From Sam to Lexi

A Letter From the Therapist

December, the 8th

Dear Lexi,

It has been well over a week since I last wrote you. I just wanted to let you know that after thinking for a while, and considering the possibility of actually getting help from someone else on overcoming this process, I finally decided to give it a try, you know? Writing these letters is my way of hypothetically talking to you, but it’s not like the paper will answer nor comfort me in any way… So I just thought, ‘Why not?’

A couple of days after talking with Josh about it, he made my appointment with his own therapist, so I knew he was reliable.

When I walked into the therapist’s working room, I suddenly felt very welcome. It was just like an average living room, decorated with very warming and bright colors; reds, oranges and browns. In one spot of the room, there was a really comfortable looking full-body reclining chair. Actually pretty similar to those we see in the movies where the person lies and then talks about their problems to the therapist… that’s a lot like what I did, but I don’t consider you a problem.

The therapist was clearly older than me; the wrinkles showed up a bit on his forehead and on the bridge of his nose when he sometimes frowned as he talked, and on the corners of his mouth when he welcomingly smiled at me at the entrance, inviting me in. I didn’t ask him, because that would be rude, but I bet he was in his mid-forties.

He led me across the room until we got by the chair I just told you about a few lines above, and told me to lie down. As he began to peruse on his folders, and ask me about my personal details as name, age and so on, I noticed that Josh hadn’t mentioned to him why I was there. So as the therapist sat down behind the chair I was lying on, hiding from my field of vision, no matter in what direction I looked, he began to ask me exactly that; What had brought me there and to tell him the story from the very beginning so he could evaluate every tiny bit of my behavior towards the different phases of my problem.

At that point, I really hoped he didn’t have any other appointments that day, because that was going to take a lot of time.

I closed my eyes and searched in my mind for the very beginning of our story, and so I started to tell him about how we met each other. I told him about that rainy and stormy afternoon, when I had left work earlier and was running as fast as I could across the streets, as closer from the buildings as possible so I wouldn’t get wet, and then took a short cut over to the train station, so I could just stay a while under the roofing on the platform until I dried myself off a bit.

I remember taking my soaked coat off, untying my tie and sitting on one of the benches; And then it was when a really beautiful woman, that had just stepped out of the train a few minutes before, walked up to me; ‘God, you are soaked up! If you want to, I can lend you my umbrella,’ she said. I never forgot her sweet and delicate voice, and those were her exact words. I can still recall looking up to her face and suddenly being stuck in her gorgeous green eyes, but you know what happened next, right? Because that woman was you. I bet you remember me saying that I was fine, but you still insisted in lending me your umbrella;

A few days prior to that, I recall talking to my sister over the phone and her telling me that I needed to find love in my life. Well Lexi, I know I’ve told you this many times before, but the very moment I looked into your eyes, it was over. That was it. It was you.

This letter is starting to get longer than I intended to, and I hope that I’m not boring you in any way… Obviously I told many more things to the therapist; I told him about our dates, about me introducing you to my parents, about us moving in together, making plans for the future… About me- proposing to you just a few days before everything… ended.

But apparently it isn’t acceptable to just lie on the floor waiting for you to show up at my doorstep for a couple of months, and the therapist diagnosed me with depression. Do you know what I felt when he said that word? I felt like he thought I was some kind of suicidal person. And I am not suicidal. I just miss you a lot.

I hope you’re doing well.

Love,

Sam