Making it all real?

[orek]

Hi, all, been gone a while. Really struggling since finding out my T's retiring in a year. Trying to stay positive and hopeful and working to get most out of time left, but truthfully it feels as if there's a roiling river of hot fear deep below just waiting for us to fall in and drown. We feel we failed in some respects, but that's a whole other topic. My question is this:

Through the seven-plus years with this T we've experienced healthy, balanced nurturing and respectful caring on deep levels through developing (slowly) trust with her and having our vulnerabilities and insiders met with consistent acceptance and positive regard. We've internalized some of that and hope to continue to do so. This is no small thing. But we still feel we're basically strangers to our history and, to a large part, to each other (esp. to some of the deeper insiders). Insiders have talked about (and in a couple incidences with very young ones, including a baby, demonstrated) what happened to them, but it doesn't feel much more real to upfronters and to many of the others than it did when we started. And it feels as if there's more, much more.

We know there's no magic trick for this, but we want to try anything we can to make this work in the time we have left. I don't think we have it in us to start yet again with another T after this one retires. (She was our 9th or something like that, and the first one to really work for us.) Does anyone have anything that worked for you to make the stories being told integrate into a part of your history, something that feels tangible, real, and something you can sink your teeth into and swallow--and, therefore, eventually digest and process? Anything at all? Any suggestion or feedback would be greatly, incredibly appreciated. Thanks for listening.