TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:00:01) (Chuckling) What?

THERAPIST: That's what I say? I thought you were being light in saying that.

CLIENT: No, I am sorry. I brought you peach butter.

THERAPIST: Oh, thank you. That's great.

CLIENT: [Do you have a spoon] (ph)?

THERAPIST: No. Thank you.

CLIENT: You're welcome.

THERAPIST: Do you just eat it with a spoon, or do you spread it on something to eat?

CLIENT: You can do either. (Pause) I'd probably eat it with a spoon. Also spread it on toast. (Pause) [0:01:00] How are you?

THERAPIST: I'm doing okay.

CLIENT: I'm extra affectionate and anxious today because [I'm leaving] (ph) tomorrow. (Pause)

THERAPIST: And you're gone all next week?

CLIENT: I am. I'm sorry that I didn't make that a thing, that I (pause) told you about again. I thought that it was clear.

THERAPIST: You mean when we just talked about it?

CLIENT: No, before, you asked me what dates, and I told you (pause), when you were telling me when you were going to be gone. [0:02:02] (Pause) Yeah, sorry about that.

THERAPIST: It's okay. (Pause) [0:03:00]

CLIENT: [I thought] (ph) the way the anxiety I haven't felt in a long time was going on Tuesday. [It was] (ph)... I can't even remember what it felt like, which is frustrating to me, but not surprising. (Pause) [0:04:00] I was doing some sequencing for Thomas, who has since graduated and works in the post doc in another lab. But he's trying to publish his last paper with Kelly (pause) and needed my help? So I was supposed to do something that required half the day of work for him this week, using this fancy sequencer. (Pause) But as is always the case the run didn't go as expected, and so I ended up repeating it two more times. And I think Tuesday (pause) I saw that the second time wasn't an improvement. [0:05:03] I think I saw that Tuesday night, though.

There was some... many triggers that hung around and felt benign [but not] (ph) together. I felt bad. [I think] (ph) I felt badly about our session on Tuesday. (Pause) [0:05:57] I think I felt like I had exaggerated Casey's (sp?) role in my life, the session had? It didn't feel right. It didn't feel like I actually think about her that much. And it (pause) felt strange... felt a strange competition or tension between... Buddha's (ph) practice and meditation and therapy, Buddha's practice, meditation, and therapy. (Pause) Either you... (Pause) [0:06:54] I was afraid that you thought... you think that it's... that I prefer to take refuge, enter, experience darkness more through meditation than therapy. (Pause) And it was somehow in my mind reduced to, one person represent each thing. (Pause) (Chuckling) Well, really it's, one person represents both things, which is me. [0:07:56] They're both kind of like mirrors. (Pause)

Also it felt... it felt weird to have you get a call. (Pause) It felt like your life is too stressful (pause) to care for me ([ph). (Pause) Those are the things I have (ph). (Pause) [0:09:00] So Tuesday there were also these minus 80 degrees Celsius freezers that were failing. And people were getting calls at 10:00 at night. Somehow these conditions supported a great amount of anxiety or provoked a great amount of anxiety for me. And then I was feeling ill somehow and very tired. [0:10:01] And I think that's actually what the trigger was into a sort of racing thoughts, debilitating, feeling completely out of control (pause) state.

THERAPIST: The things I remember from the session on Tuesday are different.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:10:35) (Pause) (inaudible at 0:10:49)

THERAPIST: [That's one thing I remembered] (ph). (Pause) [0:10:58] And the other, I think relatedly (pause), is when you told me about the meditation on the benefactor. You turned to me and said something about...

CLIENT: You're not the benefactor. I remember that.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Yeah. (inaudible at 0:11:30) fucko (sp?) was a little how it felt to me.

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Then I sort of backtracked after I said it. (Pause) Did you remember it as that? [0:11:58]

THERAPIST: I remember you saying you had trouble thinking of anyone. And I asked about Casey (inaudible at 0:12:13), and...

CLIENT: Her name is Linda Jameson (sp?). I'm not sure why she calls herself Casey. It bugs me. But she's great. She can call herself whatever she wants. (Pause) Sometimes I'm feeling really... I have to be really big and this big presence on my cushion, because I'm the only Indian person in this room.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: And I don't care if you're name is Casey. (Pause) [0:12:58] And the Buddha was Indian (chuckling). Yeah, I surprise myself at those moments. (Pause) It's very complicated. Hindus drove Buddhists out of India. Some of it has to do with the caste system. There's a lot of discussion about how Brahmins ruined Hinduism in my house. My dad's dad studied one specific part of Indian history and is sort of an expert and just reads a ton. [0:14:03] Then there's this intellectual locus of energy on Thursdays in their book club. Anyway it feels like my being... feeling like I want to have a big presence on my cushion comes from a lot of that and having not married an Indian personally, coming to Buddha's practice (pause) as a new person, when I feel like I shouldn't be new? Anyway, that feels like a tangent. Can this be a tangent? [0:14:59] (Pause) So why are those two things related? The sex and the benefactor? (Pause)

THERAPIST: I guess in both instances you seem to be sort of struggling with me, I mean, among other things going on. But that was the relation that seemed to be between those two things, in the first case (inaudible at 0:15:35) and in the second case not (pause), but struggling with it, with me, and I guess with my feeling quite interested. [0:16:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) The way I remember backtracking is saying, well, I would like to start with a simple relationship. But really I would like to understand love and attachment as they apply to you, but not now. That's what I remember. Or as they apply to me with you.

THERAPIST: Right. (Pause)

CLIENT: So I couldn't really ask for help from Jeremy on Tuesday night. I sort of checked out. [0:16:58] I feel asleep. We had made a huge amount of food. There was a ton of work in the kitchen. And I just went to sleep. And I didn't... and then I woke up, and all I could say was, I feel bad. I'm feeling bad. And (pause) that works with my mom. I mean, it works to the extent that anything like that works with her, which is, I get sort of sensual reassurance and comfort and positivity right away. And (pause) Jeremy wasn't... that was not the response I got from him. And I wasn't... clearly I wasn't making an effort to talk to him. [0:17:57] But I really wanted help. But I didn't know, and I didn't... I didn't know that I wanted help then. But then at some point he encouraged me to move around and help clean the kitchen. So I did that. And time passed, and I sort of just decided that the day needed to be over. And I think the freezer thing had... I don't know. It felt like all of these external things were happening? And it didn't ... (Pause) I knew that it... that I was really having a hard time internally. And I wanted to be with myself. [0:18:55]

So I meditated a lot, sort of lying down with my hands on my belly, breathing. And at some point I forgot that I hadn't said good night to Jeremy. So I went out, and I said good night, but not in any way that instilled any confidence in him. So it was sort of like, good night (chuckling), sort of like tears streaming down my face a little bit. I couldn't ask for anything. He asked me... (Pause) I don't remember what he asked me. What do you need? What do you want? Would you like me to do anything with you before you...? But he was a little annoyed, too, because I didn't clean up. So you mentioned this behavior before. [0:19:59] I can find a million ways to attract attention to myself when I'm happy or feeling confident about my state of mind. But when I'm not I don't have anything to say. I don't know what to say.

I was also feeling like, I need to (pause) figure out my own way. I need to have my hands on my belly. I don't want to talk to you, though talking to him would have been very nice. It would have released a lot of tension. So the night was hard. I didn't sleep well, and I sort of (pause) breathed and meditated throughout the night in my bed. [0:21:00] (Pause) Which was quite... I have to say I've come a long way with feelings of... with cascading, racing (ph) thoughts? It was quite useful to have been working with my breath. (Pause) I also started talking to you out loud, and that was so nice. (Pause) And I didn't imagine that your responses were any different from what they are actually. [0:21:56] And that was also really nice. I think the dialogue was... I don't know, the first few minutes, like, hi, hi. Then I ask you, how are you? And you say, I'm fine, or, doing fine. Never particularly reassuring. And then maybe you might ask, what's on your mind? But maybe you don't. And the dialogue didn't feel like a fantasy. And that was so lovely. Somehow it was comforting. It felt like a hug. [0:22:56] (Pause)

I put a lot of stuff on my plate in the lab this week. And that was part of it. And then this vacation I think (pause) is not entirely stress-free. (Pause) So the next day, in this narrative which I am not entirely happy narrating to you, but... (Pause) [0:24:01] The next day I was... (Pause) This run went well. I found that out the next day morning. And I had my own things to take care of, which got pushed back because of this run. And I left kind of early, and I just sort of sat in the grass with my friend Erica? That was lovely, except that I feel like I'm a representative of (pause) both psychotherapy and meditation to the people in my life? [0:25:00] (Chuckling) And it's a lot of responsibility. And she's one of the people who is sort of very eager and supportive and inquisitive and has so much pain and (pause) anger and isn't... [and it's just opening, so it's] (ph) nice to have her. But she's very intense. She's very, well, why is it this way? And why...? (Pause) With respect to Buddhism, which maybe I will just not... I will talk about it way less. It's hard to talk about, because it's a practice. [0:25:56] Beyond all the theories it's a practice. And it's hard to convey... (Pause) It's hard to convey a practice to somebody who doesn't have it. But it's important, too, so... (Pause)

So then this stream of e-mails came from Jeremy's sister Tammy, who really bugs me. And there aren't a lot of people who bug me. It's really hard for me that she bugs me. She's... what? [Were you going to say something] (ph)? She's fourteen weeks pregnant, and Madison's (sp?) two. And they're flying across the country, and she's big sister of the house just like I am, and sent out this e-mail. And in general her behavior and tone remind me so much of myself. And I absolutely hate it. [0:27:01] Also her struggle to decide whether to finish her PhD or stay home or after her PhD whether to stay home or to work. These things (pause) are very charged for me. I feel uncomfortable being kind of far along and kind of doing well emotionally in my PhD around her. And also there's this strong value of staying home with your kids for her and her mom.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: But Frank (sp?) his dad is a pediatrician. He thinks it doesn't matter at all what you do with your kids as long as you love them. [0:27:59] So that's a funny argument. It happens all the time. I had a mom who worked, and I feel pretty strongly about my mom being great. Anyway, so those are some long term things. But this flood of e-mails was about, we're arriving to the house with an empty fridge, and we'll need to stock it. And here, I've started a list. Bossy, bossy, bossy, control, control. Please answer the list in this way. Here are the things... Jeremy and Allison (sp?), might you consider being the ones to shop because you're in the toddler-free car? [0:28:56] And (inaudible at 0:28:58) we should buy things for Friday night dinner. (Chuckling) And then there's more e-mails from other people. And Jeremy is such a tension diffuser in his family. And so he writes this brilliant e-mail where all he does is talk about the formatting of her list...

THERAPIST: (Laughing)

CLIENT: (Chuckling) And reformats it and categorizes it and changes... I don't know, he probably asked questions that... in the message that delighted her, like what brand of wipes (ph)? And I'm going to change the oat bread to this kind of bread. And that's what Jeremy's contribution was, and that was lovely. I can't make a contribution like that, because I'm a lot like Tammy...

THERAPIST: (Laughing)

CLIENT: Where I'm like, I want to pick the dinner, and I want to pick what kind of bread we get. [0:29:56] And (pause) yeah, I think Jeremy wrote, what should we have for dinner on Friday night? And of course in my head I'm like, well, Tammy doesn't work, so she's home, and she can reply to this e-mail really fast. And everybody else works, except her mom. And so Tammy's like, hot dogs, hamburgers, green salad, veggies on the grill, tomato mozzarella salad. Just throwing it out there. I'm not wedded to this, but it's easy and yummy. And somehow yesterday was the one day of the month where I feel so crummy, PMS-style? And it's very different from other crumminess. It's the sort of crummy that I'm describing to you, where I read that e-mail, and I'm like, that's a bullshit American dinner. Don't tell me what to buy. I'm the one who's shopping. I get to pick the dinner. [0:30:58] But then I see, whoa, I do this in my family. And the reason I do it is because I think things will fall apart if I don't do it or other people don't want to, this and that.

So I rode home sort of in my crummy mood. And my mom feels like the only person I can really talk... complain to? I don't feel comfortable complaining to anyone, or much to anyone. Maybe Joanne, and if people get it out of me I can do it. But I'm not... I don't feel really comfortable calling. So I complained to my mom for a while, and it was so nice. [0:32:01] Then Jeremy came home, and I couldn't... I didn't hear. And then he'd come home, and he was sort of feeling uncomfortable, having listened to a lot of the conversation and my not knowing. So (Pause) crying because I feel like I have a small heart. I get off the phone with my mom, and she encouraged me to totally put it away, revisit it on Friday, and drink a beer. And I got off the phone with her, and Jeremy was so lovely. And we talked about it for a long time. [0:32:56] And he validated that Tammy and her motherhood style pushes his buttons, too. And... yeah. (Pause) How are you doing?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) (Pause) Do you feel like you're doing to me what she did to you? (Pause)

CLIENT: Kind of. I feel like I'm talking at you. [0:33:58] (Pause) But I want to tell you all these things, so (pause) it's okay. (Pause) So then there was this huge transformation. I went for a run, felt like, Jeremy's got my back. This run was full of energy and sort of stillness, and it felt great. And then we...

THERAPIST: Sorry, let me backtrack a little bit. I guess it seemed to me you were concerned about sort of overwhelming me or pushing me around or stressing me out maybe.

CLIENT: I was worried about boring you. [0:35:01]

THERAPIST: Oh! I didn't feel that at all. Huh.

CLIENT: Or (pause) maybe I think I was also worried about not acknowledging how much is in the room other than this story...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And that maybe the next thing you were going to say is (pause) kind of like what you said, about how I feel about being with you in some way.

THERAPIST: You were worried I was going to say something like that?

CLIENT: I was worried that you weren't going to say anything to acknowledge that you heard my story. [0:36:01]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: But you did acknowledge hearing (ph) my story, because your question was in the context of it. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Continue (ph). [So you say] (ph) you were running.

CLIENT: I was running but so lucid. And this lucidity continued until, I don't know, 5:00 in the morning today, this very still, clear, honest heart feeling, mind feeling. [0:36:53] Arthur Brendt, who's the third of the guy teachers, was giving the dharma talk yesterday? So...

THERAPIST: No fancy name for him?

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:37:11). No, and he's really different from Casey. Yeah, so he... so anyway I was not really considering going to the talk, because I felt overwhelmed. But I went, because my run was so lovely, and we got prepared food from Whole Foods for dinner, which is so exciting, because we've never done that before. And again Jeremy and I felt so much on the same page. It's usually something he would object to. [0:37:57] And actually he did object to it, but not for very long or that much. This dharma talk was long and (pause). Usually I come home, and I have so much... (Pause) I feel like my life is always changing because of my experiences to do with meditation. And one sign is that I come home, and I have to... I feel like I have to get it out, and I need to tell someone or sit some more. It's very powerful. It's the way I feel when I leave here, too. [0:38:57] But it's much harder here, because I can't tell anyone.

But on Wednesday, yesterday, I didn't feel like I had anything to say in particular about this talk. And I think part of it is just that I was so... feeling just this really nice clarity. (Pause) Took a bath, and I went to sleep. And Jeremy was working on a music track and had smoked pot and had a glass of Campari next to his desk. So went to bed, left him like that. And around 4:00 in the morning which is when I usually wake up for the first time, either in a pleasant way or Tuesday night in a bad way, he still hadn't come to bed, which is rare now. [0:40:06] He used to stay up really late in college all the time. So I (pause) decided to go out and interrupt him. I didn't really want to, but I did. And he was so happy to see me, and I was like, hi, sort of, how's it going? And he was like, do you want to hear? And so I'm like, uh, okay. And I put on the headphones. Please don't make it too loud. He turns down the volume. And he proceeds to play me this brilliant, amazing track. [0:40:57] This is this amalgam of genres that I described earlier, disco, hip hop (pause), electronica.

So what I didn't know is that Jeremy is intending to enter a beat battle, which... there's a couple. [They're cool, it's online, it's (ph) really competitive. And they post a song... a sample usually from the 60s or 70s. And you're supposed to make... flip it, make a... like you would flip a house or something, you flip the track by sampling it and adding your own stuff. And it's very open-ended. And then the idea is that a rapper in this particular beat battle should be able to rap over it. [0:41:56] And sometimes they give you the MC (sp?) ... the rhymes. So Jeremy entered a lot of these beat battles in college and won every one he entered and won cool software. And yet he thinks that he's never going to ever be good at it, which is very painful. So this track is for the beat battle. And he hasn't entered one in four years. And we've been talking a lot about creative process and how he feels behind his peers and his status in life and his lack of career, prospects that... [at least any] (ph) interest in. And it felt like there was some swelling into, must complete something. [0:42:59] So I left him. He didn't come to bed until 6:00, and then he left at 7:15.

THERAPIST: Wow. (Pause)

CLIENT: Could you pull an all-nighter now?

THERAPIST: It wouldn't be pretty.

CLIENT: Maybe if you didn't have to work the next day? (Pause)

THERAPIST: I mean, I could survive it.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) I don't know how he does it. I could maybe barely survive it, maybe with so much more awareness of anxiety around physical discomfort (inaudible at 0:43:41) survive it more. But I've never pulled an all-nighter. Jeremy used to do it all the time in college. (Pause) So okay, that time of night, which some people say is a very natural time for humans to be awake... [0:44:00]

THERAPIST: [So around 4:00, you mean] (ph)?

CLIENT: 4:00. I was... I felt like I could see everything that was happening for what it was, and mostly to do with here. And what I took away from this... this is me leaving Jeremy and lying in bed and not having an ounce of sleepiness anymore, mostly what I saw is how normally jumbled and confusing and (pause) how many shadows there are in my mind to do with you. [0:44:56] And this one hour was (pause) incredibly just simple. And so I saw you as a mirror. And I saw myself deeply uncomfortable in front of the mirror (pause) and wanting to look a certain way. And I imagined that you were a mirror with arms? Sometimes you have warm, snuggly arms. Sometimes you have gnarly, scary, spiky arms. (Pause) [0:46:00] Yeah, I didn't quite... it didn't really come together any more than that. But (pause) yeah. After this intense hour of thinking about this I had a dream, which I remembered when I woke up. My lucidity felt (ph) gone. In the dream... and this is the end of the story, thank God. (Pause) I don't like telling a story this way because it feels like the least interactive way to be. The dream is cool.

THERAPIST: Reminds me a little bit of when you were talking about your grandparents, I think, and you were, [you said] (ph), a bit cranky afterwards I think, for similar reasons. [0:47:04] (Pause)

CLIENT: What? (Pause) (Chuckling)

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) It reminds me of when you were sort of telling stories about your grandparents, your mom's.

CLIENT: To you.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Very similar. It's like the introduction part of the paper. And this dream was so cool. It was you in your house, with this couch. And you were lying on it. I was lying on it. [0:47:54] But again your...the dialogue was really similar to how it is, except that occasionally we would sort of, I don't know, move closer, farther apart, or we'd touch. And what I remember really clearly is that we were next to each other, not facing each other, which is...

THERAPIST: I see, like how (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah, really different, I guess. So there was a lot of this. (Pause) And then you got an emergency message (pause), which has clearly made its way into me. And maybe your family came home first. [0:48:54] Your family came home. You had six kids, and they all... two of them looked alike, two of them looked alike, two of them looked alike. And your wife came home. And it was time to have dinner, and I was going to have dinner with your family. And it was all very natural. And it was all in the same room, so a one-room house. And I think you got an emergency message then.

THERAPIST: The second one?

CLIENT: No, this...

THERAPIST: This is the first one?

CLIENT: The first one, yeah. I'm meeting your kids and your wife, and you left to take this message. And you were very light and sort of... it was sort of this routine thing that you had all that confidence in, that didn't feel as scary or mysterious as it does. (Pause) [0:50:00] So we sit down, and I'm sitting next to your wife, and the kids are all around. And I'm beaming. My smile is moving into people next to me. I just had this lovely time with you on the couch, and it was everything that I wanted, and everything that you wanted. So you weren't (pause) my friend. You weren't telling me all this stuff about you. You were pretty much the way you are, except that we were touching. But your wife was like, you look happy. And I was like, I am happy. And I said... and she did not look happy. [0:50:56] [I said] (ph), you don't look so happy. She was like... rolled her eyes, and there was some message about, try having six kids and a husband who doesn't eat (pause), who doesn't really hold his weight, carry his weight, because he's off on the couch. She didn't say anything. She rolled her eyes, and that's all it was. But somehow I knew.

THERAPIST: I see. (Crosstalk) (Pause)

CLIENT: I think that was the end of the dream. I think we went back to the couch after dinner. (Pause) [0:52:00] [0:53:00] [0:54:00]

THERAPIST: I wonder if part of the reason that (pause) you wanted to tell me the whole story is so that I would have your week this week very clearly in my mind when I won't have it next week, at least not next week, and whether part of your worry about my being bored or sort of really taking in what you're saying also relates to wondering how much you'll be with me next week when you're not here. [0:55:15] (Pause)

CLIENT: If it is, I'm not conscious of it. (Pause) I am nervous about all the transitions involved in this trip? I don't feel, at least in my awareness, nervous about the content of the trip or how I will feel or how... (Pause) [0:56:05] I don't know, maybe there's other things (inaudible at 0:56:08). Like, maybe being nervous about the transitions means being nervous about the content. (Pause) Maybe. (Pause) [0:57:00] There's something strange about the three pairs of kids. You're right that it indicated that it was clear that they had all come from different fathers? But they looked exactly alike, except their skin color was different. (Pause) And they were so lovely. (Pause) [0:58:00] [0:59:00] [1:00:00] [1:01:00] Sometimes it feels like you do that to me. [1:01:57] In different stages (pause) of (pause) spinny-ness (sp?). I was trying to [think of] (ph) the physics term. Angular velocity, or spinny-ness.

THERAPIST: Torqued out to different degrees?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm.

THERAPIST: Maybe that's not quite...

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember. (Pause) [1:02:58] Someday I would like to work through a physics textbook again. If I become a professor ever, I imagine myself doing things like that before starting. (Pause) [1:04:00] I can feel a separation anxiety welling up very fast. (Pause) It feels like a storm. [1:04:59](Pause) [1:06:00] Feels like (inaudible at 1:06:46).

THERAPIST: [The storm] (ph)?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. (Pause) [1:07:01] [1:08:00] [1:09:00]

THERAPIST: Well, it seems maybe it's also hard for you to talk about maybe because it feels like I'm leaving [you alone] (ph).

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. (Pause) Yeah. (Pause) [1:10:00] It feels like I'm going off an edge of a cliff (pause), and that I want (inaudible at 1:10:29). (Pause) I can't... I don't have a concept for it.

THERAPIST: I'll be gone forever until next week.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't have a concept for what next week is, [how next week is going to be] (ph). [1:10:57] (Pause) It's a different feeling from when you leave. I mean, it's the same kind of... [I guess] (ph) the sadness is the same. But when you leave I feel mopey, and I really miss you. (Pause) And I don't want to stand on my own two feet, or I (pause) guess I will or something. [1:11:51] But now it feels like (pause) I'll die if I won't or something. The parachute is with me, and (pause) I will have gone through this enormous set of changes that maybe even if I do see you in a little more than a week I won't... (Pause) It doesn't matter, because I'll be different. (Pause) [1:13:00] And maybe I won't want you by then anyway. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Maybe also I won't have the right version of you in mind anyway, because you won't be that person anymore?

CLIENT: Yeah, you'll be out of date. (Pause) Yeah, I guess there's sort of a launching pad to the euphoric glaze of experiencing experiences like this in how I prepare for them or in how I can't help but prepare for them before. (Pause) [1:14:00] It's not just in my memory of... travel is one category. Maybe it's in the way I set it up, the way I prime myself. (Pause) [1:15:00] [Maybe I'm] (ph) looking for something. (Pause) That's how it felt. [1:16:00]

THERAPIST: What sort of [a thing] (ph)? (Pause)

CLIENT: It's some kind of indication of how I'm feeling or how looking at this clock might have changed how I'm feeling. But maybe it's (ph) just (pause) being there pulled (ph) me. (Pause) [1:17:00] I feel like things are likely to change a bit when I do get back. It sort of feels... I have more of the sense of completing my PhD in mind. And that's a momentum that (pause) I think doesn't exist right now. So the idea of it feels very different. [1:17:59] And it's back to school season, which is so charged for me.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: It's so vivid in my nose, my ears, and the way I feel the weather and memories. (Pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 1:18:25)? (Pause)

CLIENT: [Yours and my schedule] (ph) (inaudible at 1:18:32).

THERAPIST: Yeah, I will see if I can work out Wednesday. I'm not sure. (Pause) [Do you know] (ph) when you get back?

CLIENT: [If we're done at work] (ph), it's okay. Wednesday works. [1:18:58] Thursday, Friday time works. Wednesday would be much better. But it's okay. (Pause) Any new (inaudible 1:19:37) appointments?

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. (Pause)

CLIENT: It's a very special place for me. I hear in my head, what place isn't a special place for you (chuckling)?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) (Pause) [1:20:00] [1:21:00]

CLIENT: [It's so sad] (ph). (Pause) [1:22:00] Tears don't come that easily here. (Pause) They would if we were in (inaudible at 1:22:54). [1:23:00] That wasn't a stab. It was an observation.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Pause) If I (inaudible at 1:23:20) that way [and made you feel, I guess] (ph), more comfortable crying.

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. It would open the door. It would open the ducts. I don't think it would be a conscious choice. It would just be that I would cry (pause), because they're so ready. It's like a feeling in my chest and in my throat, in my belly. [1:23:58] But it's all stuck.

THERAPIST: [Waiting for the flood] (ph).

CLIENT: (inaudible at 1:24:12), yeah. Inundated. I also want it to go away, and crying does that. [It's how I cope] (ph). (Pause) You have to say, we should stop (inaudible at 1:24:58). [1:25:01]

THERAPIST: Alas, we should.

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. (Pause) Bye.

THERAPIST: Bye.

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