Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 117872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
I buckle up and do the hard thing.
For the next forty-five minutes, we talk until I’ve gone through a box of tissues.
When I’m wrung dry, she folds her hands in her lap and takes off her glasses. “Beck, it’s possible this loss has amplified your anxiety at times. You may not even be aware of it, but the trauma has likely heightened how you react to some uncomfortable situations,” she says.
I replay the night at the bookstore with this fresh insight. I hadn’t felt that itchy in ages, like I wanted to escape from my own body. “A month ago, Jason asked me to go to this bookstore event. Just as friends,” I begin, then tell her what happened. “Do you think it was related?”
“I think you can get trapped into a cycle of negative thoughts. I think you’ve had a lot of changes and triggering events in your life in the last two years. The loss of your brother, moving to a new city, taking on a big, new job, falling in love in secret.”
I laugh humorlessly. “Guess that is a lot. But do we have to talk about my past and my childhood and shit like that? I don’t want to go all Freud. I want to figure out how to live in my present.”
“We can if you want, or we can talk through your negative thoughts in certain situations and how to challenge them.”
She goes on to explain more about cognitive behavioral therapy.
I feel brighter with every sentence she speaks like I’ve sipped from a cup of possibility. She’s a magician, and she just pulled off the prestige. I had no idea this therapy existed. I thought I’d just talk about my past. I don’t mind that, but I do better with tools and exercises. I like a playbook. That’s what she’s offering.
“I want that. I can do that. I’m very good at practicing things.”
Rosemary smiles. “I’m not surprised.”
When I leave, I’m already excited to return next week.
The following week, she’s the first person I tell the latest good news. The Hawks are going to the playoffs too, and when I watched my rival’s game from my beanbag the other night, I went full fanboy when I saw the final snap. “I’m ridiculously excited for Jason,” I say when I sink onto Rosemary’s couch. It’s a relief to tell someone without hiding what I mean.
She smiles sagely, staring at me through cat-eye glasses. “Have you considered telling him that?”
“Will that help me?” I ask curiously.
“What do you want it to help you with?” she asks, turning the question back on me.
I mull that over, thinking out loud. “Will it help me get over him? Will it help me manage my nerves? Will it help me to be human?”
“Which one do you want?”
I sit with the question for a minute, trying to picture the outcome of each throw. But this isn’t football. It’s life, and it’s love, and it’s the guy I still have big, messy feelings for.
“I’m happy for him, so I want to tell him. That’s the kind of guy I want to be. I’d rather be that guy than the one who can barely handle being around him,” I say.
Time to stop running away when he’s near.
In a few more days, I’ll see Jason at the auction, then the next morning, we’re doing an extra edition of Monday Morning Quarterback, a playoff preview.
I’ll have plenty of chances to tell him I’m happy for him. I just need to find the right way to do it.
But it’s not that easy, and that’s why I’m here. “I’m worried it won’t go the way I want it to,” I admit, feeling safe.
“Then let’s work through some scenarios,” she says, and she takes me through my worries about the worst-case scenario versus the potential reality. Then she gives me homework, asking me to write down the anxious thoughts as they come to me so that we can work on replacement thoughts for them.
“Since I know you like homework,” she says with a wry smile.
“I do,” I say, then she says she’ll email me some worksheets.
I leave that session exhausted once again. With Rosemary, I feel like I’ve started running a marathon. I’m at mile one, but I’m determined to finish all twenty-six miles. And maybe more after that, even if it hurts.
38
CAN I SAY WAZOO?
Jason
My dad hasn’t knotted a tie for me since I was in high school. But for some reason, he’s doing up my neckwear tonight.
“I know how to tie a tie,” I grumble in the kitchen of my home. He’s stubborn, though, and he insists.
“Let your old man have fun,” he says.
“Tying a tie is fun?” I arch a brow.
“Helping you look dapper is,” he retorts with a cheesy grin.
I groan. “Who am I even looking dapper for?”