......She had seen me for months now. She knew I didn't want to embrace the lack of control I had in my life, and I most certainly did not want to look it in the face. I wish she would have answered the question for me. But this counselor knew that I had to say it out loud. The counselors in the past either filled in the blanks for me or just nodded their head as I begged for boldness. This counselor knew I needed to answer the question, so without regard for time, without frustration from weeks of asking me the same question, without discomfort in silence, she asked me to think about it longer. She waited. I waited for her to cut me slack. She waited longer. “No.” I humbly and embarrassingly answered. I was expecting a list of homework assignments or a flood of questions about "why I felt that way and how do I feel..." She stopped rocking and affirmed me but without judgment, told me that I needed to write that question she had asked on something that I could look at the rest of the week. She told me that I needed to understand who I was dying to before I started dying all over the place without reason. She said it with the perfect balance of authority and mercy that it empowered me. We had gone over an hour, but she never scheduled someone after me. We walked around her property a little while debriefing everything we had talked about. We finally reached a point when I needed to go. When we reached my car, I felt embarrassed that I could not pay her. As she does every week, she reminds me that she meets with me as a service that is “on the house”. The only thing she is strict on is that I come each Wednesday. If I have to cancel, I don’t get to see her that week. I began to see this as wisely intentional because she knew that if it wasn’t set in stone, that I would replace it with #20 on my to-do list. I gave her one last hug and took a look at the house before I left. I tried to etch it into my memory so the feeling of freedom would last me until the next Wednesday.