Dr Meera Saravana has been on the run for the last ten years due to a fatal misunderstanding. She ends up in New York, hoping that maybe this time everything will work out. But that's turning out to be impossible the more she gets involved with the...
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Here's the thing about therapy...it's not a magic spell. You don't wave a wand and get better after a few sessions. There's no grand triumph or certificate of participation, there is just a lot of unresolved trauma and a whole lot of emotions to get through. Sometimes it involves crying as you have confronted the truth and other times it's just a dreadful realisation that your experiences in life were not normal.
For me, it was just another day.
Dr Joy brought out her favourite tea, pouring it into two blue teacups with koi fishes painted on them. "I'm glad that you've been attending these sessions regularly, Meera. I know it hasn't been easy but you are making progress."
"Am I?" I asked, picking up the teacup. The amber liquid reflected my expression. I didn't look very happy, although I didn't look like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown anymore.
"Any small amount of progress is still progress," she said. "You'll be ready to go back to work sooner or later, Meera. Have some hope."
Hope?
What a beautiful and sad thing. Hope was the small ray of light at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel. Hope felt like it was just out of reach but maybe if I could reach a little higher, I might be able to make it tangible and wrap my fingers around it. Hope was dangerous...but I desperately believed in it.
"One day, Dr Joy," I said gently. "I'll no longer have to rely on hope to get me through something difficult. But as you said....progress is still progress."
"I appreciate your positive outlook. But Speaking of progress, how are you sleeping? Do you still have nightmares?"
Well, wasn't that a loaded question?
Sleep...was not easy. It's not that I don't want to sleep, I do. It's just that anytime I lay down in my bed, I just spend hours staring up at my ceiling as my alarm clock ticks away closer to dawn. And when I do sleep, I keep dreaming about my past. All of those memories, the good and the bad, play like a movie reel with me as an unwilling participant. Each one hurts, cutting viscerally through me until I feel like Swiss cheese.
Ivan is no longer in my dreams. Once that would've been sweet torture, but now it would nothing but a relief to see his face. Real or not, my heart was playing tricks on my mind. After all these months of wallowing in self-pity and dealing with my inner demons, I knew for a fact that I couldn't delude myself into thinking I was safe. The only person who could protect me was me. Not Ivan, not Uncle Roma, nobody. Just...me.
"I don't dream about him."
"So you dream of other things?"
"They're weird dreams, nothing as terrifying as it was months ago but not completely mundane either. I dream of my past," I said. "It's like I'm in a room with a glass wall staring at the key moments of my life where it all goes to absolute shit."
