So, here I am now. Sitting on the couch in Dr. Edison’s office like I have been every Wednesday of this journey. This is a plot twist in my life, if I’ve ever seen one.
“I know we only have a few sessions left before your stay is over, but I want to tell you how proud I am for how far you’ve come, Segan.” Dr. Edison always has this way of making me feel more confident in myself. Being here has really helped me see that I deserve so much more than I’ve allowed myself to believe over the years. “The man sitting before me today has grown leaps and bounds from the man that sat in my office six months ago.”
My cheeks grow hot, and I give her an awkward half smile and a nod.
“Last week, you had started to tell me about the dream you had with Lana to leave Utah and start over somewhere fresh. Why don’t you tell me a little bit more about that?”
Glancing down to my lap, I pick at the skin around my nails, lead weights sitting low in my gut. Ididmention that last week, and I honestly don’t know why. Talking about that is hard for me. It makes me feel put on display, entirely more vulnerable than I’m comfortable with. The only other person I’ve ever told this to is Josiah.
Even thinking about his name sends unease threading through my body. Anger. Hurt. Part of me wondered if he’d somehow hear about my suicide attempt and he’d come back to see me. Not that he owes me that, but I’d hoped all the same. He didn’t, though. Not even a phone call. I shouldn’t be disappointed.
Shouldn’tbeing the key word.
My mouth’s gone dry all of the sudden. After swallowing a few times to try to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth, I respond to her. “Nashville,” I say, my voice cracking. “I’ve dreamed about moving there since I was little. Writing music and performing it in front of a crowd. Living in a house on some land. Beinghappy.” I take a deep breath, remembering the plans we’d make. “I can’t even tell you how many times Lana and I would sit around and plan this future. I loved that she wanted this dream too. Made me feel not so alone.”
The last part comes out before I can stop it. It’s something I didn’t even realize I felt until the words left my mouth just now. It hasn’t even been two years since she died, and some days it’s still so hard to not hold on to the anger I’ve felt toward her for so long. It’s easy to forget the good times we had because the bad seems to overshadow everything else.
Dr. Edison has helped me learn to let go of some of my anger toward Lana. Helped me see that some of that anger was actually for me, and I just displaced it onto her because it felt easier in my mind than looking inward.
“Do you think that you deserve to be happy?” she asks.
“I do now.” My answer is automatic, and I realize how much I believe them.
She smiles. It’s warm and genuine. “How do you feel the writing is going?”
“Really well, actually,” I admit with a chuckle. “I’ve had a lot of downtime in here, and a lot of feelings to get out.”
One of the first“assignments”I was given upon being back here was to start writing again. It didn’t matter if it was journal entries, poems, or songs, she just wanted me writing. The last couple of years, I stopped writing altogether. I lost what little joy I found in anything. It’s been such a great outlet, and something I’ve enjoyed doing. I’ve fallen back into it like I never stopped.
“I see you’ve been thinking about Nashville. Is that something you’ve been considering for yourself again?”
My heart thumps in my chest at the question. “I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I love the idea, but I don’t know if it’s something I could actually do.”
“What do you think is holding you back?”
Thinking about it for a minute, my first instinct is to take the cop-out answer and say it’s money. But that’s not necessarily true. While I’m not loaded or anything, I have been saving up a decent amount—or I was, before coming in here. “I guess, maybe… aside from the obvious answer that it’s incredibly daunting to leave something you’ve known your entire life for something so unknown, no matter how much better you know it’ll be for you, I’d probably say it’s Lana. This was our dream. And regardless of how I felt about her before she died, we still made these plans together. I don’t know, it just feels wrong to go after them now.”
I don’t know how Dr. Edison does it, or what type of magical potion she has diffusing through the room, but somehow, I’m always admitting things to her that I’d never even admitted to myself before. Things I’d never even thought of, or put together.
“I’d like to touch on the first part of your answer; the daunting feeling about starting over. Fear of the unknown is very valid. It’s something I think all of us experience at one time or another. I wonder what could happen if you did take that step, despite how daunting it may feel. It makes me think of how you felt coming back here. How did that feel for you?”
“Nervous,” I share.
“Despite those nerves, are you happy you went through with it?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly. Obviously, coming to therapy is not the same as moving across the country on your own, but the fear and the nerves are still the same, just on a much smaller scale. I am curious how you would feel doing that, despite feeling nervous. I wonder what could be waiting for you on the other side of your nerves.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying.”
Dr. Edison’s eyes crinkle when she smiles. “And now to touch on the second part of what you said; your hesitance to go through with your dreams because it feels wrong to achieve them without Lana. Let me ask you this. Do you think if Lana were here today, she’d want you to go after your dreams, even if she couldn’t go with you?”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I reply, “I’m not really sure how to answer that, because my gut reaction is to say no, the Lana she was before she died probably wouldn’t have wanted me to chase after my dreams if it meant she couldn’t come.”
“I’d like to think, after what you’ve told me about her, that who she was as a person, underneath the addiction and mental health struggles, she would absolutely want you to achieve your goals. Drugs and mental illness can mess with our minds, make someone do or say things they normally wouldn’t. Who she was when she died wasn’t necessarily who she was deep down. Let me rephrase my question; do you think if Lana were here today, sober, she’d want you to go after your dreams?”
My throat feels tight, like a golf ball is lodged deep inside, and pressure builds behind my eyes as I think over her question. As I remember Lana for who she was before the drugs, and before the world stuck its claws in her. I remember Lana for who she was when we first made these plans. “Yeah,” I breathe out, my voice caught in my throat. “I think she would.”
