étude

I know it’s not interesting to talk about therapy, but I’m going to anyway. This is my pity party, after all. I won’t talk about anything current, or even recent; I’ll share with you an experience I had when I was 19 and very afraid. 

I was always very matter-of-fact in therapy; I just wanted to get an answer and be done with the whole mess. I showed worryingly little emotion and felt much the same every time we “talked things through.” 

I thought that if I just got to the bottom–to why I was so afraid–I’d feel better. This way of thinking can be a horrible cycle, as sometimes there just isn’t a definitive why. I could have looked back forever and it wouldn’t have told me how to go on living my life that day. 

So, living perpetually in the past, I went to every appointment with a list of questions all aimed at why. It’s important to ask them, don’t get me wrong–the issue is I was only asking them. 

The most emotion I think I ever showed this therapist was in response to questions completely unrelated to my reason for being there. 

He once asked about a book I was reading–a very good one. I fucking loved the book, but God knows what it was. I think I spoke for nearly half our time, just rambling on about this book I now can’t remember—recounting bits and laughing loudly. 

When time was up, he looked at me and said, “You know who you remind me of?” 

What a great question, always a nail-biter. I waited.

He said, “Chopin.” 

Great. Fucking excellent. A crusty dead man. That absolutely tracks.

 “No.” He said, “His études. Little moments of so much energy, between all these heartbreaking melodies.” 

It is probably the saddest, most weirdly specific thing anyone has ever said to me. So naturally I listened to hours of etudes after that. Looking like a pretentious fuck and feeling very sad, I was trying to know myself. 

This did much more than asking why. I was trying to know myself. It’s a big job, dear reader. An important one.

That’s all I have to say, I think. I wanted to keep this short.

I love you so much.

Sincerely, 

Embarrassingly,

AL