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.

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.

 

 

 

Hot Bowl of Soup

Cookies baking in the oven.

I needed some comfort time when I got home.

Cookies are not for me to eat, but I had some left over dough from making cookies last week and I figured I might know a person who would like them.

I think I just wanted my oven on.

It’s cold outside kids.

I was going to call this blog, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, but I think I already have a blog, maybe even two with that exact title.

So, Hot Bowl of Soup it is.

Self-care.

I needed some.

I just got exhausted today.

I don’t know why exactly, I felt pretty damn good most of the day.

I did a lot of work in therapy, so there’s that, sometimes the sessions can be big or cover big stuff and I will have well, not exactly an emotional hang over, but a touch of tenderness about me the rest of the day.

I also, I swear it’s true, think that my boss was exhausted and it sort of rubbed off on me at the end of the day.

Plus the kids had really big energy and it felt like it took a lot for me to be present and accountable.

I made a nice dinner for the family, spaghetti carbonara, roasted chicken legs, spinach salad with roasted pears, bacon, Toma cheese, roasted almonds, and roasted garlic sweet potato coins.

The cooking helps me to connect with my charges and also, puts a sort of ending on the day before I head off to see my clients at my internship.

I suspect that the barrage of client e-mails at the end of my day did not help either.

I got a lot of incoming e-mails right at the end of the day and juggling making dinner, wrangling the baby and coordinating with the mom for a big play date tomorrow and an early start to my day on Thursday and I just got smacked with overwhelm.

I had a hard time shaking it off.

But I managed to scrape myself up and get to my internship and I felt much better after my first session.

Which was a phone session.

My first one.

Not my first choice, but rather that than nothing and I can count a phone session towards my hours, although only to a certain degree, it’s called Telemedicine and you can only accrue about 375 hours of it.

I don’t dislike it.

But I don’t like it as much as face to face therapy.

So much is missed over the phone, I can’t see my clients expression or body language, a lot gets lost.

Then again, I think that the phone allowed my client to open up about a few things that it might have taken a few more face to face sessions to get to.

Never the less.

I felt better after getting off the phone session.

I feel better after doing therapy sessions, I can tell I have been of service and spending an hour focused on someone other than myself is really helpful.

Then I got the sweetest damn message in a text and my whole night got turned around.

It’s pretty amazing and it was unexpected and I felt light and buoyant and loved and I knew I would make it through my last session and get home and have a hot meal and I would be ok.

And voila!

I am.

I even rallied some energy up to do a load of laundry and suss out a few more things for school.

Because.

Oh yeah.

I have school this weekend.

So there’s that too.

Trying to get all my reading done before classes.

I did manage to finish my Jungian Dream Work reading assignment, and I turned in the paper on Sunday, plus I got into my Transpersonal reading and I finished my Drug and Alcohol reading.  I’m a bit behind on my Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality reading, but have at least dipped into so that I’m not completely at a loss when class rolls around on Friday.

I also had a client cancel on Friday so I can take that time and do a little bit of catch up there.

I will have the next couple of days and get done what I get done and not fret too hard about what I can’t finish.

I typically do manage to get it in or damn close to it.

I have been a lot less on my phone during the day, taking Facebook off it was one of the best decisions ever, and I’ve been assiduously reading when ever I can.

I got nearly an hour in at work today.

A half hour at lunch then another stretch on the train and in the school yard waiting for my charges to finish up with school.

If I keep that up I’ll be sitting pretty damn good come Friday.

And tomorrow will not be as draining, I’ll get some sleep, I’ll have a good day at work, the play date I’m managing happens to be with one of my previous charges and I just adore him to bits, it will be special to have some time with him.

And I’ll get out a little early to hit up group supervision and then go to the deal with my people.

See and be seen by those I need and love.

Grateful to have hot food in my tummy, warm bunny slippers on my feet, and the cookies, although not for me, smell delicious and it’s nice to be cozy in my home.

I am really grateful for what I have.

My life is good.

I love.

And.

I am loved.

Burnt Out On Writing

But not really.

This is my fourth bit of writing today.

I just finished and sent off a paper for my Jungian Dream Work class.

I did a bit of reading for that class yesterday and I did more reading for my Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality class as well tonight–it was my “break” in between writing the two papers I did today.

The first was not really a paper in the sense of the word, in how I write for classes or how I write my blog.

It was my lecture piece for “People Who Usually Don’t Lecture.”

They asked me to write a sort of narrative of the story I told them when I interviewed last Monday.  I am to go in again tomorrow and see them.  They wanted a written piece to look over before I met with them again.

The first piece was 8 pages long and clocked in around 2,500 words.

Too long.

So I edited and parsed it down.

A lot.

Cut it down by 800 words and got it timed to 9 minutes rather than the 13 minutes I timed myself reading it.

But it still feels a bit too long and though focused, to unfocused, too much and not enough, I felt like I didn’t really get into the juice of it.

Maybe I have just heard my own story too often and I’m a bit jaded it about it, it was hard to write without making it pretty and full of images, I don’t have a problem producing a grand amount of words, I always argue that it is harder to write a short paper rather than a long one.

I feel a little frustrated with it, I worked a long time on it, much longer than I wanted to spend on it, I don’t know if that just means I have a lot at stake in the project and I want to be a fucking perfectionist, which is not what the narrative is supposed to about.

I can easily, however, speak extemporaneously and I think that is what will happen, I will get up on the stage, I will take some general directions as to what I am supposed to talk about and I will talk.

I am sure the producers will have suggestions and desires, I got a message just a moment ago from the main contact that they have received it and are looking forward to seeing me tomorrow and they will have edits and suggestions then.

I’m not sure if this means they read it and already have things to change or what.

I am a bit done with sitting in front of my computer, although, that’s exactly what I am doing now, a bit tired of sitting at my little table.

Although the view is nice, I have a beautiful bouquet of flowers and I’m listening to some great music, some slow dancing music, and feeling a little tender and soft and sweet looking at roses and lilies and thinking about dancing with someone.

Dreamy.

I did do other things than write today, thank God, I had a fantastic morning, really did, and I was awful grateful for the falling back of the hours for Day Light Savings, despite not really liking that it got dark at 5:30p.m. tonight, as I went to sleep late last night.

I got lots of house hold stuff done, laundry and fresh bed sheets, compost and recycling and trash out.

I got in a great stretching session on my foam roller and did some PT for my shoulder that I have been neglecting to do, and then went to a fantastic, albeit difficult as fuck, yoga class, and sweated my ass off.

Serious sweat.

Sweat all over my mat.

Euphoric sweat.

I came home and felt amazing.

I took a smoking hot shower and then had a great late breakfast and a lovely unsweetened vanilla almond milk latte and wrote four pages free hand.

Then met with a lady and helped her do some inventory.

A successful hour of that and then some food prep for the week–roasted a turkey breast and went and did a little shopping at the co-op up the street from me.

I did a phone check in with my person and confirmed that we are meeting tomorrow morning at the Martha Brothers Coffee shop on Church Street.

I have solo supervision at 9a.m. in Hayes Valley and then the follow-up with the People Who Usually Don’t Lecture producers at noon.

My boss is letting me come in tomorrow at 1 p.m.

In between supervision and meeting with the producers I have some time, so I will be meeting my person at Martha’s and getting a good face to face check in.

I am super glad to get to squeeze that in.

It’s going to be a full day, a full week, school’s in session next weekend, which is why the push to do the schoolwork on top of the writing that I did today.

I feel like I’m doing ok, doing the best I can, getting to what needs to be done.  I’m 1/2 way through the Jungian Dream Work reading and I turned in the paper tonight that’s due for the weekend.  I finished all my Drug and Alcohol reading, and I got into the reading for Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality.  I had to take a break though and be ok with it all at a certain point, there was just not much more attention I could give it.

I just wanted to write my blog and not worry about it, I just wanted to dump my head and shake out the contents and then go have a snack and a cup of tea and watch a video and not really worry about school or this narrative for the project, I keep telling myself that just because I don’t like the writing as much as I like, say my blog, or writing a poem, that it wasn’t bad and that I have a few weeks to work on the story and do what they want, they want to hear the story I told them last week, just as shorter version.

I can do it.

It will be fun and it’s nice, actually, to have something creative to work on that’s not school or regular work or client centered work.

And that’s it.

That’s all she wrote.

That’s all I got.

Oh.

I could probably squeeze something else out of my brain.

But let’s give it a rest.

Shall we?

It is Sunday after all.

A day for rest.

hahahahaha.

Sigh.

My Ass is Sore

No.

Not like that.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

My butt is sore from sitting at my table all day and working.

Writing.

And reading.

And more writing.

And taking tests.

Thank God I did get myself to yoga this morning.

Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten much physical activity in at all today.

Super glad for the yoga, although it did kick my ass a little bit too.

Much ass kicking, however, was done.

I keep thinking of that line from the movie Heat, “she’s got a great ass!”

I digress.

I feel pretty damn happy that I got as much work done as I did.

I did all my CBT reading and took the tests that I had to take for the class and sent them in.  The professor got back to me right away and I was happy I did as well as I did.

Not that the class is even graded, it’s a pass/fail class that is online.

And as far as I’m concerned, thank God it’s pass/fail.

Because it’s too much work.

I was bitching with one of my friends in the cohort earlier who asked me how I had done on the tests, at that point I hadn’t even taken them, because the amount of work for a one credit online class seems way too much.

I mean.

Way too much.

I have a three credit class that I haven’t really even cracked the books on yet.

I will.

I will.

But let me bask a moment more in the fact that I got done what I got done today.

Suffice to say that even though I complained about the amount of work for the class, I did it, I took the two tests that I needed to take, I read the reading that I needed to read.

Then.

Well.

I did some more reading.

I finished all my Jungian Dreamwork reading.

That was dense.

Jesus H. Christ on a raft.

It was dense stuff.

Good.

But it took quite a while to get through the chapters I needed to read.

Fortunate for me I read them on the back porch of my house.

So.

I got some glorious sunshine on my face.

Heck.

I even got a tan line.

Heh.

I took a small “break” in between reading and tests for my CBT class and the Jungian class work I did.

I met with a lady and we read from a different book and talked about some stuff, inventory and how to do it and what it looks like and it was a great hour working with her.

Then.

I ran to Safeway did a little grocery shopping for the week and then over to Other Avenues, the food co-op in my neighborhood that I’m a member of and got the stuff that I like to have on hand that I can’t get at Safeway.

A late lunch and back to the reading.

I also read a huge chunk for my Alcohol and Chemical Dependency class.

Some of the material I have to read with a big grain of salt.

I, um, have some experience with alcohol and chemical dependency.

Ahem.

Anyway.

It was “interesting” reading but I tried to do it without judgement.

When I finished with that.

S T R E T C H.

And inside to toss a chicken in the oven to roast and some brown rice on the stove to cook.

While that was working I read all the articles and readings I needed to do for my Psychopharmacology and Human Sexuality class.

Good readings.

I really like the professor, she who I happened to bump into yesterday at my internship (she has an office in the same building my internships is at), and the readings are really well curated and were quite well written.

I got a lot out of them.

My chicken was done roasting right about the same time I finished the readings for that class.

So.

Nice hot dinner and then back at it.

I wrote a reflection paper for Human Sexuality and Psychopharmacology and sent it in.

Then.

I opened up my dream journal.

Yes.

I have a dream journal.

Shut up.

I only have a dream journal because I am taking a dreamwork class.

I am not a hippy.

Ahem.

So.

I opened up my dream journal and wrote up one of the dreams I had at the beginning of the month.

I have to keep a journal for the class and every month the class meets I have to turn in a dream from my journal.

I had a magnificent dream.

It was at first overwhelming.

I was on the face of a gigantic tidal wave that was about to break over my head.

I was about to drown, I was overwhelmed, I was in a place I had been before and I knew what was about to happen.

Except.

Well.

It didn’t.

Just as I thought the wave was about to crumble and fall on top of me, I had a thought, “what if I swim through it?”

I have never had that thought before.

I have had a similar dream before, tidal waves, drowning, panic, sharks in the water.

Oh the nightmares I have had in my life.

Too many to tell them all hear and horrifying beyond words.

Suffice to say.

I had never had the experience of what unfolded in my dream next.

I started to swim into the wave, I spun around, and then I body surfed it all the way to the beach.

I flew.

I floated.

The water was warm and supple and held me.

I was not drown.

I stood up on my feet in the wake and white foam and laughed, I felt giddy and happy and full of joy.

I looked up and down the beach, white sand for miles, dunes with green grasses, calm, still, serene, the water of the ocean lapping gently on the shore.

It was astounding to me, this dream.

So I wrote about that.

And man.

Ouch.

My ass is sore again.

As I am sitting here, still writing, I’m about done, though, I have to tell you.

And.

I am done!

I just wrote the paper and printed it off, tucking it into my school folder for this weeks upcoming classes.

And yes.

I do have to do more reading for my Transpersonal Psychology class, but I will have the week days at work to do it since I won’t have any charges to juggle until school pick up.

So.

I have time.

And I did so much today.

I am really proud of myself.

So proud.

Even if my bum is a bit tender.

It was worth it.

Yes it was.