My therapist and I are emerging from Serious Crisis #327. The emergence involved: one pumpkin pie; one pecan pie; one chocolate cheesecake; one large under-skin sebaceous lump; one proper cuddling session.
Cuddling is essential when you are little.
I am little.
I am about 7.
Seven is a difficult age because you know so much, you understand so much, yet you look so little. You are little, too. You need your milk warmed up for you; you need someone to make your bed; you need help organizing your book bag in the morning; you need piano lessons; you need help finding and obtaining books; you need to have your rage heard; you need to have your sorrow heard.
Today my therapist did something extremely moving. I was in the middle of saying something that was really important to me, and she was very absorbed in trying to make me understand that I had misunderstood what that something was about. I have no memory at all of what it was, but I have a distinct memory of thinking at some point during the back and forth, “Don’t fight me on this; I may be wrong, but I need to be heard.” In that instance, because she was very tuned in, my therapist stopped herself in mid-sentence, took a mental deep breath, put the breaks on the train and assumed the physical and mental stance that says, “I don’t care about winning this point, I want to hear you.” It was such a powerful moment. It was as if someone were running away away away then, suddenly, stopped, turned around, and came back to you; said, I decided not to go, I’ll stay here, I want to be with you.
I was so touched I dry-sobbed.
Then I became little. I used to be extremely little, but now I’m 7. Strangely enough, even though seven is a lot older than one, two, or three, I don’t feel any less little. I still feel pretty damn little. I love feeling this little, because I get attended to the way a seven-year-old should.
inside(r) psychoanalysis 