Okay, now. What did you expect her to do? Her next therapy session wasn’t for several days, so who could she talk to? I mean, really, a girl like that will light into fire if she doesn’t get it out. She’s constitutionally unable to play it cool.
So, first she tried to talk to God. Are you there God, it’s me, Sad Sack. But the hurt spilled over and she didn’t think she’d earned the right to ask for comfort. Because (and here’s the irony!) she’d created the hurt. Engineered it.
And so then she talked to her sibling, who genuinely sympathized, because having grown up with her, he knew she was the sensitive sort and he knew she bruised easily. He told her it would all be alright. (But it wasn’t alright. It was terrible.)
So she called an ex-boyfriend and he told her to “chin up”—these things happen. Hopes get taken in hand and squeezed until the life is blackened out—that’s a part of life, and anyway, didn’t she know she’d dodged a bullet? She should be thanking her lucky stars! Finally, “you always were so naïve. God, I worry about you.”
At lunch, her longtime good girlfriend listened for a while, shaking her head and wondering aloud what satisfactory outcome “could you possibly have imagined?” She prescribed a big glass of wine and steered the conversation away, quickly. I think we all know that her friend found the whole thing distasteful and what she really wanted was to catch up and relax…this talk (full of surprises and uncomfortable insights) wasn’t what she’d come all the way downtown for. No.
So what does that leave? Well, let’s see. Father Confessor? No. Boss lady? Uh, no. Playdate mom? Negative. Neighbor? Get serious.
I think that leaves one person. But that one person is it. The issue. The crux.
Countdown to therapy, in 4-3-2-1…and on and on.
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mary june brown 