The Holidays and Business

Housekeeping:  There's another poll on the sidebar, take a minute.  And this post feels long to me, so grab a bite to eat and come back.  Settle in.

"Last year you weren't nearly this busy," FD corrects me.

I had told him that I'm beginning to feel the effects of nonstop holiday happiness.

"Who can remember last year?"

I remember blogging about this once, getting ridiculously busy in October, the drama, the sadness, the relentless desperation not letting up until after New years. I wrote that it had something to do with the stress of planning, how planning extended lengths of time socializing with family brings back memories, and they aren't usually the good ones. Heaven forbid we should remember the good ones. 

The thought of Uncle Al getting wasted, Cousin Ina slamming the door, swearing,  "Okay, that's it, we're getting a divorce!"  This type of family dysfunction-- boozing, screaming, slamming-- anger-- even passive-aggressive anger, "Good to see you, too," especially this-- tends to be a downer.

Add to that the happy family script: We're supposed to like getting together as a family.  You've seen the commercials, especially the one with the cousins getting away from their parents to a restaurant for dinner, just the cousins.  Delightful, but how often does this happen?  Great when it does.  I think it was Leo Tolstoy who said, 

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." 

Anna Karenina.  He was right, of course.

A prescription to manage the anticipatory anxiety:

a) plan as little as possible, wing it
b) label dysfunctional patterns, but don't argue; discuss
c) have an escape plan
c) expect little
e) accept a lot
f) and when the catastrophic expectations materialize, laugh about them.

Because after all, they were all predictable, the catastrophes.  We know our family members well enough to predict their nahrishkeit (rhymes with bar-ish-kite, means foolishness).

So clear the snow off the getaway car and check the availability at the local hotels.

But getting back to FD. He is right. This season has been the worst in years. Something in the air, something other than poverty, although poverty, and the anticipation of poverty, doesn't help; it is bringing people down.

The social scientist in me says it is entirely random, this year, and I'm different, too.  It is the luck of the draw, the draw of my particular patient mix, and really, mine is great, but this is work, not cocktails.  If you accept a lot of new patients, the complexity, the responsibility, will overwhelm. Never launch them, is the answer.  And take frequent vacations.

Maybe, however, there's a global confluence of variables at work, too. The unemployment, terrorism, the economic collapse of governments, the senseless murders and suicides hashed over repeatedly on the ten o'clock news. Kids voluntarily foregoing childhood, sexting.  War in Iraq, no pay raises for military families.  Riots.  Explosions in the Middle East.

Business as usual? Maybe yes, but these nagging toothaches add to what we already have, pain in our own ecosystems, in our own families, somewhere there is pain.

So avoiding the worst of times* is the prime objective.

We could start with ourselves, logically. Others might act out, Uncle Al, Cousin Ina, but we're affected, too.  Under the spell of what is supposed to be intimacy, I think the healthiest among us regresses. Where else can we be ourselves, the ones we used to be as kids, if not with family? 

We're a little different when we're with them, our siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins.  We slip into old patterns in the same context, eating and drinking with them, the same dinner table, hearing the same snarky jokes at somebody's expense.  The context triggers the synapses, old nerve pathways, thoughts and feelings of childhood come alive, like some ghost of holidays past.

Once we're there, we lose our more mature defenses-- intellectualization, rationalization -- the ones that make us think things through, forgive; and we regress to the childish ones, denial, projection.  The ones that blame.  The fun started with planning; being together finishes us off. 

You might think it isn't worth it, going home, but I think it is.  It's worth watching how this happens to us, and better even, it is worth labeling what is going on, appealing to the intellect of others in the family, the ones who might get it, who work programs or have had some therapy, or maybe caught on years ago, as children.  Also appeal to the heart of the family, the place in each of the first degrees, second degrees, thirds, that wants this to be a happy family.  Enjoy the best of everyone, and fight the regression to denial, projection.  Stay adult.

Just don't referee.  That's what you spent money on the tune-up to avoid. 

Not everyone goes home, goes anywhere is the truth.  If we didn't have good holidays as children, if there were no presents under the tree, if there was no tree, if there was no dad, no mom, if nobody filled in, if there was no Santa Claus, if someone died,  then for sure, no matter if we have reinvented ourselves, now have a functional family, a home, it is still sad, remembering. And if we haven't reinvented ourselves, if we have successfully abandoned the dream of the happy family, then there is no reunion.  No matter, sad.

And if our parents didn't make it as a couple, if there was violence in the home, if there is violence in the home now, then LOSER is written all over us, we're sure.  Adult Children of Losers, ACOL's, and sadness. And the expectation that our spouse should have helped us correct this by now, by the holidays, for crying out loud, and didn't, then the blame game is in full swing, and it can be a very loud game.

Conflictual couples conflict the most before and during the holidays (probably associated with license to drink/use). It is wishful thinking, peace on earth.

My son asked me, "Why do you think this is, that people lean on their therapists more during the holidays? You would think they would be busy baking cookies. Eventually everyone needs cookies."

He is thirty-two, responding to my late office hours. I tell him that time's running out.  Fix it now, fix it now, people tell themselves.  Count down. . .Ten more days . . ., nine more days . . ., eight more days . . ., seven . . .

And the days are getting colder, and darker, and what we really want, all of us, is to snuggle up close with people we love, or one person, maybe by a fire, and sip something warm, maybe hum, turn on Johnny Mathis, sing.

That would be the goal, I suspect. And by the time we get to December 24, some people pull it off.

therapydoc

*Different author, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.  Bring one of these, a good book, on vacation.

That Catastrophic Expectation: Cut-offs

If you don't remember what this is, I'll remind you. Sometimes there's something that's driving your anxiety, turning the motor unconsciously or consciously. It's whirring around in your head, that worst possible outcome, the catastrophic expectation.

If it concerns the outcome of a relationship, it can be the elephant in the room, the thing you don't talk about. One of the elephants. Most of us have a few elephants to feed daily. There have to be elephants if we tread carefully with people. There are many things we don't talk about to avoid conflict or because we fear rejection or intimacy.

I like them. They're cute, they take up very little real space in the living room, and although they do threaten to step on our heads if we wake them up, we usually let them sleep. When they wake up we deal with them. We have to.

If you're a mother-in-law it's very obvious what your catastrophic expectation might be. Try rejection, abandonment. There's a fear that your in-law child will take your son, your daughter away.

Kidnapping.

A therapydoc like me sees it happen. We see situations where one side of the family can suck in an adult child and his or her spouse, sometimes infantilize them, own them, buy them monetarily or emotionally, or worse, poison them against the other side. One family of origin can be perceived as truly toxic and dangerous to the other, and sometimes it is. You have to protect your kid. This is the rationalization.

On the other hand. You don't kidnap. It's a huge crime.

We family therapists have a rule. Avoid cut-offs. We keep relationship doors open, try not to let them close. Surely it's inevitable in certain cases, that the doors close. The courts rule this way only after a small army of experts have determined that this is in the best interest of the child.

This only happens rarely, permanent door shutting, if family therapists are given the time, and it can take years, sorry, to work the magic. But even then sometimes the door is shut, and next come the accusations, parental alienation for one, and all kinds of threats. It can be scary.

More often, family therapists hear about doors that are open too widely. Too many people have keys to the house and they don't always call before they come to visit. It can be a little weird, sometimes, seeing a mother-in-law or even your mother at your table having coffee if you didn't know she was coming. This happens.

Sometimes you don't want to look out the window to see Dad mowing the lawn.

When the doors are closed, locked or triple locked, family therapists try their best to make sure parents and grandparents still meet with their children and grandchildren, still get together to talk about things, to see one another, often at a neutral place, like a park or a StarBucks. This is very hard on families, when it gets to this. But it can be done. It's a process, healing, and takes time.

Therapists know that sometimes children do need a little mental break from parents, a little time off. This is hardest on the parents who feel left, vacated. It's hard to feel a child's need for space. It's hard not to take it as rejection. What is it, if not rejection?

Ah, time for healing, working at relationship repair. Surgery time. Hopefully the therapist is working at both ends, or consulting with someone on the other end.

If someone like me is a part of this sort of intervention, and it's rare, believe me, there's a letter or a call from the child to the parent, even a meeting if possible, that explains the situation, a discussion that isn't blaming, one that says,

Think of this as me needing to run away, needing to be on the North Pole for a little while, in a cell-free zone. It's temporary.

The goal is, We'll all be in touch soon. You won't lose your children. Your grandchildren will know you.

Sometimes the logistics are negotiated in the process. The child puts it in writing. You'll hear from me. I'll call you on Sundays, around three.

These are extreme situations, at least they are in my practice. The more common situation is that in-laws are psychologically healthy; they're not drug addicts, they're not in prison; they're not sociopaths and they are careful in life, about what they do and what they say. Or they think that they are. We have to work with or around them in any case.

Parents don't want to be rejected by their kids. They know that their young marrieds are hard at work at acquiescing to one another, pleasing one another, accommodating, keeping the peace, or at least they hope so.

In-laws know that in the quest for a peaceful, happy marriage, that they themselves might be the card that's tossed back into the deck if they say or do the wrong thing. That's the catastrophic expectation.

The story:

I let my guard down.

My daughter-in-law is here visiting with my son and their little one. And it's hot outside, really hot. And the Rac isn't feeling all that great and she's uncomfortable, never really wanted to go downtown in the heat, which is where we are. We're in the underground garage, wondering how to get to Millenium Park and how, once we're there, we'll meet up with the others

I'm stressed because I know Rac isn't feeling well and I just want to get to where we can sit down. We find our way up to the sunlight. The heat is disorienting. Rac makes a suggestion, "Isn't the fountain this way?" And because I'm not thinking, somehow, I say You don't know what you're talking about.

This stings her, but she doesn't say anything. I'm thinking I was inconsiderate, that it was the wrong thing to say, but by now someone is talking to me, giving me directions, and it's so hot and I forget that I insulted her.

Until. The next day, the next faux pas, something else I say upsets her. She's upset there's no runner on the stairs and I say, "I'll get to it. It's not so simple, getting a runner for the stairs." But my tone is a little sharp. She doesn't let the second slip go.

She looks me in the eye. "I have to talk to you about something."

This is never a good thing. When she confronts me, it's me she's going to discuss, our relationship and and I'm really worried about the confrontation.

I think, This is it. She'll never visit me again. She hates me. She needs space. She's going home to her family in another city and she's taking my son and granddaughter with her, the one who now loves it when Bubbie shings, who wakes up and says, Where's Bubbie? She"s the one who tells me, doesn't ask, insists when I talk about how she's getting back on that airplane, You come, too, you come on the aiwpwane.

So Rac and I sit down on the sofa, put up our feet. My son has taken his granddaughter outside to play. The house is silent.

"So what's up?" I ask.

And she tells me. I'm mortified, of course. I remember saying it, You don't know what you're talking about. I give over my rationalizations, apologize sincerely. I do totally respect her, especially how smart she is, how talented, what an amazing mother she is (and patient spouse). I never meant to hurt her feelings or snap at her, so I say all or maybe most of this. I had thought she meant Buckingham Fountain, which is way out of the way, and I always referred to the Millenium Park fountain as the waterfall why, I don't know. I didn't want her to walk a single step farther than she had to so . . .

And as I'm talking and she's responding, I begin to lose it, and tears are welling up as they tend to do under stress and she doesn't understand what the big deal is, really, because this is nothing to cry about. She just doesn't want me speaking sharply to her, which, by the way, isn't my habit to begin with, but we generally don't see ourselves honestly, right, and what if it happens again? We all have to watch what we say, can't ever be too careful, really, and blast that heat, anyway.

No big deal, Mom, just thought you should know. I didn't want to resent you for it, hold it in, and all.

Assertive. Not aggressive. We're good. Why are you upset, therapydoc?

And I tell her about the catastrophic expectation, but I first tell her that I know, I know in my heart she would never do this, reject me this way. I tell her I know this because I think she'll be insulted just hearing I'm thinking this because she's never given me reason to think this way, never, ever intimated such a thing. It's totally in my head.

But Hey, Sweetie, you have to live in my world, hear the things I hear, see the things I see, to really see why I think like I do.

And in that moment, in that confession of the fear, it dissipates, the abandonment anxiety. It dissipates just a little, but enough.

Today, I'm pretty sure, while her Mommy chills with a good novel, we're going to be building some castles in the sandbox that FD made for her, just for her, with new sand and real cups from the kitchen, and sure, the ubiquitous plastic sand toys you buy at Target.

They're here for one week, friends. Be patient with me if I don't return your calls.

therapydoc

The Cure for Self-Consciousness

Cham says, "Read this Mom," and tosses me the July copy of O, the Oprah Magazine.

"No time, Cham."

"But we'll be on an airplane forever. What are you talking about? You'll have plenty of time, Mom."

I've got nothing but time. She's marked the article, The Cure for Self-Consciousness. If Cham says Read it, of course I'm going to read it. She represents the younger smarter people out there. (Like you, right?)

Martha Beck starts us out at a cocktail party. (Already you like it, I know) She tells us to picture ourselves in a bad dress or something we think looks or fits badly.

So I'm supposed to think I look like a whale and I'm positive that everyone is staring and laughing at me at this party. And I'm embarrassed and ashamed. Not hard to do this visual exercise, is it?

But because we're logical thinkers and entertain a cognitive therapy, we know that the feeling of exposure is irrational and rooted in some kind of early childhood narcissistic injury.

Like maybe your mom said, You're not going to wear THAT are you?

And you say to yourself, It's not all about me. It's unlikely that most people are really looking at me or noticing me or even caring I exist.

But O is talking to readers who obsess anyway, who might know that but can't stop worrying about how they look and sound, or if they're dead silent in social situations, what people must think of that. And they have nightmares, like those we've discussed earlier in the fear of exposure post, dreams about being the only naked person in the room.

I'd say, by the way, that if you might be sensitive to a full page photo of a naked woman desperately trying to cover up, definitely don't buy the July issue of O. (Why is this necessary, someone tell me. Is it art?)

The problem here, according to Ms. Beck, who makes no claim to a relationship with the famous cognitive theraps, is that we're so worried about appearances and what other people think that we don't do the good things we want to do. We box ourselves into very boring lives.

She's right.

I remember my mom at that Gater Park in Florida just last winter. She didn't want to do the Everglade speed boats (there's a special name for them, I can't remember it) and her "better" judgment years ago would have held her back. But with only a little encouragement (she's with me, FD and my father, after all) she got on that boat. And her hair blew in the wind like crazy and none of us have ever, ever seen her laugh so much in our lives. It was wonderful.

Beck calls that fear of being judged negatively performance anxiety. I also see it associated with not so simple social phobias and anticipatory anxiety, worrying about worrying. Call it what you will, Ms. Beck brings up a study about the "spotlight effect."

I didn't see the study but I think that we can talk about the results anyway. Keep in mind that all we're doing here is passing on a few cognitive tools and the language we therapy docs tend to use at breakfast. (My kids tried to be polite about it unless I talked about sex and then it was, Shut up, Mom). Anyway, we haven't critically examined research on this blog and I don't intend to do that here. It's a blog.

So three psychologists, Glilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky coined the phrase Spotlight Effect and suggest that we must develop a "mental dimmer switch."

I love the metaphor, even if I doubt the outcome of their work. The study and supposedly other similar studies finds that the spotlight effect makes most of us think that we're getting twice the attention we actually get. We overestimate how much people are staring at us. If we realized nobody cared we'd worry less, but instead we magnify how much people care by two.

These social experiments bear repeating, as all experiments do. It's all about the way variables are measured and if the measures measure what they should. If I had to guess, I'd bet people quadruple the number of people they imagine are noticing that stain on the tie, that bad hair day. I'd even double quadruple it.

I suspect we only get a tenth of the spotlight we think we get, if that.

It really isn't about us. There's so much more for life to be about.

But many people have disabling anxiety and it's no laughing matter. Perfectly normal looking people come to therapy and say that they look in the mirror and see Frankenstein.

And I tell them: Even people with fairly good self-esteem see Frank in the mirror.

We're all a little paranoid is the truth, some of us much more so than others, and yes, social context makes all the difference. Why we are this way? I used to blame Madison Avenue. But I know it's probably a mix of genetics and the way we grow up. And Madison Avenue (environment).

Cognitively we can trace this anxiety to fear of exposure. Although the O article doesn't use this language, it's possible the therapy docs who did the research do.

The journalist is totally right when she tells us that reluctance to take risks socially limits what we do. We grow with new experiences. I'm pretty sure our brains get bigger as they forge new cellular pathways. It's mind-expanding, so to speak, when the roads not taken, those neural highways in the gray matter, are taken.

She's also right when she says that people who feel they're in the spotlight exaggerate their mistakes and under-emphasize their accomplishments. They also tend to under function: they don't shout out good ideas; they dress too conservatively; and they rarely sing or dance in public.

Don't tell me that can be a good thing sometimes. I personally like it when it's off-key but happy. (Remind me to tell you about that choir I was in 10 years ago.)

The docs who did the research also say that people regret it when they fail to try new things. We should go ahead and try things even when we doubt ourselves. We should take a risk or we'll regret not having worn that red dress, never having skied.

For sure on that dress.

And there's MORE! Remember, O has promised to pass on the CURE for this problem, so there has to be more, and it's all good, if not the cure for everyone. As I've indicated, if you've had a traumatic history advice won't make much difference. You need to be in a place to take advice. To make bread you don't just need yeast. To make a person rise, having advice is like having a little flour and water, a good start, but not enough to make bread happen any day soon.

The cure:

(1) We need to recognize that social fear is universal.

So I worry that I might be wearing two different socks, which can happen if you're me, but tell myself that everyone else is worried about how they look, too. If a patient isn't worried about socks, there's cellulite.

We should only care what the good guys say, by the way, and they won't care what we're wearing.

(2) We're supposed to double everything.

We docs are always going to tell you to exaggerate something, so doubling is a nice start. I prefer to think of it as over-shooting because you probably won't really over-shoot, so if you at least try to over-shoot you'll shoot. We learn this from the great 12th century Jewish thinker, by the way, the Rambam.

The research gurus are totally right. If we successfully rouse up the courage to put ourselves out there socially with gusto, then it is likely we'll be be appreciated for at least having some guts. Then there's always appreciation for providing comic relief and permission for others to chime in on a conversation, too.

(3) Think through your limits--not to them (I'd say, not about them).

A sensei taught Ms. Beck how to break a board with her hand. She had to pretend that the board didn't even exist and was told to aim ten inches behind it. Apparently you're not supposed to even be thinking about hitting the board itself. The focus is beyond the board, it's what's beyond the feared stimulus that matters.

Now this is great stuff. We see a situation as potentially very embarrassing so we're focused on the embarrassing moment, but we shouldn't. A person who is less anxiety-ridden still might see a possible negative experience, but keeps eyes on the prize, drives in the rain, so to speak, to get where he's going.

No pain no gain.

(3) Finally, there's the Universal Question, and Beck does a great job with this, by the way, her build up is really cute. The Universal Question is:

So?

I personally go with So what?

Beck: If I do that I'll look like a clutz. So?

Beck: I say that, people will disagree. So?

Therapydoc: They'll think I'm nuts. Yes! So What? Who doesn't need therapy?

CONCLUSION:

1. You want to worry? Worry about something that's already happening, not something that might happen. Like child abuse, for example, or the exploitation of women. Racism. Genocide. Then go to work on eliminating those things.

2. What we've talked about is all cognitive-behavioral therapy. Do you see how?

When you use your logic and imagination, it's cognitive. But the idea that you should make the spotlight less intense by subjecting yourself more to the source of anxiety is behavioral. It's an exposure therapy.

3. To make the spotlight feel less intense, you push yourself into it and find out what confident people already know:

The spotlight's not so bad, and someone else is going to take it from you anyway. In a nanosecond.

Copyright 2007, therapydoc

The Comisky Wound

I haven’t been to the South Side to see a Chicago White Sox baseball game in a long time. When I was a kid the White Sox didn’t play at U.S. Cellular. The South Siders play Comisky Field. Same place, different name.

As a North-Sider and a Chicago Cubs fan, the White Sox, didn’t matter to me. Too far away. We just didn’t go down to the South Side to watch the Sox. The South Side was not only out of bounds, too far, but could have been too “dangerous.” After all, white flight flew north, not south in Chicago, to the northern suburbs. I lived in the most Jewish of them all, Skokie.

A little shuttle train to the city enabled my brothers, friends and me to take the Howard Street L, an elevated train, directly to Addison Street, a North Side stop. We got off at Addison and there was Wrigley Field, tall and proud, home of the Chicago Cubs. Five bucks and we’re in the gate.

It was that or stay at home and watch the game in black and white on WGN, Channel 9. I could quote batting averages of greats like Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo back in the sixties, and sure, collected baseball cards.

Almost twenty years ago, married with children, I determine it’s time to reward Bobby, one of my four boys, for something or another, probably for reaching 20 points on the ever-present behavior modification "point system" on the refrigerator.

So I buy some tickets to the White Sox/Blue Jays game, not so much for the Sox, but for the Jays. I don't know why, but Bobbie loved the Blue Jays, not the Cubs, not the Sox, neither Chicago team. He probably liked the bird.

We leave Bobby's twin brother Ricky to baby sit our youngest, Sammy, who is about 4 at the time. I think my instructions to Ricky went like this:

1) pick up Sammy at camp
2) take him the park to play
3) take him home
4) eat the dinner that I left you
5) don't burn down the house.

These were the usual instructions.

We take off for the game in the car (you can take the train, but it’s a long ride from where we live in the city), but I’m worried. Ricky is only 11 and Sammy is my baby. It wasn't that I didn't trust Ricky to baby sit a four-year old. It was just that as a working woman I'd had a literal army of babysitters. My experience leaving the kids with kids hadn't been the greatest. They tended to leave me with no vodka at all.

And Ricky was still a kid. But I had told myself and my spouse, FD, that this would be okay. I could deal with a baseball game. Bobby deserved it. Ricky could handle Sammy. We'd be home before too long. The neighbors knew to check in, and FD wasn’t in China, he worked only five miles away.

So the two of us are off to Comisky Field and we get there in one piece, park and find our seats. I’m unimpressed and already regret going to the game. The Sox are not my team. I simply don’t care about baseball, not really, not anymore. I have no interest in drinking beer, like most people, to assuage the boredom. There are no big TV screens, no electronic banners, no bells and whistles. And Bobby doesn’t seem so Tom Terrifically interested.

These are not cell phone days, by the way. Nothing to play with. I wait until Ricky and Sammy should have been home from camp and the park, maybe it’s the third inning, and leave Bobby to find a pay phone to call home. The public phone, since we’re so high in the bleachers, is near our seats.

The phone rings, rings, rings.

It rings and rings.. They aren't home.

Or they were home and have been slaughtered by the home invader. (I have a repeating home invader dream about once a year, never know when it’s coming on, am convinced now, that this is why).

Being a rational-cognitive therapist (among my many beings) I know I must counter these thoughts if I am to survive my anxiety. But I can’t convince myself that the possibility of home invasion is remote. Maybe there was a home-invader. Without proof, who knows?

I call a neighbor and she checks the house, returns to the her telephone to say, "They're not answering. It doesn't look like anyone's home."

"Did you see any home invaders perhaps?"

"Uh, no."

I return to my seat and say to Bobby, “They're not home."

"Oh, I'm sure they're probably over at the Levitt's."

The Levitts! They live near the park! I call the Levitts. No, they aren't there.
I call home. No answer. The phone rings and rings and rings.

Forget countering negative thoughts. The boys have been kid-napped, obviously. I have the worst panic attack in years, have forgotten what a panic attack is like it has been so many years, but even now I can feel this one in my chest remembering it.

My thinking on this, just so you should know, is that if you don't have true panic disorder, but you do suffer occasional panic attacks, with a little searching you can remember them all. I remember them all. I ask myself is these are like the snapshot memories that some prostitutes have, the ones I’ve treated who say they remember every trick.

This panic attack is terrible. My heart is pounding, I can’t breathe. I’m weak in the knees and feel like I’ll pass out. I’m was sick with anxiety, and try to protect Bobby from catching it. Knowing that it’s just anxiety doesn’t help, either.

I jockey between the pay phone and reporting back to Bobby, trying desperately not to panic him. He notices that I’m upset and he is upset, which upsets me more. .

At some point I say, "We're going home."

No argument there. But before we go, obsessively I say, “Let's make one last call for the road.”

Ricky picks up the receiver. These are land phones we’re talking about.

"Where in the world have you been? Are you okay? Is Sammy okay?"

"Huh, yeah. We're okay. We're eating."

"Why didn't you answer the phone? How long have you been home? I was sick with worry about you guys! Where were you?!?"

"We were over at Gershon's house, the Russian kid. We were playing video games in his basement. We lost track of the time."

"Oh. You're sure you're okay?"

"We're fine."

"Why didn't you go home?"

"I thought we'd just stay for a couple of minutes, play a few games and go. I lost track of the time. Sorry."

Never mind that he broke the rule on video games. We didn’t do video games, even then, no Nintendo especially. Not in our house, shunned television, even, and our kids admitted, years later as young adults, that their grades were better, probably because of that. Outside the house, we surrendered.

Never mind that Gershon wasn't on the list of things to do.

They were safe.

"We can stay if you want," I tell Bobby. "We can finish out the game."
But the game is ruined; he wants to go home.

All in all? Not a good memory. Not a feel-good night for the fam, and I stayed away from Comiskey Field, now US Cellular, for many, many years, too traumatized to go back. And anyway, if I’m going to watch two teams play baseball. One of them is going to be the Cubs.

therapydoc