Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(45)

I asked Dan if he thought I had ADD—or maybe I claimed to have it so that he wouldn’t have to waste his time diagnosing me with it. He didn’t think I had ADD, but it seemed to him that when I wasn’t interested in something, I had trouble pretending I was. This was not news. He told me I could take the actual test for ADD, but that it took eight hours.

“That’s never going to happen. Let’s just assume I have it.”

“I don’t think you have it, and I would have a very good sense, after sitting with you all these hours, if you did have ADD. You are a person who is very interested—in what you are interested in.”

“I’m interested in being less spoiled.”

“Why?”

“Because I can do better.”

    “Being spoiled is symbolic more than anything,” he told me. “You just explained beautifully that you want people to take care of you, so you’re always looking to fill that need, because it’s something you didn’t have growing up—adult supervision and reliability.”

It felt good to start contributing to our dialogue in a concrete way. My favorite pursuit in the world is to sit around and shoot the shit with someone smarter than me. It made me feel like I was playing good tennis.



* * *



? ? ?

At our next session, Dan asked me where I saw myself in five years.

Just when I thought we had been making progress and that he understood who he was dealing with, I had to wonder if he had been listening to anything I said.

“Five years? I don’t have a five-day plan. I’ve always assumed I’ll be dead in five years, no matter what year it is. Not in a macabre way or anything. I feel like I’ve had a full life. Like, this has been awesome. Things have been pretty easy, minus the death stuff. I’ve still managed to have a blast. I have great friends, family,” and then I stopped when I realized I was eulogizing myself.

“And you don’t want children?”

I gave Dan the same exasperated look I gave him when he asked me about my five-year plan. I felt like this was a good opportunity to bring up patience.

“I’d like to talk about my lack of patience. It’s like God skipped me.”

“How so?”

    “Because that question irritates me, because we’ve discussed this already, and I feel agitated. That can’t be a normal state. Constant agitation.”

“Why are you agitated?”

“Because I don’t like repetition. We’ve covered it. The same reason I’ve never read a book twice. Once I’ve gotten something, it holds little interest for me.”

“Well, you move fast.”

“Right. I need to exercise more patience. How do we do that? I’m spoiled and I’m entitled. I’d like to dial that all back.”

“Tell me what you mean, exactly.”

“If something takes too long, I just move on. I lose interest. I can’t deal with electronics or technology or people who work in airports. Basically, anything that takes too long. If there is a line at a magazine store in an airport, I’ll just wave twenty dollars up in the air so the airport security cameras catch it and then I’ll place it near the register and walk out with whatever item I’ve taken. I can’t deal with the slowness of the transaction. It drives me up a fucking wall.”

“Well, that is spoiled,” Dan told me.

“Isn’t that more entitled?” I asked him. “A black person wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone doing that,” Dan told me. “By the way, that’s empathy.” He pointed at me. “Thinking about what it’s like to be a black person. You’re learning.”

“Empathy couched in my entitlement. How convenient.”

“You’re talking about becoming a systems thinker versus a linear thinker. To be able to look at the macro rather than the micro.”

    “Yes. I’ve been like this for a long time, and I don’t know if I can blame that on Chet dying. I’d like to, but I’m pretty sure I was throwing temper tantrums as a little girl before he died. I was always a bit of a hot mess.”

“It makes sense when you were a little girl, because you were trying to get your parents to pay attention. Even before Chet died, it seemed the two of you already had an understanding about your parents’ lack of parenting, so it was in your consciousness.”

“Or my unconsciousness.”

“Or your subconsciousness.” He smiled.

“The question is: Why am I so impatient as an adult?”

“Okay,” Dan said, in his wonderfully measured way. “Give me an example of something that happens frequently.”

“When I can’t turn on the TV in my house—or I can’t get the music on—that’s something that happens all the time, and then I have to call Brandon or Tanner. Whoever’s got the night shift.”

This felt less like tennis and more like Ping-Pong, but if Dan wasn’t looking at me funny, I wasn’t going to be looking at me funny either.

“What does it feel like when you can’t work your music?”

“Annoyed.”

“What’s underneath that?”