TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I don't know if I've mentioned this before but my family is crazy and awesome and like I love them. It was just a really it was a crazy weekend. Like every night James and I would go home when my dad and Joanne left which would be 1 or 2 in the morning and that would be like really early (unclear) just stayed out all night every night. I was like I think that would be bad for me. It was really fun. There was a lot of dancing like six hours of dancing before 2 in the morning, before I left and then it continued on. I asked (unclear) the next day, 'so what happened after we left?' and she was like, 'pretty much the same thing.' She said, 'it got to the point where we were all still dancing but like you could just tell that everyone was really, really tired but didn't want to stop.' Yeah. I talked to my cousin. I have lots of cousins, like 30 first cousins. Which is like I think probably there are more now with people being married and things. I saw a lot of people like, 'so, what's going on in your life?' and like, 'well you know, nothing's going anymore.' 'Oh, why's that?' 'Well,' which went actually much better than I expected it to. Like I don't know if I was coherent to anybody but it didn't like break my I think James had a less good time but I think he had a good time. I was really enjoying myself and he was really happy about that. Yeah.

(PAUSE): [00:02:19 00:02:32]

CLIENT: The thing that is the most stressful for me about being around my dad and my family is I can't control any of it. Like I don't like we were like an hour late to everything all the time. We weren't late to the wedding because we decided we were going to get there at 5:30 and the wedding starts at 6 so we got there at like 5:55. There is no reason for it but I couldn't do anything about it. It was the sort of thing like there were too many people who had opinions already and all I could do was be ready when it was time to be ready and show up.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And that's what we did every day.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like for everything. And like I hate driving with my dad or I hate being in a car with my dad driving because he's like he wasn't that bad this time but like I think of him as a very unsafe driver and so I panic but like we had started going to a brunch yesterday morning and we were in the car on the road like moving out of the driveway and Joanne who was doing the GPS like navigating says, 'like where are we going? What's the address?' None of us knew. James and I didn't know because we'd gotten the invitation that had the address on it and we'd assumed that Pop and Joanne, who were driving, had also written that down, but -

THERAPIST: (inaudible)

CLIENT: Yeah, I know. So James's solution to this was like when we were coming back yesterday was next time we go we're just going to print out directions to everything previously and just bring them with us and that way they'll be there. Which isn't going to help at all. That's not going to make any difference. But it'll make him feel better. So I got kind of stressed out yesterday because it was also like we were so there's like brunch at 11 at some place that we didn't know in Birmingham which I don't know if you've been to Birmingham but there's like as far as I can tell there are like six-lane highways everywhere. It's just like a driving city and so everywhere we went we were like getting on and off the interstate constantly. I lost my train of thought. So like the brunch was at 11, James's and my plane was at 2:30 at the airport which we figured, we like to get to the airport like two hours ahead which is Birmingham which is insane, which is, I think bigger than James and so like okay we want to get there two hours ahead so we'll have to leave brunch at like noon and so we got to the brunch at like noon and we were supposed to meet Amanda and Jason there because they had been out all night, so they hadn't come home with us. So James and I had to like pack up all of their shit before we left because we left like the people were staying with, which I was a little bitter about because like -

THERAPIST: Wait Jason and Amanda were supposed to show up there at some point because they were staying there to get their stuff together to bring it to the brunch and go to the airport with you or something like that?

CLIENT: There wasn't you say that like there might have been a plan. (Laughing)

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I think Jason and Amanda, theoretically, were supposed to come back to the place we were staying at some point during the evening but like they stayed out all night and by the time and they didn't have any way to get back to us.

THERAPIST: Okay, because I'm (unclear) about where and when they crashed.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, they stayed at the the wedding was at my cousin's parent's house so they stayed at the house and so we start going and Joanne's like, 'where are we going?' And then the GPS won't give her the right address.

THERAPIST: This is on the way to brunch?

CLIENT: This is on the way to the brunch.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And then like Pop and Joanne have a fight because she's trying to tell Pop what to do and he can't, like none of them can make up their mind and so she's like, 'turn right, no turn left, no turn right, no turn left. No make a U-turn. And so he starts to make a U-turn and just like stops half way, like a 90 degree angle through both lanes.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: He's like, 'what do you think I should do, Tanya?' I'm like, 'I think you should go!' He's like, 'do you think I should turn left?' And I'm like, 'I think you should make a turn.' And when we get to the brunch my aunt is like well, 'we always leave to go to the airport like an hour and a half before the flight so you can stay, it's fine.' Which she leaves from her house which is not the house that she's in.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And then like James and Joanne are trying to get directions to the airport and everyone's like, 'oh, you take 75,' but they won't tell us how to get onto 75 from the house. So it was a little bit stressful. We didn't miss our flight but we got there as they were boarding the last people.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That's not how you guys usually roll.

CLIENT: No. No.

(PAUSE): [00:08:54 00:09:30]

CLIENT: Everyone, when James said he was looking for a job said, 'oh, you should move to our city,' which was very nice but meant like my second cousin, Natalie, who is like my father's cousin, spent like telling all about jobs in pharmaceuticals that he could get in San Antonio, and he was like, 'okay.' And he didn't really say, 'that's not at all what I do.'

(PAUSE): [00:10:00 00:10:19]

CLIENT: It's hard, like I want to know all of these people in my life better because they're all pretty badass, most of them. Some of them are strange, but you know, I have great cousins and we're all between the ages of 18 and 40 at this point so we're all doing like exciting things and like old enough to drink and none of us has kids yet and I guess a couple of my cousins have kids but they didn't come. I think (inaudible). (Laughs) [00:10:59]

CLIENT: But I had kind of a really fun time and I'd like to be there for more of it. You know. It kind of sucks every night you have to decide like, 'I have to go home because if I don't get like five or six hours of sleep I'm not going to make it through next week,' like that's just going to be that. Like I just feel like I can't keep above it.

(PAUSE): [00:11:45 00:11:53]

CLIENT: On the other hand I think this was like I think it was the first time, I can't remember another time that there's been dancing that I've just danced and not been self-conscious enough that it took me a long time just getting to it. And that was really nice. It only took me until I was this age to get over myself. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Laughs) It sounds like at moments you really had fun.

CLIENT: It was really fun. It was really, really fun.

THERAPIST: That's great.

CLIENT: Yeah. Oh my gosh, the cousin who was getting married, her whole family but like especially her dad is like the best dancer I've ever seen. Like he was just one thing I really like about our family is like all of our parent's generation were also dancing until 2 or 3 in the morning, like it just doesn't stop. Not all of them, but most of them. Yeah, it was really good.

THERAPIST: What kind of music?

CLIENT: It started out with kind of Mo-town and then moved on to (unclear) like hip-hop. I think Journey was requested enough times that they had to play it. (Laughs), So, you know. Yeah, it was like a lot of hip-hop, some of which I knew and some of which I really didn't know. It was nice to see Amanda and Jason. Jason's still planning to buy a boat and showed me pictures of the boat he's going to buy. He's really excited about it. I think both he and Pop and Joanne are really ready for him to be out of their house.

CLIENT: Yeah, (Laughing) he's living at home now.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think Joanne's really ready for him to go on. I'm sure Pop is ready for him to be gone but in kind of a quiet way. And he's like you know, 'I'm really looking forward to like hanging out with Pop and Joanne every day and not living with them.' And then it was a little bit tough because I couldn't remember the last couple of conversations I had with any of my cousins and I was like, 'I think I saw you last year but I don't remember what we talked about.' But yeah, it's great. They ran out of food which I had sort of been like, 'I'm just going to get food and (unclear) served and not going to wait around because of course they're going to run out of food. And of course they ran out of food and ordered like massive amounts of chicken and had that delivered. Yeah, I feel better today than I was expecting, actually. Like less exhausted and depleted and loopy. So that's good. (Pause)

James's danced with me for like an hour and then he was done which I felt sort of bad because like he wanted me to just go dance and I wanted him to just do whatever was going to make him happy but there wasn't like that much else for him to be doing. And he talked to my parents for a while.

(PAUSE): [00:16:59 00:17:34]

CLIENT: I don't know. I have a lot of aunts who well, just two now, who want to, I don't know tell me how to make my life better or something.

(PAUSE): [00:17:54 00:18:02]

CLIENT: I don't know. I don't know how to deal with them.

(PAUSE): [00:18:08 00:18:30]

CLIENT: Pop got really upset with Amanda and Jason after the rehearsal dinner because he was ready to go home and they were ready to go home and he felt like they had just like hid from him and were saying that they weren't going to go home with him, but were going to stay out. He was really angry about that. You know, I was there and so he told James and me all about it and -

THERAPIST: (Unclear).

CLIENT: Yeah, and but as far as I could tell he never actually told them that he was angry with them. Like the next day Amanda was like, 'is Pop mad at me?' And I was like, 'yeah, he was pretty mad at you guys.' And she was like, oh he doesn't seem like it.' And I was like okay fine. And so she like started to ask me about it and I was like I need to not be in this. But I already was in it. I really don't like that.

(PAUSE): [00:19:23 00:19:34]

CLIENT: I didn't get a chance to talk to my dad, like at all.

(PAUSE): [00:19:35 00:20:28]

CLIENT: So they had like sparklers for everybody which should not have worked but was really beautiful. It rained all day and like stopped raining after dark. And so the sparklers were like this long and burned for two or three minutes each which was good because it took two or three minutes for everyone to get them lit. And it was really beautiful. I got burnt in the face with one. (Laughs) It just like hit me as I was walking by. It's fine, whatever.

THERAPIST: Sparklers can be dangerous because they burn very, very hot.

CLIENT: It's like I had a little mark but it didn't hurt it much. It's fine.

THERAPIST: Good.

CLIENT: That's how it goes.

THERAPIST: Yeah

CLIENT: It was sort of hard to be there with like yeah, James and I had a really hard first few years of marriage, like really, really hard. So Lillian I didn't talk to her very much during the weekend but at the rehearsal dinner, like did I have any advice. I was like very, very drunk. I was hung over the next day which I almost never am.

THERAPIST: This is the mother of -

CLIENT: This is the bride.

THERAPIST: Oh, this is the bride, herself.

CLIENT: Yeah, she like asked my advice. I was like, 'it's harder than anyone's going to tell you. And it's also awesome.' Like that is just what I said. I don't know what James would have said. I think he would have agreed with, 'it's harder than anyone's going to tell you.' I'm not sure he would have agreed with the awesome part.

(PAUSE): [00:22:18 00:22:34]

CLIENT: I sort of think I am happier to be married to him than he is to be married to me.

(PAUSE): [00:22:35 00:23:10]

CLIENT: They read a Mary Oliver poem that is one of my favorites called, "Wild Geese". (inaudible).

(PAUSE): [00:23:22 00:23:33]

CLIENT: I think that in some ways it was very similar to James's and my wedding. You know, kind of in somebody's backyard, put up a tent, kind of did all the (unclear) myself.

THERAPIST: You didn't tell me much about your and James's wedding.

CLIENT: Yeah?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: We got married at like a second or third cousin's who has like an old plantation on, it's like a little plantation house but still it's like 17th Century like in the middle of nowhere in Texas.

THERAPIST: When was it?

CLIENT: It was in June, late June, 95 degrees at least. I spent the 10 minutes before walking down the aisle like in the air conditioned bathroom like holding my dress over my head because I thought I was going to sweat through my dress. It was like one of my clearest memories of getting married. My dad did the service. It was really nice.

THERAPIST: How many years ago now?

CLIENT: Three years. We talked, like there was a lot of negotiating about what we wanted in it because James is not like we both wanted it to be like a religious wedding but James's not really a fan of like established church so like we didn't want it to be in the church and it was really important to us that it would be outside. It was really important to James that like I mean it was important to both of us that we take care of everybody so we had a tent in case it rained because we didn't have to have a tent. We had to make sure there was enough food, enough to drink. There was like some dancing, but not a whole lot. Because it was like 11 in the morning where like three cars broke down in five different ways on our honeymoon.

THERAPIST: How many (unclear).

CLIENT: (Laughing) Two days after being married, stranded in Abilene, Texas, trying to get our car fixed. And we really didn't have a plan so it was actually great. We were like, 'we'll just drive around Texas and do some hiking.'

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: So, it was like, 'well, what is there to do in Abilene? Let's do that.' (Laughs)

THERAPIST: This is one of your cars?

CLIENT: It was my dad's car.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: So yeah. The car was getting old and (unclear) shit. I think James's car had broken down when we drove down to get married so we took my dad's car on the honeymoon and then it broke down again.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, James wanted to get an estimate from my dad of how long the sermon would be because it's going to be mid-90s in like Texas summer and we didn't want the service to be longer than a half an hour and my dad said, 'well, it will be somewhere between 30 seconds and an hour.' And James was like, 'no I just wanted you to tell me how long it's going to be.' And I said, 'James, it's going to be from seven to eight minutes.' And he was like, 'I need to talk to your dad,' and my dad was like, 'no, like I'm the preacher and I will talk however long I want to.'

THERAPIST: I see. That was kind of a thing.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Yeah. And I was like, 'don't worry, it's not going to be a long like there's no way it's going longer than 10 minutes, like my dad is opposed to talking longer than 10 minutes, period.' So James was like panicking about that and my dad was like -

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So at the rehearsal dinner like for the rehearsal my rule was like we start on time. Which I know is kind of hilarious coming from me but I kind of get the sense that like if you say you're going to start on time the wedding party never shows up on time.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: I was like, 'we start on time and if you're not there, we start without you.' And like Amanda and I had been in San Antonio doing some things and we were running a little late and were like, 'we're the bride and the maid of honor, they're not going to start without us.' He totally started without us.

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: (Laughs) It was really nice. I cut out like silhouettes of birds flying in like yellows and blues and grays and I cut out like 700 of them and strung them together like all over the tent, which was one of the few things I've ever done that turned out exactly how I wanted it to.

THERAPIST: How many people did you have?

CLIENT: We invited like 400, like 200 showed up.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, I have a big family.

THERAPIST: I would say. Yeah. (inaudible).

CLIENT: And you know, all of my second cousins live in San Antonio and we hadn't met all of them. My sister made the cake. There's a great picture of Amanda and Carmen like trying to carry the cake over to where it (unclear) and it was like this is not going to work. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Was it a tall cake?

CLIENT: Yeah. You know like 200 people (unclear) the cake.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, sure.

CLIENT: We had massive amounts of food left over because we wanted to make sure that everyone got enough to eat. But it was really hot and in the middle of the afternoon and I don't think anybody wanted to eat that much.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And we also I and Amanda and some of my friends had gotten together and made lots of deserts like the day before and we had like cookies and everything. We memorized our vows and (unclear). I always find it sort of weird to be repeating vows after somebody saying that, particularly when it's my dad. Like that was just an extra level of weird.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(PAUSE): [00:30:34 00:30:56]

CLIENT: And it's funny like it's very funny like when it was my wedding I just wanted to hang out with James. I was very glad everyone else was there. Like I was kind of grumpy because in like we had the first dance and we didn't make a big deal out of all of the things because we were like other people should have fun. If they want to watch it, they can. If not, they should keep doing what they're doing. But so my dad cut in after the first verse and I was like, 'but I want to keep dancing with James.' I just want to do that.

THERAPIST: Oh.

(PAUSE): [00:31:33 00:31:55]

CLIENT: My mom did the flowers which were beautiful. We'd sort of you know mom has a history of sort of not following through, so give her something that is all her own that we can ask her to do that if she doesn't do it, it's okay.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So we didn't know what she was going to show up with or whether she was going to show up.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Like she had a Volkswagen Beetle at that time and the entire car was like exploding with flowers when she showed up in the morning.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That's lovely.

CLIENT: Yeah, she worked as a landscape designer for a while and has like a lot of (inaudible).

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Unclear).

THERAPIST: Yeah, she did. (inaudible).

(PAUSE): [00:32:58 00:33:20]

CLIENT: She seemed to like it. It was hot. Really, really hot. It was freezing this weekend August in Birmingham I was sort of expecting it to be very hot and very muggy and it was like 70 degrees the whole weekend.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. I needed a sweater. I lent my sweater to a bridesmaid and didn't get it back. I knew that was going to happen as I lent it to her. I was like well, we'll see if this comes back to me.

(PAUSE): [00:33:53 00:34:26]

CLIENT: I don't know (inaudible). My other cousin, Lillian's older brother, Wyatt, is getting married in December.

THERAPIST: Another one.

CLIENT: Yep. And I talked to his fianc�e yesterday morning at brunch. He's an instructor at the University of Texas in creative writing. He teaches in the study abroad program. She's one of his TAs. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Laughs) I sort of didn't realize. I like assumed that she was like an academic in some way. I was like, 'so are you at the University of Texas? 'And she was like, 'I was. I was in comparative literature and I was a TA with Wyatt at this course in Nicaragua, taking the GREs this fall and -' I'm like, 'ohh.' (Laughs)

CLIENT: Oh, she's like an undergraduate.

THERAPIST: Yes. She's like 21.

CLIENT: Oh. It's like he's at least 35.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: So (unclear) pretty often.

THERAPIST: No I was picturing that he was an instructor pretty early on and she's a TA so she's a grad student.

CLIENT: Yeah. No. No.

THERAPIST: It's different for them.

CLIENT: Yeah. He's been an instructor there for at least 10 years. I think it's a situation where like they're never going to give him a tenure track job -

THERAPIST: Sort of an adjunct.

CLIENT: Yeah. But like he seems to really enjoy it and he's actually supporting himself in what he wants to do.

THERAPIST: Creative writing.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Great. (inaudible).

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs) I mean she's very self-possessed so I didn't like it didn't occur to me that she was like younger than I was.

(PAUSE): [00:36:26 00:37:04]

CLIENT: Yeah, it's sort of sad like at this point we're pretty widely spread. Like there are some people in Des Moines and a bunch of people in Los Angeles. People in Birmingham, people in San Antonio and I'd really like to spend more time with all of them and wonder how that's going to happen. I guess that's what the Internet is for.

(PAUSE): [00:37:36 00:37:52]

CLIENT: I sort of feel like there's this whole life of people that I've sort of been missing out on for the last couple of years and I want to be part of that.

(PAUSE): [00:38:10 00:38:36]

CLIENT: My aunt said to me something like, 'you don't remember how many people love you.' And I was like, 'oh God.' I was like it's so wonderful and also it's like a burden. But it's also so wonderful. I don't know.

(PAUSE): [00:38:57 00:39:19]

THERAPIST: You do, I think, sound a little bit overwhelmed.

(PAUSE): [00:39:24 00:39:30]

THERAPIST: Like that there were a number of things that sort of (unclear) in smaller and sometimes slightly larger way.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (inaudible). And like this other thing about Wyatt and his TA and the direction of a car and the airport -

CLIENT: Yeah, I sort of knew that was going to happen. All of that. Less than I expected, yeah.

(PAUSE): [00:40:10 00:40:20]

CLIENT: That's sort of always true though.

(PAUSE): [00:40:21 00:41:14]

THERAPIST: There's also a lot of what you said, I think, of you having to find ways to kind of manage other people being crazy, like figure out what they're going to say or do that's going to throw you or how you're going to get where you need to go in spite of somebody doing whatever they're doing.

CLIENT: Yeah. Or be okay with the fact that we might not ever actually get to where we need to go. (Laughs) Yeah. I'm trying to manage it. I'm trying to feel like I need to manage it less and I'm trying to I know. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Sorry.

CLIENT: Your face was pretty great.

THERAPIST: Oh really?

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Okay, so probably to manage all of it is to try to manage yourself so you don't need to manage it.

CLIENT: Yeah, basically. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like, 'do you know how ridiculous that sounds?'

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: (Laughs)

CLIENT: Just like, no, I can do nothing about Amanda and Papa. I can't do anything about the way they are. I can't do anything about my aunt's being like lovely and also fucking intrusive. I can't do anything about that. I'm just going to have to pass and yeah. Maybe I'm trying to get to a place where I don't feel like I need to manage it so much as I feel I need to navigate it, if that makes sense. A different way of acting.

(PAUSE): [00:43:54 00:44:12]

THERAPIST: I guess I feel like now you're sort of working to manage my apparent (Client laughing) by convincing me that it's not in fact ridiculous, but that it makes sense or that (cross talk) -

CLIENT: No because I'm sort of on board with that being probably ridiculous. I don't know.

(PAUSE): [00:44:28 00:44:49]

CLIENT: Better yet, I need time to try to use everything. I can't rule it out.

THERAPIST: We should stop today.

CLIENT: Okay.

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