My Day in Details

My program and my clinic both require that I be in therapy and so in April I began seeing a shrink. I like her. She's older and British and sharp and I like her office. I like the chairs and the light and the slanted ceiling. I see her on Friday mornings. Sometimes I'm hungover.

The subject that I spent the majority of our first 6 weeks talking about was my pending 28th birthday. I couldn't believe I was going to turn 28. It had seemingly come out of nowhere, and not in some apathetic, MTV kind of way, but rather I was genuinely shocked that I was about to turn 28. It seemed impossible and the more I thought about it, the less I could understand why this seemed so impossible and why it made me cry everytime I thought about those numbers. 28.

We spent quite a few sessions talking about it, my throat closing up as I tried to describe the feeling associated with those numbers. It's confusing, my therapist remarked, because usually people become anxious before turning 30. What is it about 28? Finally, and it's always interesting to me how the simplest things can take the longest to happen upon, I realized that 28 marked ten years since my mother died.

And, gradually, over the last 6 months, I've come to realize that when I was eighteen, it wasn't only my mother that died, but a part of me as well. Something happened inside of me. Something failed to continue. Some part of me just stopped. Stopped growing. Stopped imagining. Stopped becoming. I think that somewhere inside I felt that, without my mother, I couldn't possibly go on. I couldn't possibly continue. I couldn't possibly grow up, become a woman, do things that she would never know about, go places she'd never been, think things I couldn't tell her.

And so, still, right now, even today, there is this part of me that refuses to believe that I am the woman that I have become. And I can feel it sometimes. I can see it in a passing glance in the mirror, hear it in an accidental laugh, stifled and throaty, find it in a footstep, an echo in a hallway...suddenly there is this dissonance, these two parts of myself, then and now staring back at each other, wondering where the other came from.

I see myself this morning, my body twisted and warm beneath the sheets, the cat curled against my softly rising abdomen. The room is dark for the curtains and the alarm bleeps at 7:20. I watch myself roll over, my arm reaching to find the clock, one hand brushing the hair out of my face. I am remembering a dream. Something about comfort and security, something about being able to see it, but I can't have it. I take a deep breath, push the covers back in one heavy go and get out of bed.

I can see myself, 28 years old, walking into my living room, the warm Los Angeles sun already flooding the apartment. I'm opening the blinds, putting on music, making coffee in my little kitchen. I live here alone and it is Wednesday morning and I have to go to work. I am in the shower now, my head tilted forward, the water as hot as it will go, and then I am getting dressed, opening drawers, sliding closet doors aside, pulling on a pencil skirt, slipping on high heels, making the bed. And there is this part of me that stands back, aghast. How can she do these things? How can she just go about her life, putting on makeup, turning on her phone ringer, making lunch?

And then I am walking out the door, standing on the deck in the bright morning sunshine in my high heels and skirt. I'm locking the door and I'm walking down the stairs and I'm opening the garage and I'm getting in the car. I'm driving to work, jerking around the slower cars on Washington Blvd., listening to NPR, sipping coffee. And then I am parking in the garage and walking up the stairs into my building. I am unlocking the front door, heels clicking down the hallway, coffee in one hand, purse slung over my shoulder, binder pressed against my chest. Part of me wants to scream when I see this. Stop. Stop walking. Just stop.

But I can't. I can't stop her. She's unlocking the door to her office, flicking on the lights, the computer, sitting down, checking messages, hair pushed back over one shoulder, legs crossed under the desk. And there's nothing I can do. It's 9:30 and I'm joining my co-workers, my supervisor, for our weekly staff meeting. I'm still drinking coffee, eating a Zone bar, balancing a clipboard on my knees, nodding in agreement about a client. And then it's 11 and we're interviewing a candidate for our team. You said you're pursuing your masters, I ask her pushing my hair over my shoulder again, what are your long term goals?

And then it's noon and I'm eating my boring turkey sandwich, responding to emails, listening to voicemails, chatting with my co-worker, talking with my boss, printing a payroll adjustment form, reading about existential psychotherapy, and then it's three and I'm getting in the car again, spinning up Sepulveda. I'm tired at this point. And I'm sad. I want more than anything to go home, to crawl between the sheets and close my eyes. I want to turn it all off, the phone, the computer, my head, my awful screaming head.

But I don't. I park instead and I pull my yoga bag from the backseat and I see myself standing there at the corner of Westwood Avenue in my high heels and pencil skirt, yoga bag over one shoulder, hair in my eyes. I'm twenty eight years old. It's Wednesday afternoon. And then I'm off again, crossing Westwood, walking into the yoga studio, up the stairs, stopping to check in, Claire Smith, I say pulling off one high heel, then the other. In the changing room my bare feet feel good on the tile. There is another woman in there with me at first and as she leaves, the door swishing shut behind her, I look up at myself in the mirror.

And I see her. Suddenly I see her. This woman, this 28 year old woman. I am frozen. I know that if I move I'll lose her, she'll go back to being the girl I think I am, and I'll no longer be able to see this woman, this woman standing before me. And so there I am, frozen in front of a mirror in a yoga studio on Westwood Blvd in Los Angeles and it is 4 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I am twenty eight years old and my life has in fact continued.

Comments

[nancy]

I forgot how much I missed your writing.

[Claire]

Nancy, thank you. That's a lovely thing to hear.

[Courtney]

I've just stumbled upon your blog and I can't stop reading. I'm at work listening to Cat Stevens in my office quietly. I will also be turning 28 this year but I can't comprehend where the time went. I still feel like a child on the inside.

Reading this blog entry made me choke up for so many reasons and when a work mate came in to my office I had to pretend I was yawning so he didn't realise they were in fact tears in my eyes.

I truly wish for love, peace, health and happiness in your life.