and you know what “manicure night” means

Dear God:

Please, somehow, give me my own office. Particularly now that it’s football season, your lamb of a legal assistant is driving me bonkers. Throw me a bone. Thanks.

Your pal,
Crisitunity

I’ve written most of the third part of that 30 Days of Truth thing, but it turned up some stuff I haven’t thought about in years that is pretty painful. I’m going to sleep on it before I post it.

This weekend I went to a therapy session with a therapist in Glen Burnie. I figured out last week that maybe my problematic, long-term low sex drive is related to my birth control pill, and that poked a cattle prod at me to move ahead with plans for Essure or tube-tying. The next step is to get a therapist to sign off on the fact that I’m not making a mistake, and I decided to find one.

The woman I went to see is about my age, and just got married herself. I really liked her, and for the first time in therapy I felt as if I was talking to someone I saw eye-to-eye with. Always before, I’d felt this professional, almost parental difference between myself and the therapist, that they were up there deigning to reach down and give me help. Here I felt like I was having a conversation with someone on my level. I am not naive enough to think that she’s being friendly because she wants to, but it was a good feeling nevertheless.

I went there largely because I want to get my tubes tied, but I’m also debating about whether I want to go back into therapy for a while. I don’t think my work with my parents and my upbringing is finished, but I’m not sure whether or not I need someone to guide me through that work, or whether it just takes time. My mother is exasperating, and emotionally very difficult for me to deal with, but it’s not as if I am incapable of coping. I am slightly curious about whether I should/can learn some strategies for handling my anxiety, because although it’s very mild compared to how it was a couple of years ago, it occasionally rears its head and I am at a loss for how to handle it.

I had to go through a lot of the old shit, explain about the bathtub incident, about my therapy in elementary school and then college and then after college, yada yada. I am so overwhelmed by what’s required of me to explain my parents and my relationship with them to any therapist that it’s part of why I’ve avoided going back into therapy. There’s just so much. Hopefully this time it’ll be worthwhile.

Male readers: stop reading. I have a funny story about a yeast infection and I don’t want you to have to read it if you are squicky about that sort of thing.

So last week I discovered an early yeast infection gaining strength, and I went to Rite-Aid to pick up the needed supplies. I went after I taught on Friday, so I was wearing yoga clothes and flip-flops. I picked up a box of the generic three-day Monistat, a box of Vagisil anti-itch cream, and a box containing “testers” – I thought they could test to see if you had a yeast infection or not, but it turned out they were testers for whether you had a yeast infection or a more serious infection like Trich. My symptoms were so mild that I knew I didn’t have a more serious infection, so this was a wasted buy, but it’s good to have it in the cabinet anyway.

I had all these pastel-colored boxes in hand, two of them with prominent “Vagisil” markings on them, and I was in the face-lotion aisle looking for a suitable face lotion. I recently replaced my used-up Biore with Clean & Clear, but the C&C has salicylic acid in it, which caused an unpleasant tingle and didn’t moisturize particularly well anyhow, so I needed to pick another one. I was scouring the shelves for a Dove lotion I love (which I later learned has been discontinued, BOO) when a Rite-Aid employee, a middle-aged male, came striding down the aisle in a good mood. As he passed me, he said “Pedicure night?” in a jolly sort of way.

I had no idea how to respond to this. I wondered if he was making some kind of bizarre joke about the boxes I was carrying, because if I was going to be giving any part of my body attention that night based on what I was buying, it was not my toes. I wasn’t standing in front of the foot care products; I was standing in front of the facial care products. AND CARRYING THREE VAGINA BOXES. What the hell?

I stuttered “Uh…not really,” and he walked on. When I told BF this story later, he asked me what I was wearing on my feet, and I told him flip-flops. He said that was why. I still don’t really understand; people often wear flip-flops for reasons entirely unrelated to pedicures. But I guess that was the thing that jumped out at this Rite-Aid employee, not the vagina boxes.

In case you are curious, after three gross days, all has gone well, and the itching and burning are gone.

Happy Monday!