The doctor is (reluctantly) in

For my travels this past week, our buying agent sent along a babysitter who met me in the Hong Kong airport on Monday and basically stuck to my side until today. I appreciate the support, but it does get tedious spending all your time with someone you don't know very well and who doesn't speak great English. To be fair, I didn't really try to communicate in Cantonese, which would have been an utter failure.

Yesterday, on our last day together, our relationship hit a new point (I don't know whether it was a high point or a low point.) where my friend decided to share. I guess he got to the point where he thought he could trust me with details about the past six years of therapy he's enjoyed.

We talked about many different topics, including the following:

* His trepidation about getting married several years ago. It's no surprise that his now wife encouraged him to seek therapy.

* The pressure he faces as a Chinese man to support his family.

* Societal pressure that discourages him from getting in touch with or expressing his feelings.

* The "little boy" who lives within him and the wall that surrounds him.

* His fear of accompanying me on this trip to Indonesia and Vietnam because he'd never been to either country and because as he "counted down" the days to this trip, his imagination created frightening scenarios of what was to come.

* The conversations his adult self has with his inner little boy in order to convince himself to try new things.

He shared all these things and more, leaving me a bit dumbstruck and unable to respond. I felt like I should also share my personal challenges, but I barely emote, so I didn't go down that route.

I will never again ask him his weekend plans, the catalyst for this major overshare.