An extended metaphor to explore the uneven feelings associated
with beginning psychotherapy.
When I move into the house, the foundation is wonky. I know for sure because I roll an empty wine bottle down the hardwoods, and even with the friction of the area rug, the bottle cruises, gains momentum. There are hills and valleys here. Bumps where things should be flat.
So I call a foundation repairman. He asks questions: Who built this house? Why did they install so few pier and beam supports? Why wasn’t I now installing my own supports?
“Because I’m just not that handy, despite my blue-collar upbringing,” I say.
“I have some strategies,” the repairman says.
I sigh in a way that annoys us both. I tell him I’m not ready for the big repairs yet. I tell him maybe I’ll work on patching the cracks in the drywall.
“Can’t I just start small?” I ask. Because this is a thing I think I can do with sheetrock tape and spackle and joint compound (Something I did learn from my blue-collar family).
I look at the cracks spidering out from the doors’ corners, the window sills. I hate them because they remind me of me. If I peer into the veiny little chasms, I see my shitty teeth, potential for substance abuse, tendency to overeat, impulsivity, inability to finish a novel, to remember the ending, easy overstimulation — how I’ve somehow forgotten to clean the oven for six years straight — brokenness.
“You know,” the repairman breathes deeply, “that even if you repair these cracks, they’ll continue to reappear.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because you haven’t tended to the shifting foundation,” he says.
I tap a pen on the tabletop in front of me.
“What about gutters? Do you think installing a new gutter system might help?”
The repairman mashes his lips together and shakes his head side to side.
I don’t think I could manage gutters by myself anyway.
When the session is over, I go to Home Depot. Buy the necessary supplies, a putty knife for smoothing. Drydex all-in-one sheetrock repair. Tape. And also, two sugar-free Red Bulls, a packet of gummy bears, a soft pack of Marlboro 27s (though I haven’t smoked in a decade), and a miniature diecast VW bus painted with flowers.
I climb the ladder and tape the cracks. I feel better. The house feels stronger. Kinda like when I twisted my ankle and wore that medical tape.
Then I hear a crack. I look over to see one of the floor’s hardwood planks popping out of place. My eye twitches. Pulse in my ears. The repairman says I can take something called Hydroxyzine. When I get like this. When the house gets like this. But it just makes me feel underwater, drowsy.
I set up another session with the repairman, ready to level the foundation. In addition to leveling, he suggests I try daily journal entries, taking myself on dates, setting some boundaries.
I get out my pen for the first journal entry, and workers in hard hats arrive to measure the floors with laser beams. This sounds made up. But it’s an actual thing.
The men say they need to sink three new piers into the bedrock below the house. I like the idea that my house will become more firmly tethered to the earth’s crust. I agree to the work.
On the day they begin, they bring jacks. Which seems sort of rudimentary after the lasers. As they hoist up the house, I tell my family I will not be coming home for the holidays. I am working on some long-deferred house maintenance. I hear cracking. I massage my temples. Take half a Hydroxyzine. Journal more.
Is this how getting level is supposed to feel?
I decide to take myself to lunch. With all the jacking and drilling. I go to a diner. Order hash with an egg over easy. The shine of the yolk bleeding over the potatoes thrills me. I drink a healthy juice with something called spirulina. I wipe indigo blots of it off my mouth onto a cloth napkin.
Is this how it feels to get leveled?
I return home to the repairmen smoothing mortar between the new cracks in my house’s brick work.
“House is leveled to within an inch on all sides,” the repairman says. “But don’t be surprised if you get some settling, new cracks in your bathroom tile and your ceiling plaster — it’s to be expected.”
When I express my confusion, when I say, “but I thought this was a fix?”
He says simply, “the earth is always moving. Cracks always forming.”
“Then what did I pay for? Will the cracks ever stop?”
“Sometimes they do,” he says, “But mostly, people just get better at seeing the cracks for what they really are.”
I watch as the repairman uses the pads of his bare fingers between the gray matter of mortar. Taking care to fill the stair shaped cracks. And there is something hopeful in those cracks. Climbing up and up. A brighter white than the rest of the pointing. Impossible not to notice, but a bright white light climbing up all the same.
Kaci neves is a writer living in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, son, and churlish dog. Her work can be found in Bon Appetit magazine, Hobart, The Belladonna Comedy, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a novel.
The Disappointed Housewife 