In Everything there is a Season

It seems that this is a season of letting go for me. My on-going question seems to be "what are you hanging on to?". And when something is over, do I spend too much time looking backwards and risk turning into a pillar of salt like Lot's wife? A pillar of salt... someone crystallized by their own tears.

Experience tells me that when an old patient leaves, a new one arrives. It tells me that what I view as an excellent result may not be what the patient has in mind. A person comes in with a D grade life may leave, delighted, with their new and improved C+ life. I'm the only one who knows that a B+ is possible for them. But there are others who keep working because they want to have the neatest life possible. In those cases, their hard work is not only benefiting them, but the lives of their children and grandchildren. Others are with me just for a short season and I have to have some faith, that the changes are still on-going in them. After all, there are interactions we have with people which may be brief yet are life-changing.

Sometimes it takes several people to get the job done. One angry alcoholic, who claimed he wanted to drink himself to death, was seen for a while by my training analyst. Perhaps a year later, I started seeing his wife and I treated her for almost two years. She left treatment for financial reasons when her husband finally got fired (long overdue) for his drunkenness and absenteeism. I got word several months later that once he was fired, he sobered up and he has remained so since.

A beautiful seventeen year old girl recently let go of her boyfriend. Last spring he was in a terrible car wreck which resulted in severe spinal injuries and brain damage. It was touch and go for him, but he made it and is now home recuperating. The boy she once loved is gone forever, but the boy and his family have hung on to her as if she alone were responsible for his well-being. It was a horrible place to put this young girl. Bless her heart she stayed with him until he got home but her life was being side-lined with his. There is another boy in her life now and she was unsure if it was ok to date him. Her mother thought she should wait a bit. I said go for it. She's been locked into a tragedy not of her making for way too long. Let her be a kid again and enjoy her life.