Building up Bridgeport

Growing up in the town of Fairfield , I rarely visited Bridgeport except to go to the scientific shoe fitters on Broad Street or to go to some local doctors that were in Bridgeport. They were a drive in and out of the city. And then there were the visits to the psychologist ,Dr. Ralph Welch, at 2591 Main street in Bridgeport. Dr. Welch was a man who had a white beard and wore glasses. He had a friendly outgoing personality to him. When I walked into his office, he got up from his chair and greeted me and asked me to sit down. We talked on different issues that were going on in my life at the time.
His office was in a two family home . The home was on the corner of the street . His walls had wood paneling and a huge head of a lion hung on one of the walls behind him glowed at me as I went through my counseling sessions bi-weekly after school.
To get to these meetings, I called the Fairfield Cab company and returned home when my dad picked me up in his green maverick.

At that time, I was a twenty year adult about to transition in to the world outside of the public education system and had no idea of how I was going to improve and adjust to the world of college. The social service agency, Department of Vocational Rehab services felt it would be good to provide me a way to make the transition and be there if needed. At that time, I felt Dr. Welch's office was a place where I would find some comfort and solace. It was a place where I could talk about my concerns and focused mainly on myself. I thought that if I could talk about what was bothering me and find a release for my concerns that it would resolve them. Yet it was a revolving door that never shut completely. When a door gets closed and discussions are held and then are used outside in the world with our thoughts and agendas, it can sometimes be like a fire that only causes more damage than the healing. I regret the way that I caused arguments with my parents over some rather trivial stuff that was important at the time yet do not know now what they were.

Looking back on being in the world then when I was twenty, I was much younger and also still tied to to my nest at home. The counseling had the goal of trying to help me emerge into the world-getting out of my cocoon so I could find my way into it. Emerging from the cocoon has struggles and as I went through that process, there were a few fragments of that cocoon that were torn and left hanging from the branch of the caterpillar.
Looking forward from that point, I found that emergence as I did enter Fairfield University as a citizen of Connecticut from amonst the other 49 states present. I gained a broader perspective of the world.