Slept great on both the new mattress and mattress pad, and I’m going to try it without the pad tonight. The mattress pad definitely feels a little weird and it’s going to take some getting used to if I decide to use it. Even though the 3” pad isn’t very dense, it almost makes you feel like you’re sagging, and it’s also a little hard to move or roll over. If not, Tom will use it, so there’s no money wasted. I decided that rather than rotate the mattress periodically, I would sleep on the far side of the bed when I was sleeping at night since it’s closer to the street, and on the close side when I was sleeping during the daytime. I’m sticking to the close side until I decide which setup I want to go with.

Today was both fun and productive. Tom picked up a few groceries we couldn’t get online before I got up. I got up at 10:30 and by noon we were starting to lay down the new floor tiles in the laundry room and second bath. I’ve done many home renovations, but this is my first floor. Yeah, I’m kind of proud of myself. :-)

We got the pieces down that didn’t need cutting. The cutting is going to be the tricky part and that may take more time than the ones that didn’t need to be cut. I also wonder if there’s enough adhesive on these things, but if not we can always add some glue.

The floor is absolutely gorgeous so far. There’s no comparing the old and the new. This is so much brighter, shinier and prettier.

We’ll probably finish up tomorrow. Then all we have to do is go pick up our groceries and change both the rat cage and the air filters in the bedroom air cleaners.

So 2016 was still a damn good year for the most part. Sure thought it was going to end on a shitty note with those few anxious weeks I had. Other than some anxiety, the heatstroke I experienced on vacation and then Stacey’s shit, I’d say it was a pretty good year. I just hope my hormones get their act together in 2017!

My only real concern for next year is Trump. I still hope the sexist, gay/Jew-hating whore gets assassinated right along with Pence. We thought our stocks would take a huge hit because of them, but instead of a loss our 401 is now up to around 13K!!!

Signing off now with a copy of my letter to Stacey.

I thought I would let you know why I canceled our appointment, and to be perfectly honest, I’m doing this more to get things off my chest than because I feel like I owe you an explanation. It’s too long for a voicemail, and I didn’t want to send this to your business email in case it got caught in your spam box (the one with something like 4 letters and 4 numbers in the address). I also didn’t think it was appropriate to Facebook it to you or send it in the mail anywhere else I could have sent it.

First I want to make two things clear to you. The first thing is that my opting to cancel our appointment has nothing to do with my attraction to you. If a person is a good therapist and beneficial to me, then it doesn’t matter what they look like. I agree that my problem is probably physiological, and lovely or not, I really would have preferred to feel better and never see you again for this darn anxiety.

Second thing… The last thing I want is for this to offend or upset you in any way. That is absolutely not my intention.

That being said, you know how you told me you “thought it through” after I gave you my contact info? Well, so did I. After our last chat, I had a chance to reflect on things and it’s like you had 3 different personalities during the times I saw you. There was the first one that was almost quiet, easygoing and professional. There was the second one that was chattier and seemed to suggest that my fondness/attraction was welcome and mutual. And then there was the third one that came across as standoffish and cold.

Stacey, I really did feel like you gave me mixed signals no matter how unintentional I’m sure it was on your part. Also, I had no planned “outcome” in mind for us any more than I thought you did. BUT… I did have hopes that you gave me. Not that we would become lovers or anything like that after I finally got a grip on my anxiety for more than two seconds, and not that we would be friends who would go out shopping and dining together. Nor did I expect that we would visit each other at our homes, but more along the lines of some form of phone or digital communication from time to time. You seemed quite happy to receive my contact info and then I remember you saying something to the effect of, “Thank you for this, Jodi. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about my not going to your blog. That’s just not something I do.”

This led me to believe that the attraction part of it was mutual, even if neither of us had any grand plans for any particular outcome. Forgive me if I perceived you incorrectly and got you all wrong as much as it’s hard for me to believe I could suddenly become this bad at reading people. Like you said you are, I’m usually pretty intuitive. But if I got this one wrong I totally apologize for it. Totally.

I usually try to be an open person, but perhaps I should have done a better job of hiding the crush, kept my mouth shut, and not been so forthright about it.

I can’t go so far as to say I feel like I had my head played with, and I know that you never actually came out and said anything directly about being attracted to me, but it was in your body language, some of the things you said, the way you said them… or so I at least thought.

When I thought you were attracted to me and that we might keep in touch between or after our sessions, this really lifted my spirits and gave me something that I thought I had to look forward to in addition to the good things I already have going for me in life, however naïve of me this might have been.

Guess I’m either a million times worse at reading people than I gave myself credit for, or maybe there was something there that you started to feel and then you feared it might go too far or something like that. Only you can know the answer to this, but if you were attracted to me in any way, I certainly don’t expect you to admit it and apologize for how the whole situation has made me feel. You’re the last person I would’ve guessed would make me end up feeling this way. I’m hurt and it’s going to take time to recover and bounce back from this, but I will.

I have deleted the positive review I gave you on Yelp now that I kind of see you in a different light. My trust has been shaken and my respect for you lowered a bit. Let’s just say that I looked up to you, I admired you, and then I came to see that you might not be as real as I thought you were. As my husband agrees, this has had a big effect on me that basically shattered me and kicked me back down a rung or two emotionally, although I still believe you didn’t intentionally set out to make me feel this way, and I know I’ll get over it in time. But whether you meant to make me feel led on or not, I still feel the way I feel. This is part of why I keep to myself. It may be boring this way at times, but it’s safer. No misunderstandings this way.

Like I said, I never had any set expectations, but just a little bit of hope for ongoing communication because you always had a way of making me feel better. I’m not going to lie to you, though. The last time I left your office I felt disappointed, confused, surprised and a little angry instead of calmer and a bit more hopeful about life in general. I just would have preferred it if you’d told me when I gave you my contact info that that wasn’t something you did any more than blog visiting. I would have understood, and I do understand that you have certain rules and guidelines to stick to. Nonetheless, I’m a woman of my word and my contact info is still yours to do as you please, though I don’t see what you’d need it for at this point.

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a bad person or a bad counselor. I saw a counselor a few times before seeing you, and while she didn’t harm me, she wasn’t helpful. Seeing her was like going to a restaurant and not being served. I was resistant to therapy at first because I just didn’t see at the time how telling one more person about what happened with the medication would help. But it did. The EMDR may not have made my life a bowl of cherries, but I definitely believe I may have more panic attacks without it. The tapping still helps at times, too. I will always carry these coping tools with me throughout my life.

Aside from any negative feelings going through my mind, I honestly don’t know that you could have helped me much more than you already have, as intelligent as you are. You can’t make my perimenopause go away, and if I’ve suppressed some horrible memory, we may never know if it’s a real memory or not, just like you said. And what if it was? Whatever may’ve happened to me couldn’t be undone, could it?

There were also a couple of minor issues like some inconsistencies in some of the things you told me. The last time I saw you, you said you didn’t remember your dreams, but I swear you told me a few sessions ago that you too, have had dream premonitions. Maybe you just usually don’t remember your dreams?

I would also get a little frustrated with how many things I’d tell you that you’d forget. I totally get, however, that you have many patients and that it’s hard to keep track of everything everyone tells you, and maybe my expectations are a little high because I usually have a great memory. Like nearly eidetic. Not just with big things but I’m able to recall the most mundane of details such as every outfit I’ve seen you wear, etc. Yes, I’d remember even if you were ugly.

You asked what I thought I learned from all this. Well, I learned that anyone can change, no one is necessarily who we think they are, and anyone is capable of just about anything. Even leading us on while they may not realize it or intend to do so.

What have you learned?