“I always had this fantasy of having a log cabin in the woods somewhere with comfortable country furnishings,” she said.“And I guess I could buy one, but when would I ever have time to get out there? So I decided to make my condo my little sanctuary.”
She gave me a considering look. “You know, you’re the only person who’s ever been here besides Ariel, Maeve, Theo, and my parents.”
“What about your other friends?” I asked.
“I don’t tend to have a lot of friends,” she said. “I work too much to cultivate any meaningful relationships.”
“What about the people you date? Or hook-ups?” I pressed.
She shrugged. “I always go to their place, or we get a hotel. It makes it easier when I inevitably need to leave for work.”
I shook my head. “You really are a workaholic, aren’t you?”
“That’s what my therapist tells me.”
I was surprised that she admitted to being in therapy so casually. My parents were very judgmental about therapy, saying that they thought it was too indulgent for people to pay someone so they could talk about themselves. It made me curious.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I started. “You can say no.”
“Sure, but how about we grab the cookies and do it on the couch?”
“Sounds good.”
We stacked the plates in the dishwasher and headed into the living area with cookies and bottles of water. Once we were on the couch, Grace turned to give me her full attention.
“What’s your question?”
“I don’t want to ask you why you’re in therapy,” I started. “But I wonder how it is. Like, what do you get out of it?”
Grace looked thoughtful.
“I started therapy back in college,” she said. “I started having panic attacks, kind of out of the blue, and the campus doctor suggested I talk to someone. I guess what I like about therapy is that it gives me a sounding board, someone I can talk through my problems with and they’re totally neutral, you know?”
I nodded.
“And also she’ll call me on stuff, like if I’m in some kind of loop or not being honest with myself. I guess for me therapy is like having a coach.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” I noted.
“Yeah, I don’t have some big serious diagnosis or tons of trauma to work through, but I am prone to anxiety and talk therapy and the tools she gives me to help work well for me.”
For the first time in my life I wondered if therapy would be helpful for me. Maybe a professional could help me figure out why I was too chickenshit to separate from my parents’ control.
I jumped as something soft moved against my leg.
“Oh!”
Grace smiled and leaned down to pick up a portly black cat with white feet. Sitting him up on her lap like the cat was a human, she waved one of its paws at me.
“This is Mr. Mittens,” she told me.
Before I could respond her tone changed into that sweet high pitched voice people used with babies. “Mr. Mittens, this is my friend Nicole.”
I reached a hand towards the cat and he hissed at me.
“It takes him a while to warm up to people,” Grace explained.
When I just stared at her she said, “What?”
