Page 52 of Leaning In

Mum looks mildly offended, but mercifully doesn’t respond right away. I can’t believe I just spoke to her like that. I start apologising, before deciding that no, I’m allowed to snap sometimes. Those words felt surprisingly good, and I don’t feel guilty at all. In fact I feel the opposite.

There’s a moment of silence, and I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of Mum’s perfume. It reminds me so much of my childhood. Of evenings spent on the sofa when she would read to me and Sophia. I find it so hard to reconcile the different parts of her. She never used to be this pushy; it’s ramped up over the years but it was so insidious that I’ve never stopped to think about the point that it became all-consuming in our relationship.

Mum finally clears her throat. “Well, I was only trying to help.”

“I know,” I say, more gently. “But maybe let me find my own way through this one, ok?”

“Of course, darling, I just wanted to see how you were this morning.”

When she finally leaves an hour later, all I want to do is curl up on the sofa with a blanket and watch TV. I’ve just taken a seat when my phone buzzes. I groan when I turn it over and see the text is from Mum.

She’s texted me Edmund’s number.

Great. I start brainstorming ways to avoid interacting with him. Maybe I can just tell her that I’m getting Botox, and want to wait until my wrinkles are gone. That Mum would understand.

And then I remember that I’m twenty-eight. It’s insane that I would rather lie about Botox than just… put my foot down.

I open my laptop and start googling therapists in my area. I need to start making some changes.

***

A week later, I’m shredding a tissue on my lap whilst talking to a woman I only met an hour before.

“So,” Dr Pratesh says, “that’s nearly the end of the session. How did you find it?”

I sit back in my chair, processing the last hour. “Better than I thought, though less lying sideways on the sofa.”

She gives my joke a louder chuckle than it deserves, which I appreciate. The room is cosy without feeling claustrophobic, with neutral colours, all beiges and creams. And there’s only an armchair, with a lot more give than I’d expected.

“No, this was—” I look down at the tissue I’ve been slowly dismantling for the last fifty minutes. I didn’t cry, I apparently just needed something to do with my hands. “This was really good. Exhausting though. Is it meant to be exhausting?”

“It can be. Can I leave you with one observation and one piece of homework?”

“Yes,” I hedge. That sounds ominous.

“I’ll start with the observation. In the last fifty minutes you’ve said the word ‘should’ more times than I could keep count of. Should have started years ago. Should be better at this, should be over that, shouldn’t care about what your mum thinks. I want you to start noticing that pattern. You don’t even need to do anything about it yet, you just need to notice it.”

I open my mouth to say I should be able to manage that, then realise what I’m about to say, and close it again.

“What’s the homework?”

“To go to that pottery class you mentioned this evening. I know you were on the fence about it, but I think you’d enjoy it if you gave yourself a chance.”

I look at her for a moment. “So… I should go to the pottery class.”

Dr Pratesh laughs. “I walked directly into that,” she concedes. “But there’s a difference, your shoulds are about what you think is acceptable, not what you want to do. So yes. I do think you ‘should’ go.”

I give a shaky nod. I’ve been on the fence about the class, it’s the thought of doing something on my own. What if I’m awful? What if people laugh at me?

But I’d booked it with Sophia hovering over my shoulder telling me that it could be fun to start trying out new things. She had a whole mantra about “New Year, New You”, despite the fact that it really isn’t New Year. Apparently this is her “thing” now, having read an online self-help post.

Despite my promise to Dr Pratesh I spend the fifteen-minute walk to the class composing reasons I could reschedule. I’m tired. It’s dark. Surely there’s only so much self-improvement one can do in a day.

Then, suddenly, I’m outside the door.

The door isn’t even intimidating. It’s glass, and there’s a handwritten note about parking taped to the inside. I stand there awkwardly, loitering for long enough that a man walking his dog gives me a suspiciously wide berth.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” I mutter to myself.