The Counselor’s Couch - No. 1

Or, the F word

It’s 10:00 in the morning, sunny, single digit temperatures outside. But it’s funny, the sky has always seemed even more blue, brighter and clearer to me somehow, on days like this—when it’s so cold your fingers lose their feeling in a matter of just moments outside; but the sky is so beautiful that if you couldn’t feel the frigid temperatures, you might think you could walk outside in your flip flops.

I’m sitting on the couch in the counselor’s office for our first appointment, meeting her eyes in the chair across from me, meeting the bright sunshine if I look off just to the right, out the window. I do a bit of both, looking at her, looking at the sunshine. She asks me, with such tenderness I am disarmed and comfortable immediately, “Katie, where do you want to begin today?”

“If it’s okay,” I start with a deep inhale, “I think I would like to just tell you everything. And I do mean everything. I need so badly to tell someone everything.”

She nods and smiles. “That sounds just perfect, Katie. I want to hear it all.”