Why do they call it therapy.  Why not call it emotional prostitution? All it really is, is paying someone to be still and listen, handing you Kleenexes while you’re sitting there shamelessly sobbing.  Ya see, you can pay someone to have sex, but you can’t buy intimacy—–or the algorithm to true love.

Figuratively——I sat there, bare-ass naked on the therapy couch, exposed, vulnerable with no small talk or false bravado to hide behind——its’s just me paying a stranger to listen———to help me make sense of the tangled knots that make up the shitty things that occur in life. Isn’t it odd, we find it easier to talk about our deepest fears and heartaches to a total stranger rather than a lover or a friend.  (The following voice coming from somewhere inside my head) “If everyone knew how fucked up you are, they wouldn’t like you anymore.”  (An opposing voice from inside my head responds) “Here’s some free therapy kid, stop giving a shit about what others may think of you———being who you are is nobody business but your own.  This world is full of copies, posers and phonies. Be your inexcusable weird self——-those that break-trail must be stronger than those who follow, but they’re the first to plant their flag at the top of the mountain.” 

I can pay someone to listen to me spill my guts, but I can’t buy their companionship, someone to like me, to care about me———to be my friend.  There are things money can’t buy. I think the best therapy is fellowship, someone to walk beside me, at a common pace, to not just hear me, but to quietly listen, to share the breath of difficult words———-someone who won’t make me feel awkward when my faults and flaws are exposed. We all need someone to share life’s private jokes, to smile when we smile, to cry when we cry, somebody to carry us through the darkness when the days become too heavy.  I could be that for you, if you’d let me——cause in spite of  all the changes we’ve been through,——I’ll aways be your friend. 

I have a photo of you and I on the mantle above the fireplace. We’re posed arm and arm——it’s strange to see how young we looked back then. We carved our initials in the trunk of that big old walnut tree in my parents backyard, we were gonna build a rocket ship and fly far away, we made up secret handshakes and pledged to always be brothers, the world smelled like rain in late June, the summers lasted an eternity——-my therapy back then was playing make believe and pretending to be a cowboy or a pirate.  Maybe we’re all pretending to be something or someone we’re not?

My therapy now, is no longer pretending to be normal, cause I’m not. I’ve embraced my weirdness. There are certain memories, people and things I’ll never be able to let go of———and you my friend are one of those things. I’m old fashioned and sentimental that way.

The therapist nonchalantly looks at her wristwatch and clears her throat “I think we’ve made some good progress today.  I’ll see you next week, right?”  I respond, “No, I don’t think so——-I’m fine with keeping it weird.”

 I offer this open letter to my fellow odd-balls.

To be one, is to love one.