low to the ground to Ęy, how fast or how slow. I could choose which
landscapes to Ęy over—European cathedrals, forested mountains,
ocean beaches. I looked forward to sleep so that I could have these
dreams in which I was joyful and strong, Ęying free, in control. I
found in those dreams my power to transcend the limiting
assumptions that others oen imposed on my son. And I found my
desire to transcend what I perceived to be the limitations imposed on
me. I didn’t yet know that the limitations that needed transcending
weren’t without—they were within. So when, years later, under the
inĘuence of Viktor Frankl, I began to question what I wanted out of
life, it was easy for me to think that saying no to Béla would be one
way of saying yes to myself.
* * *In the months aer the divorce, I felt better. For several years I had
been suffering from migraines (my mother had also struggled with
debilitating headaches; I assumed they were hereditary), but right
aer Béla and I separated, the migraines disappeared, departing like a
season. I thought it was because now I was living free from Béla’s
weather—his yelling and cynicism, his irritation and disappointment.
My headaches disappeared and so did my need to hide, to retreat. I
invited fellow students and our professors to my house, I hosted
raucous parties, I felt at the center of a community, open to the world.
I was living the way I wanted to live, I thought. But soon a fog set
in. My surroundings looked gray-washed. I had to remind myself to
eat.
One Saturday morning in May 1969, I sit at home alone in the den.
It’s my graduation day. I am forty-two years old. I am graduating with
a BS in psychology from the University of Texas–El Paso, I am
graduating with honors. Yet I can’t make myself walk in the ceremony.
I am too ashamed. “I should have done this years ago,” I tell myself.