Open wounds

“Breaking news, Detroit rapper Eminem cancels his sold-out European tour

To check himself into rehab, after admitting an addiction to sleep medication”

-- Eminem, Careful What You Wish For

I'm sitting here in my car at Mrs Macquarie' Chair right now, just felt like I needed to get away from the house and be by myself. For the last few days I’ve felt like I’ve been walking around with an open wound, and here’s why…

On Thursday I went to see the counsellor. I wasn’t nervous as I usually would be, I guess I was just looking forward to confessing to someone all my sins. I sat waiting for a while, even though I arrived five minutes early. I saw some guy come and say he had an 11am appointment with “Margy”, the name of my counsellor. I wondered what Margy looked like as I saw several women walk by me. I would’ve preferred a man, but doesn’t matter I suppose.

A slim, blonde lady, maybe in her early to mid 30’s came out to see the guy and told him he was two hours late. He acted surprised and apologised, and they re-scheduled. After he left, she asked me if I was [insert name here]. I said yes and followed her into her room.

She asked me to take a seat in the chair furthest away from the door, which I thought was strange because that’s where the office holder should usually sit as it represents power. But in a way this did make me feel more comfortable not having my back to the door.

She started by asking me to fill in more forms, which I went through fairly quickly as they were answers like “on a scale of 1 to 3…” I thought she was doing something else but I think she was watching my answers as she knew straight away when I finished the first form. I was surprised I circled ‘3’ for questions like “do you see life worth living in the future”.

After that, she told me about an outline of the thing and how because I ticked a box then they would contact me a few times after my final session, and also outlined what she was legally obligated to disclose. None of them applied to me except an offence of 10 years or more – so I couldn’t talk about being sexually abused as a child.

The session was spent mainly asking about my family. Even though I had spent the previous night driving to basketball thinking about these questions, it amazed me that I still got quite emotional when talking about it, and nearly came to tears but held back. I said even though I loved my dad, I felt like he was never there for me as he was always at work. She put it in terms of “so you love him but feel no familiarity”.

I said I was closest with my mom, but felt she was never there for me either, expressing her love by buying me things I never wanted. I relayed to her the story of how when I used to go to Chinese school, all the kids would get picked up by their parents except me, and that I asked my mom if she could pick me up and she said no. I also said I asked her to come watch me play basketball but she never did.

My relationship with my sister was a bit harder to describe. I said when I was young I saw her talking to herself and acting strange, but my mom never did anything about it except take her to a temple. I said maybe my silence with her is my way of showing my mom I still did not approve.

We didn’t talk about gambling as much, apart from asking me why I do it, and I said because I felt lonely, depressed, and it wasn’t predominantly about the money. I told her the Alan Shore line of “I like to be alone; amongst other people”, and she said “so vicarious socialising”.

The session went a bit longer than an hour. I was in a rush to get back to work, but I felt she had more patience. At the end she was explaining to me the whole process, drew up a diagram of all the things that might contribute to the cause of my gambling, and gave me a booklet on gambling addiction.

We made an appointment for next Tuesday, and I thanked her and left. It was somewhat hard to return to work mode, but I had to do it.

That night at basketball, as I was shooting around during warm ups, I could finally understand those stories I had heard about NBA players having gone through something emotional before their games, either like me by going to a counsellor, or having someone pass away. In a way, I guess I never fully grasped the significance of that. But here I was, having opened myself up earlier in the day, and now I was expected to focus on a basketball game. I could feel the open wound.

We played The Bandwagoners, who was a pretty shit team. We were up like 21-11 in the first half, and then it all came crumbling down in the second as we lost the game by three points. I scored eight points, on a fastbreak and some jump shots, the last one bringing us to within a two point deficit late in the game and silencing their supporters. But we had to foul and they ended up leading by three. We had one last possession. Jim passed it to Jeremy who SHOULD HAVE swung it to me for a WIDE OPEN three, but instead, he held the ball above his head, didn’t even look at me, acted like a deer in headlights, and had the ball stolen from him.

Game over.

I got pissed off, and just went straight to do duty with Jim. Jeremy hung around with us for a few minutes but I didn’t want to talk to him. How hard was it to pass it? Why not pass it to me? Dumb.

It was lucky I took a nap after work instead of going to the gym, because I wasn’t as tired when I woke up the next day after getting home past midnight.

Yesterday, when I went out to lunch, I returned Erica’s missed call. Not unexpectedly, there was no answer. Later on, I sent her a message on Kakaotalk “you call me?” just as she had sent me one of those game messages. No answer.

Later on in the day, I couldn’t help it anymore – I SMS’d her as I needed to know whether I should spend my money seeing her or Anna. I asked “want me to come see you tonight?” She replied “no…sorry…”

I sent a message back “Please do not contact me”.

I just wanted this to end. I was getting distracted at work, and it showed, as MOB picked out some errors in documents a guy had sent me to review. Grrrr.

After work I went to the gym, went home then went out to see Anna. I didn’t book, so it was risky. I went in and asked the guy if she was working, and he said yes but she was busy. I asked how long, he said 30 minutes, and I asked to wait.

So I sat in the waiting room and then was finally called after a while. She was at the stairs waiting for me and we went up. I asked her how she was and if she remembered my name, and she laughed and said no.

Hmmm…no good.

We showered, and this time the kissing on the back was even shorter than before. However, when she went down on me, she did it for quite a long time. She asked to change after that because her leg was hurt, and showed me some band aids, so I got on top of her and we went at it for a while.

Afterwards she got us some drinks and we sat up together drinking it. She told me she had now changed her departure date and had bought tickets to return to Korea on 20 June. Wow, that was quick. I said my birthday was 29 June and she said her birthday was 29 July, and that her brother’s birthday was 20 June.

Things were quiet for a lot of the time as we just watched the tv, but she did ask me who I saw when I came here years ago. I told her Naby/Bibi, and she said she knew her, but didn’t like her. I told her how I saw her for a year every week. I asked her how old Naby was and she said 34.

Wow, so she was four years older than me…no wonder she didn’t want to go to dinner with me.

I asked if Naby had a baby and she said no, that she was single.

We then started talking about rent. She said she lived on Sussex Street and that she pays $1800 per fortnight, living by herself. She said she didn’t like sharing.

I held her hand for most of the time, but felt it was futile – she was already gone. I sure know how to pick them.

I realised afterwards that when I left, I didn’t even turn around to say goodbye to her. I guess in the back of my mind I knew there was no point.

I had a good night’s sleep, and went to the courts at about 8:30am. I worked on my dribbling and my shots, then had to go meet Malay to get his HDMI cable to see what the problem was with my PS3. I think it’s my tv. We talked a bit, and he had a wedding to go to so didn’t want to hold him back.

I returned home, had breakfast and then had a long sleep.

I felt somewhat empty. I’m not sure if it’s the absence of gambling, or the absence or the credit card. I have $80 available to spent, and I felt limited. Like, if I wanted to go punting right now, I couldn’t. I guess it’s good for me in the long run, but it’s kinda hard right now. I think I will need to find some hobbies.

Also, earlier I felt like I could go on without Erica, but now I want to message her again. Actually I messaged her this morning, saying “Just want to talk…why you call me but don’t want to see me, I don’t understand” (maybe she called after I used that photo of Cathy as my profile pic on Kakao?). I guess I am just saying I don’t really want to cut all ties. I want to send another message “just want to be with you, why so hard…” but then I think, goddamn, all she did was ask me how I was and call me, why has it gotten me so emotionally ramped up?

Lucky I deliberately didn’t take my phone with me now, otherwise I would’ve done it.

I am looking forward to my next counselling session on Tuesday.