I want this to be different from our last consultation. This time I want a complete overhaul. My sixtieth birthday is approaching, and I want to change my life.\u201d
\nThose were Sally\u2019s first words. A handsome,\u00a0forthright woman, she looked straight into my eyes and held my gaze. She was referring to our previous therapy six years earlier, when she had requested four, and only four, sessions to help deal with her protracted grief following her father\u2019s death. Though she had used that time efficiently and explored her stormy relationship with her parents in some depth, I sensed there was much more that needed attention, but Sally had been resolute in her wish for only four sessions.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure how much you remember about me,\u201d she continued, \u201cbut I\u2019ve worked forever as a physics technician and that\u2019s what I want to change. The truth is that my heart\u2019s\u00a0never\u00a0been in that work. My real calling is writing. I want to be a writer.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t recall your mentioning that before.\u201d
\n\u201cI know. I wasn\u2019t ready to talk about it then. Not even to talk to myself about it. Now I am ready. And I\u2019ve contacted you again because I know you\u2019re a writer and I think you can help me find my way to becoming a real writer.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ll do my best. Fill me in.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve made the decision to put my writing first. I\u2019ve got enough money to do that now, with my retirement benefits and my husband\u2019s job. He\u2019s an airline pilot, and even though United has stolen the pilots\u2019 pensions\u2014the CEO really needed his hundred-million-dollar salary and bonus\u2014my husband still makes good money, at least for the next five years. And the most important thing is that I must have talent.\u201d
\n\u201cMust\u00a0have talent? Tell me about that.\u201d
\n\u201cI mean I\u00a0must\u00a0have some talent. I won a literary guild fiction prize for new writers when I was eighteen. Four thousand dollars. And that was forty-two years ago.\u201d
\n\u201cA huge award! Quite an honor!\u201d
\n\u201cQuite a curse, it turned out.\u201d
\n\u201cHow so?\u201d
\n\u201cI got this notion I could never live up to that honor. I began to feel like a fraud and was afraid to show my work.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat did you write?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u00a0do\u00a0I write, we should say, because I\u2019ve never stopped writing. A bit of everything\u2014an unending stream of poetry and stories and vignettes.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd what have you done with all your work? Have you published any of it?\u201d
\n\u201cAside from the novella that won me the prize, I\u2019ve published nothing. Never tried to publish. Not once. But I\u2019ve still got every piece I ever wrote. Couldn\u2019t send anything out and couldn\u2019t throw anything out. I put everything in a big box and sealed it with strong tape. Everything I\u2019ve written since my teens.\u201d
\nA big sealed box containing everything she\u2019s ever written! My heart began to race.\u00a0Slow down,\u00a0I said to myself, for I was slipping into my identity as a writer and felt myself getting too involved. My curiosity was aflame. And my empathy, too. I shuddered as I imagined my entire life\u2019s work stored away unseen in a large box.\u00a0Don\u2019t over-identify, I told myself.Nothing good will come of it. I turned back to Sally.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that like for you?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat? Having everything in that box?\u201d
\nI nodded.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not so bad. Out of sight, out of mind. It worked just fine\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. until now. I can tell you a lot about the blessings of denial. I\u2019ve always thought your profession lacked a proper appreciation for denial.\u201d
\n\u201cRight! We don\u2019t invite denial to our campfire. I confess that I expect my patients to doff their denial and hang it in the cloakroom before entering.\u201d
\nWe smiled together. We were a good pair. When had I last uttered \u201ccampfire,\u201d \u201cdoff,\u201d and \u201ccloakroom\u201d during a therapy hour? I sensed us settling comfortably into a\u00a0writerly conversation.\u00a0Careful, careful,\u00a0I thought.\u00a0She has come for help, not conviviality.
\n\u201cThat box\u2014where do you keep it?\u201d
\n\u201cActually there are two boxes. Box number 1, the main guy, is jammed full, taped shut, and stored out of sight, way in the back of my closet. I\u2019ve jettisoned a lot of things over the years\u2014clothes, photos, books\u2014but not that box. I\u2019ve carried that box around with me, as a tortoise lugs its shell, from dwelling to dwelling for most of my life. In it is all my work from adolescence until about fifteen years ago. The second box, where I store all my recent work, is open for business under my desk.\u201d
\n\u201cSo you\u2019ve saved your whole life\u2019s output of writing and keep it close but out of sight?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, not my entire oeuvre. A good bit from even earlier years met a sad fate.\u201d
\n\u201cHow so?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s an odd story. I\u2019m pretty sure I didn\u2019t tell you this in our previous therapy. One day when I was about fourteen, my parents and brothers were out, and I began snooping through the dresser drawers in my father\u2019s bedroom. That was not unusual for me. I can\u2019t recall what I was looking for, but I\u2019ve always been a hard-core snooper. On this particular day I found two of my poems in a drawer containing my father\u2019s sweaters. The paper seemed damp, as though my father\u2019s tears had fallen on them. I had never given him my poems, and I was absolutely enraged that he had them. How could he have gotten them? There was only one way:\u00a0he\u00a0must have snooped through\u00a0my\u00a0room when I was at school and stolen them.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd so\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. \u201d
\n\u201cWell, I couldn\u2019t very well confront him with it, could I? That way I\u2019d have to admit I was snooping in\u00a0his\u00a0closet. So I had only one recourse.\u201d
\n\u201cWhich was\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. \u201d
\n\u201cI burned all the poems I had ever written.\u201d
\nOuch! It felt like a stab in the heart. I tried to hide it, but she missed nothing.
\n\u201cYou winced when I said that.\u201d
\n\u201cBurning all the poems you had ever written! I\u2019m trying to conjure up a picture of that fourteen-year-old girl striking a match and setting her poems on fire. What a painful, horrendous thought. Such violence toward yourself! Tell me, Sally, do you have any sympathy for that young, fourteen-year-old girl?\u201d
\nSally looked touched. She tilted her head back and glanced upward for a few seconds, \u201cHmm. I\u2019ve never addressed that particular question before. I\u2019ll have to think on it.\u201d
\n\u201cLet\u2019s tag it and make sure we return to it later. It\u2019s important. For now though, let\u2019s talk more about your reasons for coming.\u201d I would have greatly preferred to return to that mysterious taped-up box\u2014it drew me in like a nail to a magnet\u2014but Sally\u2019s story of burning her work when her father invaded her privacy gave me pause. The situation called for great discretion. She\u2019d get back to that box, I was sure of it, but only on her schedule, only when she was good and ready.
\nOver the next few months we prepared the ground for her new life. First she had to deal with retirement, a major, often frightening transition that few navigate with equanimity. Though she was fully aware of the many obstacles in her way, she was also a determined, efficient woman who composed a checklist and checked off one item after another.
\nFirst she had to come to terms with the irreversibility of her decision. Her particular field of physics moved so quickly that her knowledge base would soon be outdated, and she knew that she would not have the option of changing her mind in the future and reclaiming her job. To make sure that her lab would function without her, she instigated a thoughtful administrative reorganization, insuring a smooth transition.
\nNext she addressed loneliness. Her husband planned to continue to fly for five more years and was away fifty percent of the time, but she knew she could count on a bevy of friends. And then there was the question of finances. At my suggestion, she and her husband consulted a financial advisor and learned they had sufficient funds for retirement, provided they gave their children less money. They then arranged a meeting with their two sons, who reassured her that they could manage on their own.
\nThe final item on her list\u2014where to write?\u2014was particularly bothersome to Sally, and she fretted about it for weeks. To write well, she required absolute silence, solitude, and restful contact with nature. Eventually she located and rented a nearby loft encircled by the arms of a massive California oak.
\nAnd then one day, to my great shock, she entered my office carrying a two-foot-by-two-foot box, a box so heavy that the floor quivered when she set it down between us. We sat in silence looking at it until she extracted a large pair of shears from her purse, kneeled on the floor next to the box, looked at me, and said, \u201cToday\u2019s the day, I guess.\u201d
\nI tried to slow things down. Sally\u2019s eyes were red, her lips trembled, and her grip on the shears seemed unsteady. \u201cFirst, let me ask what you\u2019re feeling. You look so strained, Sally.\u201d
\nSitting back on her heels, she replied, \u201cEven before our first session, I knew that this day would come. This is why I came to see you. I\u2019ve dreaded it, hardly sleeping several nights, especially last night. But I woke up this morning somehow knowing that now was the time.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat did you imagine happening when you opened it?\u201d I had posed that question in the past, but it had never proved fruitful. On this day, however, she was forthcoming.
\n\u201cThere are a lot of dark chapters in my life, darker episodes than I\u2019ve conveyed to you, and there are a lot of dark stories in that box, stories that I may have mentioned, but only obliquely, in our therapy. I\u2019m afraid of their power, and I don\u2019t want to get sucked back into those days. I\u2019m very frightened of that. Oh yes, as you know, my family looked good from the outside, but inside\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. inside there was so much pain.\u201d
\n\u201cIs there a particular story or poem that you dread meeting again?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rising from the floor and setting down her scissors, Sally settled back into her chair. \u201cYes, one story that I wrote when I was in college haunted me all last night. \u2018Riding on the Bus\u2019 I think it was called, and it was about me at thirteen, a period when I was so unhappy I seriously considered suicide. In the story\u2014a true story\u2014I boarded a bus and rode to the end of the line and then kept riding it back and forth for hours contemplating how to end my life.\u201d
\n\u201cTell me more about not sleeping last night.\u201d
\n\u201cIt was bad. My heart pounded so hard I felt the bed shaking. I was terrified of that particular story and how I sat all day on the bus, thinking of killing myself. I remember being unable to find a reason to continue living. I kept imagining myself opening the box, rummaging around, and then finding that story.\u201d
\n\u201cYou were thirteen then, and you\u2019ve just turned sixty. So that means the bus ride was forty-seven years ago. You\u2019re no longer that thirteen-year-old girl. You\u2019re all grown up now; you\u2019re married to a man you love, mothered two fine sons; you love being alive, and you\u2019re here today planning to pursue your real calling. You\u2019ve come so very far, Sally. And yet you hold onto the idea you\u2019ll be sucked back into the past. How\u2014when\u2014did that odd myth take hold?\u201d
\n\u201cLong ago. That\u2019s why I taped the box shut.\u201d She picked up the shears again. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why I brought it here to your office.\u201d
\nI raised my eyebrows and gave her my best puzzled look. \u201cHow so?\u201d
\n\u201cMaybe if you\u2019re with me, you\u2019ll hold me and keep me inthis\u00a0world.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m a good holder.\u201d
\n\u201cYou promise?\u201d
\nI nodded.
\nWith that, Sally again kneeled on the floor, methodically cut the tape\u2014doing as little damage as possible to this treasured box she had lived with most of her life\u2014and gradually pried open the lid. Then she sat back in her chair, and we both stared in silence, in awe, at the startled stacks of paper, the dusty literary record of her life. She picked one sheet at random and silently read a poem.
\n\u201cA little louder, please.\u201d
\nShe looked at me in alarm. \u201cI\u2019m not used to sharing this stuff.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat better time than right now to break a bad habit?\u201d
\nHer hands trembled as she looked at the page. She cleared her throat a couple of times. \u201cWell, here are the first lines of a poem I don\u2019t recall at all. It\u2019s dated 1980.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Part b’ follows<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Creatures of a Day<\/strong><\/em> I want this to be different from our last consultation. This time I want a complete overhaul. My sixtieth birthday is approaching, and I want to change my life.\u201d Those were Sally\u2019s first words. A handsome,\u00a0forthright woman, she looked straight into my eyes and held…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1","rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg",900,609,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg",900,609,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=300%2C203&ssl=1",300,203,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=570%2C570&ssl=1",570,570,true],"portfolio-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=600%2C609&ssl=1",600,609,true],"portfolio-landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1",800,600,true],"menu-featured-post":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=345%2C198&ssl=1",345,198,true],"qode-carousel_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=400%2C260&ssl=1",400,260,true],"portfolio_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=500%2C380&ssl=1",500,380,true],"portfolio_masonry_regular":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1",500,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_wide":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=900%2C500&ssl=1",900,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_tall":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=500%2C609&ssl=1",500,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_with_space":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=700%2C474&ssl=1",700,474,true],"latest_post_boxes":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=539%2C303&ssl=1",539,303,true],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?fit=600%2C406&ssl=1",600,406,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/post-1632a.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philosophy<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"I want this to be different from our last consultation. 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\nIRVIN D. YALOM<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"