New Year and a Shrink

{word count: 369}

Sitting on the couch at his councilor's office, there wasn't a more bed-like couch much to his disappointment, Steven looked at the clock, again. He was running out of time, as usual, and wasn't sure what agenda from his list to move up and what to drop.

Suddenly, in mid-paragraph (he had been explaining his fears of inadequacy from work) he blurted out something that had been on his mind the entire forty minutes he had been confessing to his therapist. "I made a New Year's resolution back in January."

The therapist paused, if only for a second, and looked up from the pad where he had been taking notes (old school style).

Not waiting for a response, as he never received one when he did wait, Steven continued, "it was a few days after the New Year's eve party we had at the house." It took him a few minutes of rambling about the party before he realized he had gotten distracted and finally returned to the point of the topic change. "I resolved to come out to my parents before the end of the year."

A quick glance back at the wall showed a calendar displaying the month. "It's already a week before Thanksgiving and I haven't even made the slightest attempt. And to make matters worst, my boyfriend is actually being understanding about it."

"I know I know... I should be happy he isn't pressuring me on this issue, but it makes me feel like a terrible person that I haven't been able to tell them about him. What's wrong with me? Right, I'm not supposed to ask that. I just don't know why I'm so afraid of telling them, well maybe it's a fear of losing them. But I don't think that will happen." Having come to this point there was no stopping until he reached his final conclusion.

"This is ridiculous. I shouldn't be afraid of my parents, I'm in my thirties and living on my own, it's time to just tell the truth. I'm going to do it, I'm going to tell my parents that I'm gay." With that decided, Steven stood up from the couch and walked out of the room leaving a minute of therapy unused.