Mea Pugna

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you’re ready, that’s okay. Well, then, do you feel ready?” said the therapist, as if the change of words would do any good.

“It’s not easy to talk about that. You know it. I don’t know if it’s the right time.”

“Do you want to postpone it? Say, for the next session?”

“I don’t know. I want to get rid of it, you know. Last week, I thought I’d be ready to talk about it, but now… I feel nervous.”

“Nervous about talking it in front of someone else or remembering it?”

“Well,” I said, giving an exhausted smile, “it was never forgotten. I’ve been holding on for dear life to prevent it from leaking, you know, from my memories.”

“What happens if you let it leak?”

“It’ll cause a flood.”

“Flood of what?”

“Of emotions to deal with.”

“Haven’t you been dealing with them all these years, not as a flood but as a burden to carry in you?”

“Well said. Okay.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’ll let it leak and flow, so it’ll be your problem, too.”

My therapist smiled. “You know I’m here for that.”

“The first thing I felt when it happened was disappointment. Like, how could it happen? How could it happen in real life? Then I got angry— angry at myself for letting it happen, angry at life in general. Yeah.”

“And for the person who did it, what did you feel?”

“I didn’t feel anything. I don’t feel anything at all.”

“Do you think you are trying to detach that person from the incident?”

“Why and how would I do that? It’s that person who did it.”

“The ‘how’ is when you don’t feel anything about that person. The ‘why’ is the part you may be avoiding. Do you think you avoid a possible encounter? Or maybe of confronting them?”

“Huh… Maybe.”

“What would you say to that person if you had a chance? Imagine you are in a safe place with people backing you up, in a cosy room with me to support you if anything goes wrong. What would you say to that person?”

“I wouldn’t – well, I would just attack.”

“What would you say while attacking?”

“I would swear and shout. I want that piece of s- to go to hell after suffering here gravely.”

“So, you are angry with that person.”

“I am angry with that person.”

My therapist smiled slightly as if a rare gem had been discovered. “And what do you want that person to suffer for?”

“For the thing done, of course.”

“What was done?”

“I… I can’t say it.”

“Can you write it?”

“Yes.” I wrote it on the paper my therapist handed to me, got up from the armchair, and left the room. I paid for the session and left the building.

My tears left elegant traces on my clenched face as I walked furiously. The wind was making my tears feel cold against my skin. Was it possible to feel hot emotionally while cold physically? I remembered a song from Vega called “Isınamazsın Ağlarken”. I still can’t pronounce it correctly, but it meant, “You can’t get warm while crying.”

The song haunted me for a few minutes until I encountered a coffee shop. Nice, I thought. Crowd, lights, noise. Everything to save me from getting drowned in myself. I’ll leave it to the next session. Or, a voice said in my head, you can write down the stuff wandering inside you. Good point. I don’t have to ponder what happened; I could just pour the words on the paper. The hell with pondering on. I wanted to be light, so I would leave my burden on that paper. That’s it. I wanted to be light. I wanted to be a leaf to be carried away. Or better, I wanted to be the wind itself. No. I wanted to be nothing. Or at least I could try to be nothing. I wanted it to be my goal in life. I wanted to be obsessed with being nothing. It was always easier to be obsessed with something impossible to be. Easier than actually doing something, dealing with stuff, changing the status quo, and living with all this dirt in general.

I passed the coffee shop as if I were that wind. I wouldn’t sit, and I wouldn’t write anything. These all meant being solid, being still, being heavy. But no, I wanted things to move away and give me some space. Or better, I wanted to be swept away by my feelings. Much better, I wanted them to strike me and pass through me. I wanted to be like a sieve to feel light. Funny, but accurate.

I walked until I found an isolated park. I sat on a bench alone, under the grey clouds matching my feelings, cuddled by the sweeping wind for minutes. My body loosened up. I let all my emotions carry me away. At one point, I felt them unwind and pass through me. I didn’t care anymore. No, I wasn’t suppressing. It was just mere acceptance and not giving a damn.

I let the wind sweep my face. I let the life sweep me away. My senses were senseless. The only thing I sensed was the nothing. I was among the nothing. Then, I oozed into it. I was swinging in the nothing. I got faster. Finally, I broke free. I was floating in the nothing. I started to feel empty, in a good way. I felt the nothing. Now the nothing was passing through me, too. Or I was passing through it. I couldn’t tell the direction I was floating. I couldn’t tell the direction in which the nothing was floating. I couldn’t tell where I ended and where the nothing started. I couldn’t tell my thoughts either. I couldn’t think. I became nothing. I was nothing. Finally. No, wait. Better. Even better. I… I just… wasn’t. Only then could I breathe.