Slow It Down

I left my therapists office very, very, very aware that I was not going near my brand new car.

No way.

No how.

I needed to just take a walk for a moment, slow down, get regulated, be in my body.

Then when I felt like I was not going to crash into anyone I walked back to my car, drove it a few blocks and got right back out.

I was up in Noe Valley and I wanted to take a moment and let myself have a little self-care and to sit down and grab a coffee and enjoy the fact that I wasn’t going into work.

Usually after I get out of therapy I make a quick run to Whole Foods on 24th and then skeedadle to work.

Today I wanted to go grocery shopping, but I also wanted to window shop a little and really just to slow down and appreciate that I had some time off.

Oh.

There was a little bit of a niggling voice that reminded me, hey lady, don’t get too comfortable, you’ve got a fuck ton of homework.

Nothing brings that home more than getting an e-mail from a professor reminding me that all assignments for that class need to be turned in by December 9th and um, I haven’t turned in any of those assignments yet.

I have been waiting for this week off to get all caught up with that class.

I had started the readings, but really not gotten too far.

This time off, fyi, is going super fast, I can’t believe tomorrow’s Wednesday already.

And I have been doing homework diligently every day, every damn day, reading, getting caught up, getting ahead, or finishing the reading.

I’m done with all my readings for Jungian Dream Work and all my reading for Drugs and Alcohol.  I’m 3/4s of the way done with Transpersonal and about the same amount done for Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality.

So not bad, but all those classes also have a final paper, one of them has a final project as well.

I need to get as much work in as I can this week.

And.

Oops.

Fuck.

I’m working tomorrow.

I sort of want to kick myself over it, I should never had said I was available and not think that the mom wouldn’t take me completely up on it.

Not my current family, they are on vacation.

No.

The family I used to work for.

I got a huge mournful face of longing on the last day of school pick up from my former charge and a deep sweet ask for a play date, “when are you going to come over?” He asked with such sweetness and desire I just couldn’t say no and when I bumped into his mom I mentioned I would have down time.

I thought maybe an hour or two, a playdate, something fun and easy.

I got asked to work five hours.

Ugh.

Of course I said yes, the mom had already told the boys I was going to see them and I didn’t want to disappoint them.

I also think I knew, at least in the back of my head, that though I like and respect the parents, I have a much more enjoyable time when I am, or have been, alone with the boys.

So I have a hunch the parents are going to take an afternoon day date and go see a movie or go out to lunch and I will have my two sweet guys to myself.

And maybe the dog, she’s a sweetheart, it will be good to see her too.

It’s not a bad thing the work, it’s just a little like come on kid, you’re busy, even though you’re not working, you’ve got a lot of reading and homework that needs attending to.

But.

Ugh.

Sometimes I have a hard time saying no.

Not always.

And I have said no to this family before when some requests were made, so it feels like a sort of concession, as well as, yes, an opportunity to make a little cash and to get some boy snuggles from my little guys.

I have gotten to do a play date with the youngest and one of my charges that was super fun and sweet, but I haven’t had any alone time with the older boy and I think he may need to see me.

I just got the sense.

And I can often times say no to a parent, especially if I’m busy, but wow, it’s super hard to say no to a child that needs you.

So with a tiny touch of chagrin, yes, I’ll be working tomorrow.

But.

I won’t go in until 1p.m.

So.

Yoga in the morning.

I haven’t been in over a week, or just over a week?

My back’s been sore and I’ve been busy, even though the work hasn’t been happening, oh man has the homework, so tomorrow will be good to get back into it.

I had thought originally with the time off I would be at the studio a lot, but I let myself get some sleep this past weekend and when my back was feeling super tender it felt better to rest than to push it.

I don’t express pain a lot, but I was definitely in some pain, still am, but it seems to be easing up a bit.

I’ve made a doctor’s appointment and I’ve been taking ibuprofen, but the appointment is not for a few weeks.  I’m going to try to be gentle and fingers crossed another few days of not carrying the baby around in the carrier will be good to my back.

And.

I was super nice to myself today, and I got a load of work done.

I re-parked my car in Noe Valley and went to Bernie’s Cafe and got a cafe au lait and sat on a bench and let the sun hit my face.

I got into being in my body and letting go of the material I worked on in therapy.

Suffice to say my therapist is recommending more therapy.

Ugh.

EMDR.

Just check the link, I don’t feel like describing it 100% however, I will say that it is a trauma treatment that is often used for PTSD.

I did it in a session once ten years ago with a therapist and I will say it worked, but it was close to the end of my time with that therapist and I didn’t have more follow-up.

I am ready to do it again.

Although I am loath to go and get more therapy, once a week at $120 a pop is enough.

Then again.

I want to work it out, get it out, process it, I want it out of my body, I want my body to be free, my heart to be free, my soul to move about the world and not go into traumatic reliving.

I need to be in the light.

And I know that means more work.

Fine.

I’m ready.

I told my therapist today that I feel like I can do it now, when I couldn’t before, I could barely touch into the trauma without falling completely apart.

I am much, much, much stronger now.

Internally, externally, emotionally, spiritually.

I am ready to do the work, and I suspect that I will finally get to resolve some things that have been burdening me for decades.

Let them go.

Embrace my life.

Help others.

It was good for me to take the moment today to sit on that bench, to get sun on my face, to slow down, I did some window shopping, I got some groceries, I came home and ate a nice lunch, I sat outside on the back patio.

Then.

I jumped back into the homework.

I kicked out three more hours of reading and I did two of the eight assignments.

Sigh.

There’s a lot to do, but I’ll get it done.

Even with working tomorrow.

It will all fall together and I have absolutely no regrets about being easy with myself at the beginning of the day.

I’m a fucking therapist.

I have got to practice what I preach.

Let me reframe that.

I get to.

 

 

 

So Many Things

This Sunday.

Although I did not set foot out of the Sunset.

I almost didn’t get out of the Outer Sunset, but I did manage to scooter up to a lovely little church shrouded in the heavy fog this evening.

Wow.

The fog tonight was no joke.

It was super spooky riding home and the visibility was little to none.

I went very slow.

Grateful to be in a neighborhood that was quiet and sleepy and muffled.

The few cars I did pass basically blinded me with their headlights refracting in the fog.

So careful.

So slow.

I don’t want to die.

I say that with and without tongue in cheek.

There has been a lot of death around lately.

I joked, in a rather morbid way, the other night, the God must like taking folks in July.

“What is under that fear,” I asked her today.

“Well…..” she said somethings and got closer and closer and then, “I’ll drink and then I’ll die.”

“So, you’re afraid to die,” I said softly.

I am too.

I remember the first time someone spelled that out to me.

I hadn’t made the correlation from the resentment I was holding onto to the point that I was ultimately afraid that I was going to die, that so many of my fears stem from that oh so basic fear of death.

Oh.

There’s littler fears, smaller fears, the classic ones that come to my mind are always the same, fear of being unlovable, fear of being abandoned and alone.

Always they come up.

But tonight.

Well.

It was just plain old fear of getting hit by a car on my scooter because the visibility was so bad.

I was very glad I had my scooter jacket on.

Aside from the fact that it’s a great windbreaker and it has padded elbows, shoulders, and a back piece, it is also pink and has reflective fabric sewn into it.

I’m pretty visible.

I mean, nothing is 100%, but I would say that I have more visibility than someone who is riding in a black jacket, that’s for sure.

I’m running around in loops.

Get to the point.

Today another person died.

Taken off life support.

I knew her a little while after I got into recovery, she’d been around, on and off, for at least ten years, maybe eleven of my time doing the deal.

Always a bright light, always a lovable woman.

She came in and out a lot, there were many times I saw her after a relapse and they were not pretty.

But.

She got out and she was doing well and had relocated back to the Midwest and was doing it, she had two years when she died, had gotten married, had a great job, she was a step mom and happy, and you could see it in her photographs and in her cute little quips and fuck, she just recently recommended to someone in our community who recently had a baby that they reach out to me as she knew I was a “great nanny.”

She’d been a nanny too.

We often times would commiserate about our families, and more often swap pictures of the babies we worked with, our charges, and we would share stories of endearment about them and our nanny adventures.

It takes a special kind of person to love unconditionally children that way that she did.

That’s what she was doing.

Swimming.

Teaching a child how to swim.

If I understand the story correctly.

And she drowned.

She was pulled out and they tried to resuscitate her and she spent some time in the ER, but she never came back.

She passed this morning and once again I find myself taking a big break from social media and trying to titrate how much I take in.

I did reach out to a dear friend of mine and offer some support.

He’d dated her and though the relationship hadn’t lasted, I know how very important she was to him and how much they still stayed in touch.

He was devastated.

He’s got a great support system though.

And I think of the community and support system I get to be involved with, all the gratitude I have for my fellowship.

And.

Yes.

Sigh.

I think about Shadrach.

He would have run the marathon today.

He was supposed to ten years ago today.

But that was not what happened.

Ten years ago he was hit on his scooter and though not outright killed, he was in the ICU on life support for a week, he was killed that night.

He just hung around long enough for us all to say goodbye.

And sometimes it feels like there was never enough time to say goodbye or never will be and I keep going on living and when I used to feel guilty I just feel graced now that I get to be so exuberantly alive.

I bitch about going to yoga.

But fuck.

I get to go to yoga.

I get to do so many things.

All the things that he didn’t get to do.

And I wonder about this woman too, what things did she not get to do.

I am grateful that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was at the best place she’d ever been in her life and that God took her at the peak of her experiences.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not sad.

God damn it’s sad.

She was so freaking young.

I’m forty-four.

I think she was about to turn 40 this year.

I just recall that we were close in age.

Sigh.

Shadrach would be 42.

I don’t feel the sads the way I did a week or so ago when I was walloped with emotion, but it is there, soft, and slow, and muffled, like the fog, creeping in and nestling down in my heart.

So.

I lit some candles and I will have a moment and I have looked at his handsome face today in the photographs I have on the wall.

And I will say thank you friend for showing me how important it is to live to my fucking fullest every damn day.

Sometimes it’s tiring.

But.

Fuck.

I get to be tired.

I am so lucky to be here.

If life was fair I would be dead.

I am not.

I am here and I promise.

YOU.

I will keep loving with all my heart.

Loving so damn hard.

Regardless of how much it can hurt to live.

The pain is worth it.

I get to live.

I get to love.

I get to.

I am so, so graced.

 

Be Flexible

And I’m not talking yoga.

I am talking to myself.

I am about to embark on the summer time schedule at work, aka, the boys full time.

However the family has a lot of traveling, summer camps, swimming time, and activities planned, it’s going to be busy and the mom has asked me to work 10 a.m. to 6p.m. Monday through Friday.

Except next week Tuesday when I’ll work 12-7p.m.

Or the next week when I’ll be on call for jury duty, so who knows if I’ll be working or not.

Oh!

And that Friday, the 17th, I’ll have it off completely!

They will be out of town visiting family in the Midwest.

And although they won’t be back until the following Tuesday, I will work that Monday for them, just to let the housekeeper in to clean the house and also for me to accept whatever Instacart order the mom has placed so I’ll be there cooking food for them.

Like this week: oatmeal for the boys breakfast, broccoli soup for the mom over the weekend, pitted 6 pints of cherries for snacks, hulled an entire flat of strawberries, roasted cauliflower twice, homemade baked macaroni with cheese, homemade beef stroganoff with bow tie noodles, cheese tortellini with pesto, plus lots of peeling of carrots and chopping of raw veggies.

Yeah.

Like that.

Then the next week.

Well.

Who the hell knows.

I did ask that I have a set schedule, but the mom has other ideas and I’m ok with it to a point, I do need some regularity in my schedule.

Or.

Do I?

Can I be flexible?

I want to be flexible, I want this job through the school year, through all my school years if I can, and that means trying to fit myself of maximum service to the situation.

I did ask that I have a weeks time to negotiate my own schedule.

Seeing as how I already went ahead and offered my time to one of my ladies for next Tuesday thinking I had the schedule all figured out.

Nope.

Ugh.

Fortunately she’s flexible too and all the women I work with are sweet about my school schedule and work schedule and I’m just going to do my best to stay in the moment.

Each moment.

To each moment.

To each moment.

It’s really the best I can do.

Like not trying to figure out my weekend plans.

Because.

Um.

I have none.

That would have once thrown me into paroxym of terror.

Unscheduled down time?

NO!!!

I’ll do yoga.

Or not.

I’ll sleep in.

Or not.

Probably not, although I did a little today and  that was lovely, my Fridays previous for the last year have been days when I got up early to do reading and school work, today I slept in long, did lots of reading, loads of writing and did some laundry, putting fresh sheets on the bed.

I’d like to get them rumpled up.

My possible date has not gotten back to me and I have eschewed chasing him down to nail down a time this weekend.

It will happen.

Or.

It will not.

I’m being flexible.

I’m doing my best to lighten up.

“I’m open to be available for what you need,” I told my boss, in sincerity, once I had a moment to breathe and realize that though it was not my ideal, the change in my schedule that she was out lining, “even if you want to have a date night in there, just let me know.”

Um.

Hey.

Lady.

Before you give it all away, remember, there is too flexible too.

I want to bend, but not break.

I will need fun time for me too.

Especially since the rest of my summer vacation time is not vacation time–it will be my second year school retreat.

Even if I’m not sure what I want to do on my weekends, aside from getting my hair colored the weekend of the 18th and being interviewed the weekend of the 25th.

Wait.

What?

Yeah.

I’m super excited about that, and a bit nervous too.

I actually have to confirm it and let her in on some of my creative process and see what she wants from me in regards to the filming.

It’s a podcast, so I’ll keep you posted as to when it airs.

Fuck.

I don’t even know what that means, podcast.

Bwahahaha.

I have to, scratch that, I get, to talk about my creative process and what that looks like, what I’m working on, what the fuck am I working on?

Inspirations, loads of those, but a definitive list, and so on.

Ooh.

I just realized, heh, I’ll have had my hair done pink from the previous weekend.

Nice.

I’ll be on film with pink hair.

Heh.

I have actually practiced reading the sonnet sequence that I wrote for the gentleman I met last year at Burning Man, I like how I sound in my head reading it, of course, I don’t like hearing myself so much, but I have been told many times I have a nice voice and I do believe that as well.

Plus there’s a couple of longer poems I have memorized that I could perform.

But.

I haven’t done an open mic in a while.

And I’m not sure what exactly I am working on.

I have had a thought about re-working a short story I wrote years ago and sending it to Glimmer Train, they have a “new writer” contest deadline coming up–they send me updates all the time since I have applied to the contest before.

That could be something I’m working on.

And of course.

This blog.

I am always working on this blog, or it is working on me.

The blog works me.

It is where I find solace.

It is where I find my truth.

It’s not always pretty.

But once in a while, I believe, it is searing in its honesty.

And once in a great while.

It is beautiful.

I have no idea which blogs those would be, I don’t go back and re-read them once they have posted unless I feel like I need to do some grammatical editing, or, ugh, I have written something that affects someone in a negative manner.

Really.

I can only write about myself.

I cannot judge another.

Fuck.

I’m not allowed to judge myself.

See.

There!

That!

I am searching for the things to show this artist who wants to film me about all the things I am doing and already I am not enough and I am judging myself.

Wrong.

This is not how it works.

I show up.

Every day.

Or damn near close.

And put my heart on my sleeve and let you in.

I show up.

And that may be the best artistry I am capable of at any moment.

It is not the awards or accolades.

It is the daily grind.

The words mount and flow and I can sit on them and bury my heart.

Or.

I can show up.

Let them out.

Have a little dance party.

And surrender to the art of what is happening.

Not to worry about what I have published, accomplished, or succeeded with.

The failure is just as important.

Every experience and opportunity.

For love.

Art.

Poetry.

More love.

All the time.

As long as I show up.

That’s it.

Oh yeah.

And let go of the results.

That too.

Always that.

Always.