Passion Project

She slowly exhales while glancing at the clock as discreetly as possible.  Only five minutes left, she thinks and looks back at the man sitting across from her.  He is speaking in a very animated way, his face is a little pink, and his eyebrows furrowed together.  This really was not what she had imagined when she decided to do this job.  She attempts to reign her attention back to what he is saying. 

“The money was sitting right there, I could have easily taken it, but I didn’t.  That’s improvement right?” he says quickly.

She squints her eyes slightly, realizing she had lost the thread of what he had been saying.  “Well…do you think it’s an improvement, Gordon?” she prompts.

Gordon nods, “Yeah.”

“Then it’s an improvement. It’s all about what makes you feel empowered and using that feeling as a reminder next time you feel tempted,” she pauses, “but we’re out of time today though, so how about we start back with this next week?”

Gordon looks surprised, “Oh! Yeah, sure. Uh, thanks, Natalie. I’ll see you the same time next week?”  She nods as they both stand up.  The room is small, only taking them each three steps to get to the door.  Natalie pulls the door open, smiling at Gordon as he walks out.  It was a simple routine that they repeated week to week.  As soon as he crosses the threshold, she shuts the door and leans her forehead against it for several moments before turning back around.

 The room is bright white in an almost blinding way.  Natalie had decorated the room simply by searching the internet for “therapist office ideas” and buying the cheapest items that popped up.  Cheap furniture from the big-box-put-it-together-yourself store, a cheap motivational poster saying “You didn’t come this far to only come this far,” a fake plant sitting on the bookshelf, and a comfortable desk chair that Natalie had splurged on.  She remembers saying to herself, “If I'm going to listen to people complain, then I’m going to be comfortable while doing it.”  

She crosses the room and flops down in the chair.  Closing her eyes, she puts her palms over them, slowly breathing in and out. She lets the calm wash over her.  She had really been hoping that Gordon would have just stolen the money. That would have been an exciting story, full of adrenaline.  At least that would have been more interesting than listening to him belly-ache over how to not take the money, resulting in 50 minutes of her trying to focus and not daydream about what would have happened if he had just done it.

The thing is, when Natalie started down this career path, it was fully by accident.  She had never been particularly interested in joining the work force nor had she felt any burning passions inside her.  When she stumbled into her first Introduction to Psychology class sophomore year of college, slightly still buzzed from the night before, she thought she have happened upon a way to make easy money while hearing people’s secrets. She figured that she was putting in the years at school anyway, that it may be worth it to get a job just listening to people talk all day about their problems.  In fact, she assumed that most people would have thrilling problems, gossip, and deep dark secrets to talk about, that just listening to them would be a piece of cake. She decided to pursue the path of counseling. 

Instead, what she has discovered a couple months into working is that her inbox is always full of appointment requests she has to trudge through.  Progress notes are something she is constantly having to write.  Insurance companies are excruciatingly slow at paying her for her time.  Worst of all, most people’s problems are extremely boring.  They all think the decisions they are making are so unique, she thinks, but really everyone’s problems are so similar they start to blend together.

She sighs, removes her palms from her eyes, and leans back in her chair.  “There’s got to be a way to make this more interesting,” she whispers to herself.  As she sits there, staring at her motivational poster, she has an idea.

…

“So, Gordon,” Natalie starts off saying slowly after the exchanging of pleasantries, “last week you were telling me about some money you did not take.”

“Yup, I didn’t take it.  I wanted to, you know.  My bills are coming due, and I just don’t quite have enough,” he says while rubbing his face.  “But I just don’t want to get caught again for some petty crap, you know.”

She smiles a little, “So what are you going to do?”

Gordon takes a deep sigh, “Honestly, I really don’t know.  Probably try to bum a few bucks from my parents...maybe my sister.”

Natalie nods a little, contemplating Gordon.  He stares back at her, hands folded together at his knees.  “They’re probably tired of you bumming money though, don’t you think, Gordon?” she says quietly, looking him in the eye.

“Yeah, I mean, probably.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I…uh…I guess I’ll ask anyway?”

“What if they say no?  That would just be humiliating wouldn’t it?” she asks him, already knowing that his pride is delicate and will absolutely not want to be humiliated.  He grimaces, just like she had been hoping he would do.

“I dunno what else I would do…I mean nothing else good I could do,” he states, not looking at her anymore, instead looking at his hands like they’ve wronged him.  

She watches him for a moment before saying, “Nothing else good…well what might the other options be?”

He looks back up at her before launching into a detailed idea he has about breaking into the house of a doctor he knows of in the next town over. He says the original thought had really been an intrusive thought, but he had started thinking about it more later.  He talks about knowing who this guy is, but that he doesn’t know who Gordon is.  He talks about what the house looks like from the outside.  He talks about what he hopes to find there.

Natalie listens intently.  As he talks, she asks questions, pointing out small flaws in his plan, asking him what would happen if this went wrong, or if that didn’t work.  She tries to nudge him toward solutions to these flaws.  She acts like she is trying to point them out to discourage him, but keeps pushing gently to explore this idea further, pondering some thoughts out loud occasionally.  A few times she asks him about other possible legal ways to get money, but keeps coming back to his thoughts about the doctor’s house.  She wants him to think all of this was his idea.

When she notices it is nearing the end of the session, she says in her best concerned voice, “It seems like an awfully big risk, Gordon.  I can see the temptation, definitely.  It sounds like a good amount of money, but if you get caught that would be so tragic.”

“True, plus the morality of it,” he states.  

Internally, she rolls her eyes.  Externally, she nods, “Yeah…the morality of it…I know you’ve voiced anger toward doctors in the past, and it does seem unfair that you had to pay them when they did not save your brother.”  Natalie pauses before adding, “It’s very unfair.”  Gordon nods vehemently with a flash of anger passing across his face.  Natalie looks at the clock and feigns shock, “Oh, I am so sorry, we are out of time today.”  She stands up and Gordon follows suit.  As she walks to the door, Natalie says to Gordon in a voice barely louder than a whisper, causing him to lean a little, “I really hope you find the money for your bills before next week.”

Gordon smiles broadly at her, “No worries, I think I’ll figure it out.”

She smiles right back, “I’ll see you at the same time next week.”

He nods and walks out quickly.

Natalie closes the door and starts laughing. Her laugh is quiet at first, but gets louder and somewhat hysterical as continues.  She thinks she may have pulled it off.  She thinks she may have made him believe that he was manipulating her, while she was the one pulling the strings.  With delight bubbling up in her chest, she wonders if this is what passion feels like. Still laughing, she walks over to her desk and starts going through her client list to see who else she can get to do interesting things and what insecurities of theirs she can play on.