Posted March 6th, 2003 by Michelle

After yoga class tonight I had a slice of pizza. Classic New York slice, big, long, drippy with oil and cheese. One balances the other, right?

I woke to another snowstorm this morning, the streets AGAIN covered in white. Not just a flurry, but a big, fat storm. I sloshed through it to my first eye exam in about a year and a half, and was greeted with terrible news: all of us who wear disposable contacts, but don’t toss them nearly as often as we should, or sleep in them for weeks at time, and who say we’ve never had a problem? Well guess what. There is bad news, and it will reach you eventually. I have GPC, or GIANT PULMONARY CONJUNCTIVITS. It’s on the inside lids of my eyes. I also have a swollen cornea. What does this all mean? Well, first of all, I can only wear my contacts for a few hours each day until I heal. If I don’t do this, soon I will never be able to wear contacts again. Secondly, a newer, more expensive kind of contact. Third, a new cleansing system that wipes out the idea of 3-in-1 solution, which is laden with heavy chemicals, which irritate the eye. I had to buy an expensive three step cleaning system which involves storing them in this little capsule that, in miniature, reminds me of the contraption that Jodi Foster met the aliens in at the end of the movie “Contact”. Anyway, I have to put them in there EVERY NIGHT, and clean them every morning, and throw them away after just a week for three months until my eyes heal. Major yawn. So I had to get an eye exam, order contacts, and buy this new solution. That put me back about $150, and I only ordered 2 boxes of contacts. But it wasn’t over. I then had to buy glasses- my first pair in years- and after searching Park Slope for some frames I could afford, I was still out another $250. This was a $400 afternoon. And THEN, off to my first analysis appointment.

It was actually rather nice. She practices in a beautiful old building that faces Prospect Park, indeed a fifteen minute walk from my door. There was actually a couch on which I was apparently supposed to drape myself but instead I settled in a chair opposite of my analyst. She asked me why I was there, and after telling her that my life was a little complicated, and that I wanted to learn more about myself and through this knowledge make better choices, I just started talking. Forty minutes later I had told her about my brothers, about my parent’s divore, about my alchoholic ex and our brakeup, about my jobs, about my passions, my wants, my confusions, and even about my current lover, who she (ahem) knows. (He is in training to be a psychoanalysist.) She asked a few questions, and mostly said, “Uhn. Hm. Uhn. Ugh!” (This was in response to my ex and I’s brakeup.) At the end of it, she asked me what I thought about our “talk”, and I said I thought it was just fine, and then we talked money for a few minutes, which made me terribly uncomfortable. But then she said that she’d charge me $60 a session, as long as I came every week. Not bad. I have no idea in the world how I am going to afford it but I really want to commit to this.

To be honest, I’m almost regretting my most recent large purchase. As much joy as my bike is bringing me, I would not be in any financial dire straights if I had not bought it. In fact, I’d be just fine. But then it would have been sold by the time I was able to pay for it, and really, it’s as if it was waiting for me all this time. It is what is making me most happy right now. I will find a way to make all of this possible… slowly, maybe, but also surely.

I think my only issue with my new analysist was that she seemed awfully impressed with me, with my life the last two years, and with what I want to do. Conversely, I feel that my lover is not nearly impressed enough. Doesn’t it seem like your therapist should be objective and your lover should be taken?