50 minute hour, here I come.

I have the feeling that some people keep what I am about to say a secret.

Which is totally fine.

But, see, I grew up with the idea that this is the kind of thing that is very normal. Like getting the oil changed in your car. Or maybe even, God forbid, changing it yourself (which is something that I need to learn to do, if I am really gonna be like Rosie the Riveter. Does an oil change perhaps take a staple gun? Cause I am handy with one of those, you know).

But since my mom has her master’s degree in counseling and my pop, being a pastor, counsels on the regular too, I am not at all embarrassed of the fact that I am about to get some real good therapy.

And I can’t wait.

See, I haven’t been able to afford it, so I was just trusting that God would take care of my bruised up heart and funny little thoughts, but turns out, he’s doing that and letting me get some therapy.

And it’s one of those kinds of things in which I cannot help but keep going over the scenario in my head. I walk into a room and there he or she is: my counselor. Or even advocate, which is a fancy and nice word that my friend Christian used to describe this person. And he will probably be proper enough to use all three syllables of my name and he will say it with the kind of intonation that isn’t quite musical but certainly makes you think of warm things like fires. But contained fires, you know. Cause it’s real safe all up in this room. And he will ask me why I am here and I will have at least a thousand things to say but I will start at the beginning, just as soon as I figure out exactly where the beginning is.

Is it my first memory? When I was three and my brothers were visiting me at the hospital? Traipsing into my little room like the smallest boys orphanage there ever was, giving me homemade cards and telling me that they hope I get better soon.

Or was it when I was turning 13 and terrified at the idea of growing up? I thought that if I hadn’t disappointed my parents by now, then becoming a teenager surely would; that growing up was something that I didn’t know how to do, but knew how not to do even less. And there it was, inevitable. While there I was, scared. But then I turned 13, and I was still me, and that has been a lesson that I’ve learned over and over again–that no matter what happens to me, nobody can take me from me, if that makes any sense at all.

Or was it when I came home to a husband that was no husband at all? To the news that everything I held sacred had been put up for sale and bought by a cheap story that was supposed to make somebody feel better, but that somebody was far from me.

ding ding ding ding

I think we may have a winner.

But then again, I think all of my story is worth talking about to a professional. I think that people benefit from sharing their heart in safe places and, like I said, ooh, somebody pinch me, cause this girl’s going to therapy.

And I couldn’t be happier about it.