I am having one of those days when I feel like I am having a millions thoughts as once and I can’t catch any of them.

I feel like father from some old sitcom’s “what happens when the father looks after the house and kids” episode. All these thoughts whizzing about in joyous anarchy, the roast burning and the washing machine belching suds, while I just huddle in a corner with a cup of coffee looking shell-shocked.

Relax, I am not going to start talking about the Turtles again. Although…..

Just kidding. I am done wid dat.

Had therapy today. Plus an adventure. See, when I showed up, the building was locked, because it’s Good Friday. No problem, I knew I would be waiting for my therapist to let me in today. Things are always like that when I have therapy on a stat.

But then this other fella shows up and starts waiting at the door. And I am thinking, “He can’t be waiting for what I am waiting for. ” But what else could it be?

Eventually, I discover from this fellow (who seems awfully nice) that he, too, is waiting to see Doctor Costin at 10:45. We seem to have a scheduling issue. So I am now sitting there thinking, “Well this should be interesting. ”

Doctor Costin shows up, and yup, he scheduled both me and Nice Guy Dan (I have top call him something) for 10:45. He insists that he scheduled me for 11:45, and I say “Well you TOLD me 10:45!”

We get into the office complex, and hash it out. I am clearly pretty pissed off, and at first I say I will wait for Dan, and my therapist says “You will?” and I say “Well I don’t have much of a choice, do I? ”

But then Nice Guy Dan says he will just go off and have a coffee and come back at noon. Problem solved! And I got to be all assertive and stuff. Did not just roll over from the slightest push and self-minimize like I usually do.

Just for fun, the first thing I said to my therapist once we got settled was “So, how did I do with asserting myself?”

He hemmed and hawed and dithered for a bit. Looking back, it was kind of an unfair question, seeing as he had born the brunt of my self-assertion. I sometimes forget that I have strong emotive force and so when I am angry, I send that message out hard. I am so used to thinking that nobody is paying attention to me that I tend to shout.

I must remember to use this power for good!

Anyhow, eventually he told me that my assertion was… good, in that it WAS assertive, and um….

He then, via a highly circuitous route, eventually said that maybe I was a little too over the top. Like one point over the top. Out of 100.

By this point, I felt both guilty and stupid for asking. Guilty because that’s a cruel question to ask a soft sensitive Seventies type therapist and I clearly put him in a bind. Stupid because if I hadn’t asked the question, I would not have had to sit through all the hemming and hawing and equivocating.

I sometimes wonder if I would be better off with a kind but extremely blunt therapist. Sometimes Doctor Costin’s very careful phrasings and fiddling with my word choices really gets on my nerves and slows the therapeutic process down.

And I hate being interrupted, especially when I am spilling my guts.

Anyhow, after that it was therapy as usual. I know why I had such a strong reaction to maybe having to wait : it combined the negative unexpected (never good with me), disruption to my routine (not as bad, but bad), and my feelings of not being taken seriously and being overlooked and unimportant and all that stuff.

Without those stimuli, I am usually a fairly reasonable and flexible guy. But my anxiety started rising when Costin wasn’t there to open the door for us (a nice Chinese man let us in) and rose more as it struck 11:00, fifteen minutes late, so by the time I talked to him, I was already fairly wound up.

I don’t like that I do so poorly at handling the unexpected, but that is just how I am built. Some people are quick responders and some people are deep thinkers, and I am firmly the latter.

Still, I wish I had better shock absorbers. I prefer a smooth ride and there is only so much being careful and cautious can do for you. Sooner or later, you will be on rough roads with sudden bumps, and then what?

Oh well. I’m alive, awake, and learning, and when you got all three of those working for you, anything is possible.

I am going to apply to Kwantlen soon. Probably today, before supper. It won’t get processed until Tuesday, more than likely, but the idea is to get it done ASAP before the motivation to do so melts back into the listless goo I call my will.

Goo is a funny word.

My therapist remarked that it seemed odd for an associate’s degree to be only eight months, as they are usually thought of as half a bachelor’s degree. But I assume that Kwantlen, like most education mills, has everything geared to the four semesters a year schedule, and so my eight months getting an Associate’s is like a year in other places.

And honestly, I don’t care. I am not in this to learn things… I could probably teach these courses. I am in this to get a piece of paper to show to VFS that proves I am capable of this whole education thing after all these years.

As if there is any doubt. I am very good at school. So good that I never took it that seriously.

But this time I will. For the first time in my life, I will be trying hard to get the best marks I can. I want to blast these courses to the back wall with my intelligence and talent and walk away with marks high enough to leave absolutely no room for doubt in the minds of the people at VFS that I am a smoking hot commodity.

Should be interesting.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.