Happy New Years Eve! I want to do the whole look back on the past decade, look forward to 2010 and all my goals post, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow for that one, as it could take me a bit to write. I work at 4am tomorrow (who has to work at 4am on New Years??? Me…me!!!) But whatever. I actually like the early shift because it goes by really fast and I get the added benefit of being off around noon. Plus, I had an extra paid day off this week for the holiday but still wound up working New Years Day, which is paid at time and a half. All in all, I have absolutely no reason to complain. So anyways, I guess I’ll have all afternoon tomorrow to figure out how to put the past 10 years into words.

Tonight I’m going to ring in the new year by going to a movie, thanks to my therapist! At the end of our session today he asked what I was doing tonight. I told him I’d be cleaning…organizing…putting the final touches on making sure everything was “perfect” to start out the new decade - stuff I probably should have brought up in the session as it’s pretty pertinent to what’s going on right now, but we were talking about other stuff and didn’t really get to it. He asked if I could go out anywhere to get myself out of the obsession for a bit. Like say, a movie. I told him I was broke – something we’ve talked about before, but I’ve never emphasized quite how broke. He thought I was making up excuses, so he asked me what would happen if I just lost $10 (I think he thought it wouldn’t be that big a deal, and it would emphasize that I’m worth a $10 movie). I told him I wouldn’t be homeless, but it would prevent me from buying groceries, or putting gas in my car – that’s how tight things are right now. We compromised and agreed that I could probably find some change to make the dollar theater happen.

As I was walking out the door my therapist handed me $1.50 with the disclaimer that he doesn’t want to offend me, but understands that things are tight and wants me to be able to go out to a movie tonight without worrying about where the money will come from. Now, having my masters in psychology and going through all the ethics classes and whatnot I immediately started questioning (in my mind) all the ethical implications of receiving money from a therapist. Granted, it may be pocket change, but money all the same. Does that change the therapeutic relationship? Do I now feel like I owe him anything…can’t disappoint him…yadda yadda yadda. You know what? It does change things. I realized that he honestly cares about me as a person – not just a lump of annoyingness that he has to listen to every week. Yeah, maybe it was only $1.50, but there was something really genuine in his action. As much as I hate feeling like a charity case, money is a HUGE issue right now, and I really appreciated it. My therapist rocks (despite totally not understanding eating disorders…but I’ll save that for another post)! So, I’m going to take a couple hours out of my obsessing tonight to enjoy a movie – guilt free! And, the movie is at 10:30, so technically I won’t be ringing in the new year alone…provided I’m not the only one in the theater. Go me!