My therapist is proud of me in Each Day

Today my new boss told me my promotion ceremony will be on Monday. So I was pretty stoked and smiley this morning. Then my old boss got to work, took one look at the smile on my face and said, “Oh, you’re really smiley. I’m about to ruin that.” He pulled me into the office and told me that “someone” said I needed an “initial counselling” (IC) for failing my fitness test. He said he told “them”, “Absolutely not”. “They” insisted something needed to be recorded, so old boss compromised with a “feedback note” (which will basically only apply until the new fiscal year, and be included in my performance evaluation, whereas an IC would be on my file “forever”. It is already on my military resume “forever”).
In the course of our conversation it became obvious that “they” were new boss. Old and new boss were the ones who helped me get my ADHD dx, and I’m a little surprised that he’s being such a bureaucratic stickler.
I asked old boss if the circumstances of the failure were going to be recorded along with it, the mental health crap, the injury, the work-imposed heat illness, the scheduling conflicts. He gave a long winded answer, to which I said, “your answer tells me it’s a no”, to which he gave another long winded answer, which I took as confirmation of the “no”. I asked if I could grieve it, and he said that I could, but he wouldn’t if he were me, that because technically I shouldn’t have done the test the following week, they could say my test was invalid, and then I wouldn’t be promotable anymore. Old boss said it really didn’t make a difference, there are no career implications, just to sign the stupid feedback note and move on. He said that with kindness, glibness is all mine.

So of course I was full of fury until I dumped it at the feet of my therapist. We talked, once again, about the being perceived by the eye of the military and how much that feeds my negative internal voice. It’s so exhausting because it’s so persistent and so futile and so not worth hashing out again.

I can’t help but smile wryly at the title. Those are my words, not hers. But when we talked about goals for the year, and I told her most of my list in the previous entry, she actually cheered.

One of the first sessions we had together, she asked me about a time in my childhood when I felt happy. I told her about this picture of me as a kid, maybe, I dunno, 5 years old? I’m wearing a little two piece bathing suit, bubble gum pink with stripes on the top and polka dots on the bottom. I’m doing a cartwheel. And while I don’t remember the actual day, looking at that picture in my mind makes me feel happy, calm, safe, free. To me it represents the pent up energy I constantly felt and feel, an innate comfort in my body, a ethereal me-ness that is hard to put into words.
Tina really glommed onto that image as an internal ideal for me. I said that when I was a kid I did gymnastics and I didn’t know why (or remember when) my parents took me out of it. And that for my 37th birthday my only goal was to do a cartwheel at a local landmark, she got so excited upon hearing that. So when I told her about my idea of dance lessons and she was immediately on board. I mentioned that when I was looking up dance classes I found a few that were offering acro, which piqued my interest (and also lead me to consider the local circus school, silks, pole etc). We had been talking about fatness, fitness, ADHD and proprioception, feeling the magic of your body in movement, trail running, and basically finding things that connect your brain to your body. She asked what kind of dance I might want to do, and I said probably something more contemporary, probably hip hop, it’s so dynamic, and probably not ballet because of the aesthetic and the damage that would do to my fragile body-love progress. She told me that she used to be a ballet instructor and both her daughters are professional ballerinas/dancers, and that the entire point of ballet was about precision and body awareness and if you have a good instructor that connection is far more important than the aesthetic. She said often in adult ballet classes there are very few “traditional” ballet bodies.
But I kind of suspect that many other dance traditions have some sort of body/mind grounding aspect, too. Part of me feels like ballet wouldn’t make me feel more comfortable on a dance floor, but I’m fine being proven wrong.

As usual I left feeling seen and validated, and called mom before heading to craft night. Which was also lovely.

Last updated January 11, 2024