TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Just for this week. Actually, it's far less than what's on your message, but once every...

CLIENT: A couple of months?

THERAPIST: Yeah, not even. When I thought about it more, it will probably happen one more time this year that I have to leave by like 6:45 or something like that. Tuesday will be fine going forward. There will be one time I'll go, "No, let's switch to Thursday;" that's assuming you guys are still here.

CLIENT: Yeah. I have interviews next week. Oh, gosh. I'm starting to worry.

THERAPIST: Yeah? What? What are you noticing? [00:00:57]

CLIENT: He's fine, but he just has been nose to the grindstone, super focused. And I hope he gets the job, but I'm worried how he'll feel if he doesn't; how I'll feel if he doesn't. I was telling a lot of people he had this interview and that I was pretty sure he was going to get it and now I'm not sure and I'm just nervous. I don't know.

THERAPIST: What are you noticing in him about this interview and what it means for the two of you, for himself all of that?

CLIENT: I don't really know if I've noticed anything in him. I've noticed that he keeps applying to jobs. He keeps looking for stuff. I hope he's been researching about Indianapolis. [00:02:02]

THERAPIST: That's what this interview is going to be with Indianapolis? Not the Arizona thing?

CLIENT: No. I don't know if I told you what happened, but they called him up and talked to him on the phone. They were like, "Oh, yeah. You're really qualified. We'll get back to you after such-and-such a time. We'll call you sometime next week." That was Christmas. He hadn't heard from them so he called them in the new year and they were like, "Oh, we're pursuing other candidates." The guy was totally like, "You're super qualified. I understand how you're [turned off about] (ph?) the east coast." All this stuff. I feel like they were blowing smoke up his ass or something. I don't know. Maybe somebody internal came along; a woman a black woman. Somebody else. I don't know [00:02:56]

THERAPIST: Somebody else.

CLIENT: Somebody else. (pause)

THERAPIST: So with the Indianapolis thing, you started saying you find yourself worried about him?

CLIENT: I just hope he gets the job. I'm ready to leave; he's ready to leave. But it will be stressful if we do anyways.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Stressful if he doesn't get it, too?

CLIENT: Yeah, because it will be a setback. If he does get the job, we'll be moving the middle of February or the middle of March so... (pause) [00:04:13]

THERAPIST: Are there some worries creeping in you're saying? Do you notice what you're worried about?

CLIENT: I worry about living there and being without a support system. I don't know. I guess I'm just anxious about it. There's nothing I can do about it. (pause) [00:05:15] I don't know. I guess I'm just ready for him to have a new job and to not be working on finding one all the time. I'm ready for him to I don't know. I feel like want my fiancé back.

THERAPIST: Ahh. How has it been?

CLIENT: It's been hard because I get home and I'm too exhausted to cook; so he cooks and then I clean up and then he goes and does work. (pause) [00:05:55]

THERAPIST: Have you been feeling like you guys haven't had a lot of time together?

CLIENT: No. Not a lot of time together. (pause) Not a lot of time together, not a lot of money to do the things we like to do. I told Phil the other night that I wanted him to call his brother and tell his brother that he'd really like him there. It's important to me that Phil has somebody to support him the night before the wedding because Phil's brother is like, "Oh, we'll see where Gina is in her pregnancy." I'm like, "But if you're just going to show up for eight hours on Sunday personally, just don't come. He needs you there for the whole weekend." [00:07:14] I told Phil that. "I want you to ask him to be there." Phil is supposed to do that but he hasn't

THERAPIST: You're talking support. You feel like he needs some.

CLIENT: Yeah. We went to the birthday party. People are so weird.

THERAPIST: Whose birthday?

CLIENT: The one-year-old; the baby.

THERAPIST: Oh, Gina's? What's the baby's name?

CLIENT: Amelia. I don't know. Gina's family doesn't talk to Dave's family. I just want to play with the baby. Gina doesn't want anybody else to touch the baby. He tried to put her in one of these slings that needs to be around the back and around the front. They put it on Gina, I guess, and she looked so uncomfortable. Her legs were spread out like this and her body was right up against her mom. I'm like, "This child doesn't look comfortable. And why are you doing this in the middle of a party?" I don't know. I probably shouldn't be judging their parenting, but I already am. (both chuckle)

THERAPIST: Yeah. It's not a family you feel particularly supported by.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: It's very embracing of one another and of you and of Phil. [00:09:04]

CLIENT: His dad and his mom, definitely I feel that way. His dad is weird. He has one of those completely nonsensical senses of humor and asks asinine questions; and sometimes it's the same asinine question he asked you the last time he saw you. His dad wants to be supportive and tries. His mom is a saint.

THERAPIST: Is that right, really?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: With Gina and Dave?

CLIENT: I don't know. (pause) [00:10:02] Gina just opened all the presents with the baby sitting on Dave's lap. I thought it was kind of weird. They didn't even try and get her to pull at the paper or anything. I guess she's a little young for it. There were two other babies at the party and I held somebody's baby for a minute or two while she dug through her diaper bag; and I don't think that I held the baby at all. I held a complete stranger's baby for a longer time.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's as if she wants her all to herself.

CLIENT: And Gina was like, "We should plan some play dates so that she can be more social." I'm like, "It's your own damned fault she's not social." She stays in with her grandmother all day. Set up a group for the grandmothers or nannies or care providers or something so she's not the only people she will go to, which is fine. When your kid is supervised she's never going to get kidnapped.

THERAPIST: But how about a little more openness?

CLIENT: Right. How about letting me hold your kid on her birthday?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Especially when I think all you're really looking for is to offer them up some support yourself, some care.

CLIENT: They don't want it.

THERAPIST: They kind of give you the old stiff arm. [00:11:54]

CLIENT: The way I see it fine. If it has to be that way it hurts, but I have plenty of other one-year-olds in my life. I'm not lacking that.

THERAPIST: I don't know, but I also know that you've been wanting to make a go of it with a family; it being Phil's family and you sort of feeling like you're trying to remain open to them.

CLIENT: I don't know. My family has never been closed off to outsiders. Some of them are. All the in-laws in my dad's family call themselves the outlaws. They get in a secret huddle and they have a secret handshake, which I will never find out. They'll initiate Phil during the wedding.

THERAPIST: (laughs) The outlaws.

CLIENT: Yeah. They call themselves the outlaws. [00:12:55]

THERAPIST: And you're not allowed in?

CLIENT: No. It's a secret society, mostly dedicated to throwing away old pirate's hats that are dirty and sweaty and gross.

THERAPIST: But they're playful about it.

CLIENT: Yeah, but they're playful about it.

THERAPIST: Whereas with Gina and maybe in some sense Dave there is a wariness, a suspiciousness of outsiders even if you're family.

CLIENT: They tell their daughter that I'm soon to be Auntie Crystal.

THERAPIST: Wow, really? Even that, right? Not yet.

CLIENT: Not yet.

THERAPIST: We won't call her that yet.

CLIENT: She's not going to know me from Adam. She can call me whatever she wants.

THERAPIST: Yeah, she won't know you very well maybe from afar. [00:14:00]

CLIENT: And they asked Dave's parents to babysit; and I guess they did on Friday or Saturday of last week because we got some pictures. If they ask me to babysit, what am I supposed to tell them? "Sure thing. My rate is $15 an hour." I'd love to have the balls to say that to them, but I don't.

THERAPIST: But it's because why? Because it feels more like the professional hey, do us a... it's not a gesture in terms of "hey, we'd love you to be a part of her life."

CLIENT: No. Because if they'd love me to be a part of her life I'd come over and play.

THERAPIST: Yes, yes.

CLIENT: Hang out while they cook dinner.

THERAPIST: What a shame. You really like kids. That's what you do for a living.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like telling a librarian that you can't organize right. [00:15:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, right. Right. (chuckles) Yeah, you really love kids.

CLIENT: (pause) And, of course, they think she's the world's most beautiful baby. "Isn't she the world's most beautiful baby? Is there any baby that you think is cuter than her?" "I don't know. We have some pretty handsome boys." "Oh, not the boys. Girls." I'm like, "Ohh." I mean, she's a pretty baby but... (pause) [00:16:20]

THERAPIST: Admire from afar, Crystal. Admire from afar.

CLIENT: Yeah. Exactly.

THERAPIST: Compliments. (laughs) But don't touch. It's a museum.

CLIENT: Don't touch.

THERAPIST: This is a lovely painting, but don't touch it.

CLIENT: Exactly. It's a museum baby.

THERAPIST: It's a museum baby.

CLIENT: And I told my frienddid I ever tell you the whole story about the tutu? Since I've never been to any baptisms or really done any christening-type things for infants, I didn't know what to get somebody for a christening. I know people get little jewelries or little frames. I was like, "Hell." I went to The Gap and bought a hat. There was a clearance rack and I bought a tutu off the clearance rack; a little pink tutu. It was like an 18-month so I figure, "Okay. You're going to drag her to church every Sunday. You might as well get her something fun to wear." That was my reasoning. When she's two. [00:17:18] In my thank-you note I got, "We love the bonnet and can't wait for her to fit into it; and the tutu went to Florida to my nieces," or something like that. Has anybody ever taught you how to be tactful? I know I lack tact, but not in my thank-you notes.

THERAPIST: No. It's almost like she wanted you to know that hey, we did not use that gift. We did not want it. We do not want our child with that tutu.

CLIENT: I told that story to my friend and she said, "So they don't want her to have choice and freedom of expression?" I was like, "I didn't think of it that way. But, yes." (pause) [00:18:17]

THERAPIST: Yeah. They're putting up like a security fence around her.

CLIENT: Just wait until that baby is born.

THERAPIST: Yeah, the second baby. What do you think?

CLIENT: It's going to be hell.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: Because they've protected her so much and they've spoiled her so much except for the sleep training. She's very sheltered and attached. I think that she's going to have a really hard time. [00:19:05]

THERAPIST: She's shielded or something, too; protected, too.

CLIENT: Too attached to her parents to be able to handle having a baby brother. It will be hard at first, then it will be the only thing she ever remembers.

THERAPIST: So she'll be a year and about six months or so something like that?

CLIENT: Yeah, she'll be a year-and-a-half or a year and four months.

THERAPIST: She's due around the Memorial Day.

CLIENT: She's due on June 2nd, three days after the wedding or four. (pause) [00:20:06]

THERAPIST: Boy, it's kind of like a continual nag from them.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. That's why I'd be happy to leave. I won't have to deal with them; I won't have to deal with them living 20 minutes away and feeling like they live in another part of the country. I've seen them about four times in the past year.

THERAPIST: It's kind of what have you got when you're in the city with them?

CLIENT: Right. Family in name only. (pause) [00:21:22]

THERAPIST: What are your thoughts about leaving therapy with me? Have you thought about what that would mean and are you all right with that? Has that crossed your mind?

CLIENT: Yeah, it has crossed my mind a little bit. I don't know what I would do. I mean, of course, I would be despondent to leave a good therapist; but if I have to move, I have to move. (pause) [00:22:04]

THERAPIST: What's it meant to you to think about?

CLIENT: I don't know what it's meant to me. I just know that eventually it will all be different and I'll have to be dealing with my mental health issues in a completely different way. I'll have to build a new support, which took a long time here.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I guess that's what I'm worried about in moving being unsupported, not having a network. (pause) [00:22:58]

THERAPIST: Like you say, it's taken a while to get something that feels good. Yeah.

CLIENT: I'm ready for a change, I just don't know what I'm going to do when I'm there, if I'm going to stay working in child care. I'd rather probably not work in child care, but I don't know what I would do. (pause) [00:23:58]

THERAPIST: Yeah, a little bit of an unknown down there. I mean I hear, on the one hand, it opens up a lot of opportunity at least in the sense of doing something new and different. With that I hear you feeling like, "Umm," but it also leads to kind of bringing up this whole sense of "I don't know what I want to do or what I can do."

CLIENT: I don't know what I want to do. (pause) [00:24:50]

THERAPIST: What's your sense of the salary that he'd make down there?

CLIENT: I don't know. I haven't asked him, but even if it's equal to what they might pay where he's working now which is like $38 $40,000 a year cost of living is so much less we would be spending half or less than half on rent than what we pay here.

THERAPIST: Yeah, in Indianapolis? Yeah.

CLIENT: It's out of control, the rent that goes on here, and people wonder why we I read somewhere that we or young [libbers] (ph?) are less likely to give to charity. It's because we have no money. I don't know. [00:25:59]

THERAPIST: We give in other places. We give to our landlords. We give to our taxes. (pause) That's what Phil makes right now.

CLIENT: No. That's what new-hires would make in starting positions. Somebody started and I guess he started talking about his employment and I guess he asked, and she's making like $40,000 a year or something. She had a job in Charleston and then there's another job with the same organization in Charleston that she was working for. She wrote him a really good letter of recommendation. Charleston Beach, Florida, is also an option or a possibility. (pause) [00:27:40]

THERAPIST: I'm guessing, though, that you feel that his job would be such that you'd want to keep working.

CLIENT: Yeah, at least until I have kids there's no point in me not working. When I have my own kids I'm going to do it myself. (pause) He makes $13 $14 an hour, so that's probably $25,000. The thing that I really don't like is if he quits, they're going to have to hire somebody to do what he's been doing. Apparently his supervisor, who really wants him hired, wrote a letter to her boss for a last-ditch effort to get him hired. But I don't really think they'd be able to offer him enough anyway. [00:29:04]

THERAPIST: Well, you know, if that's the case, they might come and offer him something that would put him in a good position to negotiate potentially.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean he could say, "I have an offer in Indianapolis to save half the cost of living, so pay my rent."

THERAPIST: "You've got to offer me more to stay."

CLIENT: Yeah, like $1,000 a month.

THERAPIST: People in the organization do know that he's now looking?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: But nothing has come from them.

CLIENT: They're just working on restructuring or something. I don't know if they're trying to hold out for a leggy blonde or a Hispanic man. I don't know. [00:30:02]

THERAPIST: Do they ever interview people?

CLIENT: No. They post for the positions and they never hire or interview.

THERAPIST: Where does he exactly work?

CLIENT: He works at the [inaudible].

THERAPIST: State or County?

CLIENT: State. And he does lights with more pedestrian stuff and helps with a lot of the public meetings and stuff. I think that whoever is the higher up I don't know which is the bigger umbrellabut whoever is the higher up, doesn't really understand or doesn't appreciate the work of the bicycle and pedestrian staff people; so they kind of get forgotten about. [00:31:13] One day some mucky-muck from the DOT came down and asked his supervisor, "Can you help me find XYZ? I know I can find it on the website, but I really don't have time to figure it out right now." She was like, "I really have no idea." He was like, "Oh, excuse me. I can help you with that," and he did and then they introduced themselves. His staff woman, his boss, has really no idea about what they do with bicycle and pedestrian, so I don't know. [00:32:13]

THERAPIST: It sounds like in a lot of ways it's being overlooked.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I understand he looks like he's 18 and he weighs 125 pounds, so he's not a very imposing force; but he's very good at what he does. He's driven and he's focused and very smart. [00:32:36]

THERAPIST: He's an asset.

CLIENT: Yeah. My co-worker, works in the same field and every time he would get interviewed, they would hire the hot, young lady instead. This guy is kind of like scruffy beard, sarcastic, and miserly, apparently. Phil isn't like that at all, but I feel like a lot of places are hiring [...]. (inaudible at 00:33:15) I've never appreciated people complaining about affirmative action or anything. I think it's dumb to complain about it because I don't think any two candidates can really be equal; but I think that might have been to his disadvantage in Virginia. [00:33:42]

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He gets the short end of the stick on that one.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) (yawns) [00:34:48]

THERAPIST: What's that other thing?

CLIENT: I'm thinking about dinner. I have to go to anthropology first. I don't know. It's something that I like and I can't decide if I want to spend the money on it or not.

THERAPIST: On anthropology?

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like six or nine little test tubes are resting inside these little circles that have frames, and it's all done with wire or something. It just looks like a sculpture kind of a vase.

THERAPIST: It's a vase?

CLIENT: More like the test tubes serve as bases.

THERAPIST: You put flowers in them?

CLIENT: You put flowers in them, like long-stemmed flowers.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. (pause) [00:36:44]

CLIENT: This needs to be a lazy-boy chair. You need a swivel on it.

THERAPIST: What would you do, recline?

CLIENT: Yes. I might fall asleep, though. But I'm paying so...

THERAPIST: (chuckles) Would it feel good to sleep?

CLIENT: Yes. Just cuddle after a long day.

THERAPIST: What time do you get up?

CLIENT: Like 7:30.

THERAPIST: Do you feel rested in the morning?

CLIENT: I used to not. I do now.

THERAPIST: You do? So it's just the day takes a lot out of you.

CLIENT: Yeah. It takes me a while to get out of bed, but I do feel rested.

THERAPIST: Do you find, though, that if you work part-time you get more energy? It doesn't matter? [00:37:41]

CLIENT: I mean, I don't know if it was because I was staying up too late when I was working part-time go home, take a nap.

THERAPIST: Is that right? How about on the weekends? Do you find yourself kind of tired by the end of the day?

CLIENT: No. Sometimes. It depends on what I do. Sometimes I do feel tired, but I don't even know. I want to try and find it online, but I don't even know is it "room décor?" Is it "kitchen tools and accessories" no. "Mugs and glassware" no. "Gardening outdoor" maybe.

THERAPIST: Home décor, right? [00:38:33]

CLIENT: There's a lot. There's "room décor, wall décor, wallpaper, lighting, kitchen tools and accessories, mugs and glasses, cookware, desk supplies and décor." Can I do a search? I'll do "search vase." What? Oh-oh. " Horizontal chemist vase." It's kind of like that, but it's not the same. (humming) (sighs) (pause) It doesn't really look like that. I don't know. I have too much stuff in my house.

THERAPIST: Yeah? What do you mean?

CLIENT: Like I have so much clutter on my bureau and my surfaces always get so cluttered. [00:40:48]

THERAPIST: Your place is bigger than the old place?

CLIENT: Yes. Pretty near like 3-400 square feet.

THERAPIST: Does it help with the clutter?

CLIENT: A little bit.

THERAPIST: I remember when we were talking about it before, long, many moons ago, you guys just didn't have enough space for everything.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think part of the problem, though, is that we bring too much stuff into the house and we don't get rid of enough of it. [00:41:23]

THERAPIST: You hold onto stuff that you don't use?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Hard to let that stuff go.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I'll figure out some way of controlling my clutter.

THERAPIST: How much square feet do you have?

CLIENT: I don't know. Maybe 1200.

THERAPIST: That's a decent size. That's a pretty good size, actually.

CLIENT: If we were minimalist kinds of people, we could have a child there. We're just not.

THERAPIST: At least two bedrooms, right? Two bedrooms, one bath or two baths?

CLIENT: Well, yeah. Two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, kitchen and an extra spare room. It's smaller than this room. [00:42:45]

THERAPIST: What do you use it for?

CLIENT: Our bedrooms are about this size. Coats and shoes.

THERAPIST: Why? Is it in the entry?

CLIENT: It's down the front hall and it's just too small for anything else.

THERAPIST: Smaller than this room? [00:42:58]

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like if you cut where the bookshelf is cut in half and then to you, if that were the wall, and then to you, it's like that size.

THERAPIST: So start mid-way point of that, just to me?

CLIENT: Just up to maybe you or your wall, then to your wall.

THERAPIST: But it's wide?

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like the front part of a triple-decker after you go up the stairs.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. Right. All right. Well we're on for next Tuesday.

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