He didn’t say anything about the water bottle I had left there yesterday, but it was sitting the same spot where I left it. I wonder if he put it there or if it stayed there through all of his sessions yesterday afternoon. We had our usual awkward silence at the beginning where he just waits, expressionless, for me to start. It’s really quite impressive how he can do that. I eventually spoke a bit about some family things, then I asked if he had a hard time getting going at 7:00 a.m. This was only my 2nd 7 a.m. session and I said it feels quite early for me and there were only 3 cars in the huge lot outside (usually it’s full) and it was dark and snowy outside. I told him I actually know which car is his because it was the only one with the snow scraped off the windshield and he laughed. He said he wonders if I’m wondering if he’s fully present for me which I wasn’t consciously thinking, at least not in a judgemental way.

We talked about his upcoming vacation and how I felt stupid for even bringing it up, but I know I start to feel distant after about 4 days so I imagine 2 weeks might feel even more that way and I felt foolish and ashamed about having those feelings. He talked about how it is human nature to have needs from other people and that feeling vulnerable is a good thing. I said some vulnerable thoughts are probably good and others not so much. He said it sounded like I had a rule book and he wondered which vulnerable feelings were not ok. After some prompting I said, “caring about some guy I pay to see once or twice a week.” He seemed fine with that, but said he suspects he is not “just some guy” to which I replied, “that sounds kind of arrogant.” I eventually said I feel ashamed about wondering if he’d check his email while on vacation and wanted to know if he’d send me one quick email reply while in vacation. I actually held out my hand and told him not to respond because I felt ashamed about asking and I’m pretty sure his answer would be no anyway, but I said I deserve credit for bringing this up in person rather than email. It was almost the end of session and he basically said sending an email reply is reassuring in the moment, but it doesn’t last very long. I tried to argue that it feels nice and ties me over till our next session. He seemed to say that I’d just want more, which was true in the past, but I think I’ve changed quite a bit and I don’t think that would be the case now. I think it makes sense for him to consider a simple one-line email to me while on vacation, but I doubt he will. We left it that we’ll talk more about it again next week.