A Moment in Time # 48:
An Hour With Jane

by Amber M. Sabo

Every troubled mind must see a therapist. Jane was a troubled mind ... but she was a rather untroubled troubled mind.

She never talked about the things she should in therapy. She knew what they wanted her to talk of. They wanted to talk about her rape, but that had been a long time ago. She had grown in her own ways. She had handled it, and by now it wasn’t of much concern to her. She knew it had happened and she accepted that it ruined her...but most days, most days it barely existed in her mind. So Jane and Clara talked of other things.

“I’m not happy,” Jane would often say to her while looking straight ahead as she had been taught to do. Straight past Clara.

She rather liked Clara. This was the first time she had liked her therapist, and as a result she tended to shy away from blatantly lying to her.

“Well, what’s going on?” They had a rather nice relationship. Jane would actually inform her of what was troubling her, and Clara would tell Jane whenever she was making it up. “I pulled that out of my ass,” she would say after voicing something that sounded quite profound.

“I’m not sure...I’m failing two of the classes I need to graduate...but I don’t think I care so much about that.” Jane stopped looking at Clara and started coloring in the farm animals coloring book that Clara had provided her with.

“Can you do extra credit?” That was her Clara. Ignoring Jane’s hint that there was really something else. After all, they had an hour.

“In one of the classes.”

“I can talk to your teacher. I’m sure we could work something out.” Clara seemed very hopeful. She always seemed hopeful. Nothing was ever the end with her. Everything was less than it seemed.            
“She won’t allow it. I like her. She’s a good woman. She told me that even if I wrote a book she wouldn’t give me extra credit. It’s my English teacher. Me and her see eye to eye ... but I don’t do busy work. I got A’s on all the papers. I thought it would be enough.” Jane searched through the large tub of crayons, unsatisfied with the brown rose art she was holding.

“School can be hard sometimes.” Jane didn’t think Clara had anything to say. They had known each other for half a year now. They had twenty-four sessions together and Clara understood what the others never did. Jane wasn’t there for help. She wasn’t there for advice, or to be saved. She was there because she wasn’t happy and this was what unhappy people who were diagnosed did. They went to an office and waited patently, refusing to make eye contact with anyone, until they were called back to talk, and then on a good day they would talk and on a bad day, for Jane at least, they would play jenga, or do a puzzle of pug puppies in a flower pot.

“I like it. I like school, and the work. I just can’t seem to do it everyday. Mostly I think I like having a place to go. I guess ... I guess I like a little structure in my life.”

“You know sometimes when you’re unhappy it helps to smile and laugh. It helps to fake it a little, endorphins kick in and then suddenly you’re not acting.” Clara was done with her picture and held it up for Jane to see. It was a blue rabbit with a top hat.

“I know... You’re a wizz at this,” Jane informed, referring to Clara’s coloring. “You color like my elder sister ... you outline it first." Jane had acted before. She spent a good two years of her life acting as if she was happy. She was done with that method because when left alone with your thoughts at night you could never remember your happiness, and she needed her happiness most at night. So she’d rather be unhappy all the time and be able to prepare for it than have it sneak up on her every night. This, however, did not mean that her unhappiness was always blatant. She oftentimes forced a smile, but she never let her fool herself again.

The hour was up quickly and as Jane left the office with her picture in hand she knew that she would never see Clara again. She knew it after the first five minutes of their talk when it seemed to have slipped her mind to tell Clara that she had gotten back together with Peter. She was desperately afraid that Clara would be disappointed with her. Boys like Peter didn’t treat her right, or they hadn’t in the past. Really she knew boys like Peter would never treat her right.

Rule number one of therapy: Never view your therapist as a friend. Jane had not understood this rule until now and as she made her way to her green Oldsmobile, fumbling to light a cigarette, she dropped her hands in defeat with a brutal realization. Clara had never seen her as a friend, just as a nice girl. She would never like a therapist again ... but she would always like Clara ... even though she would cancel her next appointment when the time came.