Can I be Home Alone?

The kids will be at the beach with their father for the rest of the week. Towards the end of the school year, I expend much energy and focus on helping them wrap up their year as smoothly and stress-free as possible. I will be able to spend much needed time focusing on my needs and perhaps a little self-care.

...or so I thought. After seeing my therapist this afternoon, I treated myself to a fantastic dinner at a gem of a local restaurant which I had been wanting to try for quite some time (the chardonnay tasted exactly like an oak room!). It was after leaving the restaurant that it hit me that I did not want to go home...that I was afraid to go home. I was afraid of being home alone and being depressed and just spiraling down. I was paralyzed in my van...in a parking spot...on the street...in front of this restaurant.

I decided to email my therapist and then set my GPS for home. As I was waiting for his phone call, I drove following the directions from Ms. Google and not thinking that I was driving home. When I arrived, I went in the front door straight through the back door and sat in the back yard to write this post.

After talking with him, I knew that he was right. I am going to be OK. I have been in this place before, and I have risen from it. I am different now...stronger. I will not harm myself, and I will not sit paralyzed in a room thinking about it. I will do something good for me. In fact, I already did.

In the past, I have sat on the floor talking with my therapist on the telephone. He would urge me to go outside, to leave the house. At that time, I felt that nothing could be more terrifying. Today, I didn't even give myself the opportunity to go there. I went straight outside, picking up my laptop in stride, and wrote.

I'm going inside now, as confident in myself as my therapist said he was in me. I'll be OK. I can do this. I'll be OK.