Fluency

Tonight, I’m in New York.

I grabbed a cab that dropped me off at a crowded bar for a happy hour I didn’t want to go to. I walked inside, scanned the room and realized I didn’t know a single soul there. I spent my day wearing my professional face, with the all-too-brief exception of a few stolen moments with an old friend.

After 10 hours of masquerading as someone who belongs, I walked out of the bar and into the bright darkness of the city. I walked and walked. Block after block after block, gawking like the tourist I am tonight, wondering if I looked as foreign to this place as I felt.

Once, I was part of a city. I walked without making eye contact. I rode the subway without holding on to the poles, standing at rush hour and swaying with the rock and the roll of the train. I knew the shortcuts, was fluent in the way that only someone who lived inside the heart of it could be.

I feel small here. I feel awkward and nervous and I talk too much. I’m too eager to please. I worry about the impression I make.

I don’t feel…safe.

In my boss’ office tonight I sighed, and looked out into the kind of room I spent my whole life trying to get in to. I shook my head a little, and realized that I’ve changed.

I’m on the inside in a lot of ways now, and it looks…well. It looks pretty much like the rest of the world.  There’s something that I’ve wanted for a long time, and it’s been hard to put my finger on it. I still don’t know exactly what that thing is, but I think I’m getting closer.

Because now, I know what it is that I don’t want.

I don’t want a life filled with strife. I don’t want a life that requires me to be better than you for me to succeed. I don’t want a life overrun with noise and fear.

***

My shrink got a new job. She works days at an agency and, two nights a week, she sees private clients. In a few weeks she won’t be able to meet with me in the evenings anymore.

She asked me if I would be willing to meet her for lunch once a week, instead. She’s sending her other clients to new therapists, but she’d like to keep working with me.

I cocked my head at her, and grinned. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or frightened, because that means either you really like me or I’m really crazy,” I said.

She laughed, and conceded that yes, she likes me. But something I said two sessions ago stuck with her, she explained.

That hour was impossibly difficult. I regurgitated so many old hurts and fears and frustrations that afterward, I felt as empty as a glass. Halfway through that tearful, bloody excavation I told her that I had to fix what was broken inside of me, or at least find a way to mend it.

I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 18 years old, I said. And here I am again, still off balance.

She wants to keep seeing me so I can finally be healed.

I’d like that.

***

Therapy makes you feel inside out. I feel skinned, flayed raw and exposed. I feel like the world is rubbing up against me. I fight the urge to hide and instead I walk into the bright, bright sun. Seeing clearly also means you can see so many of the flaws, the lapses in judgement, the wrong turns taken.

I’m at a crossroads, one that is more crucial than any I’ve stumbled across in the past. I am actively choosing to be healthy. I am actively choosing to define what happiness and success look like to me.

I believed that success looked like this city does. Glaring, busy and bustling, noisy and obvious.

Now, I’m not so sure.