"A therapist, really? Hearing people's problems day in and day out is going to make you cold and cynical," he says, squinting at me. "It'd be a shame."
I want to laugh, but I just shake my head with a smile. It's human nature to assume that the tightrope walker has never stumbled or tripped, so it's easier to watch her tiptoe across. Just assume it's simple for her, she's just talented, she probably has some superpower, you could never. Applause for the amazing woman in the sequins, folks!
It would be easy to crush his illusions, I suppose, but he's just some guy with a cigarette that I'm talking with to kill time because all the people I care about are somewhere else. Let him have the image of me as trouble-free pixie, skipping through life unchallenged up until the point that I get a job helping people who have actually had problems. It doesn't cost me anything. I change the subject and we talk about him, instead. I know it's his favorite topic.
Denver caught summer, finally. The dry, quasi-desert heat sucks the moisture up from everywhere, turning the grass in the abandoned lots brown and crunchy under my feet. I walk at night when I can, avoiding the sun for another few days. My classes start soon and then I'll be walking home at high noon every couple of days. Maybe not the best planning on my part.
I am only half paying attention to the things around me right now, going through the motions of classes and whatever it is that I do when I'm not doing schoolwork. It's hard to focus on the moment when I feel like there's something coming, some giant event that is going to change everything. Or maybe some little event that is going to change everything?
Instead of giving myself fully to the now (which would be the zen thing to do) I have one eye out for the first hint of trouble or opportunity. I'm mentally crouched on the starting line, ready to run the second the universe reveals what's in store for me... whether I'm running away or toward it is up for debate, I suppose. It's difficult to really live moment-to-moment when your brain has this heightened awareness, on the edge of fight-or-flight but without anything to fight or anywhere to run to.
I make a bunch of plans that might never happen, just because planning makes me happy. I price flights, look at event dates, daydream about visiting friends and familiar places. There's a tree in New Orleans that misses me, and a bunch of dead people in Memphis that I haven't talked to in a while. There's a couch in St. Louis that I need to go claim a corner of (since it's new and all) and a river that remembers when I was born. My house in Connecticut might miss me, too, but it at least has Mike to keep it company while I'm away. I let him live there, see, since I have to be here.
Then there are friends in DC that I haven't seen in years, and California keeps getting talked up, and I always wanted to visit Portland.
In the end I know that my time and resources are limited, and most of my plans will take years to come to fruition. I make them anyway. It's something to keep me occupied while I'm waiting.
I tell myself that in five years I'll have this all sorted. I'll be in possession of the answers to all the questions that are plaguing me.
Of course, I forget to mention that I'll just have a new set of questions. Myself and I have a gentlemen's agreement not to notice this oversight.
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