100 reasons to love our lives

A little learning group

Will

The sunshine seemed to mock me. I suppressed the urge to thank my father. 

My bench was as cozy as an old wooden bench could get; warm, restful and full with splinters. Around me, people walked through the park, a straight teenage couple made out openly a few meters away, basically eating theirs respective partner up in front of everyone.

I appreciated their courage. Damn, I wasn't that brave when Nico and I were in a locked room, alone and just in the right mood.

Not that I would wish to make out with my boyfriend like that...
Fine, I wished that.

But I saw his internal struggle everytime we talked about a subject like that; his self hate written all over his face when I broke off a situation, the pure panic when he stopped me. There was just that much I could do about all that obstacles. He had to overcome them themselves.

And I had to say, sometimes we were nearly there. I could wait for eternities to live through these few minutes, where he was confident and beautiful and... well, seductive.

It was all in my mind. I was allowed to think that way.

Some younger kids now eyed the loving couple curiously, shaking themselves over it and making silly faces.
My lips twitched in a subtle grin as I remembered the video my mom always showed at basically any family meeting; where four year old me swore to never ever ever kiss a woman EVER.

It took her a few years to accept me as her son again; but now she was a supportive beam of light and kindness.

That still didn't save her from me mentioning her in my first therapy session today.

Well, it wasn't my first therapy session ever. After tartarus, I had a few years of group therapy with Dionysus and Nico, but the god refused to go on with us as we left camp.
I wasn't going to lie: I had the feeling I knew the grumpy camp leader better than any other camper, maybe with exception of Nico. He was definitely more caring and sensitive than he pretended to be.

But he wouldn't give us therapy sessions outside of camp Half-Blood.

Therefore, we had met up for an 45 minutes - 10am to 10.45am -, my now definitely new therapist and me. Suzanne Edwards was a daughter of Dionysus, professional yet relaxed. She had the attitude of a healthy woman with a lot of life experience; with her age - 56 - that was kind of obvious.

And I also knew I needed therapy. Right now, it was a good time and I only struggled with overworking and concentration problems; but in worse times, worse problems came. And bad times never ceased to come along.

Hopefully, now that I was in the mortal world, managing my life would be easier.

Easier didn't mean easy, though.

For me to make the difficulties less difficult, I had wanted to make a learning plan - but I failed miserably. How much in a day I had to learn technically varied from phase to phase; but still I should make some plans. I tended to work for days nearly without sleeping or eating, followed by weeks concentrating on nothing and getting nothing done, which caused me to work even more... which in all cases led to a burnout worthy of scaring Phobos and Deimos to death.

A week over in my college, and I already had the feeling I didn't do enough. I wanted to do something productive, learn enough to know what I needed to know; but at the same time, Suzanne also had advised me to not do too much; I had to know how much I needed.

Problem was, I didn't. Were three hours a day enough? Or too much? Or way too less? Should I do four or five hours? That sounded a bit much.

With an exhausted growl, I pushed my bag aside and looked at the hungry couple again. I wasn't able to do that plan on my own; I would ask Nico for help later.