Getting The Swing of Things

I am feeling so much better than yesterday.

Although I have to say, this morning.

Not so much.

I had a moment of, “fuck this.”

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I did.

But I also knew that moment was fleeting, a feeling, not a reality, an emotion that would go once I gave it some space to move on.

I was emotionally hung over from the night before.

I cried so much yesterday in my last class of the day and the emotions were so high for everyone involved, I was not the only person experiencing that and the flavor of the morning was subdued.

Suffice to say, I got to move through it, although I did find myself in tears again this morning discussing a point of view with the class, articulating how I was feeling and have felt some contempt prior to investigation with the program.

How I really have spent some time talking myself into this.

Is this the right program?

Am I doing this right?

I don’t fit in?

Or do I?

What are my goals, what do I want out of the experience, how do I move forward in a cohesive way, how to balance work and needing to cover my expenses with what is happening and what I have to do and the expectations of the teachers and what they each are looking for.

I leaned over to my class mate after I said my piece and how I felt that it was way too soon to already be crying.

She laughed and said she’d had a big cry before coming to class, so I was right on time.

And I know.

Get used to it kid.

It’s terrifying and awesome and amazing and completely new.

I have never had an experience like this and I am only three days into a three-year process.

When I extrapolate it out it’s going to be a much longer process than that, but from here to the degree is three years.

Three years time is going to pass no matter what I do, might as well get my Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology, I mean what else am I going to do?

And that’s not the full story, it’s just a part of the narrative I tell myself, because I have tried other programs and I have tried getting into other schools and the door was always shut, always blocked.

I have checked out education programs at San Francisco State, I have sat in on open houses, I have gone to City College, I applied to and was turned down by UCSF for their creative writing MFA program, same with a number of other places and spaces and programs.

But this program has opened to me and when ever I was uncertain something would happen, something would shift and I would get clear direction about how to continue to move forward.

Always, every time, every day from the first day that I posited maybe I should do this.

Maybe when he said to me last year at Burning Man, “you’re a child psychologist being paid babysitter wages,” I could have balked at it, turned away from it, not allowed myself to hear it.

But I was so open and hurting from the conflict with my boss, which was really just a conflict with myself and how I have to find the words to ask for what I need and if the job, whatever job, is one in which those needs can’t be met, I find another.

There are absolutely no scarcity of jobs for me.

In fact, I was offered a job today at lunch.

At least, I was felt out for a possible job and that felt good.

Not to say I have any plans on leaving the family I work for, but if they can’t provide me with what I need and I am going to have to ask for a raise, I should have already, but should have doesn’t serve, I just get to look at what i have been given, acknowledge that I have job security, that I have financial security.

Whether it comes from the family I am with or another.

I will be taken care of.

The more I learn these lessons the more I am going to be of service to my future clients.

I like saying that.

Clients.

I am going to be a therapist and I can tell I am going to be a good one.

Perhaps that feeling of knowing is where I find the most fear and also the most freedom, to acknowledge a set and defined career goal.

Not that I necessarily know where that path leads, or what divergence it may take, just that I am on it, I am on it for a reason, and I am going to be good at it.

I am good already.

Meaning.

I showed up.

I have not left.

I have not dropped.

I am on time.

i have been doing my best to keep up with the readings and I take notes like a motherfucker.

In fact, I can see I will be investing in a lot of pens, I am a note taker and a underliner and I like that, it helps me to assimilate the knowledge in my head.

I am learning more than I know as well.

Not just about the coursework, but about myself and these small revelations are just as worth note as the bigger ones, the “I made it into graduate school ma” kinds of epiphanies, I am learning about myself, my way of being in the world and showing up the way I do has been noted.

I am seen.

I am heard.

I am getting into it.

I am grateful for this.

And that I have a fucking awesome professor for my Therapeutic Communications course.

I’m excited by working with him.

Anxious too, but happy, and enthralled and he makes me sit up and pay attention.

I was in his class six hours today and it whipped by.

I was almost surprised when it was time to go and I look forward, very much, to working with him more and I am over the moon to feel the connection to the class and to the professor and to myself.

I can do this.

I am doing this.

I am a graduate school student.

Holy shit.

I’m doing this!

It’s a nice feeling.

I have trepidations still, but, I also have faith.

And that is where I will plant myself.

Secure in the knowledge that it’s all happening and as long as I show up with integrity and kindness for myself today.

The rest will follow.

It always does.

Tags: acceptance, action, all the things, asking for help, asking for what I need, CIIS, client, cohort, graduate school, integrity, jobs, kindness, love, Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology, Nanny, process, reading, recovery, San Francisco, scarcity, therapist, therapy, values, work