Dad's Learning Part 15: Old Problems, New Frontiers (A Continuing Series)

This too shall pass.

I cut this one short at the end. There’s more to this session than what I wrote, but I was compelled to stop where I did. I don’t have anything I can add or put behind what I wrote that won’t negatively affect the way I feel about it. It would feel over-handled. Bruised. So I will write more on Part 15 in a later post.

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Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

Oscar Wilde

Watching Winter Yield To Spring

I still feel guilt when I look through old photos.

That’s written at the top of the page. I take notes while in session with my therapist. Sometimes I just talk during them and jot down the topics. Other times there’s a conversation. Either way work is being done and progress is made.

But this was a realization I hadn’t made yet. Well, not until shortly before this latest session. I had to write it down or I wouldn’t remember to bring it up.

But there’s more to the note than that sentence.

I still feel guilt when I look through old photos.

Not the ones during the times I forced myself to confront.

The ones in between those and the present.

And a final line:

But I have the tools to deal with that now.

I don’t always feel excited about myself.

In fact, it would have been correct to assume I wasn’t excited about any aspect of me just a short time ago. But it seems that’s changing.

Much like the seasons; slowly but surely.

If you’re watching through your window, waiting for Winter to change into Spring, it will take an eternity. But blink, just once, and it’s already happened.

That’s how I feel about the growth I have undergone with this latest iteration of therapy.

But why?

Perhaps it’s due to finding gratitude. A true embrace of gratitude. They say it’s powerful and I have to agree.

Perhaps it’s a better understanding of what therapy requires and the willingness to confront my faults openly and honestly.

Perhaps it’s the accountability factor of my writings. I think this plays a big role, but I’m not sure exactly what I should credit.

Most likely it’s a combination of everything. Not just what’s written above, but it feels like my season to grow. My Winter has ended, my Spring has arrived.

I can’t wait for Summer.

I am staring into a new frontier, one I am unfamiliar with.

I added this line to the end of the note shortly before starting therapy. It wasn’t in the original text. There’s even a different urgency to the handwriting. It has a hasty feel to it, akin to italics but hand written.

I have known a way of life where there’s never a clear vision of the future. I think we all experience that. But I am starting to see it now. A fog is lifting. I was under the impression it was the type of fog that, once lifted, would bring me calm or contentedness.

But all I feel is tiny. Unprepared. Overexcited and overzealous but holding only the capacity to underwhelm and disappoint.

I’m not used to some of these feelings. I have been unprepared before. I have been overexcited and I have been overzealous. I have felt as though I could only disappoint and underwhelm.

But I haven’t ever felt them at the same time. Not in any memory I can trace. In nothing I have written or thought and annotated I can identify.

It’s a new feeling. It’s reminiscent of fear.

Is it fear? I do not know. I have known fear before, but considering everything, I started seeing fear as an old friend, not a foe.

But this doesn’t feel the same. Is it measured excitement? Is it measured optimism?

Measured isn’t a word I would use to describe myself. But that could be part of the growth. A part of my Spring.

Is that what’s budding on these bare branches?

I hope so.

And I choose to believe so.

And so it is. For now.

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