Mary, a university professor, thoroughly likable, conscious of the passing of time and yet eyeball deep in an empathetic, but dull marriage and waist-deep in money problems. She finds herself both broke and in love with a man not her husband.
Mary knew that on the money score at least, she was not alone. Many people had become tethered to credit lines, their lives saturated with debt. But Mary was curious: what was it that made her susceptible to magical thinking about money and love? In what way did she conspire to avoid reality?
One day at the end of the short cab ride to her therapist's office, the meter read $4.35. She swiped her debit card to pay. "Not Approved." She tried again. She tried another card. That did not work either. She had no cash. There were people waiting to get in the cab. The cabbie waved her off and said, "Forget it."
As she entered the quiet afternoon space of her analyst's office, Mary related what had happened in the cab. "I have no money," she lamented. "There's nothing left. My debit card is dead. There's much more going out than in. I fear that I will become poor."
"...Sounds like that is a real possibility," the analyst said.
"I can't be poor," Mary said. "I am a member of the middle class."
"You seem to have the idea that you're special," the analyst said. "People's circumstances change all the time. You're a professor of history, aren't you?"
"I am a history professor, but you get to have an inflated view of yourself when you study history. You imagine yourself a figure, such as Catherine the Great, as though my affairs are necessary acts of state -- bonding me with countries and provinces, creating important alliances and commerce, as though my marriage were not a marriage at all, but rather a complicated political act, a reign. As if my actions were something for historians and pundits about which to debate.
"...A ‘complicated' figure not entirely responsible," the analyst said.
"As if to say: She had appetites, yes she did, but she irrigated the fields, abolished serfdom, reformed education and immunized the population against smallpox. Mary, a woman of great energy and talent whose money and sexual excesses, when seen in proper context are mitigated by the good she has done," said Mary.
"...You have a touch of grandiosity," the analyst offered.
"Yes, I do, but also perspective. You think in terms of rises and falls -- catastrophes, famine, horrors and then healing, renewal. The farther you move away from calamity, the better it starts to look. Sixty years after Auschwitz and the grass grows you would not believe how green! I have been dumb about money and dumb about my life. I can choose to be wise too."
"You can be dumb. You can be wise..."
"Okay, so what's my next step?" Mary asked.
"You're asking me?" her analyst said.
"I'm asking you."
The analyst paused. "So you want to be dumb now."
"Well, I thought you would know," Mary defended.
"Why should I be any smarter than you?"
"...Because you're older and more experienced. You see so many people. You're not a baby like I am."
"So I am supposed to be the grownup and you the baby. How is that helpful?"
"It may not be helpful," Mary considered, "but that is the way I function,"
"Well, this might be your first clue," her analyst said.
*special acknowledgment to LM
