I have been asked "who" an atheist thanks for Thanksgiving. I find that an odd question for me. I am an atheist but I don't feel the need to "thank" an invisible being who, in my opinion, doesn't exist anyway. There are a great many things I am grateful for and that is how I define my Thanksgiving holiday. Family, friends, a husband who puts up with me and even says he loves me, financial security, and a myriad of other things. Some are physical and some are spiritual. I am a member of a Unitarian Universalist (UU) church. No, it is not necessary to believe in a god to belong to a UU church. I don't attend very often because I just can't seem to get up early enough. I tend to stay up until 3AM or later. I don't know why. It became a habit after working as an RN on the second shift for 25 years. I've been retired for 10 or so years, but I still can't shake that 2nd shift sleep schedule. Anyway, a fellow UU called me yesterday wondering why he hadn't seen me around much. He told me that people "missed" me. (REALLY? I thought.) I was very touched by that statement. I had felt like there were no more faces I recognized. In fact there are a few, including the man who called. He made the gentle suggestion that if I came around more, I would get to know more of the new members. Well, duhhh. Of course I knew that, but hearing someone else make that suggestion to me has renewed my interest in getting more involved. Even if it's just going to Sunday services. I must admit I was also a bit embarrassed that he had to say that to me. But, it was the truth. Right now, I really don't have any friends. Besides my husband, that is. I used to have 3 female friends. These were my closest friends. They all died within the same year. These were the people I confided in. I really haven't met anyone else since then. Maybe I'm being too picky. Maybe I don't see them when they're right in front of me. I don't know. Which comes back to what I'm grateful for. I'm very grateful I was able to call those 3 ladies my close friends. Thank you Ruthie, Kim, and Norma. I won't forget you. As the late, great Carl Sagan observed, "To live in the hearts of others is to never die." They are in my heart.

Transference, counter-transference

What to do???
I had a tremendous amount of transference during my years with a particular therapist. I haven't seen him in almost 6 years, but I need to deal with more issues again. I know he had some "counter-transference" going on. It was obvious by things said and unsaid. Both of us seemed to be constrained by the therapist-patient relationship. Had we met under different circumstances, it's possible we would have had a good relationship. Now I'm a bit nervous about going back to him. I've more or less "gotten over" him and I really don't want to start having those feelings again. The problem is, he is an excellent therapist! The friend who referred me to him thought so too. He got me to change my entire way of thinking. I don't know how this happened. I even told him at the beginning of one session that my thinking was changing. He just smiled. My self-esteem was in the sewer when I started with him and now I don't even know where that sewer is.