August 2: Solid Gold, Session with My Therapist, King Kongish

Back to Zaphod and company . . .

"Zaphod!  Wake up!"

"Mmmmmwwwwerrr?"

"Hey, come on, wake up."

"Just let me stick to what I'm good at, yeah?" muttered Zaphod, and rolled away from the voice back to sleep.

"Do you want me to kick you?" said Ford.

"Would it give you a lot of pleasure?" said Zaphod blearily.

"No."

"Not me.  So what's the point?  Stop bugging me."  Zaphod curled himself up.

"He got a double dose of the gas," said Trillian, looking down at him, "two windpipes."

"And stop talking," said Zaphod, "it's hard enough trying to sleep anyway.  What's the matter with the ground?  It's all cold and hard."

"It's gold," said Ford.

With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid.  It gleamed like . . . it's impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a plane made of solid gold does.

I had a difficult night.  a difficult day.  This morning, I sort of felt like Zaphod waking up after being gassed.  I haven't been sleeping well for a while.  If I'm lucky, I get about four hours of restless slumber a night.  That makes for a very long day of work.  I'm not complaining.  Simply reporting my state of mind and body and spirit.

This evening, I had a session with my therapist.  It was tough, exploring a lot of painful issues.  My therapist is a wonderful person.  She's kind and compassionate and truly cares about the patients under her care.  And she doesn't put up with bullshit.  I sat on her couch (yes, I was on a couch--some cliches have a basis in reality) and became totally unglued.  And then, piece-by-piece, she put me back together.  I went into her office feeling like a vibrating pane of glass.  Like a window holding back a tornado.  I came out of the session, still vibrating, but somehow feeling more level.  That doesn't mean that I won't fall apart again later tonight, but, at the moment, I feel saner than I have in a while.

It always helps to have someone to talk to, confide in, trust with all your deepest secrets and hopes.  I've been lucky.  For the last almost thirty years, I've had this with the woman to whom I'm married.  It has been one of the greatest gifts of my life having her as my partner.  Sure, we haven't lived on a planet made of gold, but we have been happy even while we struggled.  For that, I thank God.

Yet, there are also times when problems seem King Kongish in scope.  As if I am standing in the deepest part of a gold mine and someone has switched off the light.  That is where I currently am.  That's why I saw my therapist tonight.  I needed someone to hand me a candle, point me in the right direction.

Saint Marty is slowly climbing from black-and-white back to technicolor.