Thanks everyone.

I only realized later that there was no payment for that last session. I texted her about it later, feeling bad - but of course she said don't worry about it. Considering that the last half of the session ended up being informal chatting about where she was head off to, her showing me pictures from her most recent trip there, I guess it makes sense not to charge.

I will say, it is true that when / if a therapist ever shares any part of their life with you, there is a strong temptation to envy and compare your life with theirs. I felt that. I teased her about why she would ever want to go (to that fabulous place with family) when she would miss all the great sites of this dump of a town we live in — (citing the local pizza joint and the dive bars in the neighborhood) I am envious. I'm aware of it and where that comes from and I was able to laugh about it. In fact my card was a joke about that.

When I looked back and where we started, I learned that she had only started at that office a couple months before I began my time with her. In a way, this space was a period of transition for us both. We couldn't have met at any other time in our lives. That's neat to think about.

From this point forward I really have to focus on Me. She won't be there to say the things she does when I'm down and self-loathing, but I know what she would say and I really do have a feeling of 'taking the training wheels' off. I'm on my own now, but in a good way and it will be hard but she was in my life at a time when i needed to make some big changes and now - I think I can balance things on my own for a little while.