Glimpsesofcolour

Yesterday on the way back from swimming, I discovered a whole new secret compartment in my rucksack, which I had never noticed in the three or four years I’ve had it. It will be just right for putting my jewellery in while I swim. Of such small things is happiness made.

More importantly (and equally rewardingly) I have left the Terribly Tenacious Therapist, and I feel good about it. It felt like leaving school. Right now I’m not in a hurry to find another one. Suffice it to say that it won’t be a Cognitive Behavioural therapist.

And finally, I have ordered almost all my Christmas presents by mail (charity catalogues). I feel smug.

This afternoon after what will in all likelihood be my last appointment with the Terribly Tenacious Therapist (since I think she is actually making things worse), I took myself off to Brent Cross Shopping Centre to look for a handbag and have some lunch. In the Italian café I chose, I queued up to pay for my food and after telling me the cost, the girl serving me apparently said ‘Are you really tired?’. Somewhat touched by her concern, I answered ‘Well, yes I am actually’, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain that actually I was not just tired but depressed. ‘That’ll be £X, then’, she said, naming a smaller sum. It was only at this point I realized that what she had actually said was ‘Are you retired?’. Apparently there was a reduction for pensioners. Now I don’t generally tell people that I will be eligible for my pension in four years, but people generally tell me that I look much younger (when I was 40 and expecting my son, a neighbour said she thought I was 28), so if the girl in the Italian café thought I was retired, I must have been looking particularly rough. Not so nice as when I innocently thought she was expressing a concern for my welfare.

In other news, I have just read that Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church and First Mennonite Church of Middlebury, Indiana, are reuniting, having split in 1923 (over women’s clothing, would you believe?). It’s taken 86 years, but hey, reconciliation can take a while. The proposed name for the reunited congregation is First Pleasant Mennonite Church. They don’t seem to have noticed that this implies that all Mennonite churches heretofore have been unpleasant. Sigh…

As one of the tasks allocated by the CBT therapist, I have to note down what I do for each hour of the day and rate it on a scale of 1-10 for sense of achievement, and pleasure. This is by no means easy. First of all, it took me three attempts to draw up a reasonably usable chart, and this scored 0 on the pleasure scale as it took me back to having to do charts at school, a task I hated (show me a ruler and a pen and I will show you a series of wobbly, slanted lines with several blots). Secondly, my activities at the moment don’t really fit into neat slots; I might be doing four totally different activities in the course of an hour. Thirdly, how on earth do I rate the achievement and pleasure scores for taking my son to the dentist or spending five minutes playing Scrabble on Facebook? I am reduced to putting down totally random numbers. And I have run out of space to add ‘writing my blog’ between 1700 and 1800 hours, because the space is full of all the other things I did in that hour. Sigh…