That was a very intense session. I began by telling R about the current state of my relationship with S and the message I received on Sunday, which indicates to me that she doesn’t know I have been informed about her leaving.

R guessed that I am feeling disappointed in S at the moment, and I ultimately said ‘I get this feeling of “If you are going to leave, then leave!”’ We talked more about how I feel uncomfortable reaching out because I feel as though I am intruding.
‘I have never been in this position before, where I feel like this is the only space...and it’s frightening.’
We then moved into talking about the post session experience. I told R that I felt a little weird and strange after our session last Thursday, which I then had to define as ‘Tired and more emotional than usual.’

From there, I talked about the pottery class meltdown, which R sees as a victory because I pushed myself and did something outside my comfort zone, even though I knew it would be difficult.

‘On Saturday, I had a relaxing day...nothing of consequence.’
‘Something came up for me then – what did you do?’
‘I gave myself the day to do nothing, and just relax.’
‘I call that self care.’

‘I do too.’ This was followed by a silence, during which R said ‘I can sense there is something you really want to get out.’ I nearly just blurted ‘Collage!’, but that would have been a non-sequitur.

‘Over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing an e-course with a focus on telling one’s story. It hasn’t come up in session before now because I was playing with other ways of expressing it.’

‘The week you couldn’t come was one of those “The Universe has a sense of humour!” moments, because I received your text, and then received the prompt ‘What I really want to tell you...’

‘And you took that as a sign and did this?’

‘When I was at uni, I hated it when they gave us collage exercises, because it takes me four times as long to do anything with a pair of scissors.’

‘So, you have a process – it’s not just an art exercise. Do you want to talk me through it, or should I just look?’

I said that it might be easier if she just looked, but if she had any questions....

“It is very powerful.” She noted that it goes into a lot of where we have gone in session, (‘And where we may be going!’) She pointed out the word ‘Giveaway’ and asked me to explain more about that. I explained how that related to receiving the photos in 2013, and then finding out that these people weren’t who they said they were.

‘I can’t imagine what a shock that must have been.’
‘Actually, it was more of a shock the second time it happened, when my friend said ‘Send me the links, I’ll do some research,’ and sent me a detailed list of every single image.’

We moved into talking about the nights, and I admitted that I wonder if it would be easier the other way around, because I can distract myself during the day. I mentioned static, and R pointed it out on the collage. ‘Good thing we left it open!’

‘It sounds relentless.’
‘I’m surprised that wasn’t on there!’
‘You said it was a work in progress...’

R then advised that we had about five minutes left, and she didn’t want to end abruptly.