Recently the monster has been coming and leaving very often. I sleep anxious and wake up sad. My head hurts, my chest hurts, my digestive system is in continuous diarrhea, and my breath stinks of the monster. The Prachi with all the words fails at naming him. Going to the therapist has not been helping much either. Neither with the monster nor with words. N tells me to not call him panic. “Don’t pathologize it” she says. “This is a part of separation anxiety” she does not say. I throw my head back. I stomp my feet. I yell I don’t get attached. I don’t feel separation; I yell. People are not so important I remind her. “It’s the quality of the attachment, the feeling of home, not the person-hood that is causing this”, her voice calm. She tells me that love and dependence are not synonymous.
“I hate how weak I am,” I tell her “Small things like these should not cause feelings these intense”
“This sadness is not yours. The trigger is yours. The sadness has a quality of Choti Prachi’s sadness. Give her time to pine. She could not do anything when she was living” her handheld at the knee.
I put all her words in my bag and leave. The red hanger on the tree in front of her office still hung there. On good days and on bad alike, it asks me to hang in there. This time particularly, it told me to not be angry at myself, for being too attached, for feeling sad, for crying, for wanting irrational things. So I try, for the sake of the red hanger’s feelings.
Red hanger,
I cried all day again. Why do you cry so much someone asked? Because I must, I answered. I am re-raising Choti I told him. She is sad and she is small. I lowered my hand and held it at my knee. I am being kind to myself, hanger. I paint and do not scold every time I go outside the line, I feed myself good pasta. I even clicked photos of myself, read good books, and let me need people when I needed them. I try to not feel guilty when I call papa and cry, or when I spend Travel-money on hair color. I am trying, dear red hanger, I really am, but it is taking so long, all of my selves are tired now.