Fifteen year old Phoebe Heyerdahl sat at her desk working on her Advanced Algebra problems. A cool breeze wafted in through her window propped open with her old thesaurus. She could hear cars below lazily driving by, likely on their way home from church on this picturesque October afternoon. Her neatly trimmed bob cut caught the wind and moved her jet black hair gently across her shoulders. All Phoebe could concentrate on, however, was trying to solve for x in this complicated problem.
Frustrated she threw her pencil across her room. It bounced off of her closet door before rolling to a stop next to her bed. She tried to ignore it, but her eyes kept getting drawn back to it like a magnet. Taunting her. Making her palms itch in her otherwise neat as a pin room.
She took a deep breath and tried counting to 10. She tried to look anywhere but the floor, her eyes darting intently back to her book, out the window, at the ceiling – ANYWHERE but that stupid pencil.
Letting out an exasperated shriek, she stomped across her pristine wooden floor to dratted aberration and snatched it up off the ground. The tiny girl's eyes filled with tears at the self-perceived failure. 'Why can't I be normal?', she thought.
Shaking her head, Phoebe repeated in her mind,'baby steps...baby steps...baby steps...'.
She sat down primly at her desk, smoothed her perfectly pressed gray slacks, switched her pencil from her right to left hand 4 times, and started back on her work.
After 30 more minutes of nonstop working she was finally done, her work neat as usual, and thoroughly checked for errors. Putting all of her schoolwork away in its proper place, she headed downstairs.
There was a basket of freshly washed laundry at the top of the stairs. She scooted around it, careful not to look too long at the basket, and went down to the family room where her father was kicked back in his recliner after a long day working construction. He glanced up upon seeing his only child enter the room and perked up immediately.
"Babygirl! I'm so glad to see you down here – how was your day?"
"Well Daddy," she started….but then out of the corner of her eye she noticed something. Her father had on 2 different socks. They were both white, but clearly different as one had a grey heel and one did not.
Her father raised an eyebrow at her pausing and followed her almond shaped eyes which were fixated on his feet. He immediately scrambled to remove his socks, but Phoebe took a deep breath and stopped him.
baby steps...baby steps...baby steps...
"No, no Daddy. I have to learn to let go of the little things. Dr. Peters wants me to work on coping with my feelings better. How can I do that if I can't even let you relax without worrying about me for 2 minutes?"
His eyes softened as he looked as his precious baby girl. She made him more proud than words could express. He often bragged at the construction site about his straight A daughter who was already being eyed by Princeton for early admittance. She's come so far since working with Dr. Peters. He relished the times when she came down from her sanctuary of a room to spend time with him.
"You're right darling. How about we watch Jeopardy together? You loved that ever since you were 3 years old."
baby steps...baby steps...baby steps...
Phoebe relaxed slightly and settled back into her seat. Her and her Daddy watched TV, and chatted quietly for the next hour or so – her anxieties pushed to the back of her mind.
It was the best night she'd had in a long time.