Breathing Deeply

First, a comment about living as a P55er in the Big Apple- a budget is absolutely essential for survival. Although long ago when I was a brawny college student, I would scoff at the idea of scrupulously keeping track of money, I learned when I arrived in the city- dazed and confused in the afternoon heat-that money quickly disappears on an overpriced coffee from Starbucks, delicious Indian food you could cook at home if you only tried, and the trendy shirt that will go out of fashion in a week. At first, I tried writing everything down on a legal pad, a method that worked for a day until I forgot where I left my legal pad or simply told myself I was too exhausted to look for it at the end of a humid day. Thus began my journey into the long columns of Excel where I was soon dividing my life into entertainment, food and toiletries, and clothing. Even though at first I was embarrassed to ask for a receipt for the $1.25 cookie I bought from a random corner store, by the end of the first month, when I finally realized where my money went, I had no problem- and in fact felt proud of myself- when I asked for that short piece of paper saying thank you for shopping at… It seems counterintuitive, but keeping track of your hard-earned money liberates you by allowing you to identify well in advance the areas on which you can spend more. Moreover, I predict that surviving on a p55 budget guarantees our future success regardless of what circumstances we find ourselves in during this recession.

Second, an experience at the clinic- at times I attend sessions with the psychologist (I will refrain from using names because of confidentiality issues). On this particular occasion, I had the opportunity to help by translating what the mother said to the psychologist. The case- an angry child was hitting at school. He sat there in his school uniform with too much gel in his hair, calmly playing with the dinosaurs and farm animals. “He hits his sister and I’m not talking about brushing the face; I mean punching and hurting.” It was bizarre to hear his mother talk about him as if he was a modern case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except that in this case it was the whole milk he drank in the morning before school that started the hideous process of transforming him into a monster, 5 year old one, but a monster nevertheless. After hearing the mother’s story, the psychologist turned to the child and spoke softly, “Are you angry?” to which the child nodded, growing nervous as he handled the plastic cow in his hand. “Why are you angry?” A shrug of the shoulders- he fidgeted uncomfortably. “Why do you hit when you are angry? Has someone been hitting you at school?” A cautious nod. “You know what you can do when you are angry. You can take deep breaths…” She deeply inhaled, held it for a moment, and exhaled. “Try it with me…” All three of us followed her counts. “Do you want to write a letter to the boy who hit you?” Another nod without even a glance to her. She takes out a pen and begins dictating to herself, “Dear…what’s his name,” a shrug, “Well, we’ll call him Bob. You should be sorry that you hit me. I still want to be friends. Does that sound good?” He nods and looks at the letter. The session ends with what seems to me a quiet breakthrough. When she was kneeling next to him, softly speaking about the bully and writing a letter to him, she was helping him identify and manage an emotion that even adults have trouble controlling. Although in the future, the child may forget that particular afternoon when he played with a cow while speaking to a lady who helped him write a letter to a bully, I have a feeling that years later he will, when at the tipping point of anger, measure his breathing to a voice he can no longer identify, inhaling deeply before letting it all go.