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Word Count: 441
“Now, you know I respect you, but the problem is: You just don’t understand. I mean, how would you feel? Think about it. How would you feel if you were the only one?
I can barely summon any other thought with any kind of constancy. I open my eyes and I see yesterday. I close my eyes and I see yesterday. I regurgitate the memory of every word, of every glance; each moment survives in exquisitely perfect and painful recollection. As I re-live each detail, I am there. No, I’m not just remembering when I was there, I am there. There’s no past and there’s no present. There’s just me, living in yesterday’s discomfort.
How could I be so forgetful? So careless? I can only imagine what they’re thinking. What do you think they’re thinking?
All these years I’ve tried so hard. I’ve tried to ‘live the life’, to be the example. I’ve tried to be thoughtful. I’ve tried. Have I blown it all? Surely, a thing like yesterday won’t do too much harm, right? But, I don’t know. You just can’t know about these things. You just never know what people are thinking. What do you think they’re thinking?
After all, when I think about yesterday, I just…”
Finally, Jane’s therapist felt that she must interrupt, “Jane, Jane, it’s alright dear. Why don’t you just tell me what happened yesterday?”
Jane swallowed hard. She attempted to slow down her breathing. She twirled her hair around her index finger, as she often did while uncomfortable and said, “I forgot to bring the cookies.”
The therapist’s eyes briefly looked to the ceiling as though somehow, there in the tiles there would be some lucid explanation of Jane’s confession. “You…you forgot the cookies, Jane?”
“Yes,” Jane continued, “I forgot to bring the cookies to the company potluck and I was the only, single one to be neglectful. I just feel so embarrassed and so thoughtless.”
The therapist looked compassionately into Jane’s eyes and counseled softly, “Jane, we’re going to keep at this and you are going to experience spiritual freedom from your social anxiety, from your perfectionism and from your compulsive thought patterns. You are. We’re going to pray, but first let me share something that Paul had to say, ‘No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.’ (Philippians 3:13, NLT) Jane, dear, there will be other days and other mistakes and other cookies to bake…and milk in the fridge to go with it. For today, let’s just be free.”
With that, they prayed.
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