A journey of a thousand miles
Next week, I will be having my last session with my therapist of five years. We have been on an amazing journey together, and I cannot even begin to describe what this ending means for me. It's so huge. We have been discussing our ending on and off for the last couple of months, but I have not been ready to take the plunge. But last week, as I was driving to my session, a thought popped into my head and I said to myself, "I'm ready to leave home". So that's what I told Heather.
In the last five years, I think I've done a lot of growing up, and I really feel like I'm leaving home in so many ways. The safety, comfort and love that I have experienced with Heather is like nothing I have ever known. She has helped to shape me into the person that I am today, and been witness to so many 'first steps' I have taken; countless heartbreaking moments throughout my training, I'm not sure I'll know what to do without her on some level. And yet, I know that I am now ready to move on too, and I feel excited, proud, scared and a little bit sick with the thought of what might be. And I know that she will still be there if I ever needed to return, and that's hugely important for me too.
So for the past week, I have been painting her a thank you gift. She has a thing for Buddha statues and carvings, so I decided to paint her a golden Buddha face. It looks like this:
The Chinese inscription reads: A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
I hope she'll like it.