Graduation

Today I have my last therapy session.

I've officially graduated.

It's a strange thing to say.

There's a tremendous amount of gratification in it, but there's also some uncertainty. Therapy has been part of my life for the last three and a half years. There's always been another appointment. Another conversation. Another place to bring whatever life was putting in front of me.

After today, there isn't another appointment on the calendar.

And that feels a little strange.

I started therapy about six months into my sobriety. Addiction was the reason I walked into Jen's office, and during those early sessions, she diagnosed me with alcohol misuse disorder.

That became the focus of my first action plan.

When you begin therapy, you create an action plan with your therapist. It's a way of identifying what you're working on and where you're trying to go.

Mine didn't stay the same.

Neither did I.

The Plan Kept Changing

My first action plan was about addiction.

I was learning how to live sober and trying to understand the person I was becoming without alcohol.

Then life changed.

I went through a period of major depression, and the work changed with it. Therapy became something very different. It wasn't just about maintaining sobriety anymore.

It became about staying alive.

My therapist, Jen, is a major reason I'm still here today.

She's seen me at my rawest. She saw where I was when things became more than I could manage, and she helped get me into a Partial Hospitalization Program when I needed a higher level of care.

Eventually, the plan changed again.

This time, the work became less about addiction or surviving depression and more about understanding myself.

Understanding my emotions.

Learning to create space between what I feel and what I do next.

Learning the Pause.

Three action plans.

Three very different periods of my life.

Same room.

Same therapist.

Different versions of me.

Evolution, my dear Watson.

Three and a Half Years Later

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between the person who walked into therapy three and a half years ago and the person who will walk out after today's session.

I'm not walking into today's session as the same person who walked into the first one.

I carry things now that I didn't carry then.

Awareness.

The ability to pause.

Perspective.

Wise Mind.

The ability to question the first story my emotions hand me.

An understanding of my baseline.

And, maybe most importantly, an increasing trust that when I get knocked away from those things, I know how to find my way back.

That doesn't mean I have everything figured out.

Not even fucking close.

It doesn't mean there won't be difficult days, strong emotions, fear, mistakes or times when I completely forget to use the things I've learned.

Life is still going to be life.

The difference is that I know myself differently now.

The Stakes and the Roots

I've been thinking recently about a newly planted tree.

When a young tree is first planted, sometimes it needs stakes to help hold it steady. The roots haven't had enough time to establish themselves yet. When the wind comes, those supports give the tree stability while something important is happening underneath the ground.

The roots are growing.

I've realized that I've had stakes in my own life.

Recovery.

Routine.

People.

Movement.

And for the last three and a half years, therapy has been one of them.

Today, I'm graduating from one of those supports.

That doesn't diminish what therapy has meant to me.

Quite the opposite.

A support has done its job when what happened while you had it continues after it's gone.

The things I've learned and practiced in therapy aren't staying in that room when I leave today.

They're coming with me.

In how I respond to my emotions.

In how I communicate with my wife.

In how I handle work.

In how I meet difficult moments.

In the way I think about recovery.

And now, even in the things I'm trying to share with other people through Life Is Life.

The stake may be coming out.

The roots remain.

Graduation Doesn't Mean Finished

Maybe that's why the word graduation feels right.

Graduation doesn't mean we're finished learning.

It doesn't mean we suddenly know everything.

It means we're ready to take what we've learned somewhere else.

A tree doesn't stop needing care when the stakes come out either.

It still needs water.

It still needs sunlight.

It still needs good soil.

It may need pruning.

And storms are still going to come.

The difference is that now it has roots.

Maybe that's what I'm feeling today.

Gratitude for what held me steady.

Pride in how much growth happened underneath.

And a little uncertainty about what it feels like to stand without something that has been there for three and a half years.

I think all of those feelings are allowed to be here.

Today I'll sit across from someone who once recognized that I needed more help and helped get me into a PHP.

And then I'll walk out of her office because we've both decided I'm ready for there not to be another appointment on the calendar.

There's a lot of life between those two moments.

Jen has seen versions of me that very few people have seen. She helped me through some of the darkest moments of my life, challenged me, taught me, listened to me and gave me a place to do the work.

Some of that work helped save my life.

And somewhere along the way, the work became mine.

So today isn't really about leaving therapy behind.

It's about carrying it forward.

I'm grateful for the stakes.

And I'm learning to trust the roots.