This Close To Okay

by Leesa Cross-Smith

It’s always good to have something to do…to look forward to. It keeps our brains happy.”

So much of therapy was practicality and giving people a much-needed pass to relax when they needed to or be weird when they needed to. To free their minds from doing what they felt like they should be doing if it always went against what they wanted to do. To ask questions like why when the client had never considered it.

She often asked her clients how much fresh air they got, especially when they felt panicky or claustrophobic. Opening a window or stepping outside for a few minutes could change a client’s mood, as well as her own, when exposed nerves scintillated.

Tallie had trained herself to get out under the open sky as often as she could when she was feeling restless or downright miserable, and it always helped.

“Joel was obsessed with the news and would get constant notifications on his phone. Wanted to keep CNN on all day long. Drove me mad! I stopped keeping up with the news after he moved out. I hate it.”

After love, forgiveness is the strongest glue holding every family together.