“I can’t tell. I can’t tell if it’s just that I have no motivation or self-discipline or I’m just telling myself that everything is fucked and so it is.”

“Do you think that’s really true?”

I notice that I’m sitting sideways on his couch. I’ve never sat like that here before. My back against the armrest, my knees up to my chest, facing away from the window, away from him. I take a deep breath and drop my head toward him, raise my eyebrows, and connect our gazes.

“I’m asking a leading question, aren’t I?”

Our faces crack into grins simultaneously, teeth showing. We let out matching chuckles and he leans forward, then back in his chair again.

“How about… I don’t think that’s true. I think you’ve proven that you have no lack of motivation or discipline. I think you have very rigid standards that don’t lend themselves well to things like getting sick.”

My stomach turns over on itself and I wish I’d gotten out of bed early enough to have breakfast. That the coffee shop I went to in order to avoid Starbucks had peppermint tea. Only two herbal offerings and they choose rooibos and some weird flower thing. Ridiculous.

Coming back down I meet his eyes again, but don’t find any words to go along with the look I’m giving him.

He tells me stories about my childhood that I never told him. Recites D.W. Winnicott to me. “It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found.”