“I do not know how to explain it, really. Once when I was younger, my family was having a barbeque in our backyard. My dad was cooking and my mom brought all the plates and condiments and whatnot outside. There was a little table thing next to the grill where my mom left out tongs and an oven mitt for my dad to use. After she went inside to get more of the stuff we needed for the meal, my father just looked at what my mom left him on the table and pushed it onto the patio table, annoyed. I was a kid and did not get why he was annoyed, so I asked. He just said, “Your mother is always doing goofy shit.” I did not think it was goofy shit. I thought she was nice for going out of her way to help him even when she has her own tasks to take care of before we could eat dinner together.”
I knew that this might make my father seem like an asshole, so I just concluded with, “I don’t know. I think about that sometimes, even today.”
“Okay, so why do you think it impacted you so much to the extent that you still think about it?” My therapist always annoyed me when she asked questions like this. Her name is Bonnie and she is old as shit and knows nothing about what I am talking about, but I promised I would go to at least five of these God-forsaken sessions.
So, I humored her, “Well, my mom does stuff like that. She goes out of the way to do nice things. Tries to get thoughtful gifts, randomly helps out and stuff. Dad never did that and apparently didn’t even appreciate it when she did.” I felt weird about telling her this and feel like she is going to judge my family. She doesn’t even know my family.
“Okay, now we are getting somewhere. Let’s explore this a little more. Did that incident change your outlook on love?” She scrawled in that stupid little, red notebook some fake-important notes about my unimportant, and quite frankly, irrelevant story. She was just doing her job and I know this, but I still have to resist the urge to tell her to fuck off.
Seriously though, my outlook on love? What is she even talking about? This is totally unrelated. But, again, this is my last session and there was about forty-five minutes left, so I relaxed and simply said, “It didn’t.”
But, I don’t know. Maybe it did.
No. No, it didn’t. This is how they get you to pay so much for these stupid things. They convince you that you’re so fucked up that you just have to keep coming back before you end up killing yourself.
Bonnie didn’t like my answer, as I suspected she wouldn’t, so she frowned ever-so-slightly and tried again, “Okay, so how has it impacted you?”
She sucks, man. I paid her to tell me this stuff. I sighed and decided to just start talking, thinking that hopefully I could babble on dramatically enough to waste enough time so that I could get out of there before she had the chance to ask anymore of her questions and could just diagnose me with something.
Doctors, well psychiatrists in this case, are never happy unless they give you some meds that you don’t need that will have so many side-effects that you were better off in your previous state. The system was mind-numbingly easy for me to comprehend, but hard to rebel against.
I look around her office a little and see smiling pictures of Bonnie’s family and friends who are probably just as messed up as I am in their own way and decide to focus on a picture of a vase of flowers, because at least flowers can’t smile, and started, “I don’t get it, is all. My mother showed her love in such obvious ways. She made it so that I could never question if she loved me. I knew without a doubt. My old man was gruff. He worked his ass off at a shitty job for his entire life for the family. I appreciated that, but that was all he gave us. How hard is it to say good job to someone? Or say that you are proud of someone?”
I stopped looking at the flowers and looked back to Bonnie. Suddenly I wasn’t even mad at her anymore.
“Matt, I am not sure if you noticed, but this story was not about your parents. It was about the way your dad treated you.” Bonnie looked excited about her little break-though. I wasn’t so impressed. I know that I hate my dad, but this lady isn’t allowed to. Okay, I guess I don’t really hate him. He just kind of sucks, but he is family and the cliché ‘only I can talk bad about my family’ is all too real. I was right back to being annoyed with Bonnie. Surprise, Surprise.
So, I tried to do some damage control. “My dad is a good man.” I said this knowing that I believed it, kind of, but I resented him a lot too. My thoughts were always jumbled during these sessions and I just wanted to go home.
“You tell me he is a good man all the time, Matt. Other times you contradict yourself. That’s okay, honestly. I think we are getting somewhere because I am starting to get you thinking about ways to deal with your past, but we are almost out of time for today, so I have an exercise I would like you to try when you get home, okay?”
Dear God. I thought this lady was adorable for thinking I was ever going to think back to this experience, let alone do any homework. I am thirty-eight years old, for Christ’s sake. But, I knew she would try to keep me for more sessions and I didn’t want to deal with the struggle, so I just said, “Okay, I will.”
She smiled a genuine smile and wrote something on her red notebook. I looked at the clock. It was exactly three minutes until I never had to see, hear, think of, or talk to Doctor Bonnie L. Schwanski again. I kept my eyes on the clock until she finished writing and handed me the paper.
I took it and read, “Call your dad.”
I haven’t seen my old man in years. Damn it, Bonnie.
I looked up after reading it and again said, “Okay.”
I felt like I had turned into a child who needed to listen to his parents. I noticed her glancing at the clock and as our eyes met she started to dismiss me from her office in order to mentally prepare for the next asshole that walked in here with some sob-story about how hard it is to live and be happy in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Blah, blah, blah. I guess sometimes people just can’t be happy even when they have every reason to be. I knew this because that person is me.
I got up to leave Bonnie. She started to wish me well and gave one last attempt to get me to keep coming back for more sessions, but I had to make sure I stopped her before she had the chance to finish. Sorry Bonnie, I can’t stay in this creepy little hospital room anymore.
I cut her off, “Thank you for everything. I will give my dad a call.”
I closed the door as soon as I got the words out and practically ran to my car. It is a seventeen year old car, barely runs, and needs to have the bumper fixed from an accident last year, but it has never looked so pretty to me. As I got in and started to drive the twenty-nine minute drive to get back to my crappy apartment, I thought about what Bonnie said, even though I tried hard to just drive and clear my mind.
I lit a cigarette and let the smoke roll out of the windows. Cigarettes help and I hate that. The wind in the car picked up as I accelerated and blew Bonnie’s little assignment around on the seat just a tad. It irritated me that I considered this to be a cosmic message from the universe, but only for a split second and then I came back to earth.
“Okay, relax.” I reminded myself out loud as I grabbed the note, stuffed it in the cup holder and put an old coffee thermos on top of it. I swear that I’m addicted to coffee. I get twitchy without the damn stuff. The cup reminded me that I am due for about my forth cup today, so I decided to treat myself and stop off at one of the little Indie places that I never go to. I liked the mainstream stuff, it was simple to order because it never changed, but I did not want to go out of my way and Starbucks was in the opposite direction. Besides, I needed a change and the place looked pretty empty. The last thing I wanted to deal with was people, especially those who were in need of coffee.
I noticed that the place was pretty nice as I entered. I walked up to the young, teenage girl at the counter. She was cute and happy, exactly what I was hoping to avoid. God, when did I become such a cynic and a pessimist?
I looked at the menu above her happy little head, even though I knew exactly what I wanted.
“How can I help you?” Heather, as her name tag indicated, asked me and cocked her head to the side.
What are you so happy about? You are at work and work sucks. Of course, I did not really say this. All I said in reply was, “Tall Espresso.”
I paid her and decided that I would sit down and actually drink my coffee in the shop for once. I never did this, but again, I justified this action with the hell I just put myself through for the last hour. Honestly, we barely scraped the surface of what I needed to talk about, so it’s good that I cut Bonnie off at five sessions. I would be broke soon if I kept it up. I also really needed to cut down on how much money I spend on coffee each week. It was pretty substantial. I was happy to find myself considering smaller problems that really could be solved with a little dose of self-control and allowed myself to get lost in this small victory. I had a sane moment and sipped my coffee and felt almost…happy.
I looked at the clock. It was five-thirty and I noticed that the 9-5ers were starting to come in and get their coffee on their way home. I felt their pain. Work really sucks, man. These people needed to stop and get some caffeine just to make it home semi-alert so they could be awake enough to eat dinner and then crash in front of the television at nine-thirty. The next morning they wake up and do the same damn thing over and over again. This had always been sad to me. We literally worked hard to accomplish our dreams only to find that we were worn out after a few years. The goals we worked so hard to achieve seem so mundane and meaningless that we eventually turned into zombies. I decided I needed to get out of the coffee shop now, before all the people rushed in to prove my cynicism true.
As I turned around to leave, I saw how the line had already grown and the perky cashier did not look as happy anymore. I am satisfied with my choice to leave and with her snap back to reality from whatever the fuck la-la land she was in when she took my order just a little while earlier.
I reach the door and nearly run over some short, stocky, balding man. I went to mumble a quick, “Sorry,” but I stopped in my tracks.
At the threshold of the coffee shop was my old man. He was older and uglier, but still just as familiar as ever.
I stared blankly for a moment and he was the first to speak.
“Hi, son.”
Pause.
“Hi, dad.”
For a moment I was not sure where to go from there, but I ended up saying, “Do you want to get some coffee?” before I had the chance to stop myself.
He smiled an actual smile.
“Okay.”
I turned around and we walked in together.
Under my breath I sighed and mumbled, “Fuck you, Bonnie.”