Feeling: shrunk
Listening to: Eric Milano - Right is You
Reading/Watching: blah. words are for losers.

So the church requires that we go through some sort of marriage preparation, just to prove that one of us isn't going to murder the other and hide the body behind the juice glasses.

One option was a weekend of Catholic Couple Togetherness, complete with a $180 enrollment fee, and separate men and women's dormitories. The other was four sessions with a couples counselor.

We chose the counseling.

I am now realizing exactly why I never went to counseling. I used to think I was screwed up, that it might help to have someone help me comb through the frantic tangle under my skin, but I also figured that keeping a journal was cheaper, so I went that route, and decided I can analyze myself far better than anyone else.

And now there's this man, sitting in a chair with little round glasses, listening to mon coeur and I talk about our backgrounds, our relationship, our pet peeves with each other. He's always smiling in a vague, noncommittal way. It makes me want to hit him in a vague, noncommittal way. And when I do my usual thing, with sarcasm, quirky self-flagellation, and my usual dose of hyperbole, he takes it all seriously.

...which makes me want to curl into a ball and sob "I'm normal, I swear!"

This makes me wonder how many people who see therapists are actually mentally unstable, and how many of them became that way from a semi-stranger listening to them talk and taking every comment they make at face-value, and proceeding to read too much into it. Because seriously, I speak straightforwardly almost as often as Chandler Bing. I am nervous around new people, and therefore more flippant, more exaggerated, more Surface Katie.

It is not fair for him to be analyzing Surface Katie. Surface Katie is still mentally eighteen; she is not ready to get married. We're already halfway through our sessions, so at this rate, I'm thinking he might fail us, based on the flippancy of Surface Katie, with all her possibly-lurking mental problems, cleverly disguised as sarcasm and self-deprecating remarks (they're supposed to be funny! really! most people laugh!).

Maybe they'll withhold our marriage license, like giving someone an empty diploma case at graduation when they have to attend summer school.

Do Catholic pre-marriage counselors give summer school?

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