Session Eighteen
despite the blue
“That’s a lovely ring, Beatrice,” Stacy said, bundled up in a fluffy pink sweater that didn’t suit her whatsoever.
It was fucking atrocious.
And I loved it.
“It’s all anyone ever talks about,” I said, grinning. “You look like cotton candy, in the best way possible.”
“My husband bought it for me,” Stacy explained, pulling out a loose thread. “It’s our anniversary.”
My jaw dropped in surprise. “You didn’t tell me you were married, Doc! You don’t wear a ring.”
“No, Beatrice, some people don’t parade their tokens of affection like a neon sign.” She smirked, and I felt prideful.
“Is that banter, Stacy?” I clapped. “You’ve got a different… aura, today.”
“So do you,” she smiled. “It’s been a couple of months and you haven’t booked in a session. How have you been?”
“Well, Cole gave me this.” I flashed my ring, again.
She rolled her eyes in jest but I knew she loved me. Just like I loved her ugly sweater.
“He told me he loved me, too.”
Her eyes widened. “And what did you say?”
“I said I loved him back.”
“And do you?”
“With all my fucking heart, Doc.”
She smiled. “It’s lovely to see you like this, Beatrice. You seem… steady.”
“I am.”
And that was the truth.
“Oh, I forgot to say. Fawn saw Jace. Well, ran into him, at our old college. Can you believe she’s collaborating with the school? Insane.”
“Whoa, okay, slow down…”
“My best friend, Stacy! Making huge stacks, propelling her career, God! I could not be prouder –”
“Beatrice.” Stacy’s voice was gentle, but anchoring.
Was I in trouble? Did I say something wrong?
I shut my mouth. “Sorry.”
“No,” she shook her head, “don’t apologize. I just had an observation I needed to point out.”
I held out a hand. “Go ahead, please. You’re the therapist.”
“I’m…” she paused, looking at me with intention. “I’m amazed,” she finally said. “You said three things before you mentioned Jace. Three.”
I wasn’t following. “Yes, and?”
“And Beatrice, there was a time where you’d walk into my office, crying your heart out, repeating his name because it was enough to tell me why you were hurting.”
I swallowed, making the connection.
“You didn’t lead with him.” She smiled. “You mentioned your ring, your boyfriend, your friend, and then him.”
I tried to laugh it off. But –
She was… right.
I didn’t lead with him. I talked about my life before him.
And everything else – everyone else, just started to take up more space, more importance, than his brief appearance that one day.
“Is this a turning point, Stacy?” I asked, feeling jittery.
“It might be,” she said, shaking her head, bright smile on her face. “You used to talk about him before you even got to yourself. I can see that he’s fading, even a little. And it seems like he might be taking the pain with him.”
And for the first time…
I felt –
I felt, like that might be true.
I swallowed. “He just asked how I was doing, and Fawn said nothing.”
“Do you wish her response was different?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m glad she didn’t tell him anything. I don’t want him to know about my life, where I am, who I’m with.”
“The underlying message, Beatrice, is that you don’t want him to ruin what you built.”
I nodded so fast I thought I’d break my neck. “Yes, Stacy. I feel like I’ve hit a point in my life where things have been grounded. Sometimes, I feel bored with Cole and I remember it’s because everything felt like fire with Jace.”
Stacy agreed. “I’m proud of you for realizing that steadiness, not boredom, in a relationship is healthy. What you’re describing, things being on fire is a passion that will burn out. It’s common in the honeymoon stages, but in toxic relationships, highs and lows mimic lust and love.”
“Interchangeable,” I added. “I guess. You can’t really tell when you’re inside the heat.”
“No,” Stacy said. “And the fact you’re aware of this shift is progression. What Jace used to mean is no longer gospel for you.”
“No,” I bit my lip, catching my breath. “Maybe you’re right.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
Then, “I saw my mom, Stacy.”
She waited for me to continue.
“I asked her about my dad. I wanted to know more, you know, about him. If she loved like me.”
“Why would it matter if she did?”
I shrugged. “I want to know where I learned to love like that. So intensely, like I can’t breathe without it. Did I inherit it? Or what?”
“Beatrice, people with BPD feel with ferocity, simply due to their life circumstances. It’s not something you can necessarily change, and I don’t see how loving with entirety can be detrimental, if you love someone who loves you back.”
“What if that love is poisonous?”
“Then you’ll notice, deep in that warm heart of yours, when the temperature begins to change.”
I sat, motionless.
“Does it change with Cole?”
I shook my head, slowly. “I feel like I get warmer. Squishier.”
We shared a laugh.
“I hate that word,” I said, feeling a tear pinch my eye. “But it’s true. I don’t feel like I’m in fight or flight, or that I need to prove myself, or hide my body behind a curtain or a bedsheet.”
She urged me to go on.
So I did.
“When I’m with Cole, Stacy, I feel like I can breathe. Like, if I fell, I know he’d catch me. He wouldn’t be the one pushing me down, trying to convince me that I’d tripped on my own two feet.”
“And you felt that way with Jace?”
I nodded, “All the time.” And paused. “But I think… I don’t know. After I saw my mom I felt this closure that I’d never felt before.”
“Explain that to me, Beatrice.”
“I felt” – I swallowed – “like, when I saw her at breakfast, and I could see pieces of the woman I loved when I was a kid, I knew she was in there. But she wasn’t out there, if that makes sense.”
“I understand,” Stacy said. “The woman inside still exists. But the woman outside is the woman you had to live with.”
“Exactly, yes, exactly. And I could choose to accept that, or I could choose to feel miserable about the fact she’s not the her I used to know.”
“Right.”
“And, when I think about Jace, in the odd time that I do, I think about the moments Cole made me smile, or held me tenderly. I don’t isolate Jace anymore, I have someone to compare him to. Someone that proved I was more than who I thought I was for so long.”
Stacy opened her mouth, but I felt the rhythm coming and I wanted to say it aloud.
“I was the same girl with everyone I had ever been with. I was little Blu, big Beatrice, every woman in between. My laugh hasn’t changed, my eyes haven’t dimmed, and my love has remained strong and true, despite the blue.”
Stacy…
Stacy blinked. Once, twice.
She –
Oh, my God.
Was she crying?
“Stacy!” I rushed over to her chair on instinct. “Why are you crying? Is everything okay?”
Oh, fuck. No, no, no – I brought my fucking therapist –
But her hand came up to her face, smiling soft with pride. “Despite the blue,” she whispered. “That’s it.”
“That’s… what?” I asked, leaning back on my heels.
“That’s your story.”
I said nothing.
“You are not defined by your worst moments. Or your best. You are everything in between.” She sniffed. “And I am so, eternally proud of you.”
“Oh,” tears sprung to my eyes, “Stacy, don’t flatter me too much. I’m still a work in progress.”
I laughed, she laughed, and I found myself sitting on the floor, staring up at a woman who saw me at my worst, and picked me up all the same.
A mother, more than my own.
Someone who cared not out of obligation, but out of love.
“You’ll have bad days, Beatrice. Sad days, too,” she said softly. “But you are no longer blue.”
I smiled through the tears. “Blue?” I asked. “Or Blu.”
And she smiled back. “Both.”