February 1, 2017 Washing Away the Past As a child, I suffered from severe anxiety. It was omnipresent, and the long drives my mom made biweekly to a noted child psychologist did little to alleviate the burden. My mom, distraught to see her oldest daughter afflicted with seemingly unfounded terrors, took me to see a hypnotherapist who specialized in meditation. The office looked like a business waiting room and I felt nothing as I pretended to be wooed into hypnosis. As I made my beeline to the car after one session, the therapist gave me a meditation worksheet to practice. I quickly crumpled it into the waiting room trash can, not realizing the power that meditation would eventually have on me. The entire summer of my twelfth year was spent stuck in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, in waiting rooms, or the corner table in the Au Bon Pain downstairs, crunching on croissants and pretending to be okay as reality set in: my father was dying of cancer. My fears about soccer were replaced by Will he ever come home again? and Why isnt the treatment working? These were tragedies I read about in books I pitied the characters, but I had never imagined being one of them. At the end of every day, when Id come home smelling like the antiseptic hand sanitizer Id pump every time I entered and exited the room, I showered. As my father had an emergency surgery two days before my unlucky thirteenth birthday, I let the shower wash away the salty tracks that my tears had left. I believe in the spiritual experience of taking a shower. There is an element of catharsis that exists when the water hits your skin and washes away the stressors of the day. It is, in my opinion, a form of meditation. As I watched my father valiantly fight, the shower was where I could cry as loudly and for as long as I wanted without adding to the tangible pressure within my household. It became a respite. The hypnotherapists ideas werent as haggard as his white beard was it was important to take time to reflect, experience emotions, and process events in solitude. So now, every time I feel like Atlas, with the weight of the world on my shoulders, the monotonous hum of the showerhead drowns out the outside noises. I revel in the quasi-militant routine Ive established. When I dare emerge, the feeling is reminiscent of that of a baptism. As a recent convert to Catholicism, the concept of water as purifying is extremely close to the forefront of my mind. And with each step out of the shower, I feel better in the hope that I will enter a new day with countless possibilities ahead. The meditation stops when the water stops, but that small part of the day calms me and centers my mind. So now, though my dad is not by my side, I can still hear his voice in moments of peace.