One vs. Borg
I suppose to say it was a conservative town would be like saying Attila the Hun just had a bad temper. The five thousand people of this little part of Dixie were of majority opinion that Bill Clinton was the anti christ everyone had been waiting for, that Wal Mart was a viable option for dinner out with the family and most of the Democrats in the country worshiped the devil ( all true based on first hand experience ).
Buried in the deep woods of central Alabama is this little arch conservative collection of church going folks most of whom fear deeply travel much outside the boarders of the State.
Through some very weird karma, a kid raised in Southern California, me, wound up living here in this foreign, or closer still, alien land.
Being in the video business as I was, you meet lots of people and you get to know their taste in movies. I once had a female customer tell me that she was hoping they would remake Gone With The Wind and cast Sylvester Stallone as Rhett. I watched the new releases closely for such a movie but, never was able to deliver. Imagining Sly saying “Yo Scarlet “ piqued my interest too and I started sort of hoping for the same movie. I was always in the mood for comedy and this one sounded good.
I also had an overall dressed weather beaten man come in with his grandson who must have been all of 5 or 6. His taste ran to hunting videos as the only entertainment choice which made him think, and he liked that. He picked up one tape called "Hunting North American Whitetail" while his wide eyed grandson watched his every move. The man said "we don't need no tape bout North America deer. We in Alabama" and he placed the box indignantly back on the shelf.
It was in this town I met a guy who I'll call Ronnie. Ronnie was a tallish overweight high school kid. He had dark straight hair he kept oiled and combed in perfect lines across his forehead. He never wore overalls or jeans, much anyway. He was always smiling and had some subject on his mind to get a conversation started. He was worldly beyond his years from what I could tell talking with him. His interests spanned history, social culture, science and a little mythology. I always thought it strange that he did not have the deep, barely translatable southern accent most in those parts had including his brother. Tim was a muscular, chisel chinned football player a year older than Ronnie. Tim had one of those tough guy acts but it fit his looks perfectly. Tim and Ronnie were outwardly, direct opposites.
I had known them both for perhaps a year or so when Ronnie landed a job at the local pharmacy which also offered videos for rent. He came in and poked fun at the fact that we were now competitors and he was always on a "reconnaissance mission"for his new employer checking us out.
Tim, as I recall, had gone the way most in the area did working for one of the two close by paper mills after he graduated from high school. Aside from the professions and business people in that town, it was the only way to make a decent living. Ronnie was obviously targeting larger fish but his folks were hard pressed to finance any college education for him what so ever. Ronnie just needed school money, not a life at hard labor. He took the job that fit what he was after.
There were three sit down restaurants in town and 3 fast food places. Then, there was the last option of Wal-Mart. The sit down restaurants were a seafood place, a steak house of sorts and a local, do it all diner. When word of a new restaurant opening was leaked, some say from City Hall itself, the town telephones were lit up like it was the fourth of July.
"It's a whut? Whut did yu jus say?!!!"
"I sed, it's a China place a movin in to the diner."
"The diner? They sold the diner??!! Oh Lord help us on Sundies."
A Chinese restaurant replete with the obligatory Chinese family ( a whole passle of em ) was moving into the spot known for many years as, The Diner. Finally, this was news with some meat on it's bones people could get their teeth into. This was Pulitzer caliber stuff for the local weekly and, like I said, the whole town lit up talking about it.
Now, I had been there for some time and I had heard conversations that go on amongst the men on Sunday afternoons after church. I was truly horrified at some of the things I heard and this was, almost, the 90's. Intolerance is a vast understatement. These church going, morally upright ( at least on most of every Sunday ) people harbored genuine, visceral hate for anything other than like minded, like looking people anywhere. I was truly worried for a time about the new family moving in.
On opening day, the place was packed. Wall to wall, overall clad men with wife and kids in tow, Nanas, pawpaws, young couples on their first date. They had all come to sample the culinary delights of the orient as one patron I heard put it "Right here in Alabama too!"
He was as amazed as I was. Not only was there foreign food being served within the boarders of our rural county, foreigners was "runnin ever wicha way, a doin the servin an th cookin an talkin to th people findin out what they wuz gona eat". And the townsfolk reciprocated by talking back to them. An actual conversation or two on something other than the menu could be heard now and again. The people seemed taken by this sudden immersion in another culture.
One toothless but respected local who was well know for his insight into local horticultural cycles and climates, lent his wisdom to the occasion by saying "thayz ever whar an kinly hard t' understand but it sho wuz good eatin in thaya. Hewww!" in talking about all the Chinese people he had seen working the crowd in the new restaurant. This was something akin to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for the place.
They were a hit and I was in shock. I had no idea the people in that town would embrace foreigners, especially ones so very different than themselves, with such open arms. Now, this is not to say that the doors at homes in town were thrown open en masse to have visiting time with the new folks. Still, it was good to see the business doing so well.
They had a son about 20 or so. He and Ronnie started coming into the store renting movies. I was happy to see Ronnie. He had been scarce since starting with "the competition". Ronnie hadn't changed and I found his new friend was equally outgoing. Through his somewhat broken English he also always had a story and a smile. He and Ronnie were seldom seen apart unless they were at their respective jobs.
As it works in small towns, people are very nice and hospitable face to face but, as soon as you are out of earshot, bang, the whispering starts. I know because I have not only gotten a few ears full but I had been whispered about pretty much since the day I first showed my face in that town.
As it always went in that town when people get bored, the rumors start. "Did you know that Ronnie and that new Chinese boy is.........uh, what you call,................homysexall?!"
"Na! How do yew know ayut?"
"Well, Lindy said he seen em going into the woods tgether and then ther wuz N'Orleans.! They went down er and stayed t'gethuh...in the SAME room naw!"
"Good Gawd!"
This rumor plus truck loads more swept the town like fire in a gas factory. After a couple of weeks hearing the same things about Ronnie and his friend I was afraid for them. The town et al was on a pseudo witch hunt and the truth was going to be told whether it was or not. After all this was, well, the case of cases. There was the H word involved in this one and no matter how you pronounced it, everyone knew what it meant.
All the while, behind the scenes as the rumors flew, the townsfolk were tirelessly gathering more facts, comparing notes, and formulating the course of events since the Chinese family had arrived and their evidence trail had started. They worked with the efficiency of an FBI crime lab and had assembled the complete story in a few short days. It was told and retold until it was a different story.
As this pattern runs it’s course, people get bored again even with a story as big as this, and the gossip about the two died down. I quit hearing about them as much. I was relieved for them.
I hadn't seen either of them for some time but, I had heard that Ronnie wasn't working at the pharmacy any more. Something had happend but no one would tell me, a foriegner myself, exactly what.
One day some time later, Ronnie walked in to the store. He looked quite different. His smile was gone, he didn't have his friend with him and his movements were slow, somehow measured with none of the spontaneity I had always known him to have. He asked me if we had any openings. When I asked him what had happened at the drug store, he told me in a very subdued voice that his managers had confronted him with "the facts". They demanded to know if it was true.
Ronnie really could have told them anything he wanted, just as long as it involved being saved, lots of time in a Baptist Church and the commensurate daily praying. Really, it's true. Once, a man in town had almost killed his wife beating her. He went and got himself saved at church and was truly sorry for what he had done and had cried out to God to smite him in open court for his sins. That was his defense and it worked. Not only was he acquitted, after this outpouring the folks in town decided that he had repented and was therefore safe for society ( and his wife ) again.
Ronnie told them instead that everything they had said was in fact true. He admitted he was gay in no uncertain terms and the Chinese man was his partner. They dismissed him at the pharmacy immediately upon his "confession".
Word of Ronnie's admissions spread rapidly and nearly brought the phone system down in those parts according to one company employee. It was a genuine scandal unearthed and shown the light of day and everyone that was anyone needed to see it because, well, this was town business after all. You can’t just have a person in town like that unless everyone knows all about it. It’s just not right.
Most individuals in Ronnie's situation would have left. Just packed up and hopped a plane somewhere, anywhere away from Alabama. He could have at least gone to Mobile where no one knew him and landed a job easily enough.Instead, he chose to stay in a place where he knew he was hated and even feared and try to rebuild his young life. His brother Tim had even said Ronnie wanted to stay in town because it was his home.
Now, he was out asking people who he knew had already condemned his soul to hell for eternity about jobs. Everyone he runs into everywhere he goes knows who he is and exactly the nature of the so called sins he has committed. He has to put up with the scowls and cold eyed stares as he walks by. He hears the whispers behind cupped hands and knows exactly what they are saying.
Some wanted to kill him outright (this is not second hand information) figuring they would be doing the world a service. There is nothing hated more than a homosexual south of the Mason Dixon line. Not even armadillos are despised like this ( it's a hunting thing. The armadillos make noise that scare the deer that hunters want to shoot. The only sensible answer to this problem is to exterminate every armadillo in the south. The same logic applies to gay people who are all so sick you can't get them back )
All Ronnie wanted to do was to live his life on his terms and pay his way for an education.
I left my relatives in Alabama behind and moved north westward in the early 90's to a more culturally open society. I had to really if for nothing else than to pay homage to diversity.
I heard some time later that Ronnie had indeed stayed in town and was getting his life back on track again, to the degree he could, considering the attitudes about gay people he had to contend with. I don't know how he did it other than guts and determination in measures not often seen.
As things for him were slowly improving, they suddenly took a turn in the wrong direction. Drastically wrong. He died in the mid 90's after he had contracted AIDS.
Ronnie,
I just want to say thank you sir. You are one of the most courageous men I have ever had the honor to know and I am truly humbled by your memory
Dear Therapist
I'm finally making some progress on understanding where my wife and I are as individuals in our married relationship. Sounds weird I know. A marriage is a union between two people weather they be gay, lesbian or straight.
We had a very honest talk last night that answered many of the questions that had bothered me over the last few months.
The sum of our talk is this:
At this point I am focused on the final goal of a traditional marriage and family. That is, a monogamous relationship with the woman I love raising our children together. Period. This is the family I have always dreamed of having because the one I grew up in was in no way a family. We were a collection of individuals who all happened to share the same roof.
My wife on the other hand is what she terms more open in her attitudes about monogamy and it's place in our marriage. I have mentioned to you her second life which she has been living on the fringes of since we were first separated. She has never kept this a secret from me, in fact she's talked about it to me on and off since she started attending the meet 'n greets this group holds. As you may imagine, this group has a very casual approach to sex and relationships. It's a swing group and she never tried to make that a secret. I wasn't upset about her going to these because she said she was just in this group for friendship. I believed her.
Finally last night, as I said, we had a talk about this group and what she's looking for in it. She said that she did want casual, no strings sex but she wanted that with other women while we continue our married life ( this supposes we can get the living arrangements taken care of and my son straightened out ).
Here in this sharp difference between her ideas on casual sex and my ideas on monogamous sex lies our, or better my obvious stumbling block. To me sex is a very private way of expressing deep love for someone and actually augments that love. I discovered quite some time ago that sex is not so special without the love that goes along with it.
For my wife it is not. It's like a hand shake or a peck on the cheek or just another bodily function that needs service from time to time.
I finally concluded with my wife that I was willing go down this road with her and try sharing her sexually with another woman and she could, at her discretion proceed. There was one request I had that was that she have her sex with her partner only. No men allowed. She said she would honor my request. Here again I believed her. She has said to me in the past that if we don't make it as a couple she would go totally gay.
The only action she has told me of is that she has kissed with one particular woman but there was nothing more than that.
As this conversation went on we also decided I would go to a meet 'n greet with her one night to meet some of these folks. She says they take place in bars around the area typically on Thursday nights. She has spoken to me about it in months past asking if I wanted to go. I was usually not too interested. I'm willing to try this with her now just to establish some presence in this other life that's developing within her.
Even tough this talk went a long way in quieting some of the fears within me, it has brought to mind many more new thoughts and questions as you may have guessed.
I am worried that some of the pictures that were raging in my head may come back. Namely pictures of my wife having sex with other men. These keep me awake at night and scare me the most. It's a deep fear and I have no idea where it came from. I told my wife I could not handle her with other men, not now, probably not ever. This to me is the ultimate rejection there is no other that equals the cruelty of this act. My wife has known this about me from the start of our romantic relationship.
My feelings regarding another woman having sex with her are different ( I hope ) in that I know my wife is not rejecting me but getting fulfillment in a way I can't. Which ever woman she is with will not be better than me, just different.
So, after considering all this I am wondering if and then how I can attitudinally affect some part of this casual sex life style. It is so very foreign to me when I really think about it. It is contrary to everything I have learned about relationships, love, and my heart. How will I handle meet 'n greets where hands travel freely? How accepting will I be of another woman in bed with my wife? How is it possible to keep love and sex separated? Will the other woman feel the same way?
I am willing to tepidly explore this other life style with my wife just to be with her, and because I love her.
I just have no idea how I'm going to react.
Regards,
Me-
Waiting for the on.
The Doctor returned my call and left voice mail for me.
“I think what you describe is normal for this medication and will pass in 2 to 3 weeks. If you are not suicidal, stick with it. Oh yes, you could increase the dose to 300 mg just to see if that improves the situation.”
I was very ready for improvement. The depression was getting worse and I needed sleep. The night before I called, I could only manage 3 hours or so. The night before that it was about 4. I had truly forgotten the last time I ate or what it was I consumed. Finally the thought of 3 more weeks of what I was feeling was too much to bear. I decided I would increase the dose the next day.
The evening The Doctor left his message was also my regular therapy session. I walked into her office, sat down and started to tell her that I had been diagnosed with depression and I had begun the medication as prescribed. I told her it wasn’t helping and that Doctor had said if I wasn’t suicidal yet I was OK. Midway through the phrase “I don’t know if I’m suicidal or not” I broke completely down. I had never done this in her office before – never. Liquid tears, no longer just dry sand caught in my aching throat, poured from my eyes. For 30 minutes they flowed and I sobbed out my story for the last week. At the end of my session my eyes were drier but they hurt so badly. My therapist said the flow of emotion was a sign that I wasn’t dead inside but alive and I was trying to express that part of me I had kept buried for so long. I hung my head as I left her office not wanting to look at anyone really nor did I want to be seen.
I have spent considerable time and energy in my life mastering the art of being nearly invisible. More exactly this is instinctively being able to impact human senses in a neutral way. I sit in the back of the room or along the side. If I’m in a lit area I am motionless in as much shadow as I can find. I open and close doors quietly. The object of walking is to make as little sound as possible. No thumps, clicks or bumps. In fact, just sitting is hard work. No sudden moves allowed. No sounds to speak of. I’m always alert to the fact that I can do nothing that might draw attention. If I must pass someone in a hall somewhere my eyes are averted and I carry my head at about a 45 degree angle. I learned early in life that any eye contact is an invitation for human interaction and I knew that, when given a chance, people would hurt me unless I knew who they were. Even then they might just for the hell of it. This is why I’m so off balance in unfamiliar surroundings where interaction with strangers is required. If talking to another human isn’t expected behavior I can tolerate these things though.
The twist on all this is that I don’t appear neutral physically. I’m in fair shape for my age and wear my hair long. To my ass in fact. It’s unique for this cultural moment. I ride my motorcycle with the streaky blonde pony tail streaming out behind me. The bike is a black sport bike. Again, unique for my age. Most in my age group ride cruisers. I get lots of stares when I’m riding.
In general you can easily pick me out of a crowd. But this paradox leads to questions-
Why would I want to be unique and stand out in some respects but hide in others?
How did I get like this?
How can I function in a world filled with people?
Will I ever figure me out?
Will I go mad trying?
Why is it important anyway?
My wife and I went to our first couples counseling session today.
It was a neutral experience.
The Doctor part II
In giving me directions on the phone The Doctor had said “I’ll tell you something that will help, enter from 19th”. Even though it sounded a bit cryptic at the time and since the address was on 116th, I just took the note and asked no questions but I was wishing I had. I was at 116th and 19th but, where was his office? It was a residential looking street. I looked across 116th and there were some offices over there, medical looking anyway, so I drove into the first parking lot. This wasn’t it. The addresses were one hundred too high. Crap. Next parking lot up, 10 too low but there was a driveway around back. Sneaky I thought, hiding an office in the back of the building. Still though, none of the addresses matched what I needed back there.
After stumbling around for a while I finally gathered my courage, went into one office and asked hoping whoever I contacted would be able to help because I was now running late.
In general I consider asking strangers for any information at all a brazen act. I hate asking someone for something even as simple as the time. Asking for directions is considered an act of war. I suppose it’s because of my reaction when someone asks me for information. They ask politely enough usually starting with “Excuse me.” But then, they always ask about someplace I have never heard of. “Do you know where I can find All About Hair? It’s a store where the sell trimmers for nose hair. I have these hairs, see………?”
Great I think. I’m now forced to communicate with this stranger and I know more than I want to about what bothers them. Nose hair bothers me too but it’s near the bottom of my “conversations to have with strangers” list.
I’m polite of course.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where that is” I say.
Then the silent, incredulous stare. It’s always the uncomfortable silence during that stare that gets me the most. I can see thoughts register in their eyes. The first look says “Oh wonderful. Of all the people I could ask I pick Mr. Stupid.” Then, it’s a look of “what am I going to do now”?
At this point the requestor of the directions will probably try to jog my memory as though I have been to Al’s Atomic Hair hundreds of times before but for some reason, I just don’t remember it.
“It’s near a gas station” they say pleased with themselves they were able to reveal such a lucid clue. This chance for redemption they have thrown me surely will do it they think. They wait for the light bulb to flicker on.
Meanwhile I’m thinking there’s a gas station on every corner in this section of American suburbia. Why did you pick this as the notable landmark no one could miss?
I say “well, I always go to the 76 up the street and I don’t recall seeing Hair World there.”
At this point I can sense that the exchange is almost done. The look of disbelief has been cast and they have decided their first instinct was correct. I’m Mr. Stupid in the flesh and any more trying will just cement their impressions more firmly.
“I’ll try in here – thanks” and they are gone.
The receptionist seemed a little upset that I would dare walk in and ask something so common.
“This is not the address you want” as I showed her The Doctor’s address on the card my therapist had given me. I covered his name with my thumb so she wouldn’t know who I was looking for. I thought that if she did see the name with all those letters behind it she would instantly wonder why an insane person was walking around unattended in broad daylight.
She had no help to offer and curtly indicated so. On the way out I thought to myself that it was interesting that I was the stupid one whether I was asking for or being asked for directions.
I finally found the office. It was as the Doctor had said, on 19th hidden in plain sight in the residential neighborhood I had started with.
I walked in, filled out the forms and waited.
The Doctor appeared suddenly and quietly. He was just there and I was at a loss to explain how he had materialized beside me. It will remain a mystery I suppose but I’ll be more aware next time and watch for him.
He was a tall slender man with thinning sandy colored hair probably in his mid 50’s somewhere. He spoke softly in even tones as if he was purposely avoiding any display of emotion what so ever.
His office was a large room unremarkable in most ways walking in but, when I sat on the small sofa along one wall I noticed the immense space between where I was and his desk. I also noticed he seemed much taller when he sat down. If this man didn’t have the power to proclaim me unsafe for human interaction of any kind and locked up on the spot I would have risked asking how he did that.
“Say, Doc. How is it you are taller when you sit down than when you are standing? And while I’m asking stuff, how is it you can just appear in a room?”
“Ah, I appear and disappear for you do I? I see. Orderly!”
There was a long moment of silence as The Doctor wrote upon one of the forms I had filled out. Again, there was that notable absence of emotion even as he moved his pen. His hand guided it much in the same way he spoke. Very even and clean with few hints of any peaks or valleys. No abrupt movements at all. He probably learned early in his career not to startle his prey.
Finally he looked up and asked “what brings you in today?”
I was a bit slow on the uptake. Actually I was nervous about disturbing the quiet with my voice.
“My therapist said I should, uh, come to see you.”
“I see, and what did she say?”
“She said I was depressed.”
Immediately upon my admission I may, underline “may” be depressed he launched a list of questions. There were about 20 or so. Lots of yeses, a few no’s and one kinda later he confirmed my therapists diagnosis. I was depressed, no two ways about it. The treatment was of course medication.
“What about side effects?”
“There are some side effects to consider, especially the………………
SEXUAL ONES!”
I was distinctly upset that he had chosen those words to emphasize and show some modicum of emotion with.
“Sexual………? You mean negative performance impact? Sexually?”
“Yes”
“There is one medication that reports incidents of sexual dysfunction as low" he said.
“Low but possible correct?”
“Yes, possible.”
Oh no. God no. Not only must I struggle with serious depression but I may also not be able to make love to my wife.
I had mentioned to her a couple of weeks ago that I might be depressed.
She said I could be depressed all I wanted but I should, under no circumstances take medication since I was an alcoholic – clean and sober for 15 months, but still an alcoholic- taking medication could set off a chain reaction and coax me to drink again.
She was serious and I did not want to throw any kind of curve into our already strained marriage. I love her without end but the way I hurt inside was bad and getting worse and The Doctor had spoken.
The Doctor
I would have preferred a nice, fatal car accident. It would have been quicker and basically more fool proof than anything else that comes immediately to mind. A quick flash of light, maybe a burst of static then cool never ending darkness waiting for birth again. Perhaps even the local news would have mentioned it in the morning traffic reports – “Accident shown by our exclusive Action Hotspot Trafficams has traffic in trouble on the East Side. Stay tuned for more after this........”
People stuck behind me, or what was me, inching along and now running late would swear at me over their radios, “Bastard!”.
But, such is not the case, at least not yet. Instead, through the twists and turns, cliffs and abutments that litter life, I find myself here contemplating a blank page, love, death and a tuna sandwich I may or may not eat.
I’m perplexed by tuna or rather my feelings about it. On the plus side I like the taste, it’s cheap, it won’t spoil if left contained and, in a pinch, you can eat it straight out of the can when energy and time are everywhere else but with you. Not so pleasant are the thoughts about how many dolphins may have actually paid the ultimate price for my sandwich.I always imagine what I’d do if I were a dolphin in that situation, suddenly ensnared in a net and forcibly pulled out of my home. Once landed I like to think I’d shit on the closest tuna, spit my dying breath at whoever was on deck and say to myself “eat that human jerks.”
Not really. I’d die very confused trying to understand why someone would want to hurt me like that. I would never know.
I have this problem, or set of problems and to go along with them, lots of advice on what to do about them. My therapist who I have been seeing for about a year has finally decided I may be depressed. Everyone I work with says I need to drastically increase my alcohol intake but the folks at the AA meetings I go to tell me that’s not a good idea. My wife tells me I need to fix myself first, next work on my head strong 13 year old son from my first marriage then deal with my mother who, through a very strange crack in the space / time continuum lives with us. After my first wife left me for someone else, my mom helped out as primary care provider for my son while I worked. I couldn’t have made it without her really.
Next on the list are our current marital problems following our year long separation.Only after all this will I finally be able to tackle the most vexing problem of all. Why the 3 dogs we have insist that the great outdoors is not a dignified enough place for them to do their business and go in the house, on the carpet upstairs, downstairs. There is nowhere in the house that has missed a full blessing at one point or another.
My therapist referred me a Doctor of Psychiatry. I think it was because I told her that I was really hard pressed to come up with any reason not to go out and get drunk. I was having fond memories at that moment of the blackouts, beer vomit and waking up in strange places like outside on the front porch in my sleeping attire which consisted of only boxers.
As nearly as I can reconstruct it, that night I drank my 15 or so beers to relax a bit and passed out at the normal time on my side of the bed. This was my nightly routine. Nothing unusual.
I must have had to go to the bathroom somewhere in there and in a blacked out state decided the front porch was just the perfect place for it. When I woke up, probably in the range of 4 AM, I was actually shocked to be outside. I couldn’t sleep again as I tried to remember how I got there.
Actually, I was thinking it would really be good to drink again just this once. Just one more time to get me by, get me past this period I was going through. My only problem is that my “once” would last 10 years.
Expressing this thought to my therapist was a sure sign to her that I was entering dangerous ground again and I can’t say I could argue with her. So, she recommended I go see the Doctor.
I was nervous as I started out from the company parking lot but I kept going. As I drove to his office I was wondering what differentiates a psychologist and a psychiatrist anyway. I had never been to a full doctoral psychiatrist before. His title certainly was impressive but was the source of his mana just matter of a few capital letters following his name on his card? Was it a matter of 8 additional years in some Ivy League school and the commensurate ruination of his parent’s financial security?
Were the movies accurate? If this guy felt so inclined could he order the straight jacket and padded cell for me where I’d wind up making friends with a bed pan?
If I gave a little too revealing an answer to one of his questions and betrayed something about my inner self not even I was aware of could he take legal action to have my adult rights stripped from me?
Would he be able to see parts of me I had no idea existed?
What the hell was I about to do?
I have found in the past that when I’m dealing with institutions I know little about and don’t seem to have even the remotest capacity to understand like banks, the IRS and collection agencies that I usually wind up getting screwed. This trip to see the Doctor was no different. I was filled with hesitation and a sense of genuine dread.
The real dread I felt was not of the system I was about to face however.
I was very afraid of what he would tell me about me. I almost didn't want to know but, I needed to do something. I was starting to hurt in a way I had a few times before and knowing what I was about to go through scared me to death.
