Client GS7.AZ1 - Session 4

(Beep. Music fades in)

And your return date got pushed back. Again. So did mine. It’s the responsible thing to do, right? I mean, at least we know what’s going on. 

My girlfriend’s university, on the other hand, is all over the place. They are panicking. Because sure, you could have everyone be at home. But for some, home is not a safe place to be. And then there’s immigration issues, which were always complicated. Someone in my girlfriend’s department had the idea to make a few quick decisions. For office reasons or if someone on the faculty needs to be super mega quarantined then… Well some universities have been pretty terrible about that, but my girlfriend’s specific bubble within her university is doing the best they can. 

And yes, that’s not exactly the sort of thing HR can easily gather data on, but it’s the sort of thing a department as tight knit as hers figures out pretty quick. Which might be something worth discussing, someday, in an HR context but certainly not any day soon.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You know, I was scared and sad before every major step in my life. Even before my girlfriend and I moved in together. And you know, that’s, that’s not really something to be sad about. Quite the contrary.

Well, being scared makes sense. I didn’t know what the dreams were going to bring when she was around. I didn’t know how they were going to affect her or how she was going to affect them. Cohabitating with someone was something I had never really experienced or attempted before. Well maybe scratch that on a technicality. Or a definition issue. I had a roommate in college. A few, in fact. But I never cared about them as much as I did my girlfriend. Not just obviously but as people, my girlfriend is above all others, and I will react appropriately. You can’t blame me for that, even if it is a biased opinion. 

I didn’t know what that would mean, though. I didn’t know what it would mean to live with her. And the thing about anxiety is that--at least in my opinion--it’s not a static emotion or a state of being. It has to jump around, find new things to latch onto, or find new ways to present itself. It can’t just sit in your ear, whispering the same old things to you. Not forever anyway. 

It can’t just exist is what I mean. It has to justify its existence somehow. And when you lose interest or when you burn out from it, then it could go away. Or it could change forms. It could become something else entirely. Not just anxiety. But in some lights, sadness.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

My girlfriend was actually picking up our take out order when the young woman at the Asian fusion place gave you her number. Yes, that random woman waiting on her order was in fact smirking beneath her face mask. Her face is very expressive, and her eyes shine. 

Also I told her to be on the lookout for you when she told me she was going to pick up our order rather than getting a delivery from the restaurant like we had been doing. Which might not have been a great thing to do, I guess. But we felt somewhat safe in it. Our neighborhood has been fairly untouched. Prevention methods are in full swing, and my girlfriend and I are the queens of self-(or shared-)isolation at this point. She certainly can have this one break from me. 

But then she came home, and she told me about it. She told me about this moment of love and hope while the rest of the world seemed to be burning. Because she knew I would need a tale like that. A brief ray of light when I was still on a strict lockdown.

She told me you were smiling brightly, but that you aren’t the kind of person whose smile reaches their eyes. 

“Then how do you know?” I asked playfully.

She said it radiated off of you and filled the small restaurant.

“You should have been there,” she almost said. But that wasn’t the sort of thing we could even dream about, could we?

(Music fades in and new music fades in)

Some might say there is a second plague setting in: a sort of melancholy affecting so many of us. To me, that’s not an appropriate thing to say, at all. As if a pensive sadness in the home could ever compare with the hurt and destruction happening outside. Sure, it’s pervasive. Say it’s pervasive because the conditions are so common and are shared. After all, we’re all living in the same nightmare, right? Even if it’s a nightmare we’re experiencing to varying degrees.

Some of us linked arms figuratively. Those who tried to do it literally might have only created other problems for all of us. But you know, there’s that. We don’t know what else to feel, I guess. How could we ever know what else to feel?

And sadness is as good of a placeholder as anything when something’s not right, but it’s hard to place or name exactly what the problem is or if you can name that problem but when naming it means nothing. Because it’s so much bigger than you. Bigger than anything. Bigger than everything. Or when everything’s falling apart.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You can try to compartmentalize all you want, but I would like to point out that, even if it is theoretically possible to do so, it does not mean that you specifically in this exact context will be able to do it. That’s just not a thing I can guarantee either on general principle or on your behalf because it’s harder than you think. 

But sure, let’s check in with you. Let’s take some sort of inventory because you won’t listen to what I have to say unless I do. 

I know you want to be happy again. Not like you were in the… before times. (softer) Wow, that’s a depressing way of putting it. (normal) But you want to be happy like you were in the restaurant when it happened. Like when my girlfriend saw you. When you were happy to have this phone number, this potential connection. And you are, deep down. You are happy. You can feel it, even now. You can point at it. But all the same, melancholy remains, right?

Emotions are complex, is that what you expect me to say? You took my advice and reached out to that professor from days gone by. But you did not mention me, and I can’t tell you if that was a good or bad move. After all, there is a history there. And phrasing it that way, I’m sure you can figure it out or you can if you go back to the earlier entries on this feed. Some of the first clients, I should say. 

That professor and I have a history. And if that history guided the advice you were given, then fair enough.

Emotions are complex, you were told. There’s a balance that needs to be found. 

But let me build upon the knowledge of my elders. Like that professor always thought I would do. (Pause) My life has taken some… unexpected turns I can tell you that much. But let me do as all students do and expand upon the information given to me to grow this plant or tree in ways that could not be previously imagined. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Emotions are complex you were told because various pieces of our reality have to coexist--plot threads delicately intertwined and yet still distinct. It’s true of our reality, and it’s true of us. We are beings with different parts and needs. We are a larger whole that is a gathering of so much. And we can’t go against that nature. We can’t think that the food we eat will in any way compensate for a lack of air in our lungs, right? How could anyone think something so absurd. 

And you can accept that. But expanding on that notion is still difficult for you. So maybe I need to say it more bluntly. You can be sad and happy at the same time. One does not negate the other. One does not demand or warrant being prioritized over the other. Right now, they can coexist. And they need to. For your own sake. 

We still need to grieve what is coming undone around us and what is lost, when it’s worth grieving, true. But moments of joy and hope are going to put life back into us. And we need that life. After all, wasn’t the point of so much simply to get through this?

(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?