“Wow.”
It was the last thing I said as we finished up my most recent therapy session. My therapist laughed a little, having just acknowledged that our session had been a lot.
A lot.
A phrase that has followed me for my entire life, one that I’ve only relatively recently learned to lean into and embrace. One that still stings when I suspect it’s meant in a pejorative manner. In this instance it was my therapist’s way of saying we’d gone deep and started the work on issues that went back to childhood. And it was a lot, as well as a beginning.
It’s been over six years since I began regular therapy, and I’m still reminded that things which happened for half a century won’t and can’t be solved in a few sessions. Or even six years of sessions. It’s humbling and daunting and precisely the sort of challenge that sets my mind to work.
Despite the carefully curated and cultivated image that most see here – an image of some dainty, hot-house flower of privilege that I’ve flaunted, taunted and perpetuated – I’ve always been ready to put in the hard work, and never shirked off a challenge, especially when it involves the possibility of self-improvement. I’m constantly on the prowl for such opportunities. It’s not all sequins and sparkle, feathers and fluff.
Sometimes, we have to go deep.
And sometimes it can wait until spring…
