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CLIENT: So I generally – I generally don't teach on Fridays.

THERAPIST: Ok, Ok.

CLIENT: It's totally – like for instance, tonight I'm teaching from midnight to 2:00 in the morning.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Right? So I mean, the times of day vary and the days vary.

THERAPIST: But Friday is pretty –

CLIENT: Friday, usually not.

THERAPIST: Ok.

CLIENT: Because the places I go to teach – you know, companies like (inaudible) sort of take it easy on Fridays.

THERAPIST: Ok.

CLIENT: I seem to get up and get out.

THERAPIST: I might –

CLIENT: That might be true for you as well, that Friday is not optimal?

THERAPIST: No, actually, I think that – that – well, why don't we plan on – as far as you know, you're Ok for this coming Monday?

CLIENT: So this coming Monday's fine.

THERAPIST: Ok. I'll – I'll talk with a couple of people on Friday, because I think I – I have – I see at least two people that have pretty flexible situations in terms of when they can meet. So let me check with those guys. I – I imagine I'll be able to figure something out. But like – so if we did either noon or 2:30 on – actually, it'd be more like 2:40 on Friday, that would be better?

CLIENT: Uh-huh.

THERAPIST: Ok. I'll get to work on that. [00:01:29]

CLIENT: Which isn't to say that there isn't going to be some company on Friday that –

THERAPIST: Yeah. It's less likely though?

CLIENT: Just a second.

THERAPIST: Ok. All right. Good.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, I know it's (inaudible). Also I feel like I ought to know the day before, or it – he's looking into Monday I think now. I mean –

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: – we'll see.

THERAPIST: Yeah, we'll figure it out.

CLIENT: Yeah, thanks.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So I know it's been a long time, and I –

THERAPIST: I know. I know. Yeah.

CLIENT: So you're fine now?

THERAPIST: I am, yeah (laughs). I know a lot was cooking for you guys.

CLIENT: Yeah, so – I'm not interested in it now, but I was, so – we are in the process of moving to a house down the street.

THERAPIST: So you – you – you got it, because I think where we left it off –

CLIENT: Yeah, so there was – there was – this is different. This is a – this is better. This is a – it's a house. So we – the last time I met you we were talking about a house, just down the –

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: This is even closer.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: It's far nicer.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Far nicer. Yeah. We feel just super lucky to have gotten it. So the asking price was 445 – yeah, and our real – our realtor, whose not involved in it – she's – she's our realtor. So she said, ‘You know, the true value of this thing is – it's going to be a bidding war. It's going to go for 495.' And so they were accepting offers from the first open house, so we went to the open house. And our realtor said, ‘They're asking 445. Just put in 450.' And three days later, there were four people involved and we were thinking, ‘You know, they're just going to keep holding open houses, because the weather is going to get nicer and it's just going to increase, increase,' and we weren't optimistic. [00:03:34]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And we were – were as aggressive as we could be. And it was accepted.

THERAPIST: Wow. Wow.

CLIENT: So it's this really phenomenal house.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Tell me about it.

CLIENT: So it's – you know, it's a four minute walk. It's the same neighborhood.

THERAPIST: It's a what?

CLIENT: The same neighborhood.

THERAPIST: Same neighborhood.

CLIENT: It's a four minute walk from where we were. And it's just this immaculate house that was really well-built at the time. So you walk in and it's just – everywhere is hardwood because it's never been painted. I mean the wood is all – it's – it's – it's all the original stained wood, never been painted. It's from 1918.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: And – so it – so then the various owners have just taken excellent care of it. And then there's wallpaper throughout, which normally I feel like, ‘Eh.' But the thing is, it's so well done, and it – it – there's a sense of it being sort of – there's sort of two levels of it. There's this house that's as is from – from, you know, 1918, and just in great condition. And the wallpaper seems to be like late ‘70s. So I feel like it's not my style, but I kind of want to accept it on its own terms. I don't want to just go in and just, you know, worry about wallpaper. Because the previous owner, she took really good care of it for 40 years. [00:05:10]

THERAPIST: Forty years, wow.

CLIENT: And it's just spotless. So I feel like, ‘Ok. Let's just be here for a bit and get a sense' –

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: – get a sense of it. But the kitchen, you know, is custom – really solid, you know, not veneer, just wood cabinets and – so it's a three-bedroom. So two floors, attic for storage, and then of course the big basement.

THERAPIST: Ok.

CLIENT: And –

THERAPIST: And it – it's a house?

CLIENT: It's a house. And the inspector – so when I was looking at the listing, it inspected last, I guess – 10 days ago, I would say. And I didn't know what to expect in terms of – I've never been, you know, walking around with an inspector. My experience with our place being inspected is that they've, you know, left the oven on. They put the – they closed the window on drapes. They turned up the water heater so we were getting scalded. They fiddled with the thermostat and locked it so that I couldn't change it. I – I was expecting be sort of them to roughshod and cursory. [00:06:18]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Just this – this (inaudible) thing. But this guy was just like a docent at a museum. He was really excited and just full of knowledge and just was going around, and he goes, ‘I'm really trying to find maintenance, but this – this' – he goes, ‘This is a beautiful house.'

THERAPIST: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: And he goes, ‘So – so the thing is' – he goes, ‘I didn't do the trees.' He goes, ‘It could fall over.' (laughs) But he said that, he goes, ‘Hey, hey, it's a – it's a good – it's a great tree.' So he goes, ‘Really – really, there's – there's no maintenance.'

THERAPIST: Right, right. That – that was the biggest thing, the tree?

CLIENT: Yeah. And that house – just because he had to point something out. He goes, ‘It's fine, it's standing straight, it's just it's close to the house,' right? So – so he had to write something negative. But we went up to the attic, and he goes – he goes, ‘Look at that. Look at the insulation.' He goes – he goes just – ‘It's perfectly laid down, it's dry, there's no – all the – the windows are nice. It's the same temperature outside.' He goes, ‘This is a great attic.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And then – and we were up there looking at the chimney, and I said, ‘What's that? Is that a plumb line?' And he goes, ‘Wow, that's the plumb line from when they built the house to make sure that the chimney was straight.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: He goes – he goes, ‘And it is.' He goes, ‘Normally, you see a chimney that has been twisted a bit because it bakes during the day and then it cools down quickly. So over time, the chimney will twist because of the sun. It's constantly getting baked and cooled on one side.'

THERAPIST: On one side, oh.

CLIENT: So he said, ‘This – this hasn't – this isn't doing that.' And he said they usually just sort of rot on one side inside the brick. And he goes, ‘This is just – looks perfect.' [00:07:59]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: So we go down to the basement – and so attic, second floor, first floor, basement. There was the end of the plumb line from 1929, just perfectly straight. So that was just – that was neat. So I don't know, there's something exciting about – I suppose it's sort of the prominence, I suppose. Just the sense of moving into a place that's clearly been loved by just a few owners.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: You go down to the basement and like everything is just so well maintained. So they have the paperwork from the old oil burner – but now it's gas – and at first they do – they were very clearly organized, because they have the – the permits for having the oil heater, and they're just perfectly lined up and just stapled one after the other. So it's 1957, 1958, 1959, all the original stuff that's – you know, it's not there now, regarding the furnace. You know, it was in plastic bags and set up there, and just – everything was – it's – it's like going back in time sort of (laughs). Anyway, so –

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds –

CLIENT: – I find myself getting excited about it, but I also realize – yeah, I don't know. It's sort of like I'm not feeling negative about it in any sort of way and – and – so Barbara's very positive and – you know, we – we should have – sort of went around the edges, but I'm not feeling – I'm not feeling skittish about. It's just the sort of further concretization, I suppose, of our relationship –

THERAPIST: Yeah, I –

CLIENT: – and in fact, there's positive aspects in there, so I'm feeling calm. [00:10:13]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: You know, it's like steps, so they're just – the feeling of being nervous about that in some ways, but – but I feel like it's a really positive thing. We're – we live in the same neighborhood, and now we have more space and it's – it's just a really, really nice place and we feel really, really fortunate. You know, and the – and I guess the thing – I suppose it's – I don't know, exciting, I suppose, but also makes me nervous in a sense, is that, you know, I've always lived in apartments.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Except in Oregon, because I grew up in a house – or houses. So this was the first time actually in a house. And so there's a sense of like, ‘Wow. I'll have a big garage, I'll have a big basement. What does a man do? Like, you've got a garage, you've got a basement, you know? It's not – you don't share the new basement, it's totally your basement.'

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: ‘There's your garage.' You're just – ‘There's your garage.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: You know, it's like – I mean, what do you with a garage? You put a car in a garage, but we prefer cars in garages, but that was why we built the garage. So there's a sense, I suppose of the excitement and – excitement and a bit of nervousness around the idea of like, ‘Oh, this is a very adult thing, having a garage and then a basement that you can sort of do whatever you want with. And a yard you can do whatever you want with.' It's different. [00:12:24]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: And the sense of like – like right now, you know, in a 1500 square feet, you know, there's the living room, the dining room, the master bedroom. Off the hall there's, you know, the other bedroom. And so very quickly, you know, you just – very quickly you walk in the door and you know, five seconds later you can be in the master bedroom, right? Now, in the house, it's like you walk in, well, the bedrooms are upstairs.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: Right?

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: So there's a sense of like, Barbara could be hanging out watching TV. I could be upstairs in, you know, a room that would be a, you know, den/study. It's like we're far apart.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: There's a sense of greater autonomy.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: I could be in the garage, I could be in the basement.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. More space.

CLIENT: All functional space.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And a bit of what I am aware of and it's sort of bittersweet sort of peripherally, is the idea that – well, it's 1800 feet and three bedrooms. But it's the two of us, so there's this thinking like, you know, you buy a house and you think, ‘Family.' But there's a sense of feeling a bit more acutely the idea that, well, huh, there's not a kid. So I periodically that pass through my head. Often I don't think about it, but, you know, in the evening I'll lie there and think about it. Or I suppose, too, when you – when you go and you're looking at places, you know, you know people who are looking at houses. So it's gay couples who often do not have kids. But you often have people who are clearly parents and they want a house, and they need room for kids. And so you are just sort of in that milieu, I suppose, of different types of people looking for a house. [00:15:40]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And – I don't know. You know, Barbara – Barbara's not looking at it like – fortunately, she's – she's very careful to explain, and she said, ‘This is – this is both of ours.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And she goes, ‘I'm rewriting' – you know, because she has a lawyer through work. She goes, ‘Once this is all finalized, I am rewriting the will so that, you know, you get everything.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And so it's sort of like – that – now that was nice to hear. That was actually profoundly nice to hear, thinking like, ‘We're not married, and yet this is a thing she wants to do together.'

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: She's aware of my sensitivity and sort of worry about the fact that I'm not contributing.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And she values me as a partner. Even though she's carrying the weight financially, she wants it to be ours.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And – so that – that was carefully said and – and very kind.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: And – and she also said – she goes – she goes, ‘Look, you know, right now we're in Boston, but it's not – just because we're getting a house doesn't mean we have to stay in Boston. You know, we could do this. It's going to retain its value. There's nothing to say that two years from now we don't just sell it. You know, it's not a big deal.' So she's been careful to say, you know, this isn't this – this permanent thing, forever. This is our house and this is where we will be for – you know, it could be. But we don't know, which I like. [00:17:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: So it takes – but she's – happily, I think she was really, without me saying it, because I don't know – I'm not sure what to – what to say in the sentence. But she is sort of picking up on where I'm at, and was proactive in saying –

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: – something that was – and in the midst of all of her stress of buying a house and filling out endless paperwork and support – to have the clarity to say that meaningfully and kindly, I – I – I felt good about that.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean a big – addressing some of the meaning that it all has for the two of you to be moving into the place together and what potential meanings are. And particularly around, ‘Yes, whose place is it?'

CLIENT: Hmm.

THERAPIST: It's like, you know, we had talked in the past – this hasn't come up recently, but you know, in the past this kind of feeling that you're in her – you're at her place. And you know, that made it feel a certain way.

CLIENT: Uh-huh.

THERAPIST: Not that it's right or wrong, it just did. It made it feel a certain way and what's the – what's this place going to feel like? What's it going to be like between the two of you? How does she see this space? And even if it's –

CLIENT: Yeah, and I – I feel like, too, because it sort of has the feeling of someone had already been there for a very long time, I think we're respecting that. So I feel like we're both moving in and we – we feel like we're going to be guests in a way for a bit –

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: – in a sense of navigating the history of the place and taking seriously that she was this – the woman who lived there for a long time was very well regarded and died in November, after Thanksgiving. And that – you know, all of those neighbors that loved her are now our neighbors, and so we're mindful of that. [00:19:44]

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: So in a way, it's sort of like – I told her – I said – this is prior to her saying what she said. She – so I told her, I said, ‘Yeah, let's just pretend that we're sort of like – we're going on vacation and we're staying at somebody's house and then – then let it gradually sink in the fact that we're not really leaving any time soon. And then gradually it becomes familiar to us.' (pause) I don't know, there – there's – I don't know how – situationally – it's the way the house is situated, I'm mindful of this fact, and that is, where we live now, there – across the street, you can go through a garden and then you are in a cemetery, and down the street there's a park, which also gives you access to the cemetery. So in the summertime, I will go through the cemetery on my way home, you know (inaudible) for a bit. But from where we live, you know the cemetery is there, but unless you sort of strain to look through the garden, you're sort of aware – ok, of all those trees. So there's lots of space –

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: – right? But now there's two ways to get to this new place, right? But right now, to get there, you don't ever look at the cemetery. You know, you think about it. You think, ‘Oh, yeah, it's there.' Or if it's quiet enough you hear the bells playing through the cemetery. But this house, you know, two ways to get there. One way is to drive past the cemetery and then turn right. You know, it's a massive cemetery, so you can just – you know, you drive two blocks. So there is no ignoring that, I guess. What's the expression? Whistling past the graveyard. Well, you – you can't just whistle –

THERAPIST: What is that like?

CLIENT: – mainly because you always are going by there. [00:23:28]

THERAPIST: What – what – what's your – how do you anticipate that being like?

CLIENT: Yeah, well – we're a no further – in fact, now – where we live now, technically is closer to the seminary – the cemetery.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: If you just cross the street, through the garden, there it is. You don't see it. Even where we live now, you don't see it. I mean, we're moving, you know, you're not going to see it. But driving there you will see it on the left, part of it. So – so let me get to the other way, right? So the other way to get there is to go, instead of turning left, just turn right. And you go past a converted church, down through some houses, and then there you are. You don't see the cemetery. Or our – I would guess there's a third – a third way, which might more sense. You go down, there's a bodega, take a left and just go up the street, past the school. Anyway, so there's a way to not – to get to the cemetery. But that's sort of interesting, isn't it? You know, like as you're driving – as it stands now, how we typically go there, is to not go past the cemetery. [00:25:06]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And it's at our convenience in some way, driving from where we live now, it's just easier just to go – continue straight and then take a right onto a lesser – less busy street. Anyway. But, you know, it is a busy street, and so people will – you know, do zip along past the cemetery. I don't know. You know, and she died there –

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: – The owner (sp).

THERAPIST: Hmm, in the house?

CLIENT: Yeah. So – and then Barbara said – she goes, ‘Well, I don't know where.' So I don't mind it. I mean, I – I – it – I don't. But she – so she goes, ‘Yeah.' She goes, ‘My dad' – she goes, ‘Well, at least spiritual people you could meet, but' – she said, ‘Maybe because he drank or maybe because he was oblivious' – she said, ‘He was receptive to ghosts.' She said, ‘When he came to visit and he said – he goes, ‘Well, you know in the other room, there's two little girls sitting on the bed.'

THERAPIST: Hmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: And this – this is a common thing where he would just sort of feel these things, so I'm not sure – I'm not – I'm not suspicious. I'm not – I mean, how often do ghosts (inaudible) anyway? And I'm sort of agnostic, I guess. I feel like, you know what I mean – maybe people do.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Some people say they do, then fine. As long as they don't make a big deal out of it. And he didn't, he just sort of like (inaudible) the fact that they were there. So – anyways, so I suppose – there's something comforting, I suppose, in the idea of – maybe there's something comforting. [00:27:18]

THERAPIST: About?

CLIENT: About the idea that the life people create somehow has a bit of residual time or energy.

THERAPIST: Hmm, yeah. Hmm.

CLIENT: I'm not sure why I'm thinking about that or even talking about it, because I – I don't think about it that much, I – I don't know. And then talking about it now, next door, Darryl died Christmas day. So we went to his funeral and (pause) – so I made a flier so that neighbors would know, and it sits on my desktop on the computer, right? And I mean – you know, a bunch – amidst a bunch of other –

THERAPIST: Oh, I see – ok.

CLIENT: Right? The – just the – the icon.

THERAPIST: The icon, ok.

CLIENT: Yeah. And there's a sense of like always – you know, you're organizing and putting things in folders, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and so forth. You know? There goes – you know, there's sort of a time where you sort of let folders accumulate and – and that's ok, right? And you – and then periodically you go through a phase where, ‘I've got to really organize this stuff,' and – so there's a sense – so – but – so this is, you know, I suppose, what, ten times since Christmas, I've sort of reorganized my desktop, and you know, put things in various folders. And yet I keep his obituary that I made on the desktop. Darryl' obituary. It' s like – you know, I back things up to hard drives, so I could just drop it in the trash, right? But then it's like, ‘No, too soon. I need to be reminded of Darryl.' [00:29:41]

THERAPIST: Hmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: ‘Who was well-loved by Matilda.' And I see Matilda and all these snow storms that we've had, it's like I always make a point of shoveling the front of her house, even though her tenants should and could do it. And so I take the – you know, we've had (inaudible) snow, but I shovel the distance of her house, I'll shovel her – shovel her steps. And – not that Darryl did it, because he had his – he had COPD and that's why he died. He was on his walker and oxygen, so he wasn't shoveling. But somehow it's like Matilda needs to be taken care of and Darryl loved her and Darryl isn't here, so I don't have – you know, I don't want to just drop the obituary in the trash.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

CLIENT: It's like I need to be reminded of it.

THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's – I guess I can see the – the – this sort of – the link between that and the house owner dying, but not wanting to change around the place in some way, almost as a remembrance.

CLIENT: Uh-huh.

THERAPIST: What came before you but – I mean, I – I guess the other thing I – I just was – was thinking about was (pause) it just made me think about, you know, it's a (pause) – it's not just a change, you know, in – in a house – a change in where you're going to live, but it's a – it's a – from a condo to a house. This kind of – which I'm – I'm sensing kind of a – has – has connotations of somehow aging, too, in some way. [00:31:50]

CLIENT: Yeah, absolutely.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Graveyards (laughs). Passing by graveyards, as well as, you know, you guys thinking about, together, yeah, who you are now, who you're going to be in the future, and family. There's just – I guess, just thinking about who you're going to be in that house together and what you're future is going to look like, as you're going towards this next, you know, this – this is going to be a way to – to mark a kind of – stages or something.

CLIENT: Hmm.

THERAPIST: It also made me kind of wonder if – I don't that we've talked about it, maybe we have, about – have you guys ever talked about kids, if – her wanting kids and you wanting kids, anything like that? Is it – conversations have you all had about it?

CLIENT: I –

THERAPIST: How old is she again?

CLIENT: She's (pause) 42.

THERAPIST: Forty-two, ok.

CLIENT: And I'm 45.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Yeah, so there's this – there's the feeling of, you know (pause) – getting older and not getting abstract. Not liking, and at the moment I feel like, ‘Well, I lived my life, so I mean, it's not a thing, right?' So I feel I'm doing the thing and – but it's in the abstract, and you sort of (pause) – I don't know, I guess it's something I avoid. Yeah, I don't like to think about it. [00:34:06]

THERAPIST: Hmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: So yeah, kids. I don't know. I feel like (pause) – I feel like we've not talked about it much, and so it's strange that she hasn't talked about it more. And maybe it's – I don't know. I think the way I think about it is there's Oregon life and there's whatever's happening here. And yet, I've been here so long, it isn't – at some point there's a sense of – I guess we always have that, or maybe – maybe this was a common feeling, sort of like waiting for your real life to begin, right?

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: It's like you're – you prepare and prepare in some way, thinking like you're doing stuff at the time and biding time in some way, waiting for sort of this epiphanal thing where all of the sudden all of the stuff you've done while you were waiting are going to now be activated. [00:35:40]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And that's sort of this – this common – I don't even know if it's – it's a fantasy of sorts. But it's not like, ‘Oh, that's a fantasy.' It's sort of a mindset, thinking like, ‘Well' –

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: – ‘(inaudible) be different.' You know, and then there's that song, right? Carly Simon, you know, These Are The Good Old Days, right?

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: So, you know, it really puts a fine point on, well –

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's interesting.

CLIENT: Around 25 – ‘Oh, well, in the future.' It's like (inaudible), you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: So I mean, in Oregon, you know, at that point, you know, growing up and being there and (pause) somehow I assumed, although I'm not sure how much I thought about it, just that that – that's what you do, right? You get older and you get married and you have kids, and you aren't really – that's just what – that's what you do. And I didn't have any angst over the idea, I just sort of thought, ‘Yeah.' [00:37:14]

THERAPIST: Is that right? Yeah.

CLIENT: You know? And then I thought, ‘Well, sort of the idea was that you meet somebody you really love, and you have kids, and – and –

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: – and somehow I thought, ‘Well, I don't want to have my parent's house. I want my life to be more exciting than that,' because when you're a kid, you think, ‘This is boring.' It wasn't boring to them. I mean, maybe it was. It wasn't – it didn't seem painful to them. I mean, it seemed like they liked each other and (pause) – they were just enjoying life, you know, the way people do. And so of course you want adventure and all that. Anyway, so I come here and like – feeling like, ‘What's going on?' It felt like survival, and it felt like searching, and it felt like whatever part of me that is sort of an impractical dreamer, sort of always lived to have – prevent me in some way from doing practical things in some way. Like I had to go through a phase of being really practical and like – but you know, speaking of just sort of – gone forward in some way. I don't know how. Now I'm here. (pause) I don't know. It's sort of – it's a feeling like, ‘Well, what is in life right now matters.' So what's in front of me matters. But there isn't this – I don't know. I feel like – this is range finder, I suppose, right, you know, in terms of like, plus or minus a couple of years, and that's sort of my horizon. [00:39:19]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: As opposed to looking back over 30 years and looking forward over 30 years.

THERAPIST: Hmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: Because I don't want to. It's better to just focus on right now.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And –

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: – to whatever degree I focus on right now, but I don't really focus on right now in the blue sense. I don't want to think about right now.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: I want to think about things –

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: – right? The – I want – I want to sort of consume myself with my current distractions. I want to consume myself with math and sports radio and – it's a pity the Sox aren't likeable because that's just annoying and I don't want to listen to it. So right now – and, you know, the whole (inaudible) conversation is boring. You know, so right now, it's what – didn't the Bruins get – you know, get spared from the flames by (inaudible) Pittsburgh. And it's like these little dramas with people who I don't know anything about. [00:40:43]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And I realize – it's not even the content. That's the thing.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: It's not the content. It's not the – it's not – it's really, really not the content.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: And yet I prefer it to NPR, because NPR like that's serious stuff.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: I used to listen to NPR, but now I listen to people like me who get themselves distracted with things that don't really affect us directly. And so there's a comraderieship of the older men who get distracted by these things, I get distracted by these things, and it's nice to be distracted by something and distracted from what? Right? Distracted from – I don't know. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Well, yeah. But – I'm going to stop in just a minute, but – I – I – I think – one thought I had is that it – it – it always – it's – it's packed – I think both the look – looking in the past – I think it's true for anybody, not just you. But looking in the past for you is certainly packed with a lot of feeling. And being in – kind of in the present with things like, you know, what are we – you know, what does this house mean to us, really, to each other, out in the – out in the – you know, being kind of really out there between the two of you, between you and Barbara in some way or – is filled with a lot of feeling, a lot – you know, it's very – it's very alive. It's a very alive – in some way. I always – I mean – not – I always – but it seems like maybe the distractions are – are – are – because that can kind of be all too real. You know? As you were saying, I mean – just to echo back what you were saying, it's like, ‘Yeah, I'm not the guy that brings up the – the – the topic around' – I'm gonna be – I don't tend to be the guy that brings up the topic about, ‘Well, what – what are we doing with this place together? Whose is it?' But man, it matters a hell of a lot to you. It's not because it doesn't matter, it's because it matters so much. [00:43:19]

CLIENT: Hmm.

THERAPIST: And you – you know, it's – it's – it's very important to you. And it's your – you noticed when she said it, it was like, ‘Oh, God.' And I could – I could – I can only assume that it meant a lot to you for her to kind of pick up on that and address in a way that was very kind and loving. But man, that's a – that's a big – big thing, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, well, a lot there, man. So when is the closing date?

CLIENT: That is still in progress, which – so that's being worked out with the lawyers, so – because this other guy has to get his – there are these (inaudible) and he's going to get his mortgage. Ours is essentially done. But you know, 45 days or 60 days, and so we'll find out in a few days what's going on.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: How that works. And my feeling is – we've got to move, but my final exam is May 12th, and like we're going to be moving at the end of April. So there's a feeling like, ‘Ok, linear algebra, which is blowing my mind, and moving.' [00:44:43]

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: I don't know. That's something –

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's –

CLIENT: – I'm not sure.

THERAPIST: But is it – is it – somebody – there's a mortgage – is there a mortgage contingency for that – for the seller?

CLIENT: What does that mean? Where are you going?

THERAPIST: Well, is your – is your – is the sale to you contingent upon the other person finding a mortgage? I thought that's what you were suggesting by somebody else had found –

CLIENT: Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, so I – I don't know, other than in terms of like when the dates were actually set is however it's done with the lawyers, in terms of we have a mortgage, he has mortgage and when's it actually going be done. So maybe Barbara – maybe Barbara knows, at this point. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Oh, Ok.

CLIENT: I mean, Barbara knows that stuff a couple of days ago. But she said she thinks the purchase and sale was done two days ago, so maybe so knows now.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, but it – but it's not until – you do the purchase and sale first and then the inspection? You did the inspection after the purchase –

CLIENT: Oh, that's the thing. This is the thing, too. So there's the mortgage inspection, so his mortgage person comes to our place to say it really is as valuable, and that's key. [00:46:02]

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: So I think that – I think that's the last hurdle. So his mortgage people are coming to inspect our place on Saturday, and then assuming that goes and they actually assess it as it ought to be assessed, then I think –

THERAPIST: Oh, Ok. I get it. I get it. Ok. Ok. Ok. Right. And do you have a buyer for your place?

CLIENT: Well, that's the – that's the thing. So – so we do have a buyer and he's got his mortgage, but now his mortgage people come to our place to inspect –

THERAPIST: Ok.

CLIENT: – to make sure that him buying it for –

THERAPIST: I'm sorry.

CLIENT: – 345 –

THERAPIST: I get it.

CLIENT: – actually is valuable as it – is valuable –

THERAPIST: I get it. Ok. Yeah, that they had to get an assessor to come out – I see. I thought you were talking about the place you were buying, you had to – that they were needing to get a mortgage. But obviously not, because it was the woman's estate or something, right?

CLIENT: Right. So we're going to get the new house.

THERAPIST: Ok, so you – but you still need to – you're – you might have a mortgage contingency then. You've got to sell your place in order to buy this place, right?

CLIENT: Well, that's right.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And so it's important on Saturday that, in fact, his mortgage people they – whatever that is, that appraiser, comes out and looks at it, and says, ‘Ok, it really is worth 345.'

THERAPIST: Ah, ok. Yeah, that's how it goes, especially with the market going up. [00:47:26]

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but still – good luck.

CLIENT: Thanks. Yeah, Barbara is keeping the balls in the air.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know.

THERAPIST: Ok.

CLIENT: Good, good.

THERAPIST: I'll see you Monday then.

CLIENT: Good.

THERAPIST: And I'll know more about that – you know, Friday.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Ok. We'll see you.

END TRANSCRIPT