Bittersweet Goodbye

This week I said goodbye to my second client ever. It was surprisingly bittersweet. Of all of my clients she has pushed and challenged me the most. She has shocked me the most. She has scared me the most. Of all of my clients I understood her the least. Yet somehow the roller coaster ride she took me on made me grow the most of all. In the midst of it I wished she was not my client. But looking back I know she taught me the most. So to say goodbye was harder than I imagined. Perhaps because many times I had wished for it (and felt guilty for the thought). Yet when she told me on Monday that she was moving to her father's house on
Friday, I felt sad.

If it had to end, it ended at the best point. My client has had several months of positive mood, and relatively unconcerning behavior. So to say goodbye at this point was a relief, because I let her go at a good place. We talked about her journey in the last year, and her experience in therapy. I was surprised to learn that she looks forward to seeing me now, and that she has learned and grown a lot from therapy. It was a wonderful personal validation, and reminded me that I can impact even the most challenging clients.

While I have ended therapy with many clients, they have all been relatively short-term. This was my first taste of what will be a lifetime of bittersweet goodbyes. To know someone so intimately; for someone to be so vulnerable with me; it is hard to imagine that I will never know where their lives will go. I only have memories and the hope that they will live wonderful lives.