That Was Fast

Today just flew by.

For which I am grateful.

I am so ready to get out-of-town and hit the East Coast on my mini-vacation that it was a pleasure how fast today went by.

Hopefully tomorrow and the next few days will go by as fleet.

I had a good supervision session, so grateful, constantly, for the supervisor I have, he just really hits things out of the ballpark for me and he is brutal honest with me about what I need to do and how to work with my clients.

It’s good stuff.

Fucking intense, but really good stuff.

I had a lot to bring him this Monday, last week was a big week for me and I was very happy to be able to process some of the work with him.

I will miss him as a supervisor when I wrap up this semester, I can already tell.

I like the group I’m in for group supervision, but I do not get the kind of guidance from the group supervisor that I do from my solo supervisor.

I don’t really respect my group supervisor, if I have to tell on myself, although I do like her.

She’s ineffectual at holding a frame and a bit vague and nebulous in her approach.

Which always baffles me a bit.

How the hell do you hold a frame for a client if you can’t hold the frame for a group of therapist in training?

I have hopes to switching out to a different group when I get done with my Master’s program.

I’m in the group that works the best for my work schedule and my current solo supervision and therapy work.

Man.

I do a fucking lot.

And I’m still doing my own personal writing.

I am very proud of myself for that.

I stay grounded when I do my morning and evening writing.

I didn’t do a few days of my blog over the weekend, but I did do my morning pages every morning.

I don’t really recall all that many days when I didn’t do either of them.

Probably being at Burning Man last year and not taking my laptop for the first time in a long time, although I still did do plenty of writing out there, I ended up doing it during the heat of the afternoon at the cafe with a big iced coffee and a shady spot under the Center Camp Cafe’s gigantic circus tent.

The fact is.

I am a writer.

I believe that it’s a huge contributor to my therapy work with my clients.

That I am constantly self-reflexive, and continually processing my stuff and finding my way through things.

I don’t know that I would be where I am without the practice.

I like where I am.

Even walking through some really challenging personal times, I still like who I am and that I am trying to grow more, change more, become more myself.

Advocate for myself, for my own change.

The only person I can change is myself.

And I’m not talking about self-improvement, I feel that’s a slippery slope, self-improvement implies that there’s something wrong with me, that I’m not good enough.

It also has connotations of always having to strive to change myself to be better and that when I’m finally better I’ll be perfect and everyone will want to be with the perfect version of me.

There is no perfection.

I am perfect.

Imperfectly perfect.

Humility much?

I can be a perfectionist, so the way through that for me is self-acceptance over self-improvement.

That still means change, it just may not mean change in the way that I used to think it did.

Some miracle wave of a wand and poof!

Happily ever after fairy princess unicorn castle in the cloud magic glitter balloons of joy.

Not so much.

It just means that when I focus on what someone else needs to do so that I can feel comfortable I have to look at myself, what do I need?

How can I change?

Where can I be in acceptance?

There’s loads of room for that kind of introspection.

How can I care for myself when I want to focus on helping others, which is wonderful, but also recognizing that I can’t help anyone if my own needs are met.

Which means that I have to know what my needs are.

Tricky thing that.

I get better at it the more I practice.

The more I get used to paying attention to what makes me happy.

What brings me joy.

And trying to cultivate that.

My writing brings me joy, being a good therapist does, being with people I love, accepting love, travel, eating well, flowers.

My God.

I have a gorgeous bouquet that keeps getting prettier and prettier.

The lilies in the bunch of flowers have been opening over the last few days and it is like looking at a tender heart opening to the sunshine, shy and pink and exquisite.

I feel such sweetness when I look at my flowers.

A girls like her flowers.

And hearts.

I made Valentines Day cards today with one of my charges that came home sick from school and we had such a sweet time with it, drinking tea and taping the Valentines up on the windows at the back of the house.

It was a happy afternoon.

I felt a lot of happiness today.

Some sadness at the beginning, some tenderness, some tears, I probably should skip the sorrowful music I had been listening to for a little while, but this morning, for some reason I just indulged.

A sort of get it out-of-the-way at the beginning of the day and get on with the day.

It seemed to help.

That and it just being a great big full day.

Grateful for navigating through, being of service at my job, showing up for my clients tonight.

And.

Showing up for myself with my writing.

Day and night.

Day.

And.

Night.

All the damn time.

 

 

Valentine’s Day Eve

And I’m rocking out in my polka dot frock.

Sitting home on my Friday night with my hot cup of tea and some house music on the stereo.

Ready, I am, for the weekend.

I don’t mind so much that it’s Valentines Day tomorrow and all the ladies and lads in the land are traipsing about with flowers in hand.

Oh.

I had a moment or two.

A girl likes Valentines Day.

Even the bittersweet of not having a Valentine.

I love the colors and sparkle and the people who are dashing about with flowers or balloons in their hands.

I love seeing the different folks, who on a regular day I wouldn’t think are coupled up, go about with bouquets in their hands.

I just like flowers.

I take that back, I love flowers.

I only got them once in the last relationship.

I would like more of those please, in the future, note to all future dates.

Pink gerber daisies were the flowers my ex left for me on the seat of my scooter when I was still at work.

They were sweet, but a trifle too little too late and a bit too obligatory.

I got the impression that he felt he had to.

It was a significant day for me, a day that I was celebrating 10 years of sobriety.

The funny thing was, I would have rather have had his company that day, instead of the flowers left like an anonymous ghost of a relationship that was already a bygone.

I felt it was a big deal, that day,  big date, and on the other hand, it’s just another day, but a girl wants her significant other around for those days.

I really knew it was over at that point and it was just going through the motions.

I threw the flowers out a few days later.

I haven’t had any since.

It’s been four weeks.

One month.

The relationship was a little over two months.

Some say, who, how the hell do I know, but they, the infamous they, say, it takes half as long to get over the relationship as it took being in it.

That seems the case.

I am done thinking about it and willing to move on.

It may sting the next few times I bump into my ex but that’s going to fade and I know that it will and really, let me tell you, I’m tired about writing about him.

I will say I should trust my gut better the next time I pre buy a gift when I have doubts about a relationship.

I bought my ex a Valentines day gift the week we broke up.

Maybe, in hindsight, I might have been trying to out juju the Gods, make some magic happen, rub a little gold duck, and poof, the arrow Cupid shot would stay put.

Not fall out the other side, broken shaft and bloody feathers.

I saw it, the golden duck, and knew it was the thing to get.

My ex had a thing for rubber ducks and had quite a few, including a rubber duck tattoo.

So when I saw bronze duck with gold gilding I knew I had to get it for him, but I also heard the whisper in my heart that said, you know, you might not make it to Valentines Day.

And sure enough.

The relationship did not last.

The night we broke up, four weeks ago, around this exact time, I packed up a paper bag and handed him the two disposable razors I had bought him to have in the house, the two bottles of hazelnut creamer he liked, some other toiletries, and the duck.

I pulled it out and jokling callled it the parting gift.

I didn’t tell him that I had planned on giving it to him on Valentines Day.

I walked past the shop today where I bought it and I didn’t think of him.

I thought how happy I was in the sunshine in my polka dot halter dress and my hair up off my neck, I looked at my reflection in the store window and smiled at myself.

I look pretty.

I walked on, pushing the stroller to the park.

I had a date with two little boys and a very large container of bubbles.

I laughed out loud with joy and incredularity at my life.

It’s February, I’m in a sundress blowing bubbles in the park and the sun is warm and everyone is rushing about carrying flowers and I live in San Francisco and how amazing is it?

Beauty and love everywhere.

I don’t have to be coupled up to appreciate people showing each other love.

It’s sort of like Christmas or any other holiday, I can appreciate love and gifts and joy all year round, I don’t need a specifiic holiday to sanctify my feelings.

But.

That being said.

I still really enjoy witnessing the love around me.

The mason jars filled with sweetheart pink roses and the white spray of baby’s breath being sold on the corner, the accordian player at the cafe dressed in sailor’s strips and wearing red lipstick dancing with her beau while he played the harmonica, the men, old, young, everywhere, holding bouquets of tuber roses and carnations and lilies, the smiles on the women, the little girls with heart shaped red Valentines day balloons, the children at the playground with their paper bags decorated with pink and red and rose and white cut out hearts filled with candy hearts and valentines from school mates.

This may be the first time I felt so much love for a holiday that has been notoriously riotous and emotional for me.

I thought I might be sad and the truth is that I am not.

I am joyous.

Filled with love for myself.

Not that I need a holiday to celebrate my life either.

Not that I need to do the trite dance of being my own Valentine either, I just don’t have to try that hard.

I’ll be getting dressed up tomorrow, just like I do every other day of my life, for no particular reason other than it’s going to be a beautiful day to wear a dress and be pretty for me.

I may get myself flowers.

Or I may just wear flowers in my hair.

It is San Francisco after all.

And flowers are De rigueur.