TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:00:01) Nope. No, it really wasn’t. Anyway. I hate being late. Really hate it. (Chuckles) Sort of a long week. Yeah. Ended up having to go in on Wednesday. Not until like 11:00 or so, but I went in and then yesterday I was there for 12 hours. Like 7:30 in the morning, there until 7:30 (ph). Yeah. And I’m sick again. (Laughs) Fucking kids. So I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself right now. [00:01:06]
But I got a new tutoring job last night. Like a kid who got an incomplete into his high school diploma and needed 30 hours in World Religion so, “Sure.” (Laughs) (inaudible at 00:01:51) Yeah. I’m going to actually like work hard to keep the prep time at a manageable amount. I think it’s going to set aside a couple free hours a week and be like, “This is the time I have to prepare and if I don’t get it done in this time, I’ll just wing it.” See what happens. (Pause) [00:02:19]
Somebody asked me to be on a committee at the church. Yeah. For Christian Formation, which is like religious education for all ages. So something that I care a lot about. I think [it’ll be good] (ph). (Pause) [00:02:56]
(inaudible at 00:03:37) So far I don’t think I’ve totally missed anything, but I have sort of more meetings or kind of one off (ph) things recently coming up. And I’ve already done the thing where I say that, “Yeah. I can meet at this time.” And then reminds me that, “Well actually, we have a dinner engagement then.” So then I have to reschedule. Then it’s another date to not remember. (Pause) That’s never (ph) really been one of my strengths. (Pause) [00:04:23]
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: A little tired today. I once again had big plans for what I wanted to do to prepare for the Greek class [that I’m in] (ph)—just didn’t get to it before. Didn’t get to it last weekend, which meant that I could either stay up late last night or get up early this morning, and so I got up early and did that and did some of it. Not as much as I wanted to. I’m not very satisfied with myself. [00:05:50] (Pause)
But I also feel like I’m being more deliberate about saying, “No. You need this evening to watch silly television.” Yeah. It makes a big difference when I get rest. That is surprising to me and I don’t know why. (Laughs) (Pause) [00:06:39]
So the tutoring gig is a 10 week commitment and the thing at the church is about 8 weeks. (Pause) I don’t know how realistic it is for me to be—I don’t know where we’ll be in 8 weeks or 10 weeks. Sort of increasingly seeming like we’ll probably just still be in the same place. [00:08:10]
THERAPIST: Is it just like not hearing back about [places he’s applied?] (ph)
CLIENT: I honestly don’t know when I would apply (ph) to anywhere. I know he’s been looking at places for the last week or week and a half. I haven’t seen him working on applications. I’ve seen him working on the stuff for Greg (ph). I don’t know. He’s done a lot of scabbing (ph) out things, but I can’t think of any actual applications that he’s actually sent out. (Pause)Which is a little (inaudible at 00:09:15) for me.
He had a paper accepted for that. Yeah. It’s been accepted pending revisions and then before he got to the (inaudible at 00:09:37), so that was great.
I think it’s one that he wrote the bulk of and that he’s fairly proud of.
THERAPIST: Is it like a journal?
CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t think it’s a crappy journal, because I don’t he would be proud of having a paper on a crappy journal. (Laughs)
THERAPIST: That’s great.
CLIENT: Yeah. He apparently sort of went to the matt (ph) with Greg over—one of the main things that he sort of added to the paper was he did a lot of the stuff on like, “What do we think is actually going on here? How do we explain the results that we have, which don’t really lend themselves well to explanation?” So a lot of that ended up being sort of necessarily speculative and Greg objected to that, and James, “It’s fine to have speculative stuff as long as we say that it is.” [00:10:52]
That seems to have been looked favorably upon by the reviewer, so was happy about that.
THERAPIST: Good. Yeah.
CLIENT: That’s very James. (Laughs) (Pause) We’re going to dinner with one of his collaborators, who’s sort of—the guy who’s living in Denver, retired from University of Denver, has lab space at Brown, calls James every couple of days and talks for 45 minutes to get across like five minutes of information. I think he’s a little crazy. He really likes James though, which most people do. Or people like him really like James. I think people sort of want to be James’s mentor because he gives them hope for the future of the world in some ways. He’s just like very upstanding person, very sensible, and good at listening and also has his own ideas, but is good at not being an ass hole about them. I don’t know. [00:12:30] (Pause)
It’s just funny. (inaudible at 00:13:23) I can’t be but so frustrated with him. (Laughs) Yeah, [it’s just been ten years to] (ph) (inaudible at 00:14:10).
THERAPIST: Sorry. This…
CLIENT: This waiting for him to make any kind of a move.
THERAPIST: Feel like he’s, in a way, really leaving you hanging. I also (inaudible at 00:14:31) why you, one reason you probably don’t like being late. Because you feel like you’re doing that to another person or other people? They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know where you are.
CLIENT: I guess so. I don’t mind when other people are late with me most of the time, but I don’t know. I just used to catch so much crap for it. I was just constantly in trouble for it, for being late. See, I don’t know. It feels like just an instinctive thing of like, I’m just afraid people will be mad at me if I’m late. [00:15:33]
THERAPIST: I see. You hate it more because of like (inaudible at 00:15:35) that goes along with it? And because of guilt?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I see. (Pause)
CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, it doesn’t reflect that well on me, but I feel like it’s definitely about me and not about the other person. Like, I’m not that worried about the other person. I’m worried about like… Yeah. (Pause)
It’s like James applying to jobs. I feel like it’s not about me but it really affects me. And so, trying to like be upfront that it affects me but also, not try to make it about me. It’s just a line that I don’t really know how to walk and I tend to air towards just don’t say anything at all and wait for it to resolve itself. Figure out the best time (ph). [00:17:33] (Pause)
[Afraid James] (ph) will be mad at me if I push him off (ph). (Pause) Much again I feel like, doesn’t reflect that well on me.
THERAPIST: You mean because it doesn’t involve a lot of faith in him in a way?
CLIENT: Yeah, or faith that it’s not the end of the world if James is angry. It’s okay. (Pause) Yeah. I wish I were better at not walking on egg shells with everybody. [00:19:00] (Pause)
Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that I feel like I am better at that with most people and particularly with James and particularly in this situation. For whatever reason, I just don’t know why I don’t feel like that’s coming from James. I feel like it’s coming from me. (Pause) Sorry. I just really don’t like myself very much today. [00:20:02] (Pause)
THERAPIST: You know, you’re being unreasonable, unnecessarily making trouble for yourself.
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess so. I feel like that’s sort of an approximation, but I can’t figure out the closer thing to say (ph). (Pause) Being late (ph) doesn’t really help that, but I always sort of don’t like myself after this Greek class. I like the class. I like it when I’m doing it. I’m glad I’m doing it. Don’t ever really feel like I am proud after.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:22:33) I think that it’s from probably not feeling the charge of your own life the way you want to be. I don’t mean like that you resent moving somewhere because (ph) James gets a job there. I’m thinking more of like, part of that’s because you don’t know what you want to do next or where you’d ideally want to be next. And whether the Greek class also maybe is the closest thing in your life right now to the academic stuff you do. I know it’s not the same, but it’s sort of have (inaudible at 00:23:24) you didn’t do well at that and this is just a damn Greek class and you can’t get that really right either or not as good as it should be or something like that. And another reflection of…
CLIENT: Yeah. That makes sense. (Pause) Sorry, it feels really fuzzy for me, like I can’t get a hand on it. [00:24:12] (Pause)
Yeah, I’m having a hard time with thinking clearly and focusing. (Pause)
THERAPIST: There are some (inaudible at 00:25:47) get more upsetting and more confusing as we talk?
CLIENT: Yeah. It sort of feels like my thoughts are just kind of like, “Nope. We’re not going there.” And just sliding away and I’m like, “No. I want to be in charge of this process.” And I can’t do it. (Pause)
So, with moving—I don’t really know whether I would rather be living here or living somewhere else. But I sort of—I have a general sense of what I’m going to do next if we stay here and I have a general sense of what I’m going to do next if we move. Not so much a plan. The first step of what will then become a plan. But I can’t do either of those things until we figure out where we’re going. [00:27:28]
Yeah. And so that’s something that I really don’t feel in charge of my own life. (Pause) (inaudible at 00:28:24) I don’t really know. So when I was still living at home—actually pretty much anytime when I go visit, my family were late as like a group effort. (Laughs) [00:28:46]
I feel like the pattern for me is, I get in trouble being late for being late when I’m late because I was getting a ride from my father, who is always late, or like I had to go with my siblings. We couldn’t get all of us out the door at the same time. And I feel like I’m responsible for all of these things that I can’t control. So then when it’s just me, I feel like there’s no excuse. Like, I should just be able to get it done and I can’t really do it. [00:29:35]
THERAPIST: We need to actually stop.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Oh. For parts of the weekend, I may be out of cell range. I’m not really sure. So if I don’t get back to you for a while, it’s that.
CLIENT: Okay. Thank you.
END TRANSCRIPT
