Same time, next week

 "How have you been?"

In the four sessions each month for eleven months straight, I had never answered the question direct. 

"The week was disgusting, I'm angry and I resent myself," I said without taking the seat.

In twenty four years, I had never felt comfortable having the first word. I was always the one to answer the questions. Shortest possible answers. Perhaps, it was now touching the roof. As soon as I finished my sentence, I was preparing to tell him why the week was "disgusting", instead he asks if I ever resented other people.

"No," Possibly the quickest no I've blurted since I could form words. 

Now I was sure, he'd ask me the need to resent myself then. I was looking at the water glasses on the table next to us, something green under one of them. 

"Maybe resent them a little, sometimes."

I looked at him and in true fashion shed a tear. Little value, a tear is always ready to fall, here.

I had not resented anyone when I thought about it. Probably a girl in middle school because she kept beating me at academics. But I hadn't resented the friends who never reached out after I switched schools. I didn't resent the man who hurt me over and over. Not the girl who was picked over me by another man, long ago. I didn't resent anyone who said things that could hurt me. Not the ones that didn't listen to my version of what happened. Not the girl in my office, who doesn't breathe when she's giving her opinion for twenty minutes straight.

"Probably if you resented someone for a little while, you'd hate yourself a little less." 

While I nodded. I thought of all these people. And the only time I did not talk down to myself was when I resented the girl who got better grades. I tell him this. 

"Did you harm her in any way when you did resent her?" he asked while looking straight at me. 

I was half laughing by now. No I hadn't. I had only ever avoided her company. 

And as I went through the remaining list of people, I hadn't resented. I had hated myself. I hated myself for not being cool enough to be kept in touch with. I had hated myself for whatever they said I was. For going back to someone who hurt me. For not being the prettier girl. Not shouting out my version and definitely not having the skills of having an opinion on everything. 

"And why were you angry?"

By now the tear had become a pool. Of little value, it was just my thing. And I knew I resented myself for it. 

"No one seems to see the ache, but the anger is pretty evident. So no one tries to understand the ache either," I told him still not making eye contact. 

A few months ago, in an argument at work, I had been told you don't look at people when they talk to you. And I had not. I had not looked at someone while I spoke to them for a few years. I thought I'd see the resentment in them just like I saw it in mine.

Delusional.

"I am angry because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because lack of sadness is not enough to be happy," came out of my mouth and I tasted instant regret. Why? Because it wasn't a logical thought but the feeling in my stomach still was.

I turned the page in my head and without letting him speak I looked straight at my therapist. Waited for him to look at me. 

"When I enter a room of ten. I would do anything to not be seen by nine. But there'll always be one, I want full attention of. And not the fleeting kind. The kind that makes me calm. The kind that stays for minutes, hours, weeks, months. Almost forever. I want to be seen."

I had agreed for the first time, since I had felt this, to someone. I had spoken without removing my eyes from theirs for a split second. 

The clock ticked and in restrospect there were no answers but I had broken the wall. I had met the eyes and seen for myself there was no resentment. I had agreed to my want and hadn't felt shame. 

I was fully aware it's because he was my therapist. A therapist. At their job. But I also knew it was a person who didn't have anything to get from me. And maybe there were other people who'd not hold resentment if I met their eyes or told them what I wanted. There'll be ones that would resent too but that fear I was already aware of. Borderline accepting of.

"Same time, next week."