40 toward the Omer

hod shebyesod

I show up to my therapist’s office and sit in the waiting room, seeing that his door is closed, which maybe is what I would see more often if I ever arrived on time aside from today and if I

were not his first appointment on Thursdays. A door opens. Another therapist walks down the hallway, is confused, asks who I am waiting for, says that he’s away this week. Right, I say, knowing this as I used to know,

and knowing I’ve been not there myself before, and I’m already in my exercise clothes and can put them to use. I jog around my block once, pass about five adults and twelve toddlers on their own stroll, waving hello,

waving goodbye, and my knee is hurting, so I go inside and dance and shower and pack the trash and recycling into my car and head on out again. Whose door have you sat outside of? Whom have you found

outside of someone else’s? Whom have you left, returned to, doing better without you? There is no without you, God says. Just as there is no without him, now that you’ve known him. Just as there is no without me.