Client KG2.50F - Session 4
(Beep. Music fades in)
You feel it, don’t you? Look, I don’t understand it either. This… thing that happens to me. I still don't even know what to call it. And I’m sure there are people out there who hear about this and have some sort of knowledge about the sorts of things others ignore, who have their own theories and suggestions. They have their own lenses through which to look at this. And I had mine. I put it in this podcast. You got to that episode just the other day. Those messages to my father that maybe I shouldn’t have publicized. But also, they weren’t entirely for him, either.
Anyway, I believe that healer, right? I feel like I have to. So much of everything that has come after is rooted in that moment, and that rooting started before I could ever be critical. But I fully understand that this explanation might not be enough for everyone. I know one person who's looking pretty hard for some sort of reasoning that works for them, but hey, we all cope with things differently.
How do I see these other lives? That’s a pretty big question. How does this happen?
(Music fades out and new music fades in)
The blue one, by the way. Before I forget. The comforter issue. Which comforter to pick? You’re going to want to go with the blue one. Everyone in your family thinks that’s the better one for you, but they don’t want to impose their will onto you, so they’re giving you enough space to decide. Space which you’re somewhat misinterpreting. Look, you clearly prefer the blue one, so just get it. Be good to yourself. Be good to yourself and know that they love you. And when you lay on that comforter away from them and at your new university, you’ll think of them and be happy. Or while you will still miss them more than you can even imagine right now, you’ll have that piece of comfort to get you through.
(Music fades out and new music fades in)
(Sigh) You know, I feel like I can talk to you in a different and better way than I do some of my other clients. I feel like I can really do tangible good with you. Like I’m not just musing poetically. I can see what’s going on with you and offer real time or slightly delayed input.
I mean, you have a fairly healthy support network for one. And you’re starting to come out of your shell and use it, so there’s that. And that makes you a person who is not so dependent on me. Which is kind of nice, to be honest.
(Music fades out and new music fades in)
The thing about grief, though… Well, another thing is that it’s the sadness that really sits with you. That’s the part that essentially feels the vacancy left by whatever loss occurred. And yes, let me remind you, the loss of your biological parents is still technically a loss. Even if it is a more abstract one.
What difference does something like that make, really? It feels like a hair split. Loss is loss of what was and what could have been. And maybe you’re more into the ‘what could have been’ camp than others, but that’s still the tether that moors it to your soul. That’s why the sadness above all other parts endures. Because it’s a renewed kind of sadness. And there’s nothing much I can do about that.
But I guess… Looping back to the original point, I don’t know how this dream-thing works, but I hope that whatever connection gives me glimpses into your life is not a two-way street. I hope you don’t feel what I feel all the time. I hope my sadness does not slip through and intertwine with yours.
Not that we could ever tell, you know? It’s not that all sadness is the same but more like sadness of every type and every description looks similar in most lighting.
Also it might not even help that I don’t know exactly why I’m sad. Plenty of reasons to be sad nowadays, true. But my whole life, I have worn sadness like a second skin. That’s just what life gave me. That’s what life dress me in, I guess. It sewed this sadness into me. And now I can’t pull it off.
(Music fades out and new music fades in)
If I were you, though, I would wait to get the bed lifts or whatever they’re called. I didn’t have them when I was in college. Some dorm beds genuinely don’t need them. And if it turns out you do, it’s a couple days of inconvenience at most. Versus having something you don’t need which is going to take up space.. Also, you might not be going to campus right away.
I know the talk right now is that you will. People are going back in waves. A lot of strategy went into this, and fair enough on that. If there is a way, it will take a lot of thinking. And operating on the quarter system gives them some room. No for quarter one but yes for quarter two. That sort of thing.
(while lightly laughing) And no, that’s not what they are called. My girlfriend might teach at that university, but this quarter system is just… It is just so incompatible with everything I am, like really.
Dramatics aside, of all impossible tasks to have, understanding the quarter system at some universities isn’t a bad one, I suppose. It’s fairly harmless. Also my girlfriend and I accidentally merged our digital calendars a while back, which some people would call creepy or a red flag, I get it, but she needed to check her email on my phone once, and when every app is tied together, bad things happen when you need to do a temporary crossover. The help forums that we found said it would be an easy fix, but for some reason it’s not, so we just make do.
Maybe when one of us upgrades our cellphones, though I suspect we’ll have to sync up our phone upgrades just to give us the best shot of fixing this. Until we do, this helps my confusion. Or it helps me avoid it because I can see if she’s teaching or not, and I don’t have to worry about the pattern. I can just go along for the ride.
No, I haven’t seen any sign of your roommate. Sometimes I see random people, yes, but I haven’t seen someone that I can tell is connected to you.
And no, I haven’t seen your biological parents either, but I can’t imagine things will go all that smoothly for people who will not quarantine at all. It’s just the sort of thing that rife with different types of problems, even if they don’t get sick.
No, I won’t blame you or be upset in any way if you weren’t any sadder should they get sick and die. It’s not my place to feel that way.
(Music fades out and new music fades in)
There is a blessing, I think, though not a great one in this state of being I’m in. At least I understand that I truly can’t know everyone’s story or life and so I can’t be the judge of anyone’s life. I can’t render an accurate verdict, so I have a reason to not and to just let it go. My girlfriend once told me it’s odd that I don’t get all that angry. And it’s because I can’t always muster it. Because I know why, this happens. Sometimes I see the track, and I know I walk across it too. That doesn’t always work, you can tell, but it’s worked out on some fronts.
It usually works better for anger, not so much on the sadness front. Because a lot of things can make us sad. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. How sadness seems to be hiding everywhere. Especially where we don’t want to see it. Like in an adoption. There’s a sadness in loss that people like to gloss over.
You and I both know why I brought that up, but for everyone else, they can make of it what they will. Sadness is always lurking in human affairs. And yet we’re so bad at dealing with it that, more often than not, so we just pretend it isn’t there. Great, right?
(Music fades out. Beep)
The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?