  POST # 700!!! Mom and I went to the market together this afternoon. I needed food to eat on the various upcoming flights seeing that they wont serve meals on any of the four legs of my travel.
And too, I wanted to see her before I left. Always this vague feeling that it could be the last time I see her comes over me when Im scheduled to take a flight.
So we headed out together after my 20 minute drive back to the old stomping grounds. Wandering through the aisles of urlLink brilliant stacked cans and shopping for images, I did indeed feel absurd. I ran into someone I wasnt expecting to see. Maybe ever again. It was Leslie. We were on our way out after much wandering when I saw her come in. So I stopped and looked her in her eye well, into her sunglasses to press the issue into a stop-n-chat. For a slip second, I realized that I actually had the option of not acknowledging her. Its therapeutic etiquette, is it not, for the patient to decide not to make a situation out of a random real-world encounter? But its Leslie, and I hadnt seen her since a year and half? The encounter was hardly interactive.
And quite honestly, I was shaken by the chance meeting for maybe 30 minutes afterward. I know itd been about ten years since my mom had last seen her, so she automatically assumed it was Claudia who we just spoke to. Whaaa? I let her know later that I wouldnt have even engaged her if it was, not with mom with me. Can you imagine the discomfort? But so yeah it shook me up a little to run into her. I love her dearly, dont get me wrong.
But my system seems to be telling me that theres a lot of residual emotion that accompanies my seeing her, even if only for a moment, a 30-second chat. All the history, all the memories, all the unaddressed emotions surrounding her moving out of the country. It was it /is/ hard for me to imagine. I took refuge for years in the knowing that shes still around if I needed her bad enough.
I took refuge in knowing that we two had managed a respectful and rewarding friendship (whatever that means exactly) since terminating treatment five years ago. I love that woman. I was thrown. When things didnt work out for us to meet up, I was hurt. And it was my fault for not being explicit enough about my intentions to see her. Maybe today has some supplemental information that I was missing before. Seeing her is a heavy thing. Its akin to seeing Claudia. I shook; I began to sweat in line to buy our groceries.
Id stopped breathing normally. Theres a lot of fear between us that I can't intellectualize away entirely. I dont know what to think. The emotions are enough. Weve a deep and complicated history. One that Id like to keep writing, but I realize on some level that shes gone. Its like some small death. Or maybe a much bigger event than something my mind would like to conceptualize as diminutive. Motherless Child Syndrome? 
