Ours was a love affair that knew its finest hours on a screen. Dan and I could plan the next 50 years in a two-hour online conversation.
Maybe we were able to sketch our future so easily because we didn’t think we’d ever see it. In television dramas, I can tell when a wedding won’t go as planned; the clue is when a character rehearses his or her vows before the ceremony. That’s the sign that we, the audience, won’t be hearing them later; what’s worse is the dramatic irony of knowing what one real life never-to-be-bride-or-groom will never get to say.
Years ago, during one of my “off” periods with Dan, when I was feeling devastated by our being “off,” I went to a Buddhist-type therapist in San Francisco who tried an experimental therapy. He said he used this therapy on 9/11 survivors — guiding them through what would happen if the worst happened — to get them to the other side of their greatest fear. And I thought: how dramatic, how creepy, to use this therapy on me, just another heartbroken girl.
I sat on his big soft couch and stared at a painting of mountains and coyotes. He asked me to hold vibrating paddles, one in each hand, and close my eyes. He controlled the intensity of the vibration, and all I did was squeeze while he asked me to imagine Dan’s future wedding to a woman who wasn’t me.
With the cream-colored paddles surging, the therapist asked questions about the ceremony.
“What does Dan look like walking down the aisle?”
“He looks happy.”
“What are you doing while Dan is getting married?”
“I’m writing a novel.”
“What is the novel about?”
“It is about a lost man,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
by Elissa Bassist, NY Times | Read more:
Illustration: Brian Rea
