I just returned from counseling. The session was okay; I talked about Mr. R. more than I wanted to... it started to make me feel concerned. I know it's authentic to work through this stuff, and it is counseling--not a conversation with a friend in which I need to be worried about being obsessive. This is the business of sorting out the story of my life, and I guess the thread of him runs heavily through the current pages. I also managed to talk about my mother a bit... I left feeling hopeful, but not happy, per se.

The most clear reward of my counseling so far has been that I feel a true sense of release in my friendship with Ms. F. since discussing my ambivalence about her wedding a few weeks back. Something has shifted now that I have allowed myself to see that I projected the uncertainty and "ickyness" of my unresolved issues with Mr. R. onto my relationship with her. I feel like the pendulum has swung back in the right direction, and I've stopped "blaming" her for things with him (since I needed someone to blame, and couldn't comfortably feel displeasure with him over the impossibility of my feelings). Odd how incestuous these relationships had gotten.

And I also acknowledged that Ms. F. is consistent in her demonstrations of affection and care for me. I needed to stop blaming her for me feeling fringe in her life when she'd made every effort to let me know I mattered to her.

Another delicious taste of wisdom from the good doctor came when she told me that it is "dangerous" to remain in a place (physical, emotional, etc.) when it's been made clear that we need to leave. She said this was the greatest point of potential calamity not to heed internal or external indications that a situation has run its course. This in the context of my job, and my need to really write for my life's work--and the road to this being through graduate school.