Maybe that wasn't for me after all...

12.23.13

      On Monday, I had another counseling session with Kate. I plopped down on her couch and said, "I did a lot of work on myself this week."
      "You did? Tell me about it." She replied back, crossing her legs in the office chair she always sits in when we talk.
       I told her about it: I told her about getting really angry with the nurse who thought her life was hard. I told her about going to our hometown and being honored by strangers. I told her about thinking about talking to my grandma about Kaitlyn but hesitating.
      "WHEW! Sister! Are you exhausted?" She asked when I finished talking. I totally was. I turns out grieving even in really good ways will completely wipe me out. I feel like I could sleep for 10 hours or so.
       As we started to close our session, I felt that feeling come over me again. The one where God is bringing something to the forefront of my mind to talk to someone about. I was thinking about the Treasure You application and I thought I wanted to tell Kate about it because she would have some good, sound, Biblical advice about it. But I also need to confess that I was feeling really self-conscious about telling her. I thought she would say to me, "Oh doll, you're nowhere near ready to do that yet." or "Are you sure you're up for that?" The selfish side of me really didn't want to tell her. I mean, I just felt really conflicted. And part of me worried that Kate would win it over me. I'm not trying to be silly, I'm just saying that she's two years outside of her loss and she's a professional counselor, for pete's sake. Surely she would have better things to say than me.
       I resisted telling her. I sat there and tried to shoo the feeling away. Finally I looked at the ceiling and said, "Okay FINE I'll tell her." Kate kind of cocked her head at me and I looked at her and started telling her about the conference. After I was done, she said, "Maybe you were suppose to tell me about that. Because I just got that feeling, too, like this is important. And something you didn't know is that this weekend I felt God telling me to get ready because I am going to start speaking somewhere, in some way. I don't know what that looks like yet, but maybe this is it. Thank you for telling me."
       I had a complete mixed reaction between relief and envy. I mean, she's obviously much better qualified than me to have that kind of attention, but at the same time I wanted to be the one to share the story. Our stories are similar but different, but I still wanted to be the one with the opportunity to remember and share.
       If you ever meet me personally, know that sometimes I have verbal diarrhea. I tend to say whatever comes into my head sometimes. One of my friends says Jennifer Lawrence reminds her of me because she does the exact same thing. It happens the most when I'm comfortable in a situation with people that I don't mind being not the best version of myself.
      This was a prime example. "Oh okay. Well maybe that was it. But I have to tell you I"ll be really jealous if you get it but then again if God doesn't want me to have it and it was meant for you then that's okay but I"m still going to be really jealous but that's okay. And you'll have to get Robin Roberts' signature for me because I really like her." Yeah just run that sentence together and you'll get about where I was. I was immediately embarrassed, but thankfully this conversation happened at the end of the session.
      We decided that we wouldn't meet for the next two weeks because of the two holidays that were coming up. I was grateful because I needed time to recover from my embarrassment and my not-well-hidden envy.