The Life We Dream Of (literature English, created with Such a Voice)
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
What is it that suffocates you? I sat on the plush beige couch opposite my therapist. A chunk of dark hair scattered with strands of gray had fallen into his face and I resisted the urge to brush it back and slip off his wedding ring. Many of fantasy had started that way. I knew it was a pathetic cliche. So many nights he had become fodder for my lonely imagination and wandering fingers, but I couldn't help myself. There was something so comforting about a cliche. It was safe, an impression that couldn't touch me. A blessed distraction from the dark reality now lay burrowed beneath my skin. My life was suffocating me. A tangled inhale grappled within my throat. The hiss of anxiety twisting inside as I recalled my doctor's words last week, the words that had constricted my world causing each day to press tighter around me until all that was left was an outline. The ink of who I was already fading. He shifted in his seat. Quiet blue eyes resting on me. And what is it about your life right now that you find so suffocating Julia? He did this a lot. Use my name as a way of establishing some sort of intimacy between us. It had been almost six months since I'd first come to him, hoping to still the discontent, lurking like shadows that kept me up at night. But I'd never really let him in. I'd never taken my guard down. Perhaps I didn't know how this vestige of strength I portrayed was only a cloak, keeping me veiled and he was just another prop in my life. A habit. Something to fill the empty space between work and home. Someone to remind me I still existed. I hadn't even told him about my diagnosis yet. All of it. My job, my apartment, the words caught on my tongue like slivers of uncertainty as I sought relief in the view out the window, autumn had crept down overnight, stealing away the last of summer's bright optimism and the maple outside the office trembled with a hesitant blush of color against the bone white of the Seattle Sky. The impermanence was a bleak reminder of the truth. Holding cord in my gut. Julia, what else feels suffocating my solitude. The unexpected ***** of tears stung my eyes and I pushed them back like shameful secrets. I had never cried in front of him and didn't want to start now.