Feels So Funny To Be Free
<<2003-07-14 - 11:16 a.m.>>

I feel better. I feel finished. I feel, somehow, free. And it's the oddest thing.

I don't believe in breakthroughs, really, but I don't know what else to call it. First, I cried. I could feel my lips trembling, and it wasn't crying about the past, like it usually is—there was no distance. I was crying in the present, for the present, present in the crying, and I was saying things that were kind of stupid, in that way that things said in therapy sometimes are, but I didn't feel stupid.

When I got outside (deep breaths, wipe my eyes, wrench the doorknob open and out we go) the day seemed blinding, white-bright. It's cloudy, but God, it's so bright it hurts my eyes to look up. And sitting here (rock in Riverside Park) I feel—I feel not so heavy. Not so weighed down. How about that?

Anyway, I cried, and I explained that the talk with my parents, the good one, was supposed to fix it—it was supposed to fix me, why didn't I feel better? And I wanted them to fix me. I wanted the holes filled. Wanted the faps smoothed over. But talking to them about it didn't help, really. And like I said: if they can't fix it, what good is it being mad at them anymore?

And it made me angry to think that. I thought it meant a long hard uphill slog toward the forgiveness I still don't feel they deserve. "You don't forgive people because they deserve it. You forgive them because they need it." Sure, but I forgave, I think, for me. I needed to.

And I'm not sure if it's terribly presumptuous to be speaking in the past tense here. How do I know I've forgiven them? I don't know what's going to happen next.

But I looked up from my tears and I smiled. I was aware of what a lame therapy-melodrama move that was, but I was serious. I smiled, and I said I felt like studying some German.

I felt like I could do all the things I never thought I could. I felt free. I felt hugely excited about all the things out there. I thought about the jobs I could get next summer, the places I could go. All the things I can do right now. Today. Tomorrow.

I told Zibby it was kind of like the way I felt before, first semester, during John. But this time it's better—it comes from me, and I know it, and so it's better.

I just called him. A flutter of nervousness, dial, right through to his voicemail. I told him that I didn't know quite what I meant, but that I was done. And that I was sorry for the not-calling-back I've been doing lately. I've got that everything's-okay feeling back, and this time it's mine.

I cried some more. I said it felt like giving something up. I couldn't quite tell if I was laughing or crying. I covered my face. It was the funniest thing. Zibby got a tissue and wiped her eyes.

And they're my holes, my gaps, my aches and pains and loneliness. Mine.

People have relationships with their parents. Have. In a possessive way. They are not those relationships.

And I feel more insulated, now. More independent. Like I'm done trying to prove whatever it was that I've been trying to prove. I feel like I"ve lost a self-consciousness.

It's raining lightly and still so bright. I can feel the sun on my neck and back, and small lilght raindrops touching down on my skin.

I don't know how much more there is to say.

Oh, except she said I looked different. I asked if this was it, if things are going to be different now. She said I might slip, might fall, might find myself back there again—but she said it will get easier.

And I think I might believe it. I think I might feel different. I think I might let this be the end.

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