TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: What's up? I just remembered when I was parking my car what my dream was last night.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah. I won the lottery in my dream.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: It's never happened. I was on a plane or something like that, and they came out and they were like everyone check your bags or whatever. And I had some kind of, I don't know if it was part of the lottery that I had played or something. I don't know what it was, but I had like a Coca Cola bag, or something, and when I she was like okay unzip it or whatever. And it was like weird, it was like the way the stewardess or whoever that was told me, if was as if she was trying to tell me that I won.

THERAPIST: Hmm hmm.

CLIENT: But so when I opened it, and I was really very calm. I was like you know. You know how you get with lottery? Like it would be great if I won maybe I'll win, but you don't take it that seriously. And I opened it up and low and behold it was like there was some numbers, which now I don't remember what the numbers were. Like you know lottery numbers and then it was like you won, or something like that. It was crazy. I just remember that. [00:01:10]

CLIENT: And it was funny because I wasn't ecstatic. I was just very pleased, but I wasn't ecstatic. Interesting yeah, I just remembered that.

THERAPIST: Did anything happen after?

CLIENT: I don't remember that part. I just remember winning the lottery part. It was like a bus or, it was definitely some kind of mode of transportation, plane, bus. Not a car. Like some kind of bigger, you know.

THERAPIST: Instead of driving and being lost here, being driven and winning the lottery.

CLIENT: I guess so. Yeah. (chuckles) Strange. [00:02:00]

THERAPIST: It's an understandable wish right now.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah I think that's what it is, yeah.

THERAPIST: It would help.

CLIENT: Um hmm. Yeah. (pause) I forgot to take my allergy thing this morning. That's a good sign. (pause) Oh man. So yeah, I don't know. (pause) [00:03:00]

CLIENT: I'm thinking about yeah it just like thinking about what we were talking about yesterday you know?

THERAPIST: You did?

CLIENT: What's that? Just everything, like just about how I don't know, I'm becoming more aware of how, like as far as I've come in my interactions with people and stuff. That I do still feel kind of, you know maybe that's a big part of, I always feel somehow distant, or somehow like in my own, I don't know how to explain it, but. I think it's very hard to undue this existential thing. I think if you have that feeling from a very young age, which I did, even before my dad died. That's a tough one to overcome; do you know what I mean? [00:04:15]

CLIENT: Because the whole point of existentialism is that that's the point. It will just keep telling you that well there's really nothing you can, there is no like. Like what are you expecting? Like you expect one day to suddenly be all peppy and everything's great? Like this is it. This is your life, and yeah it's not awesome you know. That does not mean that it's shitty. It just means like, you know what I mean? That's the trick that's the delicate thing about if you have those kinds of existential thoughts is that there is really no overcoming them in a way. There's just managing them. You know what I'm saying?

THERAPIST: Umm hmm. I do. [00:05:00]

CLIENT: So then the trick becomes how to be active, how to be, how to not just let life happen just because you have these existential feelings. You know what I mean? How to be more like, no I'm gonna sit down and write my novel because it does matter, or something. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know why when I was younger I was able to write and do all the, you know, because I did have these thoughts back then too.

THERAPIST: (inaudible) you're starting to get

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I think there's more to understand about it, artistic goals but existential. You were then too. Something wasn't alive stuff for you.

CLIENT: But that's what we're saying then when real things happen, where you have trauma then it's almost like the existential, if you're someone that has those existential type of deep feelings it's as if it gets, obviously its validated, right? Then it's like see? It's all just kind of absurd, and there's no rhyme or reason to anything. [00:06:15]

THERAPIST: Umm hmm.

CLIENT: That's the hard part.

THERAPIST: So I'm feeling a sense of kind of why can't I feel?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: You start but why bother?

CLIENT: Right, right. You start something, but you don't have the gumption to see it through because you keep kind of like aah, you know. I mean I don't know, but I do think that's a big part of it. I do find that it's a not just about missing my dad, or this or that. They are much deeper more profound. You know? It's just my personality. I think if you are someone who is an artist, and you're hypersensitive to your surroundings, and not just your surroundings, but to the world and to humanity. Especially right now I mean I don't know how anyone. [00:07:20]

CLIENT: Do you know Charles Simic?

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: He is a really good poet, an old guy you know. He wrote an amazing little short piece for the NY Times review of books. You know what I'm talking about. It just so beautiful in its simplicity and it's something that. He's not like, it's not like rocket science, but basically in it he has like, and it's almost all quotable. Like basically one line is something like you know if you are able to go throughout your days these days, and you're not utterly moved or devastated by the homelessness. By the way our towns are in disrepair. By the fact that a lot of children can barely eat. He just says you know you are either just a heartless bastard, or something. But it's so like just clear. There's no pussyfooting around. But that you know, that's someone who understands that, like how could you n to feel if you're already sensitive. [00:08:30]

CLIENT: It's also the times are just it's hard to keep ignoring, like I'm gonna write a novel, but you know the government shutdown, and everyone is full of vitriol against each other, and you know, people. It's just times are really drastically changing in the last, since 9/11 basically. Not to make it like a big abstract thing. I'm just saying I think that's part of all this, from a young age if you're one of these sensitive kids that's sitting around reading Sartroid and Karmoo, and really taking things to heart. You know God I'm gonna die one day, you know. Things are somewhat maybe you grow out of because or not that you grow out of, you just file it away. Say oh yeah one day we are all gonna die, and then you just keep going. [00:09:25]

CLIENT: But then when real shit happens at a definite time in your life, and then kind of keeps happening. I think that's you know, I think that's very hard to undo that. Because then what happens is even now, even if everything is going great right, that voice still says, it's going pretty good, you know. But again, at any moment, at any time. It could just not go right again, you know. So you know. It's a little simplistic, but I think there's something.

THERAPIST: It's certainly a huge weight on you.

CLIENT: It feels like that PTSD then it's hard, I don't know what it's like for other people who have PT, but I'm assuming that's part because it's hard to get going on things, and see things through. Consistently be amped up about something. Whatever I'll think someone has PTSD. [00:10:24]

THERAPIST: You almost get in flying circles. What you're saying is if you are particularly traumatized with these kinds of too abrupt, being too abruptly pressed into reality.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: So that's what I think passes, the idea of what, why does it matter?

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: And there is a little different than the Times being combative, Now 100 years ago the times were bad, and 400 years ago the times were bad, and a thousand years ago the times were really bad. There are things. [00:11:10]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You can look to any era and describe some things as those things were not great. You know when you're a teenager, and yet there is something else.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: In other words, how is it that in spite of times that some people are finding an inner resource to go on living.

CLIENT: Right, that's true.

THERAPIST: And being the best person they can be.

CLIENT: That's true, that's true.

THERAPIST: Has been traumatized.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean the other part we were talking about yesterday that I think is interwoven into, or maybe even hidden by the word existentialist is angst. More along the lines like the other side of what does it matter, is kind of what do I matter.

CLIENT: Right yeah that's true, that is true.

THERAPIST: And that was traumatized.

CLIENT: Right, right. [00:12:05]

CLIENT: It's from before my Dad

THERAPIST: Since you were very young.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: The feeling of what you did, and said, and how you looked.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: Did not matter, and maybe you felt mattered most to your Dad.

CLIENT: Right, oh no clearly. Yeah it's clearly how I felt.

THERAPIST: It is? I know you've been closest to him.

CLIENT: Well, no I felt that was a given from what, how I was, I mean of course I mean he's the one I feel closest to.

THERAPIST: So you felt much more loved by him.

CLIENT: It wasn't in my conscious whatever, but yeah my Mom has always loved and it's not a. It's right we've talked about this. It's never a question of love, it's how that love is manifested, or manipulated, or conditioned and all this shit. So yeah no with my Dad clearly I felt total, a much safer unconditional you know. Yeah he was not gonna sit around and talk about literature with me, but I don't care I don't want my Dad to talk about, it's my Dad. Or my Mom. You want your parents, you know. You don't need them to be your friends you need them to be good fucking parents. So umm. [00:13:30]

THERAPIST: And you didn't feel like your Dad was critical of you being an artist.

CLIENT: You know maybe he died before he would have been. Who the fuck knows. It's not that he got it, and was like hey that's great. He just you know it's that thing, it's like this neutrality. Remember there was that time, remember I was telling you I overheard on the phone. We got a long distance call from one of my Dad's cousins or something. Not the immediate, not the ones in San Francisco but the more distant. So I said hello to them or whatever, and I was still on the line and he picked up the other phone. So the guy that in Polish, they think that, this person thought I wasn't going to understand Polish or something. I was like 13, 14, 15, 16 whatever it was. So in Polish he's telling my Dad what is this, what is he saying, music, writing, blah, blah, blah. [00:14:20]

CLIENT: And my Dad on the phone like he, cause he thought I had hung up, so he could have been like, his guard was down, he could have just been like, ah whatever, but he was very, he deflected it, but not in a putting me down kind of way. He's like he's a pretty good kid, who knows. Like I don't know he just said something very innocuous, you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: That's someone who is just confident, whereas my mom can't do that. My mom because it's about her you know? It's about comparing so she would have made up. Like that's when she would say something like well you know he's going to Brown, or you know like she would have to fib

THERAPIST: She's very defensive.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Instead of like your Dad.

CLIENT: So, yeah. He's like ehh maybe he'll change. Maybe he said something like maybe when he gets older, who knows. Like so what basically, it was you know. [00:15:25]

CLIENT: So I think what would have happened was probably something more healthy. I think my Dad would have been like that's great you are doing all these things, what about money. Like how do you, like it would have been not telling me to just be a dentist or become a jeweler.

THERAPIST: He's not squashing you.

CLIENT: What's that?

THERAPIST: He's not squashing you.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Just a little more practical.

CLIENT: Yeah, just a little more practical, which I was never not open to that. Right? It's just that from a very young age. I mean everything my mom did it was so easy to rebel against. I t was so; you want to be a musician? Fine then you gotta go take these viola lessons, you know what I mean? And then for a while it started very, and like oh yeah I should take. You know what I mean? I would start doing what I done now. Right? Like I should go to Brown if I can get in, you know what I mean? So I go there, and of course I hate it, and be like what the? I don't want to do this you know. So then it would look like I'm the one not, you know what I'm saying? So if we ever argued she would be like I sent you to viola lessons. You did not wanna, you know what I mean? It's like dude I'm just writing pop songs I don't need viola lessons. I got confused because you keep trying to. [00:16:45]

CLIENT: So that's.

THERAPIST: She keeps not seeing you.

CLIENT: Exactly. Exactly, yeah. You keep hearing if I say music you immediately assume I have to be a respected classical musician. Like she just takes it to another. If you are a writer, well how many pages is your novel should be like a respectable thick book, like you know whatever she is thinking. Or she would say things like you know at the supermarket I see all these books they are selling at the checkout line. Like those whatever those books are, and she'll be you're such a good writer. So it's like a twisted way of saying I'm a good writer. Like you're so good, just write you know like crime books or romance books or. What the fuck are you talking about? It's just this desperate; yeah it's a very sad idea. [00:17:35]

CLIENT: Whereas my Dad would never be just, it would never cross his mind. So (30 sec. pause) [00:18:15]

CLIENT: I think that's what's brutal about this is that I'm, I'm trying to just do my work as a creative person, but I'm also I'm battling, or I'm trying to not go back in time, but I'm trying to with one hand wipe or just push aside all this bullshit, while with the other hand I'm trying to reconnect to that more just free creative energized you know? That's a lot you know so. That's where that feeling gets like I just, you know what man I'm like 42. This is just it. That's I think what sometimes happens. You know. I'll just be sitting in the cafe, I'm trying, yeah I'm working on a poem, but there will be this voice, you know what? You are not going to be Charles Simic, you know? You are not going to be John Ashbury. Those guys were, whatever reason, however they did it through their own hell, it's not like they had great lives. But they just did it. They were somehow, there was a consistent trajectory of being this artist, and they somehow never lost sight of that. They never stopped, you know? [00:19:50]

CLIENT: That's hard to take, you know what I mean? It doesn't mean I cannot do it. Of course I can do it. That doesn't mean, you know. That's so devastating that I think it just stops me. It's like how do you get over that? That is what it is; I can't go back in time. So that's. You gotta make peace and let it go somehow. But that's just really hard, you know? [00:20:25]

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah of course. Not what I would have wanted. That's clearly what would have happened. It's not even like I wonder what would have happened. Of course that's what would have. I mean I did it even when my Dad died right? I was the one who sought out the creative writing courses, and immediately got basically discovered. I mean each one of the professors I had was like uh wait a minute. They would, I mean even at that age I knew that I was the best poet in the class always. That's you know, and I knew those fucking professors knew. That's why they still keep in touch with me. That's why they are still proud of me, or write letters for me. You know? And I know for a fact know that on some level be like, man he could have, yes he's doing good but man like he was like 17, 18 -year-old kid getting picked out by these really good professors. You know like? [00:21:35]

CLIENT: So that's just all that is just hard, it's hard to take. It's hard to take. (pause). And that's where willpower comes in, because there is nothing I can do. I can come in here every day all day long if I want, but that feeling is just. In the creative process it just keeps.

THERAPIST: Yeah and that's why I'm saying there might be some other part of what could change for you besides willpower. At this, I get that early on, but one of the things that are happening right now is that the moment you sit down, you're feeling haunted with regret over the loss of time, along with the idea of f it's too late and I'll never be John Ashbury. That's gonna stop a person from being creative. Right? [00:22:35]

THERAPIST: So I think you're arriving at this feeling about your writing. Know what time has been lost, for the first time in writing, and I think it's, you just said it, this is really hard to take, and none of this. I don't know what will happen again once you do truly know this.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: And know this, and learn it.

CLIENT: Make come to terms with it.

THERAPIST: Learn it. It is so sad.

CLIENT: I mean one thing I decided to do, not that I decided to do. I realized I was doing it., is you know this the manuscript I'm trying to finish now. Really maybe that's what it's about. Right? [00:23:25]

THERAPIST: It's the poetry.

CLIENT: Ice in glass. Yeah maybe that's what it's about. You know? I mean the first book was kind of about that but that was much more vague. A family

THERAPIST: All their histories.

CLIENT: And a kind of like longer obvious thing. But I feel like this one is much more little snapshots of a more general and more universal feeling of we all have at some point just come to terms with regrets, and what ifs. But and more importantly sometimes suddenly more seeing things for what they really are. Right? [00:24:20]

CLIENT: So I'm trying channel it into that. I didn't even realize it was maybe, but I was like yeah maybe that's why I like that ice and glass. It's like the skin of the thing you think is there, but really there's another skin under that. I don't know.

THERAPIST: A million people spend their whole lives not doing this work. Never coming to terms with regret. It's revealing and really hard work.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And it's terribly sad, but it also opens up you're not eighty.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Knowing what happened and letting it go sometimes lets you start to have a freedom to do things differently.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Which I already feel, and obviously I already feel that.

THERAPIST: It's really sad.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:25:30] (pause)

CLIENT: Yeah then thing that it's liberating, but it's also like, it's also new and jarring. It's like, I'll be at home and I feel so comfortable, and I'll be like wow I could just keep doing this. Like maybe this is, like and I won't get married and I won't. All that stuff is very jarring to think about those kinds of realities you know what I mean? [00:26:10]

CLIENT: Cause that's what you're saying. I get that now but like, but not just about working on regrets, but in general like the path I have been on is a very spiritual path, you know? Most people aren't doing that. Or if they are doing it it's something like yoga, and that's great, but it's not really on a gut, visceral level of some deep work. So in a weird way, again it's how I relate to my uncle in a weird way. I can see how, I get it now why people like that can't marry or just have a girl. Like there is something very solitary that happens I think. If you are going to be very seriously having this inner life where you are trying to, you know. Basically you're trying to attain some kind of enlightenment about yourself and about, and that takes a certain, it takes a lot of solitude I think. [00:27:25]

CLIENT: I don't think I'm romanticizing it either I just feel that. That's what I'm saying like it's hard for me now to be out and be like what's going on? How are you? I cannot do it, unless its people I already know who I have a deep friendship with. It's like I'll do it, but I'm already kind of like yeah, fuck I'm gonna get home and you know. I don't know if that is healthy, unhealthy, whatever, but it's definitely better than needing to be with people and needing you know. [00:28:04]

THERAPIST: Although I don't know that you'll stay here.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm not saying I will I'm just saying

THERAPIST: In this phase there is a lot of internal work. Even the idea of being with someone when you don't know even where you'll settle your business. It's sort of like it's hard to trust right now, is that the one? Is that the right reasons? You're just sorting it out inside. And maybe that feels scary inside too.

CLIENT: Well yeah of course it's like oh maybe I'll sort it out when I'm older. Then I'll be able to have a girlfriend. It's absurd, like even thinking about these things is absurd. You know that I still, I'm one of those people. I just don't see myself at the age I'm at. So especially when I look into the future I'm like wait, what? It does not calculate, you know? [00:29:08]

CLIENT: I think that part is good. I think that keeps people young. It's not denying your age; it's just literally that's a good sign that you feel so youthful that you literally cannot comprehend the numbers that are attached with now I'm this age, now I'm that. I feel the same age all the time. That's good, but obviously there are realities around thinking about being oh yeah maybe couple of years. Well a couple of years you're starting to get into your late 40's. It's like yeah then I'll start dating and I'll find it's just. What do you do with that, you know what I mean? It's like sure of course people do that all the fucking time. It's not you know what I mean? People are getting divorced when they're 60 for Christ sakes. That's just not how I saw things going. You know what I mean? That's [00:30:10] (pause)

THERAPIST: It's not what you envision.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Long pause)

[00:31:40]

CLIENT: You know it's interesting like how all this shit gets passed from generation to generation. You know what I mean? A lot of times. Like last night my Aunt and my Mom, I went down for a, I needed to get some paperwork from my Mom about her Social Security thing that she does not understand. So I went down there. My aunt was down there so I took Sophie down, whatever. We're sitting there and they told me some stories which I know they told me before. Again when you're way more lucid and you can really just see things instead of. Like there is no reaction I was just listening and it wasn't affecting me one way or the other, but it was just like man, just brutal, what families go through. How they project it onto their kids.

THERAPIST: What were they telling you? [00:32:34]

CLIENT: They were just again it was about how they had, there was a group of boys on their block in Assyria who did literally were after them for like 7, 8 years. And my aunt told the story about how one of them.

THERAPIST: After them like romantically.

CLIENT: Yeah. But you know we're talking like so they were like 15, 16 whatever, and these guys were like 20, 21, 22, whatever. And um by romantically not like trying to get in their pants, but in the real sense of the word.

THERAPIST: Court them?

CLIENT: Yeah, so my aunt was telling me the story about how one day she got so fed up with one of these guys, a guy named Roland that she was like look, if you're so, this is like 15, 16 -year-old girl. She's like look I'm tired of this. If you're so interested, if you so want me or whatever, go to my dad and ask for my hand. And this fucking guy did, right? [00:33:35]

CLIENT: So she was saying how he came to the house all dressed up and in a tie, and all handsome and stuff. And she had told my grandfather I don't want this guy. All right, do not. And my grandfather liked the guy, ending up liking the guy. He was like I don't know what to tell you my son. Well she has to decide if she. So in a way he did the right thing. That's a very you know. But then in, and then we just started, you know it's so complicated because I told my aunt yeah; there's 2 things, right? The first thing is he married her before he met my grandma. She was like how old was she, she was a little girl, and you know what I mean? So that wasn't a big deal back then. But I said second of all, so you guys were dirt poor right? So he was probably thinking who knows what the fuck is going to happen. We have no money. I have got all these kids, all of whom except for the youngest one are girls. They are all attractive, they are all. They could go either way right? They could get into the wrong hands, you know what I mean? So the guy was thinking yeah this kid is going to be an engineer. He is going to college. He obviously has good intentions. He has come here to respectfully, you know what I mean? [00:35:00]

THERAPIST: It's an opportunity for a good life.

CLIENT: Some of it's practical, you know? Like that's one less mouth to feed. At least I'll know she'll be with someone. But also that they were talking about how all those guys now became big shots in Assyria, and I think still are. I don't know, whatever.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Because I mean they were very attractive, and they were very educated. They did not have money, but they were very cultured, and educated. So that's the guy of guys that Party members and you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Um hmm.

CLIENT: The kind of guys that my grandfather refused to become. He refuse to be, never joined the Communist Party, which is amazing back then. That he got away with it for that long. You know then the guy that was after my mom became the most famous violinist in Assyria. All this shit. So it was interesting to hear them say, they were just very open about they're like we should have married those guys. And they weren't even saying it in a bad way. They were like we loved our husbands, but you know our lives were so difficult, and we were just na�ve. We just didn't understand. If we had married those guys they both would then have totally become what they are. You know what I mean? My aunt really would have become an opera singer and done very well. My mom would have been a great writer and done very well, you know what I mean? [00:36:35]

CLIENT: Because their husbands would be those kinds of guys. You know what I'm saying? It would just be a different, not ideal in any way. Who knows whatever fucking problems that would have lead them too, but I get what they're saying. That they would have been in a social structure that supports opera singers and writers, and where those kinds of men are probably fucked up and douche bags and misogynists in other ways. But it was the Soviet Union. There was that kind of like it's okay that my wife is a writer she is in the writer's union. You know what I mean? There were like a lot of those like power marriages back then. So it's like what do you do with that? You know what I mean? I was just sitting there like, well you know. It didn't make me feel one way or the other but it was just so interesting to observe how that's what's being passed down. That's the. [00:37:38]

CLIENT: And it was also funny because I wonder if in my grandmother's dementia she kept telling them to shut up. My mom had some Assyrian program on the laptop, just in the background, and my grandmother kept saying cannot you see the boy is trying to watch. Shut up, no one wants to hear your stories. It was very interesting. I was like I wondering if like something happens where she is done with bullshit kind of like in a weird way, you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Absolutely.

CLIENT: Because I was like why would she? She just likes old things. It does not matter. Turn that up, let's see what that show is about. It's very curious, you know? [00:38:25]

THERAPIST: I'm wondering if she was feeling protectively.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's possible.

THERAPIST: Because as much as you're in such a different place that it wasn't you instantly reacting to this conversation, with just taking it in. There is something that strikes me as very sad about saying this story, and saying I should have married those guys in front of your own son.

CLIENT: Well my mom wasn't so like that. My mom was very like I loved Von and I mean he was such a good man. I thought it was very mature. I thought it was a very mature conversation. My mom was like you know it's different when you're 15, 16. That first kind of love you have or whatever, it just stays with you in a different way, and that's fucking true. I did not take it that way at all, I really didn't. I was like, you know. With my other aunt it's different, because who she did marry was not great. I loved him, we all loved him. But he wasn't great to his family. [00:39:35]

CLIENT: My mom, with my mom it's very different. My mom really loved my Dad.

THERAPIST: So what happened with deep regrets?

CLIENT: No, no. I think it was more they were being girlish in a way, you know what I mean? It's that na�ve first love. You're infatuated with someone. You're young and some college guy is in love with you. And it's not like here where it's sleazy. It's like unrequited love, you know what I mean? It's like courtly love. They come and they serenade them. It's really like something that does not happen. They'd see them on the street and walk with them, and be like flirting with them, and saying like crazy things like you know my heart breaks every day that I don't see you on. Things that are so innocent, and so you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Very old fashioned.

CLIENT: Very old fashioned and things these days that no one would take seriously. They'd just immediately assume he was trying to get in someone's pants, you know? [00:40:42]

CLIENT: So I get that. You know that there is, whereas the guys they married were not particularly that. They just meet these guys, it made sense. They really liked each other, you know what I mean? That's cool. I mean I'm, I mean most kids on some level get that, and I think a lot of parents were not like, it wasn't like a movie when they met, you know what I mean? A lot of people say I learned to love him, or I loved him but then I really, it became more of a romantic story than whatever, you know. So. [00:41: 30]

THERAPIST: You're mom was interested in the violinist in the end but how did that?

CLIENT: I think that she was. I think they were even. My mom told me privately that I think they were engaged. There was something official that happened.

CLIENT: She just said that it was a combination of leaving Assyria. They really wanted to leave, but also that

THERAPIST: And he did not?

CLIENT: No because he had a great setup. I mean he was older, I mean the guy was top notch. I mean those guys were really well taken care off. The cultural back in the day. Writers they were paid, and they were celebrities. They were in the Communist Party and no one bothered them. Not a bad setup you know. She said something also about he'd come home late. It was the lifestyle, but she could. A lot of women were after him, and obviously she just. I think my mom was kind of jealous, and kind of. She felt like that would have been a volatile marriage. I think that's mature too. You know she was like and then also I was worried that he that would be jealous of me, because I was still young, but I was gonna start doing well. I was just gonna be one of those relationships where you know guys were gonna be hitting on her, girls were gonna be hitting on him and its Assyria, it's not here. Men are more aggressive. I'm sure women were probably more aggressive too, who knows. [00:43:07]

CLIENT: That's what she says, who the fuck knows. Maybe there is something else, but I don't know.

THERAPIST: Well it's in then this side of the family, mourning of paths not taken.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, yeah, and even here.

THERAPIST: Mourn is not regret.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, and even here forget those old that. Forget those old things. I mean even here right they should have moved to Oregon, they should have you know. They should have gone to school, and gone to college here, and blah, blah, blah and all this shit. My aunt who passed away was always like you know I don't know why we came here. We should have just gone to San Diego. There would be more opportunities and be more cosmopolitan and that's what we were used too, and blah, blah, blah, you know. [00:44:00]

CLIENT: Yeah like I said it just goes. It's a chain. They have it about their parents. Why did not our Dad just open a tailor shop? You know why was he so just not business minded. He went to Assyria and did not want to become a Communist member. Why didn't he get the hell out of there? He got out of there, and then he came here and did not take advantage of why people come here. That drives them crazy, you know. They're like our lives would have been different if he was a world-class tailor, so. Whereas my Dad's side, never a word. This is never a topic of. Not once in my fucking life have I heard my aunts, my Dad, my uncle, my cousins. Not a word. There's never a what if conversation, or why did not, you know. It's something I don't know. [00:45:10]

CLIENT: And they were poor. It's not like, you know what I mean? It's just personality it really is I think. And I think my mom side is actually much more common. My Dad's side I think is very uncommon. Especially in tight knit immigrant, where everything is about choices and calculations. You know what I mean? It's not just like I was born here, my great grandparents were born here. It's just a fucking lineage of people born in America. So then that's more like if your white trash you're just white. There isn't as much I don't know. That's not my life, so I don't know. I don't think it's as loaded as quite as where when you're immigrants every fucking move is it. It's a fork in the road, you know what I mean? You're trying to change you're whole fucking life, you know? And my Dad's side just doesn't., I don't know why. It's just never a fucking conversation ever. [00:46:10]

THERAPIST: Well there's also something in your Mom's side that's it's not just mourning of the paths not taken or what if with a question mark, because nobody really knows what would happen.

CLIENT: Of course, yeah.

THERAPIST: But there's a. Here's a little bit of why did we not do certain things?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: And it's a very particular regret about opportunities.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: I think that's what in some ways you're looking at these past 10 or 20 years and saying you have some regrets and wish you could get that time back. And yet what could you do with the next 10 to 20 years so that at the end of that time you don't look back and say the same thing about this time.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: You know because there's time right in front of you now. And you know your mom is saying about her Dad like he could have, he had the opportunity; he had the skill, what stopped him?

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: They could have gone to school. What stopped them? They could have gone mid-career. Then what even stopped them? What is the thing that is getting people so stuck?

CLIENT: Right, right. [00:47:20]

THERAPIST: So I'll see you Wednesday.

CLIENT: See you Wednesday.

THERAPIST: Have a good trip.

CLIENT: Thanks a lot Claire. Thank you, have a good weekend.

THERAPIST: You too. [00:48:00]

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