Most Wonderful

Chapter 42 One Day after Christmas

42.

One day after Christmas

When Birdie awoke the day after Christmas in the Humphrey Bogart suite, the light streaming through her window seemed hopeful. Instead of crawling out of bed with a hangover the size of her mother’s piano, Birdie felt well rested. On the nightstand was an empty teacup instead of her usual whiskey glass. It was the first night she hadn’t drank in a very long time.

Facing herself in the bathroom mirror, Birdie didn’t feel the usual spritz of shame or regret.

“Birdie 2.0.” She spoke to her reflection. “We got this.” A pause. “Somehow.”

Birdie had long regarded therapy with suspicion. She had a roof over her head and food in the fridge (most days): What could she possibly complain about? But then again, Jecka Jacob had dumped her ass. Maybe it was time to ask for help.

A Google search led to a tele-therapist who operated year-round and took her extremely crap insurance. After filling in her details, Birdie was prompted to select an intake appointment. Plenty of options in the coming months. But there was one slot, just one, for the end of the day. She booked it.

As her appointment grew closer, Birdie’s mind came up with a thousand excuses to postpone. It was midafternoon. Not too early for a cheeky mulled wine.

It was surprising how often her mind suggested a drink, like a boozy friend always up for another. But Birdie was starting to suspect that her mind wasn’t always such a good friend.

By the time the appointment rolled around, the morning’s hopefulness had been superseded by crushing anxiety and cravings for wine. She couldn’t find a comfortable way to sit on her bed. Evidence of Christmas still populated her room—a half-eaten piece of fudge, some stray tinsel, a card. The holiday trappings seemed incongruous with this upcoming excruciating conversation, which was sure to focus on what a shit person she was, deep down.

Her therapist, Tamara, wore red lipstick and had curly bangs. She was younger than Birdie was expecting. “Birdie.” Tamara smiled. “What brings you here?”

The question was so terrifyingly broad, Birdie had no idea how to answer. She channeled a spotlight, the place she felt at ease. “Well, I’m a New Yorker. Legally, I have to have a therapist.”

She waited for the tick of a smile, the puff of a chuckle. Nothing.

“So, I broke up with my girlfriend,” Birdie began again. “Technically, she broke up with me. Technically, we weren’t girlfriends. Okay, technically she was a figment of my imagination, but a break-up’s a break-up.”

Tamara scribbled something down. “Do you do this a lot: deflect with humor?”

“I’m a stand-up,” Birdie said, only mildly put off. “Sort of my default. Tough crowd, though,” she added, playfully rolling her eyes.

Another uneasy pause. Tamara shifted forward, speaking directly to the phone’s camera. “You don’t need to entertain me, Birdie. You don’t need to manage my emotions or reactions. I’m here to listen and help you understand yourself. So, let’s try again: What brings you here?”

Freed from the need to make Tamara laugh, Birdie started talking.

Over the next hour, it all came flooding out. Her mom’s collapse, and being so drunk on Christmas Eve she’d barfed in the hospital waiting room. Jecka breaking up with her, specifically calling out her drinking. Her father’s death and her stalled career and her suspicion things might be better if she laid off the booze and hookups, but how embarrassingly hard that was. At first, it felt unbearably awkward to divulge such personal details with a stranger without the usual back-and-forth of laughter or mutual sharing. But Tamara’s nonjudgmental acceptance was a release.

Birdie teared up when she tried to explain that her life was being lived on her terms, but it wasn’t making her happy. Sometimes she felt like a car without brakes, careening from one merry disaster to the next. “I don’t know what my problem is,” she added, blowing her nose into some toilet paper. “I’m a middle-class cisgender white person doing what I love. Maybe I’m just having a bad week.”

“Birdie.” Tamara gave her a look of compassion. “You’re not having a bad week. Your life and your choices and the stories you tell yourself are not working for you. It’s possible you’ve adopted a cycle of casual sex and alcohol to numb the pain and unhappiness you’re feeling.”

Hearing this theory laid out so simply was both devastating and liberating. Birdie had always believed her personality and habits were set, and if some of those things made her life difficult, she just had to figure out ways to live with them. The idea of challenging or changing them felt new. And hard. When she expressed this to Tamara, her therapist smiled. “Were you expecting this to be easy?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Therapy is an exploration of the self. We meet and we talk. About things that happened yesterday and one year ago and ten years ago. We connect the dots on who you are. And then we figure out coping strategies so you feel like you’re behind the wheel of a car with brakes. A car that can take you anywhere you like.”

Tears rushed up Birdie’s throat. She let out a sob.

“What?” Tamara asked gently.

“I never thought I could change. The idea that I can direct my life where I want to go—god, I just want that so badly.”

They agreed Birdie should extend her sobriety by taking it one day at a time and asking her family to help her stay accountable. Tamara listed potential withdrawal symptoms. “Depression, irritability, night sweats.” She shared information about twenty-four-hour helplines, twelve-step meetings, and online resources. “Remember why you’re doing it. And do something else instead of drinking.”

Birdie nodded, writing all this down. “Well, I really want to finish my new show. I’ve actually made good progress. I was sort of workshopping it with…”

Tamara glanced at her notes. “Jecka?”

Sour-sweet nostalgia misted into Birdie’s chest. “She was the first person I could, like, really see myself with,” Birdie admitted. “Things were different with her.”

“Sounds like you had an intimate relationship,” Tamara said. “Not just an intense or casual one.”

Birdie nodded. “I think that’s why it felt like such a rejection when she dumped me.”

“But if we accept that the self can grow and change,” Tamara commented, “maybe it was a rejection of someone you’re already moving away from.”

—

The evening was arduous. Tamara was right—Birdie felt like garbage. But the struggle was more mental than physical. Every two minutes, her brain kept suggesting a drink. Then encouraging. Then demanding, fist on the bar, screaming in her ear. Birdie locked herself in her bedroom with a Diet Coke and a pot of tea and, using the Pomodoro Technique, busted out a night of work. The hardest night of her life. And, in a different way, the best. Because she didn’t break.