musings from the waiting room

Photo by Mitchell Gaiser on Unsplash

I think a lot about the people who go to counseling at the same time I do. Every week, we sit on the same nondescript, not quite-comfy couches, all thinking it should be damn illegal to play Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” in the waiting room.

In the past year, I’ve grown accustomed to the same faces, this rarely rotating cast of characters blown in on the wind. I can’t help but size them up out of the corner of my eye as I pretend to read this week’s New Yorker (I only flip through for the comics).

Photo by The New Yorker

I always sit on the left side of the middle couch where I can look out the skylight . I sit near an outlet, charge my phone, hang my coat up on the first peg and wait for the 3 PM crew of wandering souls like me. Among the crowd are an ageless man with black hair, a fur vest; a couple who always arrive separately, but who seem friendly enough; a young boy with black glasses and a Pokémon shirt.

I wonder: Are they sizing me up from around the corners their Reader’s Digests? Do they spend their waiting time thinking about me like I spend thinking about them? I imagine leaning over one day a tad conspiratorially, shifting my eyes like I’m checking who’s listening to ask with a grin, “So what’re you in for?”

What do they think brings me here? What do they assume when I get here 40 minutes early every week, sitting in my spot, with my coat on my hook? What picture do the puzzle pieces of hair in a bun, unmatching socks, and bitten-down nails make to the unknowing eye?

Do they feel the same twisted kinship I feel to them?

I mean, we’re not friends, not even acquaintances, yet there’s a connection I feel that runs animal deep. Like we all feel like we’re drowning and our tacit connection is a means of survival. The only thing we know for sure we have in common is that we found the same handful of psychologists on the internet and we all want to be a little better (and we all think we’re more than just a little fucked up).

As I peek up at my weekly companions, I think about the ageless man with the black nail polish. How in the spring we would sit on the same bench out front, warming our eyelids in the sun. How we would share knowing glances — looking at the time looking at each other — glances that said we were counting down the seconds until we paid some people money to make us feel uncomfortable.

Once we shared a croissant.

I think about how on his knuckles were the tattooed words STAY SAFE. I think about how he doesn’t come round anymore.

A change in schedule?

In outlook?

In geography?

Either way I hope he’s safe.