How does one communicate, explore, explain, or even understand what happens, and why?  I suppose thats what I try to do with this blog (occasionally) but I'm not sure I actually do.

My sessions are typically at 7:30am and there's a certain feel to that hour.  The building her office is in is actually an old manufacturing building for horse drawn carriages.  It's a brick building with high ceilings, thick wood floors, and odd shape rooms.  There's a lot of artists who rent space there which gives it a somewhat funky feel.  I think if I were to come back in another life as a building, this would be the type of building I would be. 

Once again, at 7:30 in the morning we're usually the only ones in the building, which I like as well.  Because a lot of the lights are turned on by motion detectors, much of the building is darkish as I walk through it.  Today I wore my favorite Frye boots which are very loud on the wood planked floors of the empty building.  An echo of a person that is walking the line followed me.

As I entered the waiting room of her studio she greets me, without actually seeing me, with 'Morning, come on in'.  I sometimes stop in the waiting room debating whether to go in or not.  I sometimes tease and tell her that I'm going to stay out in the waiting room while she sits her office.  Somehow conducting and intimate discussion at a safe distance. 

Today I stop in the doorway between the two rooms.  I can't quite convince myself that I can do this.  That I want to do this.  So for the first 15 minutes or so we talk with the office doors wide open and me leaning against the door frame.  Sometimes I need a warmup (or is it cooldown?) before I can really talk, today is one of those days, except I can't be distracted by the small talk.

I don't make any eye contact, and for some reason, because I'm standing I stare at the high ceilings.  Although it's my normal not to look at her, I typically stare at the floor, at her red rug, but not the ceiling.  Eventually, at her request I move in a little bit.  She's getting a stiff neck looking at me from my place by the door.  So I take about 2 steps in and lean against the wall that is opposite from her.  But after about 30 minutes of standing  my legs start to get a little tired, so with my back against the wall I start sliding down until I'm in a crouching position.  And I can tell you, at the ripe age of 46, that position is even less comfortable than standing for 30 minutes.  But, for the brief two minutes I was down there, I realize that I'm in the corner, almost literally, hiding. 

As quickly as a 46 year old woman can get her ass up, I finally decide that I need to sit.  However, instead of taking my usual spot on the couch I sit in the antique-ish, wooden, straight-back chair by the window.  That way I'm not too comfortable, and I can jump if necessary.

So after about 30 minutes, we finally start our session.

We talk for awhile about the missed communication via text we had this week.  I've been having a tough time the past week or so and she's been amazingly supportive and available, but when she didn't respond to my request 'How many times can I see you this week', I spiraled out of control. 

We've certainly had missteps before regarding texts and from an 'adult' perspective it's been really helpful to work through them.  Of course I hate when they happen, but in a weird way it's helped me negotiate this strange thing called 'relationships'.  And like most misunderstandings, after all is said and done and both sides are heard and understand another crazy thing called 'connection' happens.  And each time we've had these types of issues my reactions aren't as dire as the previous time and I can usually stop myself from thinking the worse.  Unfortunately that's not what happened this time.

I can't even bring the reaction to her today.  I'm embarrassed and ashamed that I reacted like a 3 year old.  And I'm also angry that I let it bother me, that I've allowed my self to trust her, only to be blown off.  But much like an episode of I Love Lucy, we both finally realize that not only can texting be easily misconstrued but test messages can actually not be received.

We each took out our phones and compared what was sent to what wasn't sent.  It was different, and of course at some 'crucial' responses.  There were even a couple times where she got a 'failed' message indicated that I didn't receive the text, but in fact I had.  So this whole time I'm thinking not only does she not care enough to respond, but when she does she's sort of repeating herself. 

After all this, I was afraid that she would deem the texting too unreliable and renege on the offer.  But, although she was very concerned, and extremely apologetic (although it clearly wasn't her fault) we're still gonna go with it, because it really has been helpful, for both of us.  She teased though and said from now on she'll send everything twice.

We talked about lots more after that.  My walls came down and I was able to share so good stuff with her, and even some weird/hard stuff about couples counseling.  But this post has gotten too long and I really have to get some work done, so I'll have to save it for another time.