The Year In Review

Kind of.

I mean.

I feel like there is no much to write about, including having seen my ex at a meeting this morning and be absolutely stunned that I felt neutral.

Net neutral.

Like I don’t care, you do you.

No power to give to it, him, any of the men I have dated this past year.

This year was a good, interesting, at times intense, and odd year for dating.

It was probably the year I have dated the most and got out of the most ‘potential’ relationships, I say potential, because really, that was what they were, I was dating to find out, is this a work?

I mean my first long term relationship was a one night stand that became a five year partnership–it should have ended after the first month, but I hey, I was young and not aware of the replication of attachment trauma I was playing.

Anyway. Dating now seems to be is it working?

Or.

Is it not?

All of them turned out to be not, except one exceptional being.

Some of them in spectacular ways–like one blew up on me and got too rather intense and stalked me across media platforms and banned/blocked me, but like, let me know they were doing it while they were doing it.

Ok.

Some of them in quiet, ways, the text I got from early in the year after five dates and letting the guy know we were not a good fit and hey, best of luck–I can’t date someone who shows up high/drunk for a date–and he responded, “I fucked up.”

That was nice, not the fuck up per se, but the admittance that he had made a mistake and understood why I couldn’t move forward in dating him, although he really wanted me to be his girlfriend despite the difference in age–he was just about to turn 37 and I was 52 at the time.

And I’ve fucked up too.

I did.

I hurt someone this past year, but, and for this I am really fucking grateful, I made an amends and we made a repair and that means so, so much. I love and care for him way too much to lose the connection.

Some were just sweet make out sessions on the dance floor, under a strobe light, a disco ball and the influence of a good dj.

Some were not even dates or dating, they were potentials, a look, a smile, a nod, a movement in time and then onwards with a sweet hug, that one happened over the course of a weekend at Harbin.

One relationship, potential I should say, blew up right before Burning Man and that was tender.

Nothing like thinking I was going to have a partner at the burn and then that didn’t happen.

In fact.

The burn last year was pretty hard. I camped in a new camp that sort of imploded and I learned a lot about what works for me and what does not.

Although, I had my moments.

Sherpa’ing four virgins boys at Burning Man on their bicycles and the vastness of the playa and the lights, the drama, the music, the stars, one night. Standing in the middle of four men who had never been to Burning Man, all of us on bicycles, me in the middle, ready to set off on the grandest of adventures.

I’m a good tour guide.

Or, oh, finding a young French man at the trash fence one afternoon lying on his back crying, when I was out riding my bike–having gone super deep playa and actually taken a nap at an art piece that was shaded and had mattresses underneath it. What a delightful discovery, to lay in the heat, be shaded, pop open my big pink solar umbrella and snooze listening to the wind in the chimes. Then finding that young Parisian boy at his first burn, mourning his break up and speaking to each other in a mixture of French and English about love and relationships and Burning Man and poetry.

I’ll go back.

I always do.

Especially since I cancelled my trip to Paris this upcoming May.

Money has been a little tight.

My therapy practice took a hit this year.

The industry, the economy, people in scarcity, losing jobs, moving, moving out of the country.

It was an intense year to be a therapist and I’m coming into the new year with fewer clients and sessions than I have in years.

I’ve been brainstorming and talking to colleagues and my own therapist and they’ve all agreed–time to do some marketing.

I got a ring light.

I’m going to start doing some videos.

I have time blocked out on my calendar for tomorrow.

A sort of new year resolution.

Marketing, get vulnerable, share my PhD work, post some videos and some photos and see what happens.

I think that’s what this year is going to be, see what happens.

Love who I love without arguing it, know that I can be outside the box, try new things.

Travel with my trailer.

I figure the money I would have spent in France for two weeks I can probably do weekend trips and long weekends for the entire year in my trailer.

She, Betty, my sweet pink and white trailer, is nicely settled in the Delta and safe there.

Close enough that I can drive a little over an hour and be there to take care of her, also, the Delta is beautiful and I can just go hang out there too.

Birds and sun and water and joy in the long grass, art, mischief, adventures.

I’m also starting to run a list in my head of where to go–Big Sur, Sea Ranch, Pismo Beach, Joshua Tree, maybe Death Valley, Yosemite, the Red Woods, the Grand Canyon–travel about and get some use out of her.

I’ve only taken her out twice since I got her back from being restored down in LA at Wanderlust Vintage Trailers.

That was a big part of this past year–Betty, the trailer, my little 1984 U-Haul CT-13.

Getting her renovated, updated, painted.

There’s still some stuff to do, I’d like to rig her with solar and/or get a generator for some trips where I’m not able to plug into electricity.

I don’t want to be dependent on others at the burn this year, that was not great for me last year, the power source was an issue where I stayed.

I took the trailer to Harbin for a weekend too and that was lovely, albeit cold, end of the season and at night it was really cold, the fiberglass does not hold heat. The space where the trailers are allowed to camp does not have access to electricity. I have the trailer wired for electric, but it doesn’t matter if I’m off grid.

I laughed thinking about a conversation I had with a lover who said, all you need is a candle and you’ll be warm in it, I lit a candle and it did not keep it warm.

Although it smelled nice and once I was under the covers I was toasty and fine.

I also upgraded the mattress in the trailer, the one that came with it was not great and after two trips–Burning Man and Harbin, I knew I had to get a better mattress.

Costco to the rescue.

I had a friend help me with it and it’s all nicely set up in the trailer.

I haven’t slept on it yet, but it is easily twice as thick and so much better a mattress than the one I replaced, it’s a princess alcove for sure, it’s elevated pretty high for a bed, but it will last a long time and I will be much, much, much happier sleeping on it.

I do need a cover for the trailer though, she’s getting dirty nestled under the willow tree at the park.

It makes me a little crazy seeing her get dirty.

That paint job cost me a pretty fucking penny.

All the renovations did.

I pretty much blew my savings on it, but I have it and sometimes when I get fearful, I think, well, if it all goes to shit, I hitch her up to my Jeep and I work remote.

God only knows what I would do with my cats, but I feel like I have an escape hatch if I need one.

That being said.

I love my loft.

And I have officially been here for a year.

It’s perfectly dialed in.

I had it set up pretty quick upon moving in and over this past year have slowly fleshed things out and with the addition of the pink velvet and chrome bar stool for the kitchen island and a few plants that I was recently gifted, I do not need to do anything more with the space.

It is pretty, cozy, full of art, and when it’s not raining, full of light.

I love being able to park in a garage and not worry about my car getting broken into on the street.

I have moved around my recovery meetings to fit my new location in the city, the SOMA–I’ve lived in so many neighborhoods in San Francisco–the Mission (loads of places in the Mission), Bernal Heights, Potrero, the Outer Sunset, the Outer Richmond, Nob Hill, the Bayview.

SOMA/Mission Bay is where I am at now and it works well.

It’s not always the most scenic part of town, but I like that it’s flat, the downtown skyline is amazing, I have amenities close at hand–grocery stores, Rainbow Co-op, a few cafes and resto’s, found a good sushi place, I can walk to the Bay, which is lovely, I can drive pretty quickly over the bridge, which is optimal for going out to the Delta to see my trailer.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

Sure.

There’s a part of me that is still very much a Mission girl and I will likely always be that girl, but SOMA is adjacent, so it works and when the big work/live lost in the Mission becomes possible, I will have had my time here to be ready for that.

I don’t foresee moving anytime soon, though, not unless something tremendous changes with my financial situation.

And, ideally, I don’t want to move for a bit.

I love my loft, the interior courtyard view of the palm trees and greenery, the blue sky, my little balcony with plants and a cafe table and chairs, the cats get bird tv all day long and I get a lot of sun.

I also love my work out nook up stairs in the loft next to my bedroom space.

Ah.

The Peloton.

My most enduring of relationships this past year.

I started riding January 19th of 2025, so it’s not yet been a year, but oh, what a year it has been.

It’s a bit addicting.

The changes in my body, the way I feel after a good work out, how it washes out the anxiety and stress of doing therapy work.

The weight loss.

So far, and I don’t have an exact weight to report yet, but sort of since I did have a physical last month on December 4th with my GP.

Who said, “you are in near perfect health!”

Fucking nice news to hear weeks before my 53rd birthday.

On December 4th I got on a scale for the first time in about a year and the results were that since the previous December, 2024, I had lost 30.5 lbs!

Holy shit.

I mean, I knew I had lost a decent bit, I’ve dropped a couple of dress sizes and basically culled out most of my clothes.

Someone at my holiday party asked me if I’d “kept any of my ‘fat’ clothes.”

A. I was not fat.

B. No.

I don’t plan on gaining that weight back.

I really like being this size.

I like feeling lighter and healthier and fucking strong and also flexible.

I ride a lot, so I stretch a lot.

I do want to see what a full year of riding does, clock my weight, dress size, etc on January 19th, but I gotta say, I am not mad at the results.

Although, I will say, I do need one more skin reduction surgery.

All told, when I got on the scale in December, that number is 106 lbs less than what I was at my “top” weight, I don’t actually know what the heaviest I got to was, that time at 282 lbs, a year in a half into recovery and eating all the sugar I could cram into my face, I was working at a vet office and got on the dog scale and nearly ran crying into the bathroom.

I probably was a little heavier when I finally gave up sugar and processed flour six months later, but I wasn’t going near a scale again and didn’t for some time.

I also know that having a scale wreaks havoc with my esteem.

I am not my weight, my esteem cannot nor should not rest on the number on a scale.

My value does not lie in my pants size or in my bank account.

When I look at my year in review I think, I wrote some good poetry, I met some amazing people, I traveled to Portland, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin, New York, Washington D.C., Burning Man, Los Angeles; I dated, I danced, I tried new things–Harbin Hot Springs–I grew into my loft, I lost a bunch of dress sizes and feel healthier than I have ever and I have kept loving myself, stayed sober, and connected to community.

2025 was a year.

Grateful for it all.

Ready for 2026.

Let’s get messy and love hard.

The Tattooed Therapist

I just got out of a session of therapy.

My own therapy.

I have been working with my therapist, this therapist since 2021.

I feel exceptionally fortunate to know him, to do work with him, we do IFS–Internal Family Systems, a super powerful model I was unaware of until meeting him.

We were talking a little about my practice, after checking in about upcoming travel–seeing my sister in Portland next week, going to my grandmother’s memorial service in Nevada City the week after–and my stress about taking time off to do these things during one of the slowest months I have had in memory.

I’m a little spooked about work.

I have not had a lot of new clients.

I used to have a waiting list.

I used to have an overfull practice.

I am not busy.

I am working to not be in financial insecurity, but yes, it does nibble about, dancing a little tattoo of terror on my soul.

Tattoos.

We started talking about my tattoos, my therapist and I, and my book, the one I was woking on and have set down.

I don’t want to work on it.

I don’t want to re-navigate the space I was in during the pandemic and writing my dissertation and the constant reliving of trauma and relationship despair.

But, he suggest, agreeing with me that a book does not seem to be the way forward at the moment, couldn’t I do something on social media, some sort of marketing, the tattooed therapist, etc.

My story is transformative and my tattoos are about the somatic re-authoring of the body after sexual abuse trauma, so yes, that tracks, but there are already “Tattooed Therapists” out there.

It’s not a new concept.

Although, from what I could see from the small bit of research I did, the therapists aren’t doctors, more so traditional MFTs with Masters in Psychology, inked themselves, cognizant of the power of tattoos to tell stories, re-narrate experiences, commemorate life milestones, loves, deaths, transitions, transformations, but no PhDs.

Sigh.

Marketing.

I have not really done that.

I have not sold myself.

My therapy clients have predominantly come to me through referrals.

Client referrals.

Colleague referrals.

Community referrals.

Cohort referrals.

I haven’t had to do marketing and it feels awkward.

My tattoos definitely get attention and I suppose I could work that angle, but I’m not really sure how to do that.

I have not made content through videos, I don’t like how I sound when I’m recorded, which is funny as I have been recorded, did a line for a commercial back at the Angelic Brewing Company when I worked there, did spoken word, got recorded by a producer here in San Francisco when I first moved here that ripped off my work, and voice; also, I did record a song with a fairly famous musician–Sunshine Jones–a while back and it’s fun to hear that once in awhile, didn’t get anything from doing that work, but performed with him once at Club 222 and another time at The Valencia Room–the old Elbow Room.

I had someone once tell me they were there, they recognized me and were agog, which was cute, I mean, I feel like I was just reading my poems out loud, but I can give some stage presence.

So.

Maybe I can give some voice.

Maybe I have some good tattoos that are visually appealing.

Maybe, hahaha, I have some education, just a doctorate, about tattoos and trauma.

So, maybe I could do some video content about it and market it a bit.

I’m attractive, for my age, I’m wry and smart, and my ink is quite pretty.

I just don’t know if that’s the way forward.

Is it art?

Is it marketing?

I mean.

I am a really good therapist and I love being a therapist.

I would just love if I had some more clients.

I keep trying to breathe and remember that sometimes the universe opens up space for me to explore and do and experience.

I’m trying to date.

That’s going ok.

What’s going great about it is actually saying no rather quickly to scenarios that don’t work for me.

Getting out of potential bad fit relationships when I used to get stuck.

I recently went on a second date with someone and it was not a fit for me and I let them know and I moved on.

Kindly.

There was nothing wrong with them, their situation just didn’t work for me.

I also let down, gently, someone who lives in my building.

I ran into him at the elevator to my floor.

Beautiful man.

GORGEOUS.

And he, “I like what I see,” accessed me as attractive as well.

But I could hear my friend admonishment in my head, “don’t shit where you sleep,” the reminder to myself that dating my dry cleaner didn’t work out and now the closest spot is literally double what I used to pay, so yeah, don’t poop where you live feels accurate and also, good grief, he was young, early to mid 20s.

You can like what you see but I am accomplished and not interested in being your nanny or nurse maid or mommy.

I gently turned him away.

But.

I also am seeing more that men are interested, which is another thing I have been working on, just being aware, seeing, what am I being shown.

The universe has so much wealth and beauty and magic.

How can I open my eyes to see what is there?

I’m not adverse to my therapist’s suggestion, I’m just not sure if that is the way to bring in more clients.

I’m trying to be curious and open.

Open to dating.

Open to new experiences.

Saying yes to doing things.

I saw Ira Glass in conversation with Etgar Keret at City Arts & Lectures with a new friend this past week, wow, was that powerful, I was frequently in tears and laughter.

I’m trying to be out in the world and not alone in my home.

Although I am damn cozy here.

I don’t know how I got off track from being an inked therapist doing social media content to dating and having new experiences, but there it is.

I had some time.

I had a moment of thinking maybe just process this in writing.

Where I process so many things.

I have material.

What can I do with it?

I have a life to live.

How do I live it?

What’s next universe?

I’m ready for an adventure.

You Have Morning Beauty

He said to be at the sushi bar.

“You look beautiful upon awakening.”

I smiled, that was a sweet thing to say.

It’s been some time since he’s seen me upon awakening.

Years and years and years.

I had never been to this sushi place before.

Walked past it.

Rode my bicycle past it, when I used to be a bicycle commuter.

Saw people in the windows.

But never had I eaten there.

Until last night.

With him.

Him again.

The man with the bluest eyes, a few crows feet thrown in there now, seven years later.

A friendly dinner.

A warm ear to listen to small parts of the last relationship and how it ended.

It had been hard to be free from my ex, it hurt a lot to have it end the way it did, a second time, sigh, but thank God I have moved on, really well, I feel, with vast amounts of insight.

And bumping into the man with the bluest eyes was nice, validating, sweet.

But, as per, the universe can be funny, he’s still not available.

So.

Moving up.

Moving out.

Moving on.

I have been packing all day long.

Actually, packing on and off since signing the lease.

When I lost the lease to my office I was beyond freaked out.

I could have likely found an office for myself and my practice in the neighborhood.

But nothing felt right.

Nothing looked right.

My therapist asked me, “how much is your rent on your apartment?”

I answered.

Then he asked, “how much is the rent on your office?”

And I answered that.

“Wow,” he said, “you could afford a really nice place and just work remote.”

My interiors began to shift.

The dread and anxiety, the panic at losing my office lease, slowly started to slip away.

I had never thought of working fully remote.

And my therapist is right, I could afford a really nice place.

And.

I have wanted, for sometime now, to move.

The wine bar next door.

The noise of drunk people–just because it’s a wine bar, doesn’t mean people don’t get sloshed and loud and stupid, right outside my bedroom windows.

My current apartment is on the ground floor.

Also.

They, the landlord, the rental property owner, and I think his nephew or his son, are opening a cannabis dispensary on the ground floor of the apartment building, just a scant few feet away from my door and windows that are old school, historical building, single pane windows, that leak like a sieve–good god, my PG&E bill during the winter is wild–and I smell all the things that go walking by.

Cigarettes.

Vapes.

Cannabis.

Fuck.

Fentanyl.

Someone was smoking Fentanyl outside my apartment last night.

You can’t smell Fentanyl burning, like you can crack or cocaine, but I can smell the aluminum foil being burnt that someone is burning the Fentanyl on.

Good god.

So.

Yeah.

I have been wanting to move for a while and I have talked about it, the era of the DJ Dipshit upstairs and his horrible electronic music at all hours of the day and night for a year coming out of the pandemic.

The street traffic noise.

The bait and switch ad that caught me and lead me to pay a $100 more a month.

That’s another story.

And there are probably a few other thoughts intermingled in there, but yes, I have thought and talked about moving for a couple of years now.

One thing that kept me in this apartment was that my walking commute to work, yeah, I said walking commute, to my office, was five minutes.

I got to say that definitely kept me in this apartment.

Losing the lease on the office led to me being open to explore leaving my apartment too.

Cue scrolling Craigslist after that therapy session.

I saw a few places that looked interesting and started really thinking about what I wanted.

A work/live loft.

San Francisco has a regulation about having a business license to live and work from a live/work designated loft or condo.

A lot of these are for artists.

Some are called PDRs–Production, Distribution, and Repair–and I don’t really qualify for them.

Although I did sail a kite of hope and reach out to one that was pretty glorious and exactly in the neighborhood I’m always gently trying to angle back into–the Mission–and in my query I noted I was a licensed psychotherapist with a registered business in San Francisco, and I helped to “repair” psyche’s.

It didn’t fly.

But.

The day after, literally, the day after I had put out a bunch of queries, I got a message from an agent and I happened to be out running errands, I said, “if your property manager is onsite now, I can pop over in the next half hour.”

And he was.

And I did.

I had queried on a one bedroom.

The agent noted while we were on the phone, that there was also a two bedroom that had just opened up and might I be interested in that too?

Sure.

Why not.

I’ll peek.

Although I was just thinking of the one bedroom.

The manager actually ended up showing me four lofts.

The one bed I didn’t like, I don’t remember why.

The three bedroom and four bedrooms were too much space and on the ground floor and the view was street traffic.

Nope.

I already have that.

Then the manager said, “Oh, Evelyn mentioned you could see the two bedroom too, it’s got a few workers in there, it just opened, but we can check it out.”

At this point, I wasn’t really interested.

What I had seen was not quite a fit.

But.

I was there and said sure.

And there it was.

My loft.

I could feel it when I walked in.

And I knew it was when I climbed the stairs to the loft and looked down.

I felt it.

This was the place.

The loft was quite big and a bit like a mezzanine with a bedroom, a master bath and a huge walk in closet with storage and washer/dryer hook ups.

The main floor had the second bedroom with it’s own bath and it was built out by the kitchen and when I looked at it, I thought, yeah, that could be my office.

The loft is on the third floor, so no street level noise.

And.

It is an interior loft.

It faces the courtyard–palm trees and blue skies.

And.

Oh.

It has a balconey!

I suddenly could see myself out on the balcony, a latte, a notebook, the sky, the palm trees.

There is nothing quite like writing al fresco with a coffee.

The loft also has a fireplace!

I have always, pretty quietly, longed for a loft.

A big, grand, sweeping space with huge windows and air and light.

I write about it, as a part of a daily set of affirmations, buying a grand space in the Mission district, or in the 11th arrondisement of Paris.

Or both.

Both would be lovely, wouldn’t it?

Anyway.

This loft had all the things, albeit, not quite the layout I was looking for, it worked and it felt like mine.

So I said, I’m interested in applying.

The manager sent me the application later that day.

I filled it out.

I waited.

The manager got back to me and asked for some supplementary paperwork.

I sent it in.

I waited.

I inquired two days after sending in the rest of the financials.

And 45 minutes after that, I got a “Congratulations!” you have been approved.

I did a wee back flip in my head.

I squeaked with joy.

I said a silent fuck you and thank you to the master tenant who had revoked my lease on the office.

It was exactly the kick in the pants I needed to get out and move on to better.

I still can’t quite believe it.

I confirmed my move out date with the master tenant at my office.

I gave notice at my apartment, fully aware that I would have to cover the rent for the time over, eleven days.

And!

I got back a message from the property management–“You’ve been a wonderful tenant, don’t worry about paying for the rest of the month, just let us know when you are leaving and we will return your damage deposit. No need to pay double rent.”

Warmest regards.

Holy moly.

They even let me know I don’t have to clean it!

They have a professional cleaning crew that they will bring in.

I don’t think I have ever been told not to worry about cleaning my place after moving out.

Such a nice thing to hear.

I hired movers.

They will move both my office and my apartment on the same day.

I am moving out on January 2nd.

I would have asked for the 1st, but, of course, it’s a holiday.

I get the keys on the 30th, in between clients on my lunch break.

I will pack up my office, already staged the closet with things to pack up, on the evening of the 31st after my last clients, my last clients! At the office leave.

I will not be going out New Years Eve.

And I am ok with that.

I won’t be going out New Years Day either, I had gotten a ticket to Breakfast of Champions, but this lady is going to be taking a few loads of things over to the new place–plants and some pieces of art–and measuring for storage options and sliding doors for the space.

I am going to set it up so that I can see a small handful of trusted clients in the space, but put in sliding barn doors to keep the living space private.

The second bedroom that is on the main floor has it’s own bathroom and two doors in and out.

I can set it up so that client’s come in and go directly into the space.

I won’t have a lot of clients, just ones that I deeply trust and feel comfortable with.

About one third of my clients are in person.

I will take about a third of that one third to start and see how it feels.

I may add one or two more, but I have to feel into it.

It is exciting.

A bit stressful–canceling internet here, setting it up there, shutting down PG&E, starting it there, stopping water service here, change of address.

I still have to change my business address with the IRS and my EIN number and my business registration address with the city of San Francisco.

That will happen this week.

I have ticked off a lot though and even asked for help.

It was offered to me and at first I didn’t really bite.

Then, later, I was like, stop trying to do it all by yourself.

If you have friends that want to help, ask.

So I asked a couple of friends and got one definitive yes and another, maybe, got to ask the girlfriend–it is a holiday after all.

Anyway.

Sitting in that sushi restaurant with an old flame last night that had recently run into, was quite nice, a bit bittersweet, a bit sad, but also, clarifying.

I really want to be prioritized.

And.

If a person is not available to do that, it’s not their fault, it is my responsibility to take it with grace and move on.

But.

Noted.

I will be back to the sushi restaurant.

It was divine and not too far away from my new place.

I am excited.

I am looking forward to vast expansion into a new experience with myself.

And others.

And space.

Space with a balcony and light and air.

Space and spaciousness for my wide open heart.

And for seeking the next act in the play.

It’s going to be something grand.

I can feel it.

And let me tell you.

The commute is going to be amazing.

A Room Full

Of the wrong people.

I think I have felt like that all my life.

Always just a little bit othered.

Not quite a fit.

Not here.

Not there.

Not pretty enough or smart enough.

“Your sister’s the pretty one, you must be the smart one.”

I suppose.

Although I think we’re both pretty smart, just in different ways.

I was thinking about my recent time in Mexico.

Where, again, I didn’t feel like I quite fit in.

I mean, in some ways I fit in really well.

I’m brown haired and brown eyed and give me a little sun, even with 50 block sunscreen slathered on me, I will brown right up.

“You are glowing and brown!” She said to me in the basement of the church I went to this morning to get my head right with God.

Grateful for being back in my own routine and meetings.

I didn’t get to any on my trip, which is very unusual for me, but I also got sick.

Very, very, very sick.

I got a severe sinus infection.

I’m still feeling the effects of it, but day by day it’s getting better.

It knocked me out hard.

Literally.

There was a day, day and a half, in Mexico City that I completely lost.

I remember having a fever.

My boyfriend putting a cold compress on my forehead.

Crying like a baby over and over again when ever I woke up from sleep with the worst headache ever.

The light hurt my eyes so bad.

I already have light sensitive eyes from a Lasik surgery I had when I was 28, but this was different, I felt like I was being blinded.

My boyfriend pulled all the shades in the room and went to the pharmacia to get me anything that could help.

I cried eating half of a banana so I could have something in my tummy when he also gave me Advil for the headache.

The taste of it was so bad, the banana, I was shocked by how bad it tasted.

I knew I didn’t have COVID.

I had that last month, thanks, but I did not know it was a sinus infection until a friend told me about the ones he gets when he’s around A/C.

Oh.

Yeah.

I actually suspected it was something in the A/C in Tulum that got me, some bug or virus or weird thing that snuck in through the vents.

Turns out.

It was just the A/C.

That and sitting under it for ten hours seeing clients.

I did not go to Mexico on vacation.

Although, if you look at my social media, it looks like that is what was happening.

Nope.

My boyfriend and his daughter were on vacation, I came along and worked remotely.

I got one full day in Tulum with them–we snorkeled and I saw sting rays and turtles, in fact one turtle swam so close to me that I thought it was going to bump right up against me.

We had been admonished, sternly, “do NOT touch anything, especially the turtles,” by our guide, and I swam frantically backwards and did a fast flip over to move out of the little guy’s way.

I can still see his eyes and beak and flippers swimming towards me, he was literally a foot from my face.

Anyway.

One day in Tulum not working.

Snorkeling and chilling on the beach.

Then work.

I locked into the living room on the first day while my partner and his kiddo went to the cenotes, doing sessions from the couch with a makeshift platform of books to prop up my computer.

I wasn’t too upset about missing the cenotes.

I was not up for bats and swimming underground.

No thanks.

But it was hard to be socked into work while they were out exploring and adventuring.

The third day I never left the Air BnB.

At least the night before I got to go for a swim after hours, in the Air BnB’s pool, but this day, the day I got the sinus infection, I was in the apartment the whole time, sitting under A/C and eviscerating my nasal passages.

I thought at first it was allergies.

And it was pretty mild for the first three days or so.

Then in Mexico City I remember feeling really blocked up and had a hard time in my sessions on video calls and more than one client asked if I was alright.

I kept chalking it up to allergies.

That night I told my partner, “I don’t feel right.”

I think he thought I meant emotionally, and I clarified, “no, I feel sick, I feel really off.”

That night I spiked the fever.

I lost the next 24-48 hours.

I have no idea where they went.

And.

I lost two of the days I had off of the three I had off in Mexico City to hang out and see cool things and go on adventures.

I was so bummed.

I apologized for having to work and felt so rotten that I couldn’t participate.

My first day out after the worst of the sickness passed I was able to walk to a cafe/restaurant called Peltre.

And this is where I had, what I am coming to see as the way most people see me, my typical interactions with the locals, a rattling off of Spanish while I nod and occasionally throw out, “Si, si, gracias.”

I mean.

I speak some French, it’s a Latin based language, I can hear the similarities and somethings make a lot of sense.

I also have a good accent, in both French and Spanish, I do not know how that happened and I wish, really wish, I had taken more Spanish as a child.

I was in a Spanish class in 6th grade but the Spanish teacher assumed I knew Spanish already and focused on the white kids in class who obviously didn’t.

My name is Carmen and my last name sounds even more Hispanic and yes, I am half Puerto Rican (although I’m beginning to wonder about that as I recently got into Ancestry.com), but no, I don’t speak any Spanish.

I can order food a tiny bit and manage.

I can order beverages.

Jugo verde.

Cafe con leche.

Agua mineral.

If I move to Mexico I’m not going to starve.

And I can buy clothes.

I managed to buy 2 dresses at a mall across the street from the Museo Jumex on one of the only days I felt actually ok to move about, although emotionally hungover, the sinus infection was beginning to ease it’s grip and we had gone to the Frida Kahlo Blue House (Casa Azul) out to lunch and then dashed over to the Jumex museum to see the Damien Hirst exhibition.

I felt othered in my family of origin growing up in Wisconsin, all the blue eyes and blond hair on my mom’s side, the German/Scot bloodlines, the meat and potatoes, the corn, and apples, the white kids in my school, how tan I got in summers, before they suggested dousing kids in sunscreen and my sister would sunbathe on top of the garage in summer drowned in baby oil with a cardboard reflector wrapped in foil to get even browner.

I felt accepted in Mexico, normal, until I opened my mouth, and therefor, also awkward and othered there to, “you don’t speak Spanish?!” was said to me incredulously more than once.

I don’t quite fit in.

Do I?

And I know that’s ok, but I do, still, wish I spoke Spanish fluently.

Same with French, I am conversationally fluent I suppose and I can read it decently, but I don’t speak slang and I get lost in it quickly.

Neither here.

Nor there.

Always in a a room full of the wrong people.

And that’s ok.

Ultimately.

I get to experience more and see more and do more and even though I was sick and it sucked and I was a drag to those around me, I did see things and watch things and intake things.

A life of cosmopolitan leanings, wanders, and meanders.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Even if I “complain” about it, I am beyond grateful for all that I have witnessed and seen and will get to keep seeing.

I’m off to Barcelona at the end of the month–this time for vacation for real!

I’m sure I’ll get someone who speaks rapid Spanish at me and I will feel odd and left out and I will let myself have that experience there too and be grateful for it.

I’d rather feel a little uncomfortable than not go.

I’d rather stand out than blend in.

Seriously.

Angle of Repose

I am on a flight from Tulum to Santa Lucia, Mexico. Heading to Mexico City with my partner and his daughter.

I am reading Wallace Stegner.

It is my first time reading his work.

It is not my first time thinking about him or knowing him, but having not read his work, it struck me that it was a bit, perhaps, egotistical to have applied for the Wallace Stegner award at Stanford nearly seventeen years ago (I was encouraged to apply by Alan Kaufman while I was taking his memoir writing class).

Of course.,

I did not get the award.

It is a mighty thing.

It is not a degree, but a honor and a large sum of grant money to work on your writing, fiction if I recall.

I’m not exactly a fiction writer.

Although I sense my words are a kind of narrative that does read like a novel, or so I have been told—“I felt like I was reading a novel when I read your dissertation,” my internal second messaged me upon reading the second revised draft of my dissertation.

Sometimes I miss those days.

I never thought.

NEVER.

EVER.

EVER.

That I would say that, that I “miss those days,” of writing, of lockdown, of loneliness, of working, working, working.

When my therapist at the time said, “Well, Carmen, you probably feel like this way because you are working five jobs,” an observation made due to my stress and obvious compassion fatigue.

I said, “no, I’m not,” with complete incredulousness, to her comment about working five jobs.

Then she ticked them off, one by one, on my computer screen, the Zoom camera picking up her white woman privilege, living in Marin County or maybe it was Sea Ranch, with her boyfriend, in a beige and cream and billowy white cotton room with tasteful paintings and wicker encased lights with low, golden orange globes of light that lit her face from every angle with a kind of dreamy angelic glow that made me envious of her sea side abode and her money and her partner and all that privilege that comes from leaving the corporate world to become a yoga teacher and then a therapist and having paid for it all with money from her parents.

“House sitting/house management,” her first finger flipped her up, thumb, right hand.

For the family that I used to nanny for, who had fled the country to live out the pandemic abroad in an isolated part of Europe, but asked me to go on a weekly basis to their home, head in through the garage—always going through the side door, even when I was working on a PhD, never quite Carmen the doctor, but always, Carmen the help—to flush all the toilets and run water through all the sinks, to water the plants, inside and out in the garden, to collect the mail, write checks and sign the husbands name to them (once the mom asked me in a panic to fill out the father’s absentee ballot, so afraid of Trump getting elected that she urged me to do voter fraud, on the cusp of getting all my hours for my LMFT license I declined quickly and with some anger, that I shoved way down inside, not letting her know how incensed I was.

“Adjunct professor, Psychodynamics I at CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies),” she continued, pointer finger held up in the air along with the thumb.

I had picked up the job as a kind of favor to my former supervisor, now colleague and very dear friend, who told me I would be a kick ass teacher after doing a guest lecture on Reveries in the psychodynamic dyad. It appealed to my ego, “Professor Martines,” yes, I loved the sound of that, sometimes, sometimes I still do. I have my PhD now, I have been approached to teach, I am good at it, but as that former therapist also pointed out a couple sessions later when I was finally cottoning up to the exhaustion I was experiencing, “just because you’re good at it, doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

Just because you are good at it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Just because you are good at it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Just because you are good at it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

I am, with humble awareness that I do not sound like I have humility, a very good teacher.

But I was a very overwhelmed and over worked, and very, very, very, underpaid adjunct, because the university did not pay Master’s level professors a higher salary, it didn’t matter that I was through with my course work in my PhD and had defended my dissertation proposal, that I was actively writing my dissertation and teaching for the program I had graduated from. Oh, yes, and also, I was an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, so as an AMFT, they could gouge that salary even more. I fumed. But I accepted the pay. With ire later on, when I realized that due to the heavy client load, as an AMFT, and the other jobs I was doing, that semester I taught I did zero work on my dissertation. The $2,300 I got for teaching that semester did not negate the $18k I paid to work on my dissertation. Face plant hand to forehead, still.

“AMFT for Grateful Heart Holistic Therapy Center,” my therapist continued, now adding her middle finger into the mix. “How many clients are you seeing a week with them?”

The pandemic, at first terrifying for me as all my clients en mass canceled the first week of lockdown, except for one brave soul who met me at my sublet office on the fifth floor of the Active Space building in the Mission at 18^th and Treat, had become a massive boon for me. I picked up clients left and right and left and right and left and right until I was beyond overfull. My heart broke every time someone asked me if I had room and I took on too many. I was doing 30-32 client sessions a week and had 45 clients in total (some of those clients are couples and some I saw every other week, but still about 32 sessions weekly). I turned away a lot of folks and I, I seriously could not believe it, started a waiting list.

“AMFT for the Jefferson Union City High school District, working out of the Daily City Youth Health Clinic,” my therapist now flipped up her ring finger. I noted a new very large cut diamond with a platinum band on the finger, oh they got engaged, I thought to myself, how nice for them. “How many teen clients do you have there?” Ugh, fine, sigh, I said, almost under my breath, “ten clients, doing five to six sessions a week.” Plus, there was the driving out to Daily City. I had to go to the clinic at least once a week. All of the sessions were over the phone, COVID-19 protocols, but because the filing system was with Medicare/Medical clients, I couldn’t input files from home, I had to fill out notes at the office and submit paperwork through the computers at the clinic. So, once a week I would drive to Daily City, get scanned in, wash my hands, get doused in sanitizer, get my case files from a locked office in the clinic, then go past the receptionists and doctors and nurses and hide in an office in the back on a plastic purple couch for four to five hours and do phone sessions with teens. I was getting the last of my child and family hours required by the BBS for licensure.

“Last, but not least,” my therapist said, “you  are working on your PhD. You are actively writing your dissertation, are you not? Work that is often thought to be a full-time job.”

Jesus Christ lady, fine, yes. I am working five jobs.

Fuck.

Five jobs.

I worked seven days a week. The days blended one into the other and the busy of it all kept me from thinking too much about the lockdown, or how scared I was the day the police raided the clinic to camp out on the roof with sniper guns awaiting a BLM protest that was marching on the police station across the parking lot for the Daily City Youth Health Clinic. I flashed my badge and literally ran to my car to get out before they barricaded off the parking lot, client files tucked underneath my arm that my supervisor let me take from the office to do a few sessions with teens from my living room where I paced back and forth from my bedroom to my kitchen, around my living room on the phone with a teenage boy who later reached out to me to become his therapist when he was of age (I just had another of those teens reach out! We have a consultation next week).

I saw my Grateful Heart clients on Doxy (a video medical platform for clinicians and doctors, I was really worried about Zoom bombers in the beginning and felt that Doxy was a safer bet) Mondays through Fridays. I squeezed in my Daily City Youth Health kids around my Grateful Heart clients, also Monday-Friday. Wednesdays I drove to Daily City (the lockdown gave me the most surreal commute I have ever experienced in the Bay Area, so little traffic, so fast back and forth). Once a month, for three hours on a Friday, or was it Saturday? Saturday! It was a Saturday, I would skip my recovery home group meeting on that one Saturday a month) I would remotely teach the Psychodynamics I class for CIIS. A class I had signed on to teach it in person and thought, this will be cool to go back and teach in the same classroom I sat in not so long ago. But it was not cool. It was super hard. Teaching online, learning on line, is no joke. I think I worked extra hard to entertain, to keep focus, to get my students to stay present and engaged. Think about it, you’re in a three-hour class with a fifteen minute break mid-way, on line studying Psychodynamic theory. This takes some personality to teach, in my estimation, and I worked hard to make it engaging, bringing in Freudian references in music—Nine Inch Nails, and movies, Alien, reading papers and talking about my case load. I did have fun and I was good at it, but I was also angry. Angry to be doing so much work for these students and not enough work for myself.

And Sunday. The day of “rest,” Sunday was the day I met with sponsees over the phone and on Facetime and my own sponsor and then I did food prep, most often roasting a chicken, it was easy and fast or making chicken soup from the leftovers of the last roasted chicken. Then after all of that, I worked on my dissertation. I wrote. Sometimes, more often than I probably allow myself to remember, I laid my head on top of a notebook or this laptop, and I would cry. Cry with exhaustion, frustration, fear, when would it end? The pandemic, the isolation, the dissertation. And I would often write and work on the dissertation during the week, the hour before I saw my own therapist, or when a client canceled last minute, any place in my calendar, God bless Google calendar, that I could eke out another twenty minutes of writing, I would.

Once in a blue, very blue moon, I would take a nap.

So there it was.

My therapist was right, all of her fingers waggling in the air.

I did work five days a week.

I did.

And though I do not, I really don’t, want to go back to that routine or that level of madness…I worked and went to school seven days a week for six and a half years—I miss the routine of writing.

The pressure to put words on the page, the urgency.

I had no room to wiggle.

No room to maneuver.

I had to smash in every single second of time and write in the margins of my days.

At night I gave myself a tiny bit of time off.

I would dance a little to my “Happy Place” playlist in my kitchen.

I would light candles.

I would eat my roast chicken on the couch and look out the window and my cats would sit on either side waiting for a shred of meat or a rub behind the ear.

After, one video, about half of an episode of The British Bake Off, most often, before bed.

Then off to sleep to wake up and do it all again.

It was too much and I do not recommend it to anyone.

And.

I got my MFT License.

I started my own, successful and self-supporting for the last three and a quarter years, private practice therapy business.

I defended my dissertation and I got my PhD.

And now.

I am descending, through the clouds, in an Aeromexico airplane heading to Santa Lucia on my way to Mexico City.

I am still working.

This is not a vacation.

Vacation is in August to Barcelona.

(my first time!)

But there will be pockets, days, moments, to wander the city, go to Museo Jumex and the Frida Kahlo Casa Azul, for walks through Avenue de Amsterdam in the Condesa, and maybe, just maybe, a kiss from my boyfriend outside on the street in front of the taqueria where he told me for the first time that he loved me.

Almost, to the day, a year ago.

So with the turbulence and the sunshine batting through the window and the descent happening, I am grateful for not having that insane schedule, but I am also a little wistful for that woman working and writing with such ardor.

I don’t want to go back to that place, but I do want to find the time again, to write, just a little bit more, it feels good, it feels right.

And that my partner, a hands reach away, reading a philosophy article on his phone, turns and smiles at me, his right dimple flashing, asks with curiosity, “what are you working on?”

“A blog, I think,” I answer.

I’m not actually sure.

But when I was reading Stegner’s Angle of Repose, I thought to myself, what if now, what if now, eighteen years late, I might just have the writing chops to get the Stegner Award.

I have certainly practiced a lot in these past 18 years.

Maybe.

Maybe.

I’ll apply again.

The Taste of Poverty

I was just having dinner on my pink velvet couch in my over priced one bedroom apartment in Hayes Valley, San Francisco and I suddenly had a sensory flashback to eating lunch when I was twelve.

Specifically.

A turkey and cheddar cheese Lunchable.

It was delicious.

I could actually taste the melt of the processed cheese in my mouth, the little circular slab of pressed turkey meat and the knock-off butter cracker round and how if I chewed it just so I could savor it for long moments at a time.

It was one of the few things that had enough preservatives in it that it did not spoil in the heat.

Unlike a lot of the kids I did not have a cooler for my lunch and things could go bad quickly in the humid mid-summer heat of Wisconsin.

Especially when said lunch was being stowed underneath an interior seat of a yellow Blue Bird school bus that had been parked by the corn field I was detassling.

Detassle.

To remove the female sex organs from a corn stalk so that the corn does not impregnate itself.

(Definition now from Wikipedia: Detasseling corn is removing the pollen-producing flowers, the tassel, from the tops of corn (maize) plants and placing them on the ground. It is a form of pollination control,^[1] employed to cross-breed, or hybridize, two varieties of corn.)

I was a corn detassler.

It was my first job.

I was twelve.

I worked for Kaltenberg Seed Farms.

Kaltenberg was able to get away with paying children less than minimum wage to work in the fields due to a law on the books in Wisconsin which exempted farms from having to pay minimum wage as farming was a “family” business.

Kaltenberg was not my family, but it didn’t stop them from hiring local kids in the area and underpaying them for working in the fields eight hours a day.

It paid $2.75 an hour.

If you had near perfect attendance through the summer without missing more than three shifts you would get bonused to $3.25 an hour.

That was my goal.

And I made it.

I had perfect attendance.

I detassled corn for three summers, I think, it might have been four, although the last summer I was a “rogu’er” which meant you stalked through the fields cutting down with a hoe the “rogue” corn that would ocassionally grown gigantically tall in the fields and suck all the water and nutrients from the other corn stalks around it.

I had gotten put on the rogue crew the summer before at the end of the season, I was tall, and strong and I was asked if I wanted to make “extra” money that summer by helping rogue the last three weeks of the season.

It overlapped with school, but I did it anyway, on the weekends.

That summer I saved all my money and went to East Town Mall and bought a brown bomber leather jacket with a white rabbit fur collar.

My first fashion splurge.

That’s all I bought, fyi, there was no more money to spend after that.

I remember when one of the very popular, tall, thin, beautiful blonde girls on the swim team, envied my jacket after I got on the swim team bus home from a meet.

I couldn’t afford to eat at the McDonalds that the coach took us too, but I could assuage my hunger with the envious gaze of the tall swim goddess who briefly, impulsively reached out to stroke the white fur of the collar as I slid by onto the bus, muttering, “so soft, so pretty.”

I ate out on that for the ride home amidst the smell of cheeseburgers and french fries.

This all swam up in my mind as I sat on the couch last night, I started this blog last night, but then I started making phone calls as I have been in distress the last few days and I called my people and cried on the phone.

So much crying.

My stomach has been so upset that I have had very little appetite, dinner last night was a couple slices of cheddar cheese and some turkey slices from Whole Foods.

The turkey cheese combo made me remember the taste of a Lunchable and how thrilled I was whenever I got to have one for lunch when I was detassling.

Most of the time lunch was a plain raw peanut butter sandwich on very dense whole wheat bread that my step father got from the Willy Street Co-op in Madison.

I have reflux when I get stressed and it has been on fire this week.

I am also in perio-menopause, huzzah, and I had thought that my hot flashes were under control, but hahahah, no, stress flared them right back up, I’m about to have one right now as I am writing.

Sigh.

Anyway.

I keep waking up at night hot and weepy and tired and heart achy and my stomach rumbles and my head hurts and then I can’t go back to sleep.

My brain on fire.

I thought I would put out my gastrointestinal fires with plain cheese and turkey, a banana and water.

Simple food.

And it made me think about all the foods or lack thereof, that I had as a child.

Granted, I have some gratitude for the experience as I learned how to cook and how to make food stretch, how to season things and how to scrape up a meal with all the paltriest items in a pantry.

I learned also how to make soup, pie crusts from scratch, jelly, jams, canned tomatoes, tomato juice, apple cider, sauerkraut, pickles.

So I have appreciation for not just my Midwestern, uprooted from California, roots, but gratitude for the learning and the power of stretching a roast chicken through a week and a half of meals for four people–Bisquick, people, remember that yellow box of joy? You take the left over chicken shreds picked off the carcass, throw them in a skillet, add an onion, some garlic, peas, and a can of cream of mushroom soup, make biscuits, from the box, just add water, or milk if you’re feeling fancy, bake them up, pop them out of the muffin pan, split in half and top with butter, then ladle the gravy with chicken bits over the biscuits– meals for days.

I also can reflect here, in my home, that I can go anytime to Whole Foods and drop a ridiculous amount of money and buy only organic food.

Or I can go to Rainbow Grocery, a local worker owned co-op, and spend even more money, and do the same.

I used to dream about being able to spend whatever I want at either of those stores. I would often walk around with a pad of paper and a pen and literally tally up what was in my basket so I didn’t go over my budget for food.

I still have a spending plan for food, but I no longer carry around a piece of paper, I feel like sometimes I just willy nilly throw whatever into my cart and happily pull money out of my wallet without thought.

I am still shocked but I don’t express it and I don’t pull food back from the conveyor belt and ask the clerk to remove it from my purchases.

I also no longer eat: government processed cheese, hot dogs, ramen, canned tuna, powdered milk or instant potatoes.

I am grateful for the memory of the Lunchable.

Granted I wouldn’t eat one now if you paid me.

It took away the stress for a moment and reminded me of how far I have come from that little girl walking through the corn fields eight hours a day in the summer pulling out the hearts of corn and looking forward to cool cups of water in paper cones from the orange coolers by the bus. The taste of a turkey cheddar cheese cracker in the shade, while squatting in the dry grass and dirt with my back against a tire, looking out at the field of corn shimmering under the noon day sun.

Small musing from this heart of sorrow while I look out the window of my apartment into the memory of those summer days in Wisconsin.

You’ll be ok baby girl.

You’ll be ok.

A Banner Day

Actually.

The last two days have been pretty stellar.

I was reflecting on one of the nice turns of events that happened for me yesterday–I went from owing taxes to getting a tax return–and I thought, hmmm.

How interesting that I was in deep acceptance about paying the unexpected tax bill after an enlightening couple of conversations with a friend and work on my scarcity mentality.

And then.

Yesterday, when meeting with the final accountant before my 2021 taxes were filed, did it finally come clear.

I was right!

Fuck.

I mean.

I don’t often dance about going, I was right, I was right, but when one is unexpectedly looking at dropping another 5k towards taxes, when inside you’d been secretly hoping you’d get a return, well.

I WAS RIGHT!

Ugh.

It was a slogging walk through a lot of discomfort though.

Last week, after a bit of prompting with the accounting firm I use, I finally got a set time to go over the return, sign it and file.

When I got the draft of the taxes I was aghast, upset, angry, and in tears.

How was it possible that I owed money?

Ugh.

Again.

Here I was being really diligent about making my quarterly payments and being on time with it all, and aside, doll, it is your first time doing taxes as a private practice and there’s so much to learn about being a business owner, but still.

Fuck.

I really had been crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s” but I still owed.

It was baffling.

Especially because in April the accounting firm had dropped a bomb on me and said, oops, hahahaha, looks like you have to pay more in then we realized, and you only have three days to do it before penalty this and penalty that.

It was $9,302.

I wanted to vomit on my laptop when saw that.

I was beyond aghast.

I emailed the accountant and I asked for clarification and I expressed what a devastating thing it was to have just made the quarterly tax payment, and then less the twelve hours later I was being told I owed another 9k.

I was flummoxed.

I got a sincere apology from the co-founder of the firm, who I had cc’d on the message back to the accountant, an explanation for why it happened and they refunded the $900 I had paid for the service.

Great.

And, I still had to pay the money.

So I basically emptied my savings and did that.

Which was why I had turned down the original Burning Man ticket I was going to get.

I can’t go to the event and be there for two weeks and work on playa and help out and miss two weeks of work after taking that kind of hit.

So.

I gave up the commitment, gave up the ticket, and resigned myself to not going.

Things changed over the next few months.

I had a really stellar month in May and a strong month in June.

July, not so great since COVID happened to me and I had to take a week off, but I had secured a new ticket and gotten my gear sourced and I was ready to go.

Then the tax bill arrived.

I was so upset.

Fuck.

I thought I was going to have to bow out completely from going to the event.

I spent some time thinking about it and decided to just pause, lean into the discomfort, think about what I wanted and act like I had the money to pay the bill.

Which I did.

Even if it meant wiping out the savings I had just rebuilt after the April tax kerfuffle.

I even asked the CPA who had drafted my tax filing about the April payment and got a brush off.

So.

I had done a bit of inventory, a lot of breathing, and got very into acceptance, I’ll meet with the accountant with the firm and just fucking sign and pay the fucking taxes.

And.

Oh.

This is good.

I was right.

The firm had missed the payment.

The IRS had not.

The IRS had a record of it and I accessed it, shared it with the accountant and I went from having to pay in $5,761 to getting back $4,340.

Fuck yes!

I was over the moon.

And the week of work I missed with being sick was now made up for and I’m ok to go to the event and.

Woohoo!

Then.

Today.

I got back the final dissertation draft with all the edits properly executed and accepted.

There was only one.

One fucking edit I could not fix myself and I had to chase after help, but I got it and it was returned complete and done and perfect this morning.

So.

I logged into the ProQuest portion of the publication process and I fucking finished the deal.

I chose how I wanted to publish, Traditional versus Open Source, which means I could actually get royalties (though I will not bank on it), my dissertation.

I filled in all the blanks.

I paid for my own hard cover copy to be sent to me.

And I hit the upload button.

It does not immediately get published, the school will gate keep it one more time and make sure all the edits are correct, then once those final edits are affirmed, they will publish it an I will get a link to a copy of the dissertation on ProQuest.

Holy fucking shit.

This last piece has finally fallen into place.

And it was a harrowing last piece of work.

I cannot even begin to talk about how intense it was to deal with the lapse in holding the administration at my school had.

I will tell you what I did get, however.

First, I got an apology from the head of the Writing Center, then my dean, followed by a profound apology from the Provost, in a 45 minute Zoom call where I went over everything that happened and how the program and the school dropped me and publishing my dissertation.

I contacted the provost when things were fucking falling apart in a bewildering way and she helped push through some admin bullshit that was once again damaging to have to walk through.

She also affirmed what I had experienced, did not gaslight what happened, and noted what I had accomplished, the depth of the work I had done and gave me a beautiful, “Congratulations Doctor _______________”.

She promised to make sure that I would matriculate.

And, once the publication happens I will be matriculated at the end of the summer semester.

Considering how batshit the administration of the school is, I won’t expect my diploma until this fall, but for now, all the things that I needed to do are done.

I just need the manager of the dissertation portion of the Writing Center to confirm I did the final edit and send to ProQuest.

I did follow up with an email, although he gets an automatic email from the upload. I saved it anyway, which I have learned, I needed to do with the school.

Which is how I was able to show where they had dropped the ball and how, I hope, they will not for future cohorts.

I really am ready to be done with the institution.

And.

I am ready for my own damn version of graduation.

Back in May when I walked, when I had gotten the approval to graduate, despite the fact of finding out later that there were things missing, I was also missing part of my regalia–the god damn hood.

The one piece of the graduation outfit for doctors that signifies the degree.

The way it works is that your committee chair hoods you at the graduation ceremony.

My graduation was virtual and though we had a little in person reception at the school, it was weak sauce.

And the outfit responsible for getting my regalia to me never sent me my hood.

I got my hood in the mail this Monday.

Two months after my “graduation.”

The Universe is funny.

So.

I am going to have a graduation ceremony on playa, at Burning Man, at my friend’s art piece, the Museum of No Spectators.

I think Wednesday or Thursday of the event.

The art piece has a stage.

I’m not sure how I’m going to organize it, but a little hooding ceremony, a walk out to the Temple in my regalia, and then laying it at rest there.

It feels right.

I had a kind of dark night of the soul on playa in 2014 that led to me applying to graduate school to get my Master’s in Psychology.

This feels like the closing of a circle and a celebration of all the freaking hard work I did to get here.

From playa nanny to Doctor.

I am beyond grateful.

Like I said.

It was a banner day.

Seriously.

Slow it down

Whelp.

I might have been ready to buy a house.

But the bank ain’t.

Oh well.

And actually.

Some relief.

It felt like it was moving a touch too fast.

I was beginning to feel anxiety about client’s cancelling and am I bringing in enough and how much is a mortgage payment going to be?

OH.

That’s a lot.

And fuck.

I better secure some more clients.

And shit.

I need to publish a book and can someone bequeath me some money.

I don’t really play the lotto, but maybe I better start.

Fun things the brain likes to cook up.

But, as it turns out, I am not in a position to buy anything.

This year.

I had a meeting, phone meeting, with the mortgage broker my real estate agent suggested.

And he was very clear.

Nothing to do here.

No bank is going to touch me.

I’m self-employed.

I need two years of stable income.

It’s not that I’m a risk per se, but that banks are very hesitant to loan money to the person who doesn’t have a proven track record of making money.

Cool.

I get that.

So the agent said, you appear to make enough and continue to make this much and you should be fine to get a loan.

Next year.

So.

The project is on hold and I’m not going anywhere.

Unless, yeah, some long lost relative has some money for me.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

That’s so not happening.

Anyway.

I actually felt a lot of relief when that happened, the mortgage broker saying, not this year and I’ll contact you about this time next year and then we’ll talk.

Gave me a reprieve.

Gave me some relief.

It’s not off the radar, but it’s some ways out.

And of course, time moves quick at my age, next year will be here before I know it.

Still.

Being able to take my foot off the gas and recognize that I don’t have to suddenly work more when I already work a lot, was a relief.

And.

Summer’s tough.

Folks travel.

I’ve had a lot of cancellations with people traveling.

And I’m ok with that.

There are still new clients coming in, I have a consultation tomorrow.

I picked up a new client last week.

Turn over happens.

That’s a part of my business.

Faith that things will move and taking the necessary actions and letting go, gently, of the results, is the best way forward with me.

I also hit up the MOHCD first time buyers program zoom.

Mayors Office of Housing and Community Development.

I had thought I had a chance at some of the loan programs they offer first time buyers.

And nope.

I don’t.

The city counts gross income.

EVEN for someone who is self-employed.

So it doesn’t matter that my business eats about half of what I make, the city will count all of what the business brings in.

Sigh.

So.

I make too much money.

Funny that.

Not quite enough money in some eyes and too much in others.

I did at least save a little time and exited the zoom early when I learned that piece of information.

I looked about my apartment, it’s a sweet little space, and I realized, hmm, I have plenty, I have more than enough.

I live a lovely life.

I have two cute cats.

I have a business that I run and own.

Literally.

I am an SCorp.

Well, my business is an SCorp.

I actually have 1,000 shares if you are interested in investing.

Not that I would ever go public.

Not that I even know if that’s an option.

Totally no clue, but yeah, my accountant filed the paper work for me, my business, to become a corporation rather than a sole proprietor.

Cool.

I have no idea what it means, except, that ultimately it’s supposed to save me some tax dollars.

Ok.

A lot of this is over my head.

I don’t know anyone in my family that is a business owner.

This is all unfamiliar territory.

But there are perks, so many.

I call my shots.

I schedule myself.

I still am loving the off on Fridays gig.

I love my job, that helps so much.

I am grateful for all the other jobs I’ve had as well, they have all served in one way or another–taught me how to listen, how to care take of others, how to watch for cues in the environment, having an open door policy when I was management in the service industry, all the confidences I have held over the years.

It all added up.

I shared with someone recently, that I have been groomed to be a therapist, I was built to be one.

I am grateful for it all.

It hasn’t been easy.

No.

Not at all.

But.

It has been beautiful.

And for that I am grateful.

And that house that I have built to reside in, the corporeal one this soul inhabits.

Well.

It’s damn solid and I am content.

So much so.

A house can wait.

My home is already secured.

Back at it!

After nearly four weeks off, I went back to work today.

I started out this morning by guest lecturing (remotely via Zoom) at CIIS in the Clinical Relationship class on erotic countertransference in the clinical dyad.

That was fun.

I did that for about an hour then transitioned to my first client of the day.

Fortunately for me, a phone session.

Followed by another phone session.

Followed by a video session.

Then a break.

Phew.

Break much needed and yes, yes I did, I took my first unaccompanied walk!

It was just a block, don’t freak out.

And I went super duper slow.

Like.

Ridiculously slow.

I walked to the mailbox and mailed my rent check for December.

It felt great to be outside.

Though intense, and I walked back much slower than I had walked to the mailbox.

Then I had lunch in bed.

Now.

I will say that was my only meal in bed and for that I feel pretty happy.

I had breakfast at my “desk”, aka, my kitchen table and tonight I had dinner in my living room sitting in my reading chair.

Normally I like to sit on my pink velvet couch and enjoy the view of the night sky out the window framed in soft yellow string bulb lights.

However.

My couch is too low to sit on comfortably and get back up from.

By the end of my sessions tonight I was definitely feeling stiff and I had gotten a bit swollen up, but I really didn’t want to eat dinner in bed.

Although, I will say that I did not force myself to write this blog at my desk.

I’m writing from bed, propped up on pillows, three behind my back, two underneath my knees.

I can push myself a little, but I’m not a masochist.

And I know that going too hard back into things is not good for my healing.

Gratefully I am in a profession that is not too active.

Granted prior to my surgery I have a times found this challenging–being so sedentary.

Before becoming a psychotherapist I was a nanny, in fact, I nannied a good way into being a therapist–nothing says good times like juggling full time work with full time school and getting my hours to become a therapist.

In a sense, until very, very, very recently, I was working six to seven days a week.

So this down time I’ve had recovering from the surgery has also been surreal.

Lying in bed watching a lot of videos.

I did some reading too, but mostly I think I just slept and watched videos and tried to not be in self-pity when the weather was screaming gorgeous out.

I literally missed the best weather of the year indoors for three and a half weeks recuperating.

That being said.

Once I am fully healed up I will be outside and moving and doing all the things.

My next post-op appointment is December 10th.

At which point my surgeon will let me know when I can start exercising again–more than just walking.

I sense it will still be a slow journey towards being as active again as I was prior.

I cannot wait to get back into the swimming pool.

Or!

To go out dancing.

My, oh my.

I have missed dancing.

I mean, pandemic quashed that in a major way, though I definitely had a lot of private dance parties by myself in my kitchen.

Then I had a burst appendix in February, followed by my first surgery, the brachioplasty, followed by the belt lipectomy.

My dance moves have been severely restrained.

I have a friend who is all about the dancing and keeps sending me invites and I’ve had to turn them all down.

I had a teensy narrow window of opportunity when I was feeling better resourced after the brachioplasty and able to move my arms without feeling like they were going to rip apart, and I had just defended my dissertation, that I could have possibly gone out.

But.

My friend was out of town and I spent that weekend getting my household prepped for the next surgery.

Considering how slow the healing process takes, it will likely be March, April, May of next year before I’m really able to hit a dance floor again.

But it’s there, just on the horizon.

And today gave me just a tiny glimpse of hope for that.

In a sense, I had a full eight hour work day.

I lectured for an hour, then had three sessions, had a break and then did four more sessions.

That was a pretty big day to start back in.

I’m tired.

And also.

Just a smidgeon exhilerated.

It was so good to see my clients again!

I missed them.

And I missed my morning routine.

It felt really nice to make my breakfast this morning, make a coffee, sit at my desk, read my emails, eat, drink my latte, write my morning pages in my journal. Rather than get up, make breakfast, bring it back to bed and crawl back into bed for the majority of the day.

Sure.

I was stiff sitting at my desk and had to keep my core still, but fuck, it felt so damn good to be back to a semblance of my normal routine.

I am also grateful that I have a late start tomorrow morning.

I will let myself sleep in and I will take it very slow in the morning.

I also normally have a late session on Mondays, but not today, and that helped.

I checked in with my person at lunch too and let him know how my day was going and said out loud that if I felt like it was too much I would cancel on my evening sessions.

I did not have to do that.

I did have to be careful to sit still and be really gentle getting up and out of my chair in between sessions and taking bathroom breaks.

And I did it.

Such a relief!

I got through my first day back.

Such simple joy in getting back to my routine.

Grateful.

Seriously fucking grateful.

I’m back in the saddle again.

It’s A Good Thing

To write.

I am making an effort to get my blogging back on.

This is not a New Year’s resolution, seems late in the month for that shit anyway.

I can’t remember the last time I made a resolution.

I like my life.

I don’t feel compelled to do some big self-improvement.

Granted.

There are some things I would like to do a bit more.

Definitely a little more exercise.

Being housebound with the pandemic and also not nannying and sitting my office chair for eight or nine hours a day has left me feeling a smidge out of shape.

So.

More outside time, more walks and more bicycle rides.

Especially since I took my trusty whip into Valencia Cyclery yesterday and got her nice and tuned up–adjusted the headset and got a new silver Izumi chain.

She rides like a dream.

I’m committing to at least two bicycle rides a week, maybe three, and more walks.

I have been walking, though I feel like I could just keep that up as much as possible.

My whip all dolled up with a new silver Izumi chain.

I’m alone a lot, who the fuck isn’t, with the pandemic and shelter in place.

At least getting outside I see people in real time, rather than Zoom time.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fuck out of Zoom, I get to meetings, I work with clients via video, I am grateful.

But it is not the same as seeing people in the flesh.

Even if they’re masked.

I recently had a friend move to the neighborhood–literally two blocks away! And I’m excited to connect and get some face to face, six feet away, and do some walk abouts in the hood.

I’ve recently ended the relationship, again, god, I am done with it.

Really.

Done with it.

No more.

Move on.

Move the fuck on.

Be available for something true and sustainable and transparent.

The holidays were tough and I realized I’d compartmentalized a lot of my feelings since reconnecting with my ex, mostly because I so desperately needed human connection, but after opening up Christmas gifts alone I really broke down.

Plus.

That night, Christmas night, an old friend reached out to me from L.A. and asked how crazy would it be if we went on a date.

Holy crap.

That was from left field.

He’s also had some experiences dating women coming out of bad marriages and/or divorces and he pretty much shared that he’d recently turned someone down due to that and how really unavailable they were and it resonated a bit too much.

I teared up.

I divulged some of the ups and downs of the past few years and we commiserated.

He also made a play for me and made it pretty clear he’d like to connect.

Granted we’ve not talked more than ten minutes on the phone since that time and scattered texts, AND, he’s in LA, so long distance and on fire with COVID right now, so not really anything coming of it.

Except.

How much my heart longs for an honest, out in the open, committed monogamous relationship.

It led me to have no contact with my ex for a week–also because I had to study, had to, for my LMFT exam.

That was some crazy.

I grinded for a good week on the studying.

I already had been studying for weeks, six at that time, put in a total of seven, but that last week prior to the test I probably put in about 40 hours of study.

On top of seeing my full client load.

I was bonked.

I turned off my phone.

I deleted Instagram off my phone.

I saw no news.

I had already deactivated Facebook.

It was just me and the study guide from The Therapist Development Center.

And.

It worked!

I passed!

I passed!

I passed!

So freaking grateful.

I took the exam on Wednesday, January 6th, the same time as the idiocy that was breaking out in D.C.

Not that I knew anything.

I was in a box on the fourteenth floor of 201 California Street downtown and had nary a clue what was going on.

Thank goodness.

I mean.

I found out soon thereafter, but I was so foggy brained after taking the four hour exam that not much registered until the next day.

I texted a bunch of folks my news, including my guy, and I thought, after a week of no contact I would get back more than, “Congratulations beautiful.”

But that’s what I got.

And I knew that we were going to end.

And that it was over, yet again.

And that’s ok.

I mean.

I have to forgive myself and accept my messiness and let go of the sadness.

I believe that some part of me thrives on that sadness, or is comforted by it, and all the old story lines of unrequited love and yada, yada, yada.

No more.

Free.

Out to the world.

Masked.

But out.

And writing again.

Not just because of the ending of the relationship, partly yes, but because God’s given me this time that I needed, desperately needed, to work on my PhD study.

I put it way on the back burner to teach Psychodynamic’s at CIIS this fall and then I had myself immersed in my studying for the LMFT exam.

Now that I have finished teaching and am “just” working as a psychotherapist, I am dropping deeply into doing the work necessary to catch up on the time I lost for my study.

Every day I have been doing a little bit.

I just keep telling myself that I have to do a little every day.

And today, I also recognized, as I was combing through some old blogs for data, that I also have to get my writing chops back on.

It’s been a while since I sustained a daily blog practice.

I don’t think that I can do that right now, but I can at least get back into it on a weekly basis.

So.

Pledging to at least sit here and write on Sundays, and any other day that feels sutainable.

Continue working on gathering the study data and keep doing the work to transition from my agency to my own private practice.

I still am 100% on board for defending my dissertation this year.

So.

I have to get the work done.

Have do.

And.

EEK.

I got asked to work at Burning Man.

Holy moly.

I mean, I don’t know if it will actually be able to happen with the pandemic, but that I was asked, also lit a fire under my ass.

I would love to go and be completely free to enjoy it.

So.

Again.

Show up.

Suit up.

And do the next action in front of me.

This is the final push.

I finish this and no more school.

I am so ready for that.

So ready.

Seriously.