January 19, 1968

Dalton's birthday.

Last year, steak dinner and stuff I can't write about. This year, a picnic in the cemetary.

That just sucks.

Who knows whether it is the purchasing of a new house or the subconcious awareness of the date, but I have been a bit...weepy?

This is a really big deal for me. I mean, each succesive death (Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Dalton) has resulted in more and more impassivity. I can remember as a child that I cried a lot. If someone stepped on a bug, I cried. If I thought someone didn't like me, I cried. Sad movies required a box of Kleenex and an escape route.

Nowadays, I can sit through "Trade", a disturbing, haunting movie about human trafficking without even tearing up while the guys I am sitting next to are sobbing. This scares me a lot of the time. Am I no longer able to form close emotional attachments? Have I constructed emotional roadblocks to shield myself from pain? What does that mean for the future?

I think that's one of the big reasons I am seeing a therapist. I want to be healthy - physically and emotionally - and I suspect that the emotional stuff may take a while to diagnose.

Of course, I'm not sure this therapist is going to the be the one to diagnose it. I was sharing with her that while cleaning out the garage, I had come across several letters, notes, journals, photos, files, etc. All of them made me cry. Some caused longing, others joy. Some, especially the journals, were very painful. They revealed Dalton's complexity as a person, his struggles, demons, etc. I'm really not certain how much of that type of "keepsake" I should be keeping. It's fine for me to have, but what if somehting happened to me. I would only want Iain to see these things in the proper context, with a counterbalance of Dalton's joy and faith. Do you know what my therapist's suggestion was? After meeting with me evey week for five months, she actually suggested, "Why don't you have your Mom hold onto them for you?"

Like I said, i don't think she's the one for me to be talking with about my reluctance to form deep emotional ties. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I should be talking with her at all. Guess its time to look for a new therapist and just be happy that for now, it's good to be weepy.