Shelly
Knees were very interesting to look at.
There were a lot of moving parts in that area of the body. One of the sculptures I was working on recently was Hermes in flight, and I remember struggling with the angle of his legs as he was in the air. It was the most active I had ever made that part of the body for a sculpture. During anatomy classes in art school I had my fair share of drawing them, but I had never really sat there and thought about them. The subtle strength and grace in their movement, changing the entire trajectory of your journey.
The alternative to looking at my knees was looking at my therapist, and that was not what I wanted to do with at the current moment.
I had been staring at his eyebrows for most of the session. Eye contact could still be hard when the conversation was intense, and I knew it was going to be intense. They were bushier than the average set of eyebrows. I wondered if his partner would have ever tweezed them. They actually reminded me of Eugene Levy’s eyebrows. That guy always made me laugh.
The current expression on Dr. Reeds face was not something that would make me laugh.
So again, knees.
I had been seeing Dr. Reed for the last two years, after my previous therapist from Chicago had retired. Beau had helped me find him, as there was one therapist in Green Valley, and they were associated with the small Catholic church. While I had nothing against organized religion, or the concept in general, I just did not want my therapy to also throw in some guilt. I had enough of my own to carry, thank you very much.
Which was the reason I was staring at my knees currently. Dr. Reed had asked me a question, and the response made my insides feel as if they wanted to be outside.
Dr. Reed had asked me if I had the opportunity to talk to Beau about my “feelings”.
Normally I would not be so dismissive about how I was feeling. I had made so much progress over the past five years, especially when it came to communicating my wants. And it helped when your partner had what Ashley had dubbed “golden retriever energy” last time I had spoken to her. Something she had picked up from Sandra. I didn’t need her to elaborate more than that.
But this was something that would make me feel as if I was kicking said golden retriever. And I didn’t want to do that.
Dr. Reed had helped me at our last session two weeks ago, where we had role played best and worst case scenarios. The worst case scenario involved a volcano erupting in the middle of my art studio, the shattering of my tea cup collection, and Beau kicking me out.
Dr. Reed had appreciated my imagination. I could tell. His eyebrows had said everything his otherwise professional demeanor could not.
But right now, I still hadn’t answered his question. And I knew he wasn’t going to ask again, or move on from the topic. I may have been able to get away with staring at my knees until our time was up, but we still had about 35 minutes left to go.
I closed my eyes and practiced one of the grounding techniques that I had found effective. What were five things I could identify with my senses? I could hear the air conditioner running softly, a blessed relief to the July heat. The vanilla scented candle from the lobby was strong. My socks against my soles of my feet were slightly damp, and that was just gross. I could taste the remnants of the blueberry donut from at the shop before I left for my appointment.
Taking a deep breath, I looked back up at Dr. Reed. His face was relaxed and patient, as he sat there waiting for me to answer.
I knew he would not judge me.
I still struggled with judging myself.
“I have not.”
His expression while blank, did not appear shocked.
“Any reason why?”
Taking another deep breath, I revealed, “I’m still afraid.”
He nodded at this. His note pad was sitting on the arm of his chair, pen in his hand as he looked at me.
“Did something change in the time you left last time to today that made these fears different?”
I nodded. “We- we had a doctors appointment this week.”
“How did it go?”
The fertility doctor had discussed what another round of in vitro would look like, how much it would cost, statistics about success rates. She had also discussed considering other options, such as surrogacy.
Beau held my hand through out the appointment, offering an encouraging squeeze every so often. We said we needed to take time to talk about it.
But then we went home, and decidedly did not talk about it.
After that appointment we went back to the shop. We talked about a few of the cars that were coming in this week as we went about our day. We talked about the dinner that Jethro organizing to celebrate Siennas newest script being picked up.
He asked me about my latest art installation that I was working on for an exhibit back in Chicago. I asked him about the book he was reading.
On Sunday we gathered at Cletus and Jen’s, where we ate banana cream pie, and I watched at Beau rolled around on the floor pretending to be a bear as he was tackled by his niece and nephews.
But we didn’t talk about continuing in vitro. And I didn’t tell him that I didn’t want to pursue it any more.writing here…
