is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
When it rains, it pours
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The snow outside my window has gone as quickly as it came. It is dark, dreary, rainy and there is a lot on my list to do. Before I get to it, though, I am sitting with a cup of coffee looking out over the neighborhood where I live now, and I am thinking of a time when I lived 3 miles east of here.
Many years ago, so many in fact that I lived down the block from Wrigley Field and could hear Harry Caray sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as clear as a broken bell in my bathroom, I saw this lovely, sweet-faced therapist in a broken down building downtown.
Of course, at the time, I made up some chronic but tolerable condition that required bi-weekly physical therapy or something like that to tell my friends and family and co-workers so that I didn't have explain that I was sitting in hard chair with a pilly orange cushion and talking to a therapist every other Thursday. But I've evolved since then. Now I freely tell all of the interwebs about my well-worn and diversified portfolio of therapy. The thing is, I had to see the men I worked with at the engineering firm back then every day and you all, I can throw this out to and then politely close my laptop and choose to ignore the fact you now know I am and perhaps always have been teetering on the edge of a wackadoodle mess. Well, a teetering only because I am a wackadoodle in fabulous shoes that are ridiculously high-heeled.
(Are you thinking, "Engineering firm? What the --?! She's an engineer AND a blogger?! Is that even humanely possibly in one lifetime? The answer is...probably not. But also, I just answered the phone and commandeered the bathroom keys and intercom, which was a big freaking deal when you work with an office full of brilliantly absent-minded men who design heating systems for skyscrapers and what-not).
Back to the nice lady sitting across from me in the chair that was bound to have sticky remnant of tears and duct tape on it somewhere. This therapist was really an art therapist, and even more specific than that, really an art therapist for kids. But it was a sliding scale kind of place and she was who I got during what I was told was a particularly busy season for young, teetering women like me.
She
had perfectly scrubbed skin and big clue eyes and wore simple outfits
with flitty scarves around her neck. She was soft-spoken but confident.
She couldn't have been much older than me.
One day just after Christmas, I noticed a beautiful and small diamond
on her left hand. I must have paused for a moment as it all registered
because I am sure she got what happened. And although I have always
been a person who will freely compliment a stranger's bag or the color
of their sweater, I couldn't bring myself to mention it. Then I felt
horrible for not acknowledging it and wondered if she kept tally of
which of her clients brought it up. Later, on the train ride home, I
realized that most of her clients were probably eight-years old and
didn't notice if she had hair, so I was probably in good company with
not saying anything about the engagement ring out loud.
Just as that melted away completely a few weeks later, I saw her on the
train with the man I assumed to be the fiance. She was sitting with
him, whispering and holding his hand. I turned and saw her and she saw
me. I gave a half smile and turned away, once again feeling frozen and
guilty at the same time.
We never spoke about these things. That was the soft part of her
soft-spokenness, I guess, letting me guide at least that part of our
time together.
Months passed and I chose to move across the country and it seemed like
a good time for us to end our sessions anyway. I was standing taller,
feeling stronger and I was ready to take all the pastel drawings I'd
done during out 50-minute time slots and be on my way. We were coming
to some closure in what I think must have been my second to last
session when I suddenly began spilling all of my worries about moving
alone, all of my anxieties about leaving my family and going to grad
school in a field of study that might never lead to a career. Then I
started in on the stress of packing and saying goodbye to my best
friend roommate and how hard it would be to be far from my brother.
There were last-minute work issues to put out there and money stuff and
soon, it was like I was cramming in as much as I could for a therapy
final.
She nodded compassionately, said a few things, stood and handed me my drawing. As I got to the door, I was still reeling.
"AND," I said sort of laughing at the ridiculousness of all I knew I
was throwing at her but still needing, for some reason, to keep
throwing and throwing, "I got in a car accident this week."
"Ahhh," she smiled kindly, not sarcarstically or impatiently or anything but kindly. "When it rains, it pours."
And that's all she said.
It was enough. It has been enough for all these years. I went on to
grad school where I said that in the doorway of my TA office to many
students who were feeling, I am sure, much of what I'd been feeling
that day. I said it to the servers I waited tables with when we were
slammed and exhausted and just wanted to be done for the night or week
or with the whole damn job. I said it to college students when I
advised the yearbook staff at a college long after grad school was
over. I've said it to friends, I've said it to myself.
It's not a magic phrase or anything we haven't all heard too many
times. But when I say it, I always think of that therapist and the deep
breathe with which she offered those words to me on my way out the
door, across the country, into the world, out on my own. In my mind, I
see her.
Usually then in the hardest downpours, I can see myself sitting on my
porch as a kid with my mom and brother, watching the lightning and
jumping at the thunder, then laughing together at it all. I sometimes
visualize the rain slowing and slowing until only a few drops are
dotting the sidewalk around me. I've occasionally thought of standing
still, soaking in the rain without worry.
Those are my more Zen meditational moments. But always, I think of the
therapist. I think of getting out what I need to get out, nodding in
acknowledgment and moving on.
I've had a week or more that has felt overflowing like that. There are
many conversations back and forth about the final decisions of the
finalization of my divorce. I worry like I won't ever catch up at work,
no matter how many hours I put in or how many posts I tap out. I am
staying up too late again, have an ongoing cold, want desperately to
immerse myself in the holidays without the time or energy to make that
happen. It is raining. Hard.
I am OK, though. I am not depressed or anxious or running to my own
therapist (walking with determination, yes, but not running). I'm not
concerned about my own well-being or that I am not trying my best to
take good care. I just am recognizing that with all that is going on in
my life, I am standing in the doorway of so much, in many ways as I was
then.
I am just older and wiser and slightly more evolved. I cannot make the rain
pass, that I get. But goddamn if it hasn't been pouring for a good long time.
I guess I am wishing that it will break for just a few moments soon.
Or that, in saying everything that is really going on (and maybe, just
as I've 'fessed up about the Thursday sessions from way back, some of
what went on),I can see what I need to see, breathe as much as I need
to breathe, and then just head out into the rain until it tapers off. Because it will slow. It will stop.
Right?
Of course. I am sure of it. I am trying so hard to be sure of it.
Reader Comments (4)
And I've seen some torrential floods.