Day 2
So even by typing these words I’ve made it twice as far with this diary than I have with ninety percent of my previous attempts. Incredible! I’m just back from my daily appointment with the psycho-babbler. When I told her I’d written over 4 pages in yesterday’s diary she was really pleased. Apparently it shows real progress even to show a willingness to make a real start. She went on to say that this is “the beginning of the end of our professional relationship.” Bittersweet words if I ever heard them! We’ve been journeying together from my insanity to my current state for the last 6 years. When I first met her I was so full of drugs that I couldn’t see her through the haze in my mind. She was another white coat, another clouded figure who floated in and out of the room every other day with a clipboard and a load of words that I’d have struggled with if I was capable of lucid thought… I’m not the brightest tool in the box at the best of times! As the fog cleared and the effect of the drugs was less numbing I realised that she was the woman who had been appearing in my dreams each night. Every night’s dream was different in its setting and story, but the main characters were the same. There was me, and there was her. Each dream started with me in distress and in need of assistance, and then she would come in as my Angel of Mercy. I was drowning and she was my life guard; I was in a fire and she was my fire fighter; My car broke down and she was the AA responder; I was crazy and she was my psycho-babbler… Ok, so that last one was my waking and my sleeping dream, but you get the picture. As my healing went on, I began to fight harder for her. She was the reason my healing improved. She consumed my waking moments as well as my sleeping and became my muse. She obviously loves me, the effort she was putting in to me. She was there every other day to talk and to listen, to get to know me and to break through the barriers that kept me from trusting her, trusting myself, experiencing the world and the freedom around me. In the early days I was wary, and drugged, so I just sat and listened, trying to make any sense of the things she was saying or the questions she was asking. Her voice was so disconcerting back then because it was too soft. Her tone began to lull me into what I thought to be a false sense of safety and trust. As I got used to the drugs and started responding to the treatments I started giving one word answers, keeping my cards close to my chest, not wanting to give those perceived tyrant overlords who were ruling over my life any hint of what I was thinking or what their treatments were doing to me. But she persisted in her job and broke through my tough façade. She talked to me about more than my feelings and my mental state. She wanted to know about the films and the books that were my passion and fuelled my state of being. She told me about herself too, about her hobbies and interests, the films and books that made her laugh and cry, her favourite bands and foods and the reason she does her job. We discovered that we shared experiences in our pasts as well as people at times. She too had been brought up to go to church, and though she had lapsed in attendance, she still said she believed in something bigger than herself, just not in a fanatical or crazy kind of way like me. Initially I thought I could draw her into my world, and that she would be able to help me to fight in the rebellion, be one of my own “Allegiant”. She’d make the perfect Tris to my Four, I could be Peter and she’d be my Katniss, Neo and Trinity would fight for Zion in this Matrix. We would cause the downfall of the empire by our colluding and because of our love. Our children would live in a free world, and history would tell of how our belief changed the world. But what she said began to make more and more sense. It wasn’t that she was trying to convert me to be part of the conspiracy that I had always fought, but rather that I could know the same freedom that she did because there was no conspiracy to fight. I believed her, and not just because of her words, but because of her beauty and her soul. How could someone so pure be working with the enemy? My Angel of Mercy was poster-worthy, though not in that classical photo-shopped way… It was all natural. The flow of her auburn hair, tied neatly back for work purposes, with that elusive shorter bit that fell across her face, and rested against her glasses when it escaped from behind her ear was as elegant as it was sexy, as playful as it was sophisticated. And then there were her eyes! Every time she looked at me with her freckled eyes - a mottled grey with flecks of brown, blue and green that seemed to change every time I dared look back directly into them - I felt like the only person in the world that mattered… Kind of ironic given my history of believing the entire world was a construct of a story, where I was the oblivious key character… But her look gave me confidence and strength and told me that it was all going to be alright. They say that eyes are he window to the soul and if that’s true, then surely I have seen into the purest of souls! There were countless hours looking into those deep pools where I lost myself in who she was. The deeper I went, the safer she became. I began to paint my own little picture of who when was when she wasn’t with me. She lived in a small, neatly kept house. The living room was snug with bookshelves lining every wall. There was an open fireplace which lent its heat and light to two cosy armchairs - one well worn, the other as new - which shared a footstool, a shelf of single malts with two tumblers - one well-used, the other unused-, and a picture-less mantlepiece waiting for memories. It was the sort of room that didn’t need a TV. The only window to the outside world it needed was the window to the outside world that looked out upon a quaint rose garden with a swinging seat for two, ready for reading on those warmer evenings beside the chiminea. It goes without saying that only one half of the bench was ever used. That’s the way it went throughout her home; Room and provision for two, but wear and tear only on half. Half the crockery; half the wardrobe; one side of the super king-sized bed… That's where I’d get stopped every time. Whether she was aware of my wanderings into this utopia willing myself to make an appearance, or that I spent so long relishing my musings that time flew past, I don’t know. Whatever happened, that’s where she said something, or made a move that roused me from my fantasy. Every time I resurfaced and sheepishly looked back into those eyes, nodded, and feigned compliance with whatever I’d missed. Then she’d close her folder, stand up and leave. As much as I enjoyed seeing her enter a room and the feelings she brought with her with those eyes, and that smile… her reassuring smile which revealed her near perfect teeth… I enjoyed far more the sight as she left! I could watch that walk all day, and I often sought it out in my mind every time I closed my eyes. There was an alluring, metronomic lilt to her hips, and attached assets, as the rhythmic tapping of heel and toe grew fainter. I often wondered about the legs that were hiding beneath her standard issue uniform, not that she would have stood above a crowd with her 5’ 7” frame. Anyway, that’s probably enough excitement for one day… I really hope she doesn’t want to read this… I wonder… Whilst we are potentially coming to the end of our professional relationship, maybe we could take our relationship in a different direction… It’d be a shame to think that the last 6 years could be over just like that. Hmm… |
MARCRemarcable is one man blogging about Youth Work, Theology, Family, Life and those other random things that come to mind. Archives
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