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October 21, 2001 fork in the road As an adjunct to mimed psychotherapy, I am reading a book called Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends.  It is properly labeled a "self-help" book for the "divorcing or divorced."  Like all self-help books, Rebuilding is distinguished by a complete absence of original thought and by its dearth of helpfulness.  In the end, one is left to help himself; self-help, so to speak.  But I read it if only in Braille and if only while sitting on the commode.  The spiritual juxtaposition of a prolonged "number two" and thoughts of my failed marriage really makes those chapters on anger "come alive." Ever the good student, I have raced through the early stages of "a proven 19-step process of adjustment to the loss of a love."  I am in the accelerated class for losers.  No sooner had I zipped through "denial, fear, adaptation and loneliness," than I was watching "friendship, guilt and rejection" recede in the rearview mirror of my mind's eye.  But if the journey metaphor is apt, then "grief" and "anger" are potholes in a Louisiana highway.  More like navigating between Scylla and Charybdis.  Should I make it through those obstacles without inspiring a "Lifetime Channel" made-for-TV movie on homicidal rage, I'll have clear sailing thereafter.  At least until I hit "love" at which point I'll simply fall back on the advice of Yogi Berra who said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

©  2001 by the beastmaster