Patrice Flanagan-Morris

Normally, I am a poet. A person who can carve expansive landscapes with my words. Yet, these words on the page were almost impossible for me to type. I want every word to be remarkable; make the person who I care about feel appreciated. Words that I know will be hard for me to say in person. Words that I know are personal. Words that can be interpreted in so many different ways. Before I even begin to write a narrative that makes the teachers, peers, submission reviewers, or anyone else understand what I’m saying. I need to say something that I think only you can understand clearly - I once said that I would never want to be a child again because I wouldn’t have had the tools to help myself. What I meant to say is that you’ve helped me so much that I wouldn’t want to become a child again because that means I would not have met you. Thank you, Patrice. Onto the narrative. My first memories of meeting Patrice aren’t really there. All I remember was the motion of leaving my eighth-grade classroom only to end up in a cramped office. Forty minutes of pure survival mode as I avoided deep questions and talked about the dogs in the other room. It wasn’t until she moved her therapy business to the second location do I start to remember. Looking at my past self I see how I was not an easy egg to crack. I am a very guarded person; and a line of bad therapists had not helped. We would talk about something, but as soon as I left that door it left my mind. She saw past my defenses. I was drenched with droplets of piercing anxiety. But I always had my towel with me to dry off the anxiety and pretend that I was just a bubbly, quirky gal. Everyone saw me as I presented myself; all dried off. Patrice, she saw that my shoes were soaking wet. One by one I showed the darkest parts of me, my real thoughts, my worst fears. Instead of being apathetic or too passionate about what was hiding. She was the perfect balance. She took my hand gently and sunk my hand into the frigid water. The water was bitter-cold, dagger-like. Rather than carrying the towel around, she taught me to feel the subzero temperature of anxiety and emotion in a safe place. Now the water is warm. Now when the water does become cold I know how to use the stove. A major paradigm shift. Patrice taught me how to be a Gabby that doesn’t stare into the mirror with a racing mind that is faster than the speed of light. But a Gabby that notices the minty flavor of the toothpaste as she gets ready for the day.

Gabby Rodriguez