My last session with T was last night. It was sooo sad but also bittersweet. I made her a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and gave her the letter that I posted in the other thread. We started the session that way -- she read the letter and she cried. She said that she would save it forever and that this was one of the things she would look at if she was ever feeling down. I cried while she was reading the letter.

Then that moment passed and we sort of chatted for a little while. I talked about the emails my ex has been sending me, and how I'm dealing with it better now than I would have last year. We talked about the progress I've made. I talked about applying to grad school a lot; we talked about social anxiety and how it's normal to be nervous at interviews. We talked about how much better my social anxiety is than it used to be. We just sort of summarized the progress I've made, things like that. It was just a nice light sort of connected conversation.

T said we can't have contact now that therapy is over. She said I can send a letter to the clinic and they can forward it to her, but she can't respond -- she said it's a boundary she set a long time ago. She said she'd be happy to hear from me when I get into grad school but understands if I don't write because she knows how hard it is not to get a response. I totally understand the need to set these kinds of boundaries. At the same time, I am heartbroken. This is really the end, the last time I will talk to her that I know of. She said that one day she'll probably see me at a conference and she'll be happy to chat if we see each other (but I will have to approach her first). She smiled and said I'll probably be a speaker at one of the conferences! And maybe so. But there's no guarantee we will go to the same conferences. There's no way of knowing I will ever see her again in my life. And it hurts, so much, to think that last night was the end of our relationship, for good. I feel like I lost a limb or something.

But I am also strangely at peace with my pain. Of course this hurts. What kind of person would I be if loss didn't hurt?

At the end, I played T a song by Kimya Dawson called, "The Competition," which I think almost tells the exact story of the progress I've made. Here is a link if anyone wants to hear it:

Then I asked T to sign my journal -- she wrote, "J, It has been my pleasure. Go out and do wonderful things! Best, H"

Then I said, with a big huge lump in my throat, "You know, for so long my life has been all about my problems. And now, it's a lot less like that. And I just want to say, thank you." And I could feel it so much, so much, so much, how true it was what I was saying. Every word was filled with meaning. That thank you that I said was probably the most honest thing I've ever said in my life. And I just started sobbing after I said that. Just sobbing. And T was crying too. And she said that it's been wonderful to work with me and to see the progress I've made. And that she is really excited about my life and the things I will achieve.

Then I asked if I could have a hug. T and I have never touched at all besides a handshake. But T said, "Of course!" And we hugged for a long time and we were both crying.

And then I said goodbye.

Ohhhhh how it hurts.
It hurts.
It really, really, really hurts.

But I'm just letting that be.
Today I've been crying all day, off and on.
And that's alright. I'm okay with that.

I'm trying to treat myself with kindness. I went on a long walk today out in the sunshine. It is a beautiful day. I went to the farmer's market and sat in a bench by the bay watching the boats and watching the minnows swim in the sea. I am trying to hold onto the sweet moments from last night. The hug, T's tears, the song, T's reaction to the letter. All of it went just how I wanted it to go. And this pain that I'm feeling now is so normal, this is clean pain, this is life-lived-well pain, this is pain that is just the consequence of getting close to somebody. It's just the other side of that coin. Yeah, I'm willing to have this pain right now.