The Big Day

I'm sitting in my dressing gown waiting for my hair to dry (it should only take a few more minutes because it is short) before getting myself dressed ready to travel across London to face the ordeal. Actually, that's not fair because I do not really see today as being an ordeal.

I have written what I hope is an informative lecture on what it is like to go through therapy. Some of it has been written at a cost of some pain. Thinking about my first encounter with therapy, and the feelings that it caused me to have, meant that I had to leave the writing for a few days to forget about how horrible that experience had been. Reading it through later, and talking about it with Mr Smiley when we met for lunch last week, showed me that this part of the lecture was likely to cause me to become a little emotional and that the possibility of this happening meant that I would have to change the introduction so that the students would understand why I might suddenly get a lump in my throat or need to grab for a tissue or two.

For the experience of the therapy that I am going through now, I have not had to think about what it has been like and write about it because I have already done that. The second part of the lecture is based on emails that I have written to Mr Smiley and posts from this blog. As a result, what I say in this part of the lecture is much more 'of the moment' because the material was written within hours of the session that it refers to. By using this approach, the lecture is probably a truer reflection of what it is like to experience therapy than would have been possible if I had sat down and written about months after the event. At least, I hope that is how it comes across.

I didn't manage much sleep last night, so there's no surprise there, however, I am not feeling anywhere near as anxious as I thought I would be. Actually, I'm feeling rather calm, which worries me a little. But I will set out in a little while, armed with my folder containing the lecture, plus a memory stick with it in digital form in my handbag (definitely a belt and braces approach for me today), and walk to the bus stop to start my journey across London in the rush hour. I'll let you know how things went later.

Now, remind me again, why did I say that I would never come back to live in London?