Into the Velvet

The End

If I had been older, things would've been different.

There. That was a good start. A simple enough sentence. Still, it rang with the truth that all powerful feelings held. I knew now, better than before, that certain truths could feel right and be devastatingly false.

The pen sat comfortably in my hand. This was a new practice suggested by Kathryn. I was reluctant to admit that it was helping. My days were long and wearying; the hours a slave to routine. In our previous bi-weekly session, she'd brought with her a pocket-sized pink notebook. A fuzzy pink pen to match.

I'd taken one glance and rolled my eyes. Journal therapy. A textbook move — pun intended. "What makes you think I'm a pink type of person?"

"It was in the bargain rack," she'd explained. "This was a last-minute whim on my way here, I have to admit."

I knew this to be false. Kathryn didn't do last-minute whims on her handsome salary. Her psychology didn't revolve around splurging on the discount rack. But she had a funny, convincing way of making her suggestions seem natural and spur of the moment. Sitting across from me week after week, in her grey heels and grey pants and grey shirt, nothing about her seemed spur of the moment.

I used one of the facility's blue pens instead. The splotchy ink flowed from my fast hands. An instinctive motion. When I put pen to paper, the words untangled. Presenting themselves as perfectly formed sentences. It reminded me of sitting in one of many exam halls, scribbling furiously against the dreaded timer. Even in a place like this, the past was impossible to outrun.

I wrote until Olly made his visit. He was early.

"I brought donuts!" he shouted from the doorway, startling me out of my scribbling with a gasp. That had been his intended reaction. His grin was enormous. 

Sneak.

My hands curled protectively over the pages. "Can't you ever knock? I'm doing something."

"My knocking days are over," he professed gravely, letting his voice shake with dramatic bravado. Taking a long breath. "I lost my fingers in a terrible knocking accident."

He held up his hand. Olly had loosened his fingerless gloves, so that none of his fingers poked through the holes. A staged amputation.

I rolled my eyes. "Then make some other noise to announce your entrance. Bang the door with your elbow."

"My banging days are over." His voice quavered. "I lost my elbows in a terrible—"

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. "Please stop."

My story is hard to tell.

I've established some ground rules to help me along. My first rule is that I have to try. The truth was painful to contend with, but scraps of it lived on. Half-torched by flames. Months after the fact, my life was still a recovered heap of ashes; though my worst days were now behind me. Thankfully.

My second rule was this: no more catastrophizing. My brain had a talent for inflating fears until they became unmanageable. With Kathryn's encouragement, I decided that my old thought patterns couldn't continue to serve me. Not in the ways which felt productive to progress.

I wanted to get out of here. With my new diary and pen in hand, I vowed to make excellent time.

I had a newly improved strategy. I was going to make the fastest, most over-achieved recovery this psychiatric facility had ever seen. Beating the other patients in record time, having the nurses marvel at my sky-rocketing test results — swiftly hastening towards the date of my discharge.