This last month of sessions represents the both best and most difficult aspects of therapy. Events in our town too triggering to rightfully depict on the forum and my tiny part in the community's effort to cope showed the best in you or the best in us as a pair.

You picked out the salient way my "gaze" or what I watched/ saw became staring rather than looking back to all the things in life that are good and grounding. You came up with a beautiful metaphor, that I could make eye contact with you out on the search team, I could turn my gaze to you for comfort even though you weren't literally present.

I know that is object constancy dressed up in poetry, but it helped me shift my attention when I got overwhelmed and dig down more deeply.

I think you found more respect for me, bc so much of our time is in your room, under your rules, with your frame dictating, and you are Father Time there, even. Your hour glass has 45 minutes of sand in it.

You maybe realized you are relatively new to the area here, that there is a community outside the room , that other T's make grievous errors which cause real life calamities and aren't infallible to be blindly trusted, and that the calamities are addressed by the people you pigeonhole as your patients.

I have anger toward you longstanding and love for you longstanding all twined together. I experience you as having all the power in therapy, except for my power to completely leave the process. I might bring that sense to the room from my childhood experiences, but you are not a win-win team player. You are quicksilver perceptive , you have gravitas and sterling ethics, you are funny and quick, you say you are my advocate and that you do care. You say you have worked so hard to gain my trust. And yet. There's so little room for me in the room and the frame feels so tight around my neck.

I also don't know what youre made of in real life. You say that is an innate part of therapy's struggle, that it is a leap of faith. I really don't know about that, entrusting my secrets to someone who hides. Take the elevator down from the 4th floor, join the community shoulder to shoulder with people who work long 60 minute hours in emergencies and form a team.