fourth year claire torak

Every Wednesday morning, my therapist would ask me, “What do you want to talk about today?”, and every Wednesday morning, I’d pick a topic from my revolving door of brokenness, and spend the next hour in the pursuit of grueling self-excavation. Week after week, I’d turn myself inside out, scraping away at the excess, until I slowly became new again.

But you can only put on a raw, tender skin so many times before it is stretched too thin. About two months ago, I sat on the couch in my therapist’s office, and she asked me the same question: “What do you want to talk about today?”, but for the first time, I found myself at a loss for an answer. There were no pressing anxieties, no new goals for self-improvement that I could produce. I don’t remember what we even talked about that day, but I do remember getting home and breathing in an odd sense of relief.

It feels as though we have to be working on ourselves every second of every day, emerging a better person in the morning than we were the night before, as if the world is demanding that we grow out of our old selves and into a new, sparkling version all the time. And while part of being a person is to grow up and change in an attempt to better understand ourselves and the world we inhabit, I am learning that simply just being is as much a part of the process of being alive as anything else.

So, here is my confession: I stopped seeing my therapist, and I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t need to see her right now, so why would I? I am letting myself be better, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Like so many other things, I can take some time away and pick it back up again when I need to. So can you, so can anyone else.

It’s okay to put the tools of self-growth down and rest inside of the frame we have already built. It’s okay to celebrate the achievements already made instead of constantly looking at the finish lines that have yet to be crossed. That’s the beauty of self-growth: it happens on your own time, when you’re ready. Plant your seeds and water them, and they will bloom then they’re ready.

on the pursuit of self-growth