One Down

Two to go!

I’m a third of the way there.

I finished, proofed, edited, and sent my final paper out for my Introduction to Transformative Inquiry.

Ten pages baby.

Turned in this evening at 5:16 p.m.

Had I needed to make the 5pm bell tonight I would have made it.

It feels really good to have this paper done and sent in.

I don’t need to post any more discussions on the boards, I can just bow out of the class and move on.

One of my classes for next semester is already live with a syllabus and I looked it over briefly last night, got momentarily overwhelmed, and shut that shit down.

I still have two more things to turn in.

Now.

Granted, tomorrow’s final project, in the worlds of the good professor, I can turn anything in, shall be quite easy.

In fact.

Well.

I almost decided to work on it, but hey, you know, one ten page paper is enough for today.

And that certainly was not the only productive thing I did today, hello laundry, but I figured, you know, give yourself a break.

I know what my final project is going to be, two poems and two recordings of me reciting those poems.

One that I wrote near the beginning of the semester and one that I wrote this past week, here at the end of the semester.

I can do this at work tomorrow.

Fingers crossed the baby takes a nice nap and the parents are not around.

Mondays I typically do have a wide breadth of time by myself at the home, so I figure I’ll just turn it in then.  And should the baby not nap and there are monkeys home sick from school, or the parents are around the whole day, I will have the evening to take care of sending it in.

I don’t have clients on Mondays.

Which means I “just” have work and my doing the deal after work.

And then, heh, it’s my birthday!

Day after tomorrow I will be turning 46.

Sort of crazy.

46.

It feels interesting.

I’ve gotten grey hair this year and have decided not to cover it, I’m sort of going for the Frankie look of Lily Tomlin’s in Frankie and Grace, all wild, curly, grey and silver and white and brown.

I have a lot of hair and the silver whispering through it is not really noticeable.

Well.

It is to me, but no one else has pointed it out yet.

Just like the laugh lines around my eyes are very noticeable to me, but no one else really says anything.

My person always remarks on my skin.

Makeup, thank you.

Oh, I suppose I do have some pretty good genetics, my grandmother on my father’s side looked quite young for sometime and still is brunette.

Of course, it’s dyed, but she mostly pulls it off.

I’m high maintenance in some areas but not really with my hair.

I don’t feel like coloring it or hiding the grey.

There is also this part of me that thinks it adds a little maturity to my look and some sagacity and maybe my clients think that I am a little older and that I have a great deal of experience.

Not that I have actually ever had a client ask me how long I have been practicing therapy, but I do suppose I will get asked.

I’ve been seeing clients consistently now for a little over a year and a half.

It’s pretty incredible.

And I’m good.

I’m not saying that to toot my own horn, but I am and I am grateful for that confidence.

I have built it up by working with four different supervisors and a number of clients, some of whom I have worked with for over a year.

In fact, my first client is still with me.

Yup.

So I get to see what having a therapy relationship for over a year feels like and it’s quite good.

I did some work for my practice today actually, even with the dealing with of my final paper.

Sundays are my laundry day since I moved into my new place.  I don’t have access to the washer and dryer here like I did in my last place (sad, sad, sad face) so I have to go to the laundry mat.

I use the time there to read my text books.

Today as I was loading up my stuff to go I went to reach for a text-book to read and realized.

I HAVE READ ALL THE BOOKS!

I finished the last text for the semester last Sunday.

Holy shit.

I read all the books.

What an accomplishment.

So what was I going to read at the mat?

I mean, I could perhaps blow off an hour and a half on Instagram, but um, no thanks.

And there it was on my desk, a book my group supervisor had given me last week, “Building Ideal Private Practice,” by Lynn Grodzki.

Well, ok then.

I will have some time to focus on bringing in more clients.

I have openings on Fridays and Saturdays, I should manifest some new clients.

I got through three chapters at the laundry mat and did one of the exercises suggested that was basically making an affirmation and writing it over and over again and seeing what negative thoughts arose.

It was a really interesting exercise.

My affirmation was: “I have 25 wonderful, serious, full fee clients who I get to help and empower.”

All sorts of stuff came up as I wrote and rewrote it.

“I’m not good enough.”

Oh hello.

Yes you are, you were built for this work.

“I can’t handle 25 clients.”

Um, excuse me, yes I can, I would actually work less than I work now as a full-time nanny.

“There’s not enough clients.”

Oh, hello scarcity, nice to meet you again.

I kept writing until I ran out of negative thoughts and then after about ten minutes I wrote out the affirmation and what popped out was:

“I can do this!”

Yes.

Yes, you can.

I work really hard and I know this will happen.

And in the mean time.

I got my paper in!

Huzzah!

Inch By Inch

I’m getting there.

I got my Psychopharmacology online assignments finished today.

And.

Yes.

I wrote my final paper for Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality.

I turned it in.

And god damn that felt good.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to kick it out.

I had a serious amount of overwhelm today and I just had to keep telling myself that I was ok and that I just needed to do the next thing in front of me and it would get done.

Really had to break it down into little palatable bites.

I leaked tears when I was checking in with a friend of mine before group supervision today, he well knows what it feels like to be overwhelmed, like I, he did the same school program and worked full-time to support his way through school.

“You got this, you can do this, you can, it’s almost done,” he said and patted me on the arm.

I did some deep breathing and tried to calm down.

I still cried in supervision during my check in.

I’m super grateful I didn’t burst into tears at the baby shower I went to before supervision.

But.

I came close.

It was touch and go.

I was only there for literally twenty minutes, enough to say hello, squeeze my dear friend and soon mom to be and use the bathroom before winging out the door and getting onto the next thing.

I was able to get up and go to yoga this morning.

Although I almost didn’t.

In fact.

I’m not sure I’ll go tomorrow.

I’m feeling a bit off.

I’ve had an upset stomach all day today.

I don’t know if I caught a bug, or if it’s just stress, but I can’t eat dinner.

I have been noodling around, since I got home, looking at this next paper I have to write and poking around social media hoping my tummy would settle down and I would make myself some dinner, but I honestly feel a bit too nauseous.

I’m going to make a cup of tea after I finish blogging and let it go at that.

I don’t want to eat something if I’m feeling sick.

Even though I follow a pretty regulated eating program of recovery, I can’t fathom eating right now.  I’m hoping that this passes and I’ll wake up chipper and fine.

I mean.

I am glad I went to yoga even though I felt like poop most of the class, I did find some relief in the stretching and also a little hiatus from my head and the anxiety of getting all the work finished for next weekends round of classes.

I also can tell you that I wasn’t feeling myself from the fact that I never changed out of my yoga clothes.

I never do that.

I strip, shower, and get dressed in fresh clothes.

I took the yoga class super easy though, I didn’t want to stress out my ankle, so I never really broke a sweat and when I got home, I was like, shit, fuck the shower, save the extra time to work on some homework, eat breakfast, and do some writing.

I don’t have any compunctions about it at all, I did throw on a cute shirt over my leggings and put a tiny bit of makeup on, but really, I was flying pretty low-key today, just staying focused on getting to the next thing in front of me.

I also took my car today, I was going to take my scooter to “save on time” but I wasn’t feeling it, I wanted to be cozy in my car and so, yay, self-care, I drove today.

It was nice.

I listened to Chopin in my car, which I never do on my scooter, listen to music, and I had the heat on and it was super yummy and cozy.

So glad I did that.

I thought I was going to lose some time and that I would regret not having taken the scooter, but I found parking everywhere I went and was able to navigate all the things.

I am really still a bit shocked that I got everything done.

Although I did get teary again this evening checking in with a friend of mine about needing to go home after doing the deal instead of going out and getting dinner.

First, upset tummy did not want eating out, and second, I really wanted to get home and check in on a few things and get prepared for tomorrow.

It’s a big day too.

Final dress rehearsal for People Who Usually Don’t Lecture.

The show is on Tuesday.

I’ve got the rehearsal from noon to 4p.m.

I may go to yoga, I may not.

I’m not signing up until I see how I feel in the morning.

If I’m still having an upset stomach I’ll let myself off the hook.

After the rehearsal I’m going to treat myself to a mani/pedi and some eyebrow waxing, I want to look good for the show.

Then some grocery shopping and my last CBT webinar at 7p.m.

I’m not sure if I will get to my Drug and Alcohol paper or not.

I’m going to try.

I have all the material prepared and I have a pretty good idea what I will write on.

I would like to get it done before the end of the weekend.

I am so annoyed I still have to sit through a CBT webinar, I finished all the reading and did the take home exam already and sent it in, this last webinar seems like a fucking waste of my time, but I’ll do it and that will be one more class completed.

What I’m hoping is that the dress rehearsal goes by fast, that I won’t have to be there until 4p.m.

Or.

Maybe I bring my stuff with me and when the other speakers are practicing, I do homework.

I don’t know.

I’ll play it by ear.

Just grateful I got through today.

So grateful.

And with that.

I’m out.

I need to get cozy.

Sweet dreams.

I’ll see you on the flip.

Taking Bribes

I’m serious.

I dangled a manicure in front of my face to get myself to sit the fuck down and write my Transpersonal Psychology final paper.

It took a minute.

Granted I started the day off wonky.

Fuck my life.

I was supposed to wake up to my best friends call this morning for breakfast and I remember as I rolled over thinking, “why haven’t I got a call yet?” as I went to check my phone, thinking maybe I had a few more minutes of…

Oof.

Fuck.

I had been called, and texted.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

I had the volume off.

I don’t know how that happened and I was so mad at myself, miserable with it, and I sent off a quick text hoping my friend was still in the neighborhood.

And.

Yes.

Though breakfast was off the table, only time for a quick coffee, but thank God.

I would have been devastated if I had missed seeing my person.

Dear God it would have been a much different day.

Suffice to say I got some sweetness, not enough, I’m going to miss my friend who is traveling now, but thankful, so much so, that I was able to get a little face time.

It meant the world.

And once I was up I got going.

Striped my bed, washed laundry, did some writing, drank more coffee, ate breakfast, tried not to think about the work I had to do today, but didn’t really succeed at that.

I get anxious before I have to write an academic piece.

My blog?

Pshaw.

I can’t hardly wait to write this, or my Morning Pages, but an academic paper where I have to cite sources and have an idea about what the fuck I’m going to write about.

Um.

Anxiety.

So cleaning, and cooking, did food prep for the week, although, really, there wasn’t much cleaning after yesterday.

And a cursory look over my calendar for the week.

My hopes for next weekend being a time that I will devote to my other three papers vanished as I looked it over.

Fuck my mother.

I have to do the dress rehearsal for People Who Usually Don’t Lecture, for four hours on Sunday and I have my last Webinar for CBT.

Ugh.

I might be able to get one paper written that day in between the dress rehearsal and the webinar, I’ll try.

I think I can do my Drug and Alcohol paper that day, it’s pretty straight forward, compare a 12 step recovery meeting with a Harm Reduction therapy model.

Which means attending a meeting and participating in the harm reduction group that we had in class last weekend.

No problems there.

I basically have it all written out in my head anyway.

I still have to do citations, but I won’t have to do that many, and it’s a smallish paper, five to seven pages.

I’ll knock it out in an hour and a half, two hours tops.

Today, when I finally settled down to write my paper, it took less than two hours.

I had to do everything else that had to be done in the house before I could start, like I said, sparkling clean house?

Must have a paper to write.

Heh.

I had done some cursory work, looking over notes, then I got serious, after I had met with my ladybug and did some other reading and get right with God stuff, and she’d gone back out into the rain, I dove in.

Not true.

I ate lunch.

Then I dove in.

Meh.

I lie.

I washed the lunch dishes.

Seriously, I was like an anxious bitty dashing around my house looking for anything to distract me.

Then I sat down and wrote my paper.

WAIT.

No.

I didn’t.

I wrapped my charge’s birthday present, she turned five today, I got some super sweet photos of her at the carousel with her family, for taking into work tomorrow.

A pink glitter notebook and a big packet of stickers.

Unicorn stickers.

Bunny Stickers.

Funny animals in hats.

Flowers.

All the fun stuff.

Then.

Aha.

I wrote my paper.

Wait, um, no, I hemmed and hawed and then suddenly.

Oh!

I had a sudden surprise idea.

I pulled out a deck of Tarot cards.

I know what that sounds like, shut up.

But.

I really decided that that’s what I was going to do.

Active Imagination.

It’s a form of Jungian Dream Work that helps the person to engage with the unconscious.

Jung developed it for people who couldn’t remember their dreams.

We had done it a few times in class and I thought, well, heck, this might be a way to launch into the paper.

So.

I sat with the deck.

I asked it a question about love.

And.

Wow.

Did I get an answer.

About strength and fire and love.

Sensuality, star shine, holding on.

About perseverance, about not giving up, about staying strong and in the light.

It was a beautiful moment and suddenly I was in, I was in the paper, I was finding all the citations, I was following this beautiful serendipitous thread through my notes, finding poetry that I had written in class, seeing connections, making leaps, and voila!

I did it!

Fucking wrote the paper in about an hour?

Maybe it took total an hour and a half with the citations, and the editing.

But once I got moving, I was in.

It was amazing.

It really always amazes me that I can kick out a paper that fast.

Grateful does not even begin to express how I felt.

And yes.

I did have time to get out and go to the nail salon and get my nails done.

I even popped into my spot on 7th and Irving and got right with God.

That was fabulous.

I drove home listening to my current favorite playlist, “Music for Slow Dancing,” and talked to my best friend until I found a spot to park my car.

Yes.

I found parking in my neighborhood, block away, not bad, considering everyone’s back from the holiday.

And it was a small spot, it wouldn’t have fit a bigger car, so happy I have a little gal and not something bigger, it’s really so much better in this city.

I double, triple checked that I wasn’t parking on a street cleaning side and then I walked home in the warm, dark night, thinking sweet thoughts to myself.

My life is pretty good.

Oh.

Sure.

There’s still more work to do.

But.

I will get to it.

For now.

I can take the rest of the night off and have some tea and watch a video and get ready for the week.

I’m back in it tomorrow, full-time work, clients, and getting ready for the lecture.

But it’s all good.

It really is.

I’m happy.

Joyous.

Free.

And.

Loved.

Luckiest girl in the world.

 

So Fresh and So

Clean.

Clean.

My house looks pretty fucking good, let me tell you.

All the laundry done, all the trash and recycling out and swept, swiffered, vacuumed, scrub the bathroom down, tidy the fuck up.

Which means one thing.

Mama had a lot of homework to do today.

My God.

There is no fucking end to it.

Yet.

Me thinks I see a glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh.

The light is far off, but I can sense it getting closer.

I did so, so, so much work today.

My god.

My brain hurt.

Still does, not as much, and hurt might not be the right word, but I was worn out with the material, as I was warned that I might be, but I toughed it out.

I finished all of my Elder, Spousal, and Child Abuse class.

Huzzah!

But man, it took the stuffing out of me, and I don’t eat stuffing.

Haha.

It was a lot of reading, and a lot of watching some intense videos.

I wrote out responses to five of the sections, I got three out-of-the-way previously.

And I wrote a clinical mock-up of an elder abuse situation and what I would do, from mandatory reporting to clinical interventions and everything in between.

It was a lot of work.

But.

Fuck.

It’s done.

So happy I got all of that out-of-the-way, it really was the big monster in my block of classes.

I also finished all my reading for Transpersonal, which means, drumroll please…

I have no more reading to do for the semester!!

My God.

That feels fabulous.

I am not, however, out of the woods yet.

Tomorrow I have to write two papers.

One will be fairly short, two pages, on a dream I had, it will be my last dream to tun into my Jungian Dreamwork class.

The other will be a bit longer, but not too bad, five pages.

That one will, however, be a bit more formal and honestly despite having finished all the reading for the class I’m not exactly sure where I am going to go with the paper.

I was also in contact with my group today working on our final project presentation that I will be doing the last Saturday of classes.

I’m hoping to knock out both the papers and the group work tomorrow.

And also, if I can swing it, the Psychopharmacology online portion of my Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality class.

I have a paper in that class due at the end of the semester too and one for my Drugs and Alcohol Class.

Sigh.

That will be for next weekend.

I can get it done though, especially since the Elder, Spousal, and Child Abuse class is completed.

My God.

One more class done towards my degree.

Which reminds me, I have to register for classes in two days.

In two days I will register for my last semester!

I only have three classes.

It is going to feel miraculous after carrying six classes this semester.

I have only done four classes at once before, this semester was a stretch, and obviously, it’s not done.

OH.

And I still will have a final paper for Jungian DreamWork too, it’s just not due until after the last weekend of classes.

Which is always a conundrum.

Crush that bitch out of the park and get it done before my last weekend of classes, or finish that Sunday when I get out of classes.

Because the damn thing is due on the 15th of December and I’ll be working all that week and of course, seeing clients.

There’s no way I can do two big papers tomorrow and the small one and the online portion of my other class.

No.

I will be a wastrel of a person.

But.

Maybe I can do them next weekend.

Maybe.

If not, maybe I can get it started.

It would mean three papers next weekend.

Sigh.

I got invited out to the movies tonight.

I turned it down.

I got invited out to dinner.

I came home and made my own.

I am going to be over the moon when this semester is done, it will be nice to have a little more wiggle room for social outings and such.

Although I do have breakfast plans with my best friend in the morning.

Super excited for that, really happy to get to have some time before I get into the homework grind.

And if I’m good and grind hard and get a lot of it done, maybe I go to yoga.

Not the regular Vinyasa, nope.

My ankle is doing better, but not that much better, no, I was thinking maybe the Restorative yoga, my brain is going to need some restoring to normality by the time I crank out all the homework I have to do tomorrow.

Grateful I know how to write a paper and grateful for my ability to pull together my notes and book references and make it work.

I can do it.

I have my process and I’ve done the biggest work, which is the reading.

That’s the most important.

I’ll skim through my books, grab a stack of post-it notes and flip through my class notes, I will put together a skeleton of the paper in outline by looking through my materials and see what my common themes are.

Then.

I’ll write that bitch.

It’s five pages, so with prep time, reference time, write time, I am going to give it two and a half hours.

Actually.

That seems too long.

Two hours.

I’ll kick out the dream paper in twenty minutes, I don’t have to write it up with references, it’s just me doing what I do anyway, write what I see in my head, so two pages will be twenty minutes, thirty tops.

So maybe I’ll have all the writing done with in that time.

And that should give me enough room and time to finish the rest of the online material I need, I suspect that will take an hour to two and also writing out an outline and making a worksheet for my final project for Transpersonal.

That will take forty-five minutes.

So.

What am I looking at?

Five hours?

I think I can do that.

Breakfast shenanigans are early so I’ll be in the mix by 10 a.m. like I was today, today I finished at 6 p.m. working pretty much straight through, yes, even when I was cleaning I was doing homework.

I had to watch a few videos, but I will admit, I was listening to some of them while I was cleaning, the material at times was graphic and I found it easier to integrate when I was cleaning and sweeping and washing.

So if all goes as planned I’ll be done by five or so.

I have an hour break at 1p.m. to do some work with a lovely lady and get right with God, a break after that for lunch, and then back in it.

It will get done.

It will.

I can do it.

I can.

Go team go!

Heh.

My Gratitude Knows No Bounds

I mean.

How grateful am I for this blog?

So fucking grateful, so grateful I can’t say it without a depth of profanity to back up the word gratitude because it sounds sort of pussy and woo woo to say grateful.

Fuck.

Grateful out my ass.

If only from the stand point of the amount of practice I have had over the last five and a half years of constantly typing.

I am hella fast on the key board.

Grateful too for a forum to sort my thoughts, get my head together and aligned with my heart and to see the places and spaces I need to go and sometimes the things that I need to let go.

I just finished writing my second paper for my cohort for this semester of school, the ICPW weekend intensive for CIIS.

That is Integral Counseling Psychology, when I write about getting a Masters in Psychology, it is within the realm of this program.

Said program, lest you haven’t been paying attention, or have just come to start reading my little blog here, is held on the weekends, except for the week-long retreat that heralded the beginning of the semester.

Retreat my ass,

Boot camp it was and boot camp it remains.

Although, it probably had much better food than boot camps do.

And I was able to get my ass into the hot tub twice over the span of the eight days I was there.

I find it hilarious that though school has not officially begun, it has begun and begun with a roar.

I mean, I had a paper due before the start of the retreat and so much reading that I am still getting caught up.  Part of that was my bad, I did buy the wrong readers for half my classes.

Aside.

My sweet friend who tried to go to Copy Central and pick up the Dubitzky reader for me, I love, love, love you, and am horrified that you spent all of lunch time waiting in line at the counter only to find out that the reader is STILL not in.

Copyright laws my ass.

Get my reader printed bitches I got reading to do.

I really wanted to have it in my sights before I headed out to that thing in the desert, but it seems that is not to happen.

My friend did say he would hop back there while I was at Burning Man and try to retrieve it again, Copy Central said give it another week.  Of course, I don’t have another week, I leave for Burning Man a week from today.

In fact, this time next week, I will be in the dusty dust.

So excited!

End aside.

Work, lots and lots and lots of school work, and yes, I know, this is a graduate program, but it is new for me, and I realize that I am going to have to make a continued, sustained effort at getting things done every day.

I also have to say, I have felt a feeling of dread and anticipatory fear both times that I sat down in front of my laptop to start writing my papers.

Tonight’s paper was on my Integral Yoga and Philosophy class.

“Oh! How’s the retreat going?  The yoga sounds really lovely,” a friend texted.

Are you reading my blog?

Or are you just projecting your desires to do yoga under some nice spreading oak trees in the grass?

Because there was no yoga being done where I was.

Well.

There may have been, but it wasn’t by me.

No.

The Integral Yoga class was a history class on yoga as a spiritual path and the philosophy of said integrated system as informed by the studies of Sri Aurobindo.

Yeah.

I didn’t know who the guy was either.

But.

I took really good notes.

Thank you self for being such an avid note taker.

Also, note to self, need to buy a shit ton of new pens, I must have gone through five or six in the course of the week at the retreat and another two here at work.  I will be continually investing in pens.

However, the notes helped.

And that I paid attention in class.

And although I had no coherent thought about how I was going to attack the paper, attack I was.

My blog and the habit of writing it assists me.

Despite my brief noodling around on facecrack and okstupid, I got down to brass tacks pretty fast.

I opened up a Word document and I typed my name and student id on the top of the page, followed by the name of the class and the name of my professor.

Then I titled it with something that had caught my eye when I was skimming through the main text of the class.

I typed it down.

I underline it.

Then.

A sentence.

A thought.

Another thought, a paragraph, a quote, a look at my notes, another idea, another, and I’m off to the races.

Two hours later, 9 pages, 2,775 words long.

Fuck yeah.

And granted, they, the two papers I have written, are not done in APA style.

If they were, I would still be writing them.

But.

They were both well written and I sent both of my papers off tonight to the two professors.

I was glad I sat on my Human Development paper for a day, it did need a tiny bit of polishing, but tonight, after I had re-read, out loud, my Integral Yoga paper, there was nothing there but lightness and bliss and yes.

Gratitude.

Although.

Fuck.

My arms are tired and my head is a little foggy.

But I was not remiss in my body today either, I had a whole, forgive me, I can’t help it, mind/body/heart kind of day at work.

The family went to Train Town and I cleaned and did laundry, made food, and organized, tidied up the pool area and folded swim suits and basically got the space tidy and when the boys got back and had lunch we went for a long walk and picked black berries again and then dinner was made and I had a great abstinent meal and a great swim.

Yup.

I got back in the water again and the boys cheered me on and asked me to do dolphin kicks and swim butterfly, I almost threw up my dinner, and my arms are going to ache tomorrow.

Swimming butterfly is much different at 42 than it was at 18.

Then.

Hot shower, cup of tea and sitting down.

Showing up.

Letting the words come out.

I am always surprised.

Always.

It’s not the writing that is the hard part.

It’s sitting down to do the writing.

I showed up.

I got it out.

And I’m half way there.

Not through school, I mean, fuck, the semester still hasn’t “officially” started.

But I’m half way through my assignments for the retreat.

I won’t be writing tomorrow as I will be wrapping up my week here at work and heading back to the city to do the deal and then pack as much as I can for Burning Man and yes, dye my hair pink.

I’ve got a hair geographic itching to happen.

Life.

It is good

Big.

Rich.

Full.

Gratitude.

Yeah.

That was my spiritual principle today.

I picked a good one to practice.

Not like there’s really a bad spiritual principle to practice.

But I did good.

I did.

I did.