Backing Up

One of my most favorite people in the world is my friend Amy. She and I have been friends for thirty years and I love her more than most people can love anybody. That's how I am with all my good friends. I would do anything for them. Amy and I went to college together and like a lot of schools, ours was heavy on giving each other nicknames. I had several over the four years and depending on who is talking to me all these years later, the nickname they use for me tells me a lot about our friendship back then in the early '80's.

Amy, however, was always Bonehead. She was and still is an exceptionally beautiful, bright and insightful woman who says things as she thinks them, sometimes not thinking them through all the way. I get that. I do that too. She has also had an unfulfilled marriage to a bully and while her divorce should have been final years ago (ignorant, greedy bastard is stringing it along), she has managed to find her niche in life with a strength I envy.

I have had a kindred spirit relationship with Amy (and Barb and Linda and Mike and many others). Usually she and I can make each other laugh and we have been through a lot together but Bonehead said the most profound and life altering thing to me a couple years ago.

I tell people that I live my life every day, knowing that there is someone out there, out to get me.

So...couples counseling:

The last time J and I went to couples counseling, I could say with certainty that it hadn't helped the previous two sessions. The volatility always happened well after the sessions were over and the beer buzz kicked the crazy eye in to full gear. (That's how everyone described his demeanor back then....Oh, J's got the crazy eye again tonight...)

We arrived at the office and the counselor (a man. Pretty sure J thought he had an advantage there), probably sensing the crazy, asked how we were since the last week. J proceeded to give a 20-30 minute diatribe about what a terrible wife I was and folded his arms over his chest at the end, self satisfied that he had given probably the best dissertation this counselor had ever heard.

Only,

The counselor paused a moment and looked at him and said, you have to believe your wife. You have to figure out a way to deal with this anger. And I want to see you alone every other week.

I knew at that moment that I would experience what it feels like to know that there is someone out there, out to get me.