My sessions with My Lovely Pyschotherapist prove to be an ongoing source of helpful advice and insight. I spent an hour with her earlier this week and talked at her solidly for the duration. We breezed over my feelings about my illness and apprehension about my upcoming birthday (3rd on dialysis, 18 months on the waiting list, concentrated feelings of loss uh huh, yeah, whatever) and moved on to the prevailing and far more interesting of my love life.
Or should that be, lack of love life. Anyone unlucky or stupid enough to have answered the phone when I rung any time over the last couple of months will be aware that I have managed to get myself tangled in a tricky situation with My Housemate: we were seeing each other until quite simply we were not, and within that space of time I developed feelings for him which I am now trying to shake off like a dog with flees. It would all be fine if I never had to see him again, but he resides in the bedroom next to me and I tried walking around with my eyes closed but I kept bumping into stuff. My Lovely Pyschotherapist has totally taken my side over the whole affair, which is brilliant because there is no greater feeling than when an impartial stranger affirms that your ex is, in fact, a dick. I tell her I miss him and that I'm finding it hard to get over him and she tells me that this is all completely normal and I have done an excellent job to get to this point. How far this is exactly true is negligible, but it's always nice to be told that you are, essentially, awesome.
After I gave her an update on the situation with My Housemate, the conversation expanded to a discussion about relationships in general. We had been talking about how waiting for a kidney imbues you with a sense of powerlessness because you are reliant on someone else in a distant place to make things better and you have no control as to how, when or where this will be bestowed upon you. My L.P. suggested that waiting for a kidney is thus very similar to waiting for a relationship: you can go to all the singles nights you want, but essentially you are relying on someone else to pitch up in your life and confirm they find you as attractive as you find them and bring you some unsolicited happiness. I have learnt the hard way that other peoples' opinions, thoughts and predilections are entirely un-quantifiable and even if they tell you, there's every chance they might be lying anyway.
It was an insightful analogy and it got me thinking: is waiting for a kidney just like waiting for a man? I have a minimal amount of control over either situation; both will ostensibly improve my life but also have the ability to drag me down below the Plimsoll Line.I am waiting just as much for someone with a compatible sense of humour to sweep me off my feet as I am for someone with a compatible blood type to give me a kidney help me get back on my feet. They are entirely unforeseeable and yet I retain faith that both will happen eventually. I have had good and bad experiences with each in the past, so perceive them as tangible and realistic outcomes.
They say relationships come along when you are not looking for them, and in this vein, waiting for a kidney has definite similarities; it's not that an appropriate graft will suddenly come up because I am preoccupied, but in order to be happy, I have to learn to be content now, within the boundaries of my current situation, and not simply wait for it to be over before happiness descends upon me. In an ideal world...well, in an ideal world I would look more like Megan Fox than Mossup from The Riddlers and Dermot O'Leary would be chained to my radiator. But in a slightly better world, I would have a working transplanted kidney and me and My Housemate would not be falling asleep with a wall separating us. Unfortunately, whilst that world does exist in my head, it is not the one in which I actually live and I want to be happy in this life. It has taken seventeen months of waiting on the list, but I have stopped waiting for a kidney. Admittedly, it is hard to relinquish this control and simultaneously retain the belief that it is really going to happen; of course, there are moments when I feel it never will. It is like believing in God. It is Belief in Things Unseen.
There are things one can do to improve the chances of meeting a man, as bilious as they may seem: singles nights, accepting impromptu invitations and dating websites to name a few. The actions I can take to up my chances of getting that illusive kidney are more limited, but there are definitely things that will put me in the best possible position for when it does come up: I could stop smoking, drink less and get more sleep. I could also do with worrying less. Now if I could just stop thinking about My Housemate, I won't be waiting for anything.
Or should that be, lack of love life. Anyone unlucky or stupid enough to have answered the phone when I rung any time over the last couple of months will be aware that I have managed to get myself tangled in a tricky situation with My Housemate: we were seeing each other until quite simply we were not, and within that space of time I developed feelings for him which I am now trying to shake off like a dog with flees. It would all be fine if I never had to see him again, but he resides in the bedroom next to me and I tried walking around with my eyes closed but I kept bumping into stuff. My Lovely Pyschotherapist has totally taken my side over the whole affair, which is brilliant because there is no greater feeling than when an impartial stranger affirms that your ex is, in fact, a dick. I tell her I miss him and that I'm finding it hard to get over him and she tells me that this is all completely normal and I have done an excellent job to get to this point. How far this is exactly true is negligible, but it's always nice to be told that you are, essentially, awesome.
After I gave her an update on the situation with My Housemate, the conversation expanded to a discussion about relationships in general. We had been talking about how waiting for a kidney imbues you with a sense of powerlessness because you are reliant on someone else in a distant place to make things better and you have no control as to how, when or where this will be bestowed upon you. My L.P. suggested that waiting for a kidney is thus very similar to waiting for a relationship: you can go to all the singles nights you want, but essentially you are relying on someone else to pitch up in your life and confirm they find you as attractive as you find them and bring you some unsolicited happiness. I have learnt the hard way that other peoples' opinions, thoughts and predilections are entirely un-quantifiable and even if they tell you, there's every chance they might be lying anyway.
It was an insightful analogy and it got me thinking: is waiting for a kidney just like waiting for a man? I have a minimal amount of control over either situation; both will ostensibly improve my life but also have the ability to drag me down below the Plimsoll Line.I am waiting just as much for someone with a compatible sense of humour to sweep me off my feet as I am for someone with a compatible blood type to give me a kidney help me get back on my feet. They are entirely unforeseeable and yet I retain faith that both will happen eventually. I have had good and bad experiences with each in the past, so perceive them as tangible and realistic outcomes.
They say relationships come along when you are not looking for them, and in this vein, waiting for a kidney has definite similarities; it's not that an appropriate graft will suddenly come up because I am preoccupied, but in order to be happy, I have to learn to be content now, within the boundaries of my current situation, and not simply wait for it to be over before happiness descends upon me. In an ideal world...well, in an ideal world I would look more like Megan Fox than Mossup from The Riddlers and Dermot O'Leary would be chained to my radiator. But in a slightly better world, I would have a working transplanted kidney and me and My Housemate would not be falling asleep with a wall separating us. Unfortunately, whilst that world does exist in my head, it is not the one in which I actually live and I want to be happy in this life. It has taken seventeen months of waiting on the list, but I have stopped waiting for a kidney. Admittedly, it is hard to relinquish this control and simultaneously retain the belief that it is really going to happen; of course, there are moments when I feel it never will. It is like believing in God. It is Belief in Things Unseen.
There are things one can do to improve the chances of meeting a man, as bilious as they may seem: singles nights, accepting impromptu invitations and dating websites to name a few. The actions I can take to up my chances of getting that illusive kidney are more limited, but there are definitely things that will put me in the best possible position for when it does come up: I could stop smoking, drink less and get more sleep. I could also do with worrying less. Now if I could just stop thinking about My Housemate, I won't be waiting for anything.
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