I think it could have helped if your t had clarified the awesome comment so you weren't left confused and if he had acknowledged it was hard for you ...
it does seem that he was impressed with the work you did in session - painful, hard, emotional, expressive, deep (and yet you stayed with it) and he wanted to acknowledge his appreciation of you doing that work
might help to talk about his comment with him as well

my t hasn't used the word awesome but has talked about good sessions when to me they were horrible in a lot of ways