My most recent session was pretty packed because it had been several weeks.

I started by talking about being so raw talking about my dream in the last session that I'd wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry. But I'd just started talking about something else instead. She told me that if that happened, she would just sit with me and be a witness. And I know that, I told her I know that because she's done that with me, and I even understand it from the other side because I have had the opportunity to sit with grieving weeping people and been the witness. But I just couldn't let myself go, I don't know why.

We talked about the dream, and the deep grief it brought up, and from that the conversation wound around to the future. That if...when...I do form a new relationship, I will choose wisely, and that it will be balanced because (she said) I am good in relationship. She told me she believes that I am a person who is meant to be in relationship with another person, that it is a part of who I am. My gut felt this coming from a place of seeing clearly (rather than a place of "think positive!"-shudder) and I think she sees a piece of me that feels damaged but has potential to be healing.

We talked about the practical and emotional pieces of me being on the fence about continuing to live separated from my kids' dad but in the same home. The feeling of being at a crossroads. The goal of stability has been met, but I have been so focused on that piece that I am suddenly at a loss for what's next.

A little about living an unconventional choice, and that more families are choosing to live unconventionally. Lots of questions to bring out, not necessarily to answer but acknowledge: Does this continue to be functional? How do I live joyfully and completely? We touched on...hard to articulate this one succinctly, I think the question for me is...where is the balance between healing in place and being faced with the shadows daily?

Trusting my inner voice. If I don't quite know what to do right now, maybe it's not time to decide. That I will know when it is time. We talked about patience and anxiety and control.

As we were wrapping up, I don't know what I said that she was responding to, she said, "You don't want to rock the boat." And it was just a descriptive comment, but it hit me in such a tender spot, one of those "Ooh" recognition spots, and I teared up. I joked, "Shuddup," but then I said, "I don't. I don't want it to rock. I am so tired. I just want to rest."

At the end, I said, "I wonder sometimes why I still come here," but that I think it's because I don't have to put on my cheery can-do, it'll all work out face. I can say I don't know what to do and be uncertain and cry about it. She said, "You'll know when it's time to stop coming to therapy too. You'll just know it. And we'll be done, and we'll never see each other again." I nodded, and then we ended.