Page 77 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
I waited my turn at the therapist’s, playing with my phone, catching up with texts.
Work’s going good, I texted Monica.The house is good. Mikey’s good. It’s all good.
It’s all good.
Was that true?
The clients were so pleased with my representation that they decided to give our firm all of their business. In response, Amelia gave me a raise.
Mikey and I had continued our runs and workouts at the gym. I could now sweat out a mile without stopping, and I’d lost weight. Not a lot, but enough to keep me motivated. Cleaning up my diet had given me energy, and it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. I didn’t only eat steamed broccoli and chicken. I just ate . . . food.
I’d thrown out all my junk food. Mikey watched me as I did it, but he made me be the one to put it in the garbage bag and take it out to the curbside trash. There was a moment where I almost went back to get it, but so far, I hadn’t bought any more.
One day at a time.
And every night I spooned with Mikey, his big arm over my waist after we did other things.
So, it really wasall good.
The therapist opened the door and called my name. As I went to slip my phone in its designated compartment in my purse, it lit up.
Mom calling.
Since I’d moved to Santa Barbara, I hadn’t been back. Leaving felt like ripping wax off of my body. It’d scared me to do it, but once I felt the pain of leaving, like removing the hair from my skin, it subsided, and I never missed it. To be specific, I didn’t miss my old home with the bars on the windows, but I did miss my mom and my brothers, who called or texted on occasion. I was building a new home for myself in that grand, funky Victorian on a leafy street.
I decided to call her after my appointment.
Following the therapist into the little room, I sunk into the battered chair.
“Last week we talked about what it would be like to operate under the assumption that your emotional eating was an act of self-preservation.” As usual, she focused all of her attention on me. I wallowed in the way she listened.
I nodded. “It takes a lot of effort for me to think that way. I was so little when it started. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Right.”
“And it wasn’t my fault that my dad abused me,” I said.
“Agreed.”
I remembered the smell of booze on him. The little red lines on his nose. The way he wove when he stumbled around the house. The way he looked at me with loathing.
“And he did it because he was an alcoholic.”
“Yes. And that was him, not you,” she said.
I nodded. “I treated myself as best as I could with what I had to deal with. I couldn’t escape with drugs or booze, so I ate. But that kept me alive.” Looking up at the ceiling, I chuckled wryly. “You know, the first guy I dated? I was so scared that he’d be a drunk just like my dad that I dated the most boring person I’d ever met. He was so safe that he didn’t even notice me.”
“So he met a need, too.”
I nodded. “I think he did.”
Previously, she’d asked me to start operating under the assumption that I had really good reasons for the way I acted. And she said that once I understood those, I could forgive myself and others and move on.
I wasn’t sure about the forgiveness part. My dad had done things that were unforgivable. After he’d died in the crash, I’d gone through the phases of grief, but the main feeling I’d experienced was simply relief that he was gone.
Now, in my therapy session, I got pissed. “Why did my mom let him hit me? Why didn’t she protect me?”
My therapist paused. “Do you know what the term ‘codependent’ is?”
