I never knew what Owen believed about anything. I was his therapist for five years and he always spoke in circles around me.
“Come on Doc, ready to make me feel alive?” Owen once asked me when he walked into one of our sessions. He was in one of his expansive moods. I could always tell when his mood was high because he walked this certain way with an erect and confident posture and a gait that was a paradoxically precise saunter. Only he could walk like that. Like he was a God among mortals.
I asked him what he meant by that question. Was I ready to make him feel alive?
He grinned in a Cheshire cat-like way. “I suffer therefore I am. Or something like that.”
I was surprised but I kept a measured response. I always felt like he was trying to topple me over in some way or another. “Do you really believe that?”
“I read once that suffering is…a universal language. What do you think of that?”
He always wanted to ask me questions. I obliged him from time to time. “That is interesting,” I said before countering with, “And some people say love is the universal language.”
He hummed thoughtfully and cocked his head. He had those kind of blue eyes that are like ice and they looked right through me and off into infinity. “That might be true.” He allowed.
Somehow I was relieved that he could agree with me. Even if just a little bit. Why was I keen on impressing him? What was it about him that kept me on the edge of my seat?
“And what do you believe, Owen?” I asked him.
“I floss my tears.” He said.
…
It’s been three years since Owen took his life. I never knew what he meant by that. I floss my tears. I suppose he was trying to tell me in his own way that his suffering was the truest thing to him. That his suffering was what he truly believed in. I wish I could have made him believe in love. Even if only for a moment.
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