Click. Click. Click.
Now I was the new owner of a giant sleigh bed, a heavy, curved monstrosity in light oak set to be delivered in two weeks. A warm gust of triumph made me raise my fist. I’d dreamed this bed for my betrothed young cousin the night I cut up Dr. Rosen’s teddy bear, but now I’d claimed it for myself.
A week later, I gave myself a challenge to say yes to any social invitation. Period. No qualifications. In some cosmic way, word must have spread about my new resolution because invitations rolled in. Did I want to see a country band I’d never heard of with a friend from work? Did I want to accompany Nan to the store to replace her dildo? How about catching a Preston Sturges black-and-white movie at an old bank that had been turned into a movie theater ten miles west of Chicago? Yes, yes, yes. I’m in. I’m alive. I exist.
On Presidents’ Day—a below-freezing morning in February—I woke up in a fog of shame and anger. My fists curled and my head throbbed.
This is it. Here’s where I skid off the ledge. Brandon and I were supposed to be in New Hampshire for a wedding—had we stayed together we’d be there now. Brandon had probably taken Marcie and they were doing whatever you do in New Hampshire in mid-February: Tapping trees for maple syrup? Ice fishing? Fucking by a fire? Before me stretched an empty day: the office was closed, and I had no plans other than group. Looming holidays had always been my undoing. I could hardly breathe. To beat back the despair, I laced up my running shoes and headed outside.
The sky was still inky gray and the temperature hovered around ten degrees. A coat of ice slicked the sidewalks, so I ran in the street. The air was so cold and thin that breathing took extra effort. By the time I reached the lakefront path, the sun was rising over the half-frozen water. With every step, my breath huffed out in a puff of white air. This run teetered on self-abuse—the world was frozen all around me—but I decided: If I saw another runner in the next two minutes, I would keep going. If not, I would get in a cab and sit in a coffee shop around the corner from Dr. Rosen’s office until group started.
A half mile ahead, I spotted a lone runner in a green jacket, and I followed her like the North Star.
Left foot, right foot, breath.
Left foot, right foot, breath.
Follow the green jacket. The green lights. Go, go, go.
When the sun made its full appearance on the horizon, I stopped to stare at the blazing, defiant fist rising out of Lake Michigan. I shook my fist back at it. As I rounded the turn where Wacker meets Lake Shore Drive, I stopped, hands on my knees, and tried to slow my breath. Something was happening. My whole body felt inexplicably warm—from the inside.
Then, staring at that fist of light, I heard a voice. “You are okay.” I looked over my shoulder. There was no one. Whose voice was that? Never once in my life did I think such a seditious thought: that I was okay just as I was, even without a plus-one, a lover, a prospect, a beloved, a partner, a family of my own, a gleaming future filled with people who truly knew me.
Frost was forming on my nose, so I had to keep running. My pace doubled. The speed of a quiet surrender. I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay—with each thump of my pumping heart. It was a revelation. And they kept coming. Brandon didn’t own my okay-ness; neither did anyone else. Even Dr. Rosen. He couldn’t make me okay. All he could do was show up for the sessions and bear witness to all the shenanigans that composed my personal life, offering to hold me when the pain threatened to break me. I was okay, or okay enough, for the first time in my entire life. Because I said so.
I wasn’t going to mention these thoughts in group because I thought they were fleeting. But then it happened in the middle of group. Lorne was reading the latest court order related to his custody fight and that feeling came over me again—the sensation of okay-ness right here, right now.
“Y’all, something’s happening to me.”
Patrice touched my cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re freezing.”
“I had a revelation, but it’s hard to describe. It was like someone was talking to me, but it was me. I told myself I’m okay. Like right now, this very second, I’m okay.” Dr. Rosen’s face curved into a bemused smile. “Even if the Big Relationship never shows up, even if I have to adopt a child as a single woman, and even if I fail at every romance from this day forward—I’m okay. I get to live and go to work. And I get to come here.”
Dr. Rosen leaned toward me. “We’ve all loved you like that—just as you are—for a long time.”
They had always loved me. So did my Tuesday group. They stuck by me even when I raged, detonated self-pity bombs, keened, snotted, fought, and monopolized the sessions with my tribulations. I wouldn’t die alone. These people would surround me. They would help my family plan a proper burial. They would say nice things about me and explain Baby Jeremiah to my confused, grieving mother.
I visualized my heart and saw slashes from each group session I showed up for, from each man I dated, from each squabble with Dr. Rosen or with a group mate. Each “fuck you” to Dr. Rosen was a nick. Each screechy voice mail, each temper tantrum during a session, each dramatic hair pull and broken dish. Nicks, gashes, hash marks, chips, gouges, striations. My heart, a messy, pulpy thing, was scored from
