Done!

I’m done. (Again.) But the door remains open.

Dr. S. and I had a great talk and we both feel it’s right to taper off Clonidine and stop the sessions. More therapy is not going to make a shit of difference in my symptoms and I feel my understanding of my condition allows me to live a life more comfortably now that I’m using my Dingo voice.

More than anything, I want to lose the patient mindset; I want to “carry on,” and feel like just a person and Dr. S. believes I’m capable of it. I go forward with caution, wary of crowds and noise and extremely vulnerable to my environment and the people in it—but very happy with my paradise in which to retreat.

Flying home into the sunset was spectacularly relaxing. Thinking, “I don’t have to do this any more.” No more VGH lobby snacks, no more sitting in the psychiatric waiting room; henceforth when I go to the city it will be to see friends and to go to some of the fine dining restaurants I miss. Chris.2 on his own with Dingo.

I also wrote to Michelle at the Arts Council to say I cannot handle management of the raffle ticket sellers. It’s too much for me; to manage the volunteers effectively is too much like a job with them bailing, changing their minds, needing to leave early, etc. I don’t want all the pressure of managing all that—especially given how much I still have to do on the prizes, for the billets and so that I can be a decent host during Tim’s visit.

She’s okay with my decision. I’m going in to meet her this morning to go over everything that isn’t done. Before I go in, I’ll finish the last few things I want to do on the palace and bundle the books. Tim will help me assemble the doghouse and tomorrow I get the plants for the wheelbarrow. Thursday it all gets picked up here and I am done.

Tim might make it around 3:00 or he might be on the ferry after that. I haven’t had company for a while so I’m glad he’s coming. 

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I wonder if Dingo is going to take over. I wonder if one day I just start talking in his voice without making the choice to do it.

Learning to live with Dingo is kind of like learning French. At first any speech required massive forethought and then slowly over time the French became easier and easier and I started dreaming and thinking in French. A couple of times already, when I’ve been talking Dingo all day, I’ve already had thoughts in Dingo.

I am almost at the end of my first year here; I’m in a new home in a new climate, an urban ex-patriot in a rural dreamland, and now I’m taking on a new voice. It’s something I did not want to do. I’ve struggled with identity all my life—that’s been a huge theme of my talks with the good doctor—so I’ve been resistant to speaking Dingo but the truth is it’s terribly practical.

If turn on Photo Booth on my compute I see myself. It’s like looking at a mirror and so, if I want to make a phone call or receive one, I can turn on Photo Booth and look at myself and speak on the phone without stuttering and in my own voice.

And of course, here, with trusted friends, I will always be able to speak as myself.

This is how it goes.

I understand The Queen of Soul is passing away due to cancer.
Sometimes the death of a celebrity hits me hard; 
I idolize this remarkably classy woman.