dean took things to an extreme with the waitress, since he asked her to go out with Cas without ever having any actual input from Cas one way or another. Why is that?