December 8
"I think I'm ready to try therapy," I told my mother.
My mother looked up from the book she was reading and blinked in surprise. "What made you change your mind?"
"I'd thought a lot about it the past two days and decided to give it another go," I answered.
I took a breath to steady myself. "But, I'm not going to pursue it if my therapist is anything like my school counselor. Oh and I don't want someone who is going to psychoanalyze me."
"Got it," my mother said. "No Freuds. No meanies. Do you have any preference on the gender of your therapist?"
I shook my head. "Alright," my mother said, smiling. "I'm so proud of you for trying this. I'll call some places and see who we can get in with who will accept our insurance."
"Thanks mother," I said.
I grabbed my laptop and worked on some homework while my mother called places. I was dismayed to hear some offices didn't accept our insurance. "$100 a session?" my mother said. "I don't think we can afford that."
My mother called place after place. She paced in between calls and I felt bad asking this of her if it was so stressful. Finally, after an hour, my mother approached me with a wide smile on her face. "You're on the waiting list," she said, "at a place called Idun's Apples. The receptionist said you should be able to get in within a month for your initial appointment. That session will be an hour and a half; most are an hour long."
My heart fluttered with anxiety. What had I gotten myself into? "Thanks mom," I said. "You're the best."
I gave her a hug and then tried to work on homework, but my mind kept thinking about therapy. What would my first session be like? What would my therapist be like? They'd surely expect me to tell my life story. My mind lurched at the thought and an idea struck me: what if I made a PowerPoint presentation of my life? I could show it to my therapist during my first session. It would probably make things a lot easier.
I worked on the PowerPoint until it was time for my mother to take me over to my dad's place. As she was driving, I wondered if this was how my friends with divorced parents felt. "Bye mom," I said. "Enjoy your day!"
She waved and reversed the car before heading back home. My father opened the front door before I even got there. "Magnus!" he said. "It's great to you. How are you doing?"
I shrugged. "I'm going to try therapy."
"I'm so proud of you son," my father said. "I did some therapy when I was in college. My sister and I grew up in California on small farm near the coast, so going to school in Massachusetts was a big shift."
"You've done therapy?" I asked.
He nodded. "It was really helpful."
I was still wrapping my mind around that as I entered the house. "So," my father said, "I've been looking up things on mental health because I want to help you and stuff."
He shuffled his feet in embarrassment and I was acutely aware that I must have inherited that from him. "I'm no psychologist or anything," my father continued, "but I think the trauma of being bullied in school is affecting your current relationships and — well, me being absent didn't help."
"Is this you talking?" I asked. "Or Dr. Web MD?"
My father blinked in surprise. Then, he burst out laughing. "Magnus, I see you've inherited Natalie's sass."
"I'm pleased," I said. "No offense, but I wouldn't want to be Frey 2.0."
"No offense taken," my father said. "Would you want to invite a friend over to go swimming?"
"Sure," I said.
I knew Alex was spending time with her grandpa today, so I asked Hearthstone. He replied that his father was mad at him. I relayed this to my own father. "Alderman can be harsh," my father said. "Even in school he was uptight. I'll talk to him. He might listen to me considering he's the manager at one of my stores."
I smiled. My father was using the boss card for the best of reasons. An hour later, my father was parking outside Njord's Niceties. My father checked us in the swanky looking lobby and then we changed out in the very ordinary looking locker rooms. After a quick shower, we entered the pool.
Njord's Niceties was an upscale version of the YMCA from what I could gather and the water in the pool was not treated with chlorine. Instead, it was saltwater, which meant the place smelled like the best parts of the ocean. With the clamor of swimmers, the whistleblowing and shouting of lifeguards, and the loud water sounds coming from the slide, I had a hard time hearing my father speak. I told Hearthstone this in ASL and he made a sound for laughter. We'd have no trouble communicating.
We waded into the pool. The place was huge. In addition to lanes for swimming and the slide, there was a lazy river, a hot tub, and a wave pool. Hearthstone and I had a splash fight for bit before taking a few turns on the slide. It was about forty feet long went down fast that I felt like I was flying.
After that, we went into the hot tub before being informed we weren't old enough. After some grumbling on my part, we went on the lazy river ride. We swam until we were too tired and hungry to swim anymore. "I'm turning into a fish," Hearthstone joked as we hit the showers again.
We changed out of our swimsuits and back into our clothes. My father was still swimming, so I even tried to use the blow dryer. It was noisome and I ended up blasting the air into my face. "How do girls use these?" I signed to Hearthstone after I'd carefully stowed it away.
He shrugged. We decided to return to the pool. My father was just getting out. He smiled at us and gestured that he was ready to go.
I smiled and Hearthstone gave my father a thumbs up. Half an hour later, we were eating ice cream at my dad's house and playing Charades (Hearthstone was a boss at it). The day had an idyllic quality to it; it wasn't until I was laying in bed much later that I realized that maybe, I had found happiness.