It's never alone

Ms. Nettles, my therapist, sat there in that overly dignified chair in her exceedingly decorous office and crossed her legs, dotted her I’s, and stared at me through her thick lenses that felt more like magnifying glasses glaring at my problems rather than corrections to her less than perfect vison. I hated everything about this office. The huge windows that let in copious amounts of blaring sun rays that supposedly forced a person such as myself to produce dopamine but it just made me hot. Those poor plants that honestly looked more starved of love than myself and of course this big chair that incased not only me but the ten other depressed souls of those that had appointments before my six o’clock. In conclusion, this office felt more like a bear trap cutting into my leg than a homey, happy, safe place but who am I to judge. I am the one who is therapy after all. “Now Natalie, tell me how your week has been going”. And so, it begins I suppose I mean the clock had just ticked to one minute past the hour. “Where should I begin Ms. Nettles? I got out of bed, I went to work, and I came here. Another day, in another week that at some point will become another month of the same old same old.” There was that look. That god forsaken look that I felt the need to pay a hundred dollars a session for when my mother would give it to me for free alongside all the reasons why I’m alone and sad and oh yes, childless. That was why I was here after all. The loneliness. I’ve always been one that could cope, honestly and truly I have been. I had made it through childhood pets passing, grandparents finding the light, irritating coworkers and incorrigible bosses but this damn feeling of being alone was like a thorn in my foot, painful and deep. “Natalie, have you tried the things we discussed last time? Being more open to relationships is our priority and going home, to work, and here isn’t a relationship make.” She was right, she better be for hundred dollars, but relationships didn’t come easy to me they never have. Conversations were easy, drinks and lowered inhibitions, even marking the way to my bed with my clothes tangled in a strangers on my floor was as easy as a free bar tab and a shared cab. It was letting someone in deeper that was the problem. After so many losses the possibility of gains was nothing more than a risk and my heart really couldn’t take much more of those. Silence filled the room and Ms. Nettles began her hourly comforting and I lowered my eyes and pretended to take it in. I honestly think I keep coming to appointments to have someone in the room with me so I can figure out my own problems with company, it just seems to make thinking easier. Ms. Nettles says my over compensated independence is one of the things I should work on, you cant let people in when you think you don’t need them Natalie, she says. I don’t want to let them in though, I just want to be happy that I am keeping them out. The minutes ticked bye and the sky shifted through the window. Clouds covered and uncovered, birds made their way to wherever birds go and my mind shifted through thoughts as Ms. Nettles carried on about opening up and closing down. But damn that Sun. That bright, unforgiving sun that seemed to force itself into this office, on this world, onto me. It had been gorgeous, breathtaking, clear skies and outdoorsy weather least that’s what the meteorologist would say for the past two weeks now. People striding down sidewalks, parks full of families and couples, and worst of all an absence of an excuse to remain inside. I had never wished for the moon more. Darkness doesn’t ask questions it hides them. I twiddled my fingers and shot my eyes up at the clock. Six fifty-seven, time was almost up. “Ms. Nettles?”. My voice stopped her in her tracks and she cast an understanding glance in my direction. “Do you find yourself wondering if the problem isn’t that you are sad but that you think you should be? I have things people beg for. I wake up healthy and uncompromised but yet the space beside me in my bed gets colder as the days get longer. I have people, my mother, my father, a best friend they only write about in books but yet here I sit every Thursday evening wondering why I was deemed incapable of receiving love from a man that I don’t even know exists. I search for him in crowds like he will be waving back at me. I walk in my house and lock the door and suddenly the silence becomes overbearing to the point I begin to redecorate my house in my head to accommodate less because who needs all that sitting space when its just yourself. I come here and cuss the sun and that damn oversized chair you sit in while you tell me how I’m enough. I’ve never questioned my worth Ms. Nettles; I have only questioned why my exchange rate can’t conform to that of a healthy loving romantic relationship. I’ve had enough of that window today, Ms. Nettles. The sun has made its point”. As I stood up, I appreciated Ms. Nettles silence considering that wasn’t her strongest suit and made my way to the door. As my hand grasped the door knob, I heard her from across the room, “Natalie, next Thursday at six o’ clock?”. I nodded and made my way to the street. I pushed the door open and prepared myself to be hit with sunlight and yet it never came. I glanced upwards and everything that seemed so yellow minutes ago appeared to be a calming shade of gray. That’s when I felt it, one singular drop strolling down my cheek to make its way to the pavement below. Rain. The sky let loose, mother nature twirled and danced above me and played a beautiful song of snaps and booms as the dry parts of me found themselves wet. I am not one to find magic in things. Life has a way of stripping you of that as the years march on but yet something about this rain wasn’t normal. The sky captured the sun, it made it a prisoner, and released billions of droplet soldiers to take its place. Depression, Loneliness, sadness is marked by gray skys while happiness is a sun drawn in the corner of a paper by a five-year-old. That is a tale as old as time but in this moment, as my clothes became heavier and skin wetter, I stood there never feeling so complete. Rain has a way of washing the old away and bringing the new just go and ask the ground and the trees. Raindrops never fall by themselves after all they come in droves, armies, battalions that’s the magic of rain elementally. It’s never alone.