What if?....

....What if you could do whatever you wanted, what would you do? That was a question asked by my therapist yesterday. It was my weekly session with her and I mentioned that I was feeling depressed. We talked for a while about what could be making me feel that way. I suggested that I wanted my addiction to be over and a new life started; that I hated feeling like I was completely restarting my life; I hated not having a job and being unemployed for over a year; I hated never having a job that I really loved; that I felt I was in a marriage going nowhere (and hadn't been for years); feeling frustrated with going to so many 12 step meetings.

My therapist said she could understand why I would feel the way I do. She thought some of my depression was just a change in my emotional state. I had no reason to be worked up emotionally over any thing so I was just feeling 'normal'. I can understand some of that. But I'd hate to think that people are supposed to go through life not feeling excited, in a positive way, about their life. 'Cause to me, there is nothing positive about the way I'm feeling. We talked about my marriage and came to the agreement that some couples counseling would be good. It would help to get my wife and I to start communicating better. Job wise, my therapist then asked me to start dreaming of "What If?". What if I could do anything I wanted, what would it be?

I really wouldn't let myself participate in that dreaming process. I just didn't want to play that game yesterday and told her I had no idea. Well, maybe I wanted to build something. In thinking more about this 'dreaming' idea last night and this morning I realize that I don't want to dream because I will then have to act. And what if I'm not successful? Or what if I just allow myself to fail? I had previously told my wife that I would love to just be the idea man and have someone else do the 'actual' work to make something successful. This would allow me to say I did my part. If the end result was not good, I could pat myself on the back and say it wasn't me that made it fail. If the end result is good, I can again pat myself on the back and say it was a great plan and it lead to success. Wow, sounds like I'm a winner either way and don't have to take any responsibility for failure.

Why don't I want to do the 'actual' work? I think that would mean I now have to take responsibility for the success or failure. I couldn't rationalize away why something failed. It would point back to me. And if it was a success, that would point back to me. People would start to pat me on the back and tell me what a good job I did. That just doesn't feel comfortable to me. I think people would start to have expectations of me. And I don't feel comfortable with expectations. That means responsibility. That means maturity. I done a lot of work avoid responsibility and maturity in the past 25-30 years. Wow, this needs to be explored more.

Before I go I just wanted to say that I did talk to my wife last night. I told her how I've been feeling lately, depressed and all. Told her that I haven't been sexually acting out, though she thought I had been. I told I needed us to go to couples therapy. She thought it sounded good and would talk to her therapist later this week. So we'll see how that goes.