February 18, 2019

Okay, let’s get some details on the page. My therapist really disliked leaving his home besides for work. He lived alone after his wife died in childbirth. He was in college at the time for his degree in psychology and found that helping others helped himself. He often spoke of how depression affected him, and yet he always seemed happy to all of the people he offered counsel. Most of this information came from his obituary in the newspaper.  I found that his secretary didn’t offer much help besides the small statements she overheard at work. Apparently, he never told people about his personal life. So, I went to the source of his obituary, his mother. Well, she seemed thrilled to have a visitor at first, but soon devolved into an emotional wreck once we began to talk in her living room. She was old, and probably closer to the grave than her son should have been, but she could only offer information about his childhood. He sounded like a normal kid that rode his bike around the neighborhood with his friends and didn’t get into much trouble at school. His mother lost contact with him once he went off to college where he only called often enough to keep her nerves at ease. He never told her anything about college, and he kept his phone calls brief. After that, the tears and babbling became too much, and I gimped my way out of her house with apologies. 

I tried to tell Veronica about my concerns and theories, but she said that I needed to relax and not overanalyze the situation. She told me that sometimes people do things that make them uncomfortable to try and conquer their fears. Veronica also brought up the idea that maybe his wife was the one who enjoyed the outdoors, and he avoided the mountains because of the memories with her. I felt stupid after she said that, but she didn’t say it in a mean way. I just didn’t think about that perspective until she said something to me. I tried to tell my mom my ideas in hopes that she could help me talk through my thought process like we used to when I was in high school, but she changed the topic saying she didn’t want to talk about sad things. I found that strange because she often seemed excited when I wanted to talk things through with her. She often told me that the hard topics sometimes required an intense conversation to find a resolution to the issue. 

Maybe I am looking too far into this. I can’t help but doubt myself when both my mom and girlfriend seem so dismissive of my paranoia. But I still wonder if Hanks and my therapist’s deaths are somehow connected. They both died in different ways, but there seems to be one common factor in the life of those men, me.