Therapy » m.c

[4] Homecoming

"Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable."

-Simone de Beauvoir

.....

Michael

So this homework the doctors have got us doing now is basically like a daily journal, but there's a twist. As you write your entries, they must be written as if talking to a person. You can write to yourself, but they recommend us to slowly get used to pushing ourselves out of our usual comfort zones.

The challenge is to pick someone and write as if you are having a conversation with them. The doctors also want us to leave behind questions at the end of each entry. Of course, the person that we are writing to won't ever see or know that we wrote to them, but it helps with the whole process.

Now they've got us writing a damn diary. What am I, twelve?

Despite myself, I flip open the blank notebook provided to us by the facility. The thin cardboard cover has a black schedule with all the days of the week as well as a multiplications list set in a table format. They're wickedly useful, but they're the kinds of things that you wish you remembered was actually there to help you with homework.

I reach into my open pencil pouch, pulling out a black ballpoint pen. I remove the cap using my mouth to blow the cap away.

Let's get this crap started and I think I may know just who to write to...

October 22, 2014

Dear Mark,

Today was fun, wasn't it? Well, maybe not for you, but for me it was riveting. Hopefully, I didn't bruise your ego too much.

But you see this smile mustn't be for nothing, right ? Though I think I might have had a reaction to my new prescription, because I felt awful a few days ago... I could barely tell where I am or who I am with after I take the recommended dosage. Would that be considered bad or concerning in anyway? What are they anyways?

Actually, don't tell me. You're probably going to throw some textbook term at me so I'll dodge that answer, in the future.

You know what I just realized? This assignment is stupid, because all I'm doing is talking to my goddamn self...again.

Michael

Well, I'm definitely surprised I was able to whip that out. I swore to myself I would never repeat this, but it actually made me feel good, less alone and more open.

When I was younger, I dabbled into a few extra curricular classes. I tried wrestling, though I just came out with a few black eyes and a phobia of uncomfortably tight clothes. Art wasn't too bad, until I realized I could get a better grade by throwing down globs of paint on a canvas and give it some fancy name like la tache de peinture and calling it a day, rather than actually trying.

To say the least, school was not my favorite pass time, so home school posed as the best alternative to meeting my mother in the middle.

English, though, was by far the best subject. The last year that I attended Freemont High, they were having us read Edgar Allen Poe.

A freak? Maybe.

But that guy could write.

I slowly became obsessed with his work, my favorite being 'A Telltale Heart'. I read until daylight sometimes, not even getting enough sleep for the next day, but I didn't care. It just consumed my life.

It's like if you watch a movie, and you instantly fall in love with a character or a scene in the film. The movie impacted you so much that you started to wish it was real. Those actors that played your favorite characters never retracted to their famous lifestyles off screen. Though life is life and the reality is, you don't get to have that happy ending that is always depicted in the media. Sometimes, you don't even get to have the shitty moments, because even then, they will be a better story than your life.