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“It’s nice to see you, Desmond,” Tamia said. “I was beginning to worry about you. Missing two appointments isn’t really like you.”
After my conversation with Jackson, I realized that it was important for me to face some of the stuff that I’d been dealing with instead of just running from it. I had been avoiding going to therapy because I was afraid of what would happen. Tamia was forcing me to confront some of my darkest thoughts and I knew that it would be hard, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how necessary it was for me to go back and be open and honest with her. She was only trying to help me, and I wanted to get that help, even though it was a hard thing for me to do.
“Well, after our last session, I was a little emotional,” I told her. “I didn’t like where things were headed.”
“So what changed your mind?” she asked.
“I realized that I needed to get my thoughts together,” I said.
“That’s what I’m here for,” she replied with a smirk.
I got quiet for a moment. I’d been thinking about how I wanted to approach the conversation. Tamia was my therapist and would listen to whatever I had to say, but I didn’t want to just ramble on.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked. It was like she could read my mind and knew what I was thinking.
I let out a sigh. “Can you love someone and be angry with them at the same time?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “Of course. The two aren’t tied together.”
“What if who you’re mad at is God?” I questioned. I realized that I needed to open up about the way that I felt. It wouldn’t do me any good to keep everything inside. I’d been preaching to Jackson about how he needed to be open and honest with his father and I realized that I needed to be practicing the same thing.
“You can be angry with God and still love Him at the same time,” she said simply. “It’s only human.”
I looked away from her and focused on the large window that was behind her. “I just don’t understand it,” I began. “I felt like I was doing everything right. I prayed every day. My parents prayed every day. I went to church when they didn’t. I paid my tithes every week. I don’t get why something like that would happen to me.” I finally turned my attention back to her. Tears were starting to well up in my eyes. “Why would God let this happen to me?”
Tamia had a blank look on her face as she stared at me. She’d told me once that it was important for therapists to try and control their faces because they could portray judgement. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but when she spoke, her voice was calm. “Desmond, do you blame God for what happened to you?”
“YES!” I cried out. “How could that happen to me? I was a good person. There are murderers and rapists who walk the streets everyday without any consequence. I was a child! I wake up in cold sweats some nights just thinking about what happened.”
Finally admitting to the truth was emotional but freeing. I hadn’t realized until then exactly how much of it I’d been keeping inside.
“How do you feel?” Tamia asked.
“How do you think I feel?” I shot back. I grabbed a tissue from the box that she kept on her desk and used it to wipe my eyes.
“You tell me,” she said.
“I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m annoyed,” I said. “I feel hurt. I feel betrayed.”
“Betrayed? That’s an interesting choice of words,” she said. “Why do you feel betrayed?”
“Why wouldn't I feel betrayed?” I asked. “From what I was taught, this isn’t the way things are supposed to go. If you do good, good things are supposed to happen to you. My life was almost over.”
“But it isn’t,” Tamia said. I gave her a confused look.
“What?”
“Your life isn’t over, or even close to it, Desmond,” she said. “In all the time that we’ve been meeting with one another, I’ve listened to you and have been able to see things for what they are. You may not realize it, but I think you’re in mourning.”
I was even more confused than before. “Mourning? No one died.”
Tamia shook her head. “Mourning doesn’t just happen when we lose someone. You can mourn and feel grief whenever you experience a big loss. It can be something physical or otherwise, but if you lost something that you had a big emotional connection to, it can cause you to mourn.”
“And what did I lose?” I asked her. I kind of understood where she was going, but I wanted her to break it down further.
“You lost yourself,” she said. “You are angry with God because you lost out on yourself. You were young and you had your entire life ahead of you. You were about to go to college and do all the things that you had planned, but instead, this happened. Now you’re trying to put together the pieces of your life and it’s upsetting that you can’t make things the way they were before.”
I sat and listened to Tamia go on and realized how right she was. I really missed something I could never get back. I’d spent so much time thinking about what happened and all the time that I’d lost. Years spent trying to recover my life and get back to what it was that I was doing before. I didn’t realize until then how much I’d been holding onto.
“You’re right,” I said to her. “I just...it’s really hard for me to let go of what happened.”
“No one says that you have to let go,” she said. “If this had been a death of someone close to you, no one would tell you to let go of your memories of that person. Instead, you need to be able to focus on what comes next. You lost years of your life and some memories that you may or may not be able to get back. Instead of focusing on that, maybe try and focus on what’s coming next for you.”
“I want to, but I don’t know how,” I said.
“You live,” she said simply. “The past is prologue, but it’s not coming back. No amount of time spent thinking about the past is going to undo your accident or bring back the time that you lost. You can help yourself by understanding that it’s alright for you to move on.”
I got quiet for a few moments while I let her words wash over me. Tamia was right about what she said. My life may have been paused for sometime, but at least, it didn’t stop. I realized then that the pain I was dealing with was something that I’d just have to learn to let go of. I’d been walking around bitter over things that I couldn't really change.
“Can we talk about how to move on?” I asked quietly. I wanted to let go of the pain and frustration that I’d been feeling for a while. I knew that it was time. I’d been living with it for too long and had made too much space for it in my life.
Tamia smiled. “I think we should.”