-Ize

Something has to go.

Yesterday, in the car, I recited the things I’d say to my therapist the moment my ass hit the leather sofa. The street spun around a little; 50 minutes wouldn’t be enough time. I’d have to talk fast. (I have to say all of these things!)

I expected to have to choke back a bunch of tears. Dr. Knispel told me I was allowed to cry there, threw me a box of Kleenex (yes, the brand, and yes, tossed), gave me his last licorice-flavored Altoid. And then I began with the welter and whelm.

These aren’t things he’s never heard from me. Last time I rambled on like this, he rang his imaginary secretary to bring in the gun. This time, though, he was full of cautionary tales. “You’re not in that danger area yet, but do [this], and I’ll have to see you twice a week.” [This] is one of the things I will have to give up. Fortunately, it is not beer. Beer, he says, is good.

I never did cry. In fact, I think I see this guy because he always makes me laugh. It's been more than a year since I walked through his doors, and the first thing I told him was that it seemed like only yesterday that I was crazy*.

My homework is to do a thing that ends in –ize, that ugliest of suffixes. This one: prioritize. Something has to go.

There’s no room in my therapist’s office for wishy-washy. “Which is more important: money or your MFA?” Beer, I say, but that’s not in the rules. I have to make my choice, then and there, and he knows it will be the honest one.

Finances can be the root of the most serious depressions. They contribute to suicidal ideations (not that I have those). Yet I can’t honestly say money, much as I’m a material girl (who could really enjoy rolling naked atop a million dollars), is going to solve my problems.

So today, once my contractual priorities are set aside, I have to write my manuscript plan. Time to start living that cake life. All the other stuff goes where I can fit it, unless I can’t fit it.

A few things will not go. Beer, as many know, is my analgesic of choice. One is a fine relaxant. Two provide a prolonged pleasure. My daughter stays; she is my Joy, and I now have to work so that she doesn’t become too much like her mother. And my husband stays, too. He is sometimes a hard place, but he is also a rock. We are bookends.

And I stay. Which means you stay, too.


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*Note to my students: I've never been crazy.