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Harold and Me - A Guest Post by Viola-Alex

1/27/2012

 
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Fifteen years ago, Harold told me that the world was going to end in 2012. Harold was my therapist. He was my eighth therapist, and the one I’d turned to because the others hadn’t made a dent in my chronic depression and suicidal thoughts.

“Harold” isn’t his real name, and he wasn’t really a therapist. He had a PhD in something and was knowledgeable in any number of subjects. Harold only saw people he believed he could help, and you had to be recommended by someone he was treating. If chosen, you had to commit to face the truth, no matter how disturbing. You also had to be willing to drive 100 miles each way on country back roads, to the tiny, remote town where Harold lived and worked in a decayed Charles Addams mansion.

Patients committed to Harold, and he to us. His fees were nominal. Weekly sessions could run as long as three hours. Like a hippie Buddha, Harold sat watch over me, as I howled through the crimes of my childhood, finally free to feel the pain and express my soul’s outrage. That I’m alive today, that I’m married to a loving man, that my children are healthy, I owe in large part to Harold.

It was sometime in 1997, in a period of dark despair, when Harold told me the world was going to end in 2012. He had studied all the major prophecies, including Nostradamus and the Mayans, and believed there was convergence on this one prediction. So, Harold said, I needn’t worry about suicide because time was running out.

He got me. Fifteen years seemed doable. Besides, I wanted to know the end of the story. (If Harold knew how things were going to end, he wasn’t talking.) Through the Bushes and Sarah Palin, the rise of the Money Culture, the death of friends and family, multiple long-distance moves, and personal failures of all kinds, I’ve carried on, believing it was all just temporary.

Which of course, it is, with or without Harold’s End of the World. I’ve pretty much lived each day as if it may be my last. I haven’t waited to do anything I really want to do. I have not saved for retirement like a good girl.

These days Harold is a 2012 expert on The History Channel. He’s got a tony NY agent and is in talks with James Cameron for a movie idea. He lives part of the year in Prague and may move there. When I miss him, I only have to Google his name. There he is: older, distinguished and now dressed in elegant black with a dapper felt hat instead of the worn, stained sweatshirt I remember. He still has the same twinkle in his eye, as if to say, “Didn’t I warn you to expect the unexpected?”

Maybe that means if everyone is talking about 2012 as the end, we’re due to teeter onward for thousands more years. Or maybe not.

Here’s to Laura, to you all, and to Harold -- a toast to whatever the year ahead may bring. May we all live in that divine space of mystery, letting go and grabbing hold, in peace and urgency, waiting and not waiting.

And here's to you, Viola-Alex, for writing another beautiful essay. I'm so glad Harold came into your life, and even now lets you peak at his. There is comfort in knowing he's all right, even though he might not be right. Thank you!


curiouser
1/27/2012 06:40:07 am

"May we all live in that divine space of mystery, letting go and grabbing hold, in peace and urgency, waiting and not waiting."

V-A - I, too, am glad you found Harold. You're essay has touched me more than I can express. Thank you. ((((Viola-Alex))))

Ottoline
1/27/2012 06:40:34 am

A beautiful story, V-A, Thank you.

Ottoline
1/27/2012 07:08:59 am

Expect the unexpected. Yes. So true. Of course. I know that. And even knowing it, that this is what always happens, I am fully engaged in trying to predict what's next, and how various things will turn out for me.

Just like with our effort to reveal the SP Baby Hoax.:
--A book will reveal it: nope.
--The MSM will reveal it: nope.
--She's going to be a tele-evangelist next: prob not.
--SOMEone will come out of the woodwork and reveal a key detail: Floyd says some stench out of left field must be resolved first.

Expect the unexpected. Yup. But V-A: some of us are slow learners. So here's what I think will happen: . . . . oooops! okay, I'll spare you this time, but I'll soon be doing the same old business at the same old stand, commenting away. Slow learner.

Ottoline
1/27/2012 09:54:25 am

So I thought about your post all during my dull errands just now, and I sure hope this is the first page of your book. That you are writing. And that I want to read. Starting from the beginning and playing some little trick with the world ending in 2012. Or not. Tying together many of the threads you have shared with us. In fact, if you are having writer's block, just print out the comments you have made in our recent blogs and read them to see how illuminating they are.

Laura Novak
1/27/2012 09:59:05 am

Hurray Ottoline! I've been saying the exact same thing. V-A needs to start writing the book. But at least she's writing.

Wishing you all divine space of mystery tonight and into tomorrow. I hope V-A will check in and tell us more about this time with Harold, or about how she views, well, everything. I love her mind and her way with words!! Thank you again, V-A!!

Ottoline
1/27/2012 10:05:03 am

Sorry: I have one more thing:

http://tinyurl.com/6vz6phd

Ottoline
1/27/2012 10:12:21 am

Not sure if my link works: I meant it to be the the cartoon that's in the 4th comment or so.

V-A
1/27/2012 11:07:32 pm

Thank you, invisible friends, for your continued understanding and encouragement. Coming to Laura's has meant interesting things for my life. No, she didn't nab Palin like I'd hoped, but her support of me as a writer has meant I'm taking myself a bit more seriously lately. So there you Go! Come for one Palin, stay for Eli and Tao.

Thank you, Curiouser-- and Ottoline, the cartoon made me laugh out loud.

Laura Novak
1/28/2012 12:47:34 am

Yes, love the cartoon. What if that is ALL that happened with them? They ran out of room? Very funny.

Ottoline
1/28/2012 01:12:10 am

Isn't there some famous room in Italy that was designed (in the Renaissance) with 100 niches, meant to house the first 100 popes? With the idea that when they reached 100 the world would end. My recollection is that they reached 100 in the 1940s. Sorry I can't find this on the web. Does anyone else know?

ottoline
1/28/2012 01:13:59 am

. . . meant to house THE BUSTS OF the first 100 popes. Not the poor dears themselves.

Barbara Alfaro link
1/28/2012 11:24:03 am

A powerful and beautiful essay. Most of us have had our share of "personal failures" but writing as honest and exquisite as yours is its own victory.

Ottoline
1/30/2012 02:11:31 am

Oh geez, personal failures. Yes.

". . . in a period of dark despair, . . ." speaks to me too. Yet when I see you link it to the "2012 end" thingie, though, this wonderful fave Father Sarducci piece about "a period of great darkness " 2:05 comes up for me. I guess after we cry we have to laugh.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/313497/june-23-2010/prophet-glenn-beck---father-guido-sarducci

Ottoline
1/30/2012 02:28:16 am

I hope no one is offended because I know this is serious. Despair. Hard times of all kinds. But now that I just looked at the above Father Sarducci, I think you might like this, too -- the meaning of life: Life is a job. A laugh can help when it's all just too much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AKvRvL5r3A

Ottoline
1/30/2012 05:22:58 am

I don't know Latin, but I think Father Sarducci's phrase "via est lavorum" actually translates to something like "the way is washing."

LizH
1/30/2012 02:20:58 am

Thank you for sharing your story Viola-Alex. You have my sincere admiration and I hope that you write a book, also, too. Just came across this article:

http://mattpaknis.blogspot.com/2011/11/absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely.html

Laura Novak
1/30/2012 05:54:25 am

Ottoline: I love your "bust" story. Yes at first I thought of all their bodies there, but then of course understood better! And Father G., what's to not like?

And fascinating, LizH. Thanks for sharing that link. I love V-As writing. And I can't imagine anything more difficult to write about than this. Thanks to her again for this wonderfully written guest post.

Rolando link
1/31/2012 01:32:54 am

That was an interesting post V-A and I am glad that you have recovered from your depression. However, I am curious. Do you think Harold said that because he actually believed it or did he say that as part of his method to heal you? In any case the line of reasoning is clever because the world for all practical purposes will end for each of us when we die. It doesn't take a Mayan or a Nostradamus to predict that. This sets a max of about 100 years or so (the current long tail of the human lifespan) for the date the world will "end" from the time of birth of a person. So yes, who needs the future when we can live the present!


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