That final summer living in the 12th St. alcove apartment was a split reality. I’d look in my closet and see the bounty I’d bought during my retail therapy dayz. I’d look in my bank account and see the diminishing monies given I didn’t have a fancy job anymore. I’d feel panicked staring at all the stuff smushed on hangers, or stuffed in milk crates, or crammed into the drawers and wonder if I’d ever wear any of it again. Back then there was no RealReal or Poshmark where I could think about selling some stuff. Instead I’d shut the closet door and pretend there was no problem. Rolling through my photos, I look at the ones above, and can drop immediately into where I was when I bought and wore those dresses. The two on the left were taken at a good friend’s wedding, which naturally became an occasion to go to Cynthia Rowley’s boutique in SoHo and buy something. Specifically, a dress with bright red cherries that, even at the time of purchase when I still had the hot-sh*t job, was a pretty steep, shiny-penny price. And the dress on the right was a wrap number that I bought at a street fair—you know the ones that take up a whole city block and mostly sell tube socks and fell-off-the-truck Chanel makeup. I lurved that dress so much that I was tempted (&tried) to go find the booth and buy it in every color, but I never could find that vendor again. My closet was the place that pitched me back into the memories of the numbed-out record company life. It wasn’t all grim. I remember vividly friends and laughter. It was more that I was confused about where I would land. I felt the map pinpointing my next location may have gotten lost in the mail yet the reality: I wasn’t at all sure what I wanted. I knew what I didn’t want but that didn’t feel like any sort of starting point.

I was most definitely at a crossroads as my thirties tipped toward my forties. Two secrets I held: I wasn’t feeling music anymore and I was broke. At a Christmas party in 1997, I met the guy who I’d go on to use as a human shield between me and my actual desires. Although obviously, I wasn’t self-aware enough to recognize that’s what I was doing. I still felt the writing muse swirling inside me, I just wasn’t sure how to let the genie out of the bottle. When Jancee called again from Rolling Stone with an assignment to review Marilyn Manson’s show in New York, I couldn’t find a yes. I tortured the pause between her, “So how does that sound?” and my grasping answer until she finally said, “Lauren, it’s me, Jancee. You don’t have to say yes.” So I didn’t. I begged off with some excuse, no hint of the truth that there was a pregnancy test sitting on my bathroom counter that told me something I wasn’t prepared for and didn’t want. Having a child was not a path I’d ever wanted to travel in my life and I’d made sure that this guy was fine with that, which he said he was. Until I told him the reality sitting on the counter and he began to play the devil’s advocate (“Perhaps the condom breaking is a sign.” “Yeah, no, the condom breaking is a malfunction.”) I wasn’t actually conflicted about my No decision though, nor did I feel sad or bad about making it. The view I have now all these decades later shows me that although I was hella confused about what I wanted to do with my life at that point, I was listening clearly to the voice inside that knew it would be a mistake to have a child.

I started therapy. Well, let’s say I went and yabbered at a lovely lady for an hour a week and called it therapy because in truth I hadn’t gotten the memo that to really do the work of healing, I’d need to listen rather than just talk. I mean, honestly, I wasn’t totally sure what I was actually listening for. The question of “so, what brings you here?” threw me into a total panic. What was I there for? The fact that I was crying all the time? That I had a vague sense of wrongness about my life? But really, was it all that bad? Life’s not perfect, let’s just ignore the nagging sense of being perpetually lost. Sitting in a chair across from the woman, I was convinced that if any sort of strength was going to be required to do this therapy thing, well, I wasn’t really feeling up for it. Before every session, I’d meticulously plan the script for what we would talk about, not in a vague way like, “I don’t know, I remember when my mother [fill in blank]” because of course the starting point is always about one’s mother (or father, depending) as it absolutely needs to be, which makes all the sense. No, I would literally craft a story around what I wanted talk about very specifically, then imagine the responses she might have and how I’d nod sagely and what I might say in agreement (I wanted to impress her with my self-reflection and openness. MiLord, you’d think I was auditioning for my own life, which, now that I reflect on it, I was). To her credit, she engaged me in a lot of viewpoints and suggestions that were helpful or would have been if I’d taken them seriously enough to dig in and be curious about them. But I didn’t do that. The deep dive required made me exhausted, or rather, terrified, which is always a sign you’re on the right track, yet…. I avoided subjects that might uncork any deeper-than-mom issues: Nothing about my relationship with the guy. How it didn’t feel emotionally or physically satisfying. The abortion never came up. I really just cried a lot. I’ve no doubt she was frustrated and also incredibly empathetic as she handed me the tissue box and I waved my hand around saying, I don’t know, I just don’t know, then shut down. I just couldn’t get beyond my own fear in order to pick up any tools to use toward self-awareness. And also, what if she told me the guy was all wrong for me, that what I was doing in my life was a mistake? I now know with absolute certainty having spent years with an aces analyst, that therapy doesn’t involve absolutes. It’s choices and perspectives and a good amount of tough yet ultimately relieving investigations into my life choices and circumstances. Literally no right or wrong just acknowledging happy, cringy, and what-was-I-thinking? moments for me to sort out with some wise non-judgy perspective. But back then, I had zero clue and 100% trepidation about exposing myself. The prevailing thought was that I could put down my head, close my eyes, and push through it to the other side where all would be better and forgotten.

In the end, I lasted with that therapist for about a year, then I called it quits right about the time the guy and I moved to Park Slope, thereby leaving my solo Manhattan chronicles behind.

Next week: How a relocation one borough over can feel like an eerie erasure of a whole chunk of one’s life.