Telehealth, Therapy, and Tea

Well friends, it’s been quite a year. This photo was taken about a year ago in my therapy office and this simple image reminds me of everything that has shifted. First, I believe I’m wearing real pants here and even a blazer!  But wow, also, I used to go to this office! Every work day! And see clients, just feet from me! I had a tea station set up and at the end of each night, I’d carefully gather the dirty mugs in a bin and take them home to be washed. When I think about the intimacy of that, washing a client’s lipstick from a mug, realizing that I know each client’s favorite kind of tea and not just their trauma history, I think on what has been lost this year. Because of course now it sounds absolutely bonkers to hold a cup someone else has just held in their hands, and brought to their lips. Or to laugh and cry unabashedly with someone else, tears flying where they may, mouth open, no mask to shield it. Ushering a client out after a session and plopping down on the same couch, still warm from their presence. I miss this immediacy and physicality with others. I believe we will get to do it again, but I don’t know when.

I am finishing out this year in a state of deep planning and dreaming for 2021 and what this work looks like, and how I show up to it in my corner of the world. I am hopeful.

I don’t post here all that much, but this year seemed to call for a recap. I’m hoping next year’s will be a bit brighter. Zora Neale Hurston said “there are years that ask questions and years that answer them.” No matter what kind of year this was for you, an asking or an answering, I hope it was meaningful.

See you in ‘21.

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