I don't know your T at all, so this may be totally off base.

I understand the 'love' feeling for your therapist. Not an inappropriate kind of love, but just a 'you've helped me so much and you are an important part of my life and no other word really describes my feelings for you correctly' type of love. I say 'I love you' to my T and she says it in return - though we both understand the meaning behind it - that's it's not romantic or friendship or anything inappropriate or outside of boundaries.

Perhaps you T DOES feel that way toward you, but was hesitant to say it without having a discussion with you first to clarify the meaning. Not because YOU might misinterpret it, but just because it would make her feel more comfortable. I think you should discuss this in session for this reason.

And just a thought on the winky face....many times when I intend to type a regular smiley, I type a winky just because I forget to push down shift or thought I had shift down and didn't...so my : gets typed as a ; Of course, who knows if this happened to your T - but it is a different perspective on what might have happened...since you really don't know anyway.

I hope you can talk with your T and get things figured out. It's hard.