Getting Closer

I am three days away from my trip to Havana, Cuba.

Three days.

Where the hell is my damn filtration water bottle and Cuban Spanish/English phrasebook?

Really Amazon.

This is not the time to drop the ball.

Of course, I have only myself to blame, but it is a little hilarious that these are the only things missing from my bag of stuff.

I am really set to go.

And.

I am not too worried about the phrase book and the water bottle.

They will show tomorrow.

I leave Sunday.

I was proactive today knowing that I wouldn’t want to have to deal with annoying things and took care of getting my laundry done.

I almost wore a dress today that I was planning on bringing to Cuba and I thought, um no, don’t sabotage the summery, warm weather, it’s even going to be warm at night, dress, for a foggy grey San Francisco day.

And then not have time to wash it before packing and heading out.

I wore a dress today that will not be coming to Cuba and did laundry and did a tiny bit of grocery shopping and really, I have nothing to do but see clients the next couple of days and get my nails done.

I am really excited.

I haven’t really been on vacation since last July when I went to France.

I am ready.

It’s been really nice having off from my nanny job, but I have been still seeing clients and I have more clients then I did this time last year.

I now have sixteen clients!

I am really happy to report that.

But with the extra clients comes extra supervision, extra paper work, extra scheduling.

Fortunately I finally got my phone and my laptop calendar’s synced up so that when I make a change on my computer it updates my phone and vice versa.

Such a huge relief.

Sometimes my calendar looks like I’m playing a game of Jenga or Tetris.

Tetris for sure.

I have eight more clients to see in the next two days.

One dinner with my person tomorrow night.

One manicure/pedicure.

And a night with hanging out with some girlfriends or doing fellowship Saturday.

Supplies are bought.

Although I would love to get a market basket purse, I have not found one that works well for travel and I won’t be bringing the one I bought in Aix-en-Provence last July, it is just too precious to stuff underneath the seat in front of me on an airplane.

I realized the other day that I was unnecessarily running around trying to distract myself with buying a purse when I needed to be feeling my feelings.

Oh feelings.

Man they suck right now.

I went to acupuncture Tuesday and the doctor tapped this spot on my tummy and said, “stuck emotions” and I just about burst into tears.

Yeah.

Those.

I had reconnected with my ex in an attempt to just be friends.

It just didn’t work.

I am not at all sad or upset or in anyway regret having seen him.

I missed him so damn much.

Miss him now.

But.

Being just friends with someone you are madly in love with might be the hardest thing in the entire world.

So.

Sunday I said I can’t do it anymore.

And I really want to ball my eyes out all the time, but it just keeps getting stuck.

Like right now.

I want to cry and the tears sort of start and then my body just hunches over and it stops.

Yeah.

Stuck emotions.

Reflux.

Tummy upset.

It’s all getting internalized.

I think I’m afraid that if I start I won’t stop.

I want to reach out.

I can’t.

I haven’t.

I won’t.

I want to anyway.

I did mail him a card on Monday and then my person said knock it off, no more contact.

I almost bought him a card yesterday and today too.

I still feel like there is so much to say.

So much.

And so.

I am just over here trying to breathe and let it go.

Let him go.

Even though I didn’t want to.

I had to.

I have to change.

I have to do something different.

I recognize I’m enough but I have to act it too and saying no more to trying to be friends was a part of that.

I don’t know what else is and I’m just going to try my best and believe.

I believe something wonderful will come of all this damn work.

It just has to.

I mean.

Seriously.

It fucking has to.

I have done so much work over these last two years.

I have suffered and cried.

And I have loved.

I have loved unlike anything I have ever done before.

No regrets.

No apologies to you who may have judgments.

I did what I did and I fell in love and I don’t have a single damn regret.

I would do it all over again.

And the love hasn’t gone anywhere.

I don’t suspect that it will.

So I will go somewhere.

I will change my scenery like no one’s business and I will immerse myself in a culture and people and experience and I will bring my best self.

Even if once in a while, it may be my sad self.

I will bring it all and I will dance and I will swim in the ocean and I will meet new people and have a new experience and adventures and take photographs and grow.

I have not died.

He has not died.

Although.

Yes.

It felt like a part of me died when he walked away.

I die a little more now thinking about it.

Perhaps that is what this is too.

I am too afraid.

That if I let it all out my heart will just die.

That it will just break this time.

Oh there.

Hello.

There are some tears.

Another reason to write, it gets the emotions unstuck.

The acupuncture helped, but the blog is the best.

That and my morning pages.

I cried a little writing them today.

I cried in my towel last night after washing my face.

Surprised myself.

Howled with grief.

The gasped and stopped it all back up.

Stuck again.

I keep reminding myself–

Those things worth having are worth the work.

What I am working towards is a free and untethered love,  completely out in the light of day, in the sunshine, transparent and honest and open and I am worthy of that.

So this pain.

Though it hurts.

Hurts so damn bad.

Is worth working through.

I am worth it.

I am enough.

 

Ratchet It Down

I’m trying to get mellow.

It has been a long day, much was done, much accomplished.

Biggest accomplishment was getting out to do the deal at a spot up in Potrero Hill that I don’t get to very often anymore since it’s an 8:30 p.m. gig and I’m trying to not be out that late on ‘school nights’ but, I knew when I was watching the lights of the city come up as the sun set that I needed to go and get my connection on.

And I did.

And it was good.

I got to see some folks I haven’t seen in a while and get reconnected and get some good hugs and see some sweet faces.

Always a plus.

And now I’ll be able to go into work tomorrow and be a kind, tolerant, generous person, the kind of woman I want to be.

I told myself it was going to be a long weekend.

No days off for this lady.

So I wanted to be getting the connection in.

I will also be doing the deal all through the weekend, but there’s not much down time for me.

Super grateful I got all the school stuff out-of-the-way.

So much stuff.

I met with my advisor today who is also the head of the department, which is fun, I get to share my experiences and suggestions with someone who has a vested interest in creating positive change in my program.

I’m not quite sure how we got on topic, something to do with the goal of pursuing the PhD and how I will need to do a lot of writing and I just chuckled and told him that my writing is fine, that I have a writing practice that I have been doing steady as she goes for ten years.

And this little blog that I have been doing for 7 and 1/2 years.

I have a practice you might say.

I told him that there are some folks in my cohort who have expressed some jealousy at how fast I can whip out a paper.

But.

That I have a method to it, yes, the practice is super helpful, I mean, fuck, it keeps my typing speed at a maximum I’ll tell you that, but it also is a practice and the more I do it the easier it becomes.

And.

I have a method to my madness when I am writing a school paper and I shared that method with him.

His eyes lit up.

“Do you think you could do something for me?” He asked.

I nodded yes and he laid out his idea for a teaching panel about how to write papers.

He wants me to sit on it and help incoming students with the process of writing papers.

I was very flattered.

And I’m always willing to share my experience with doing the work.

Of course.

It’s work.

That’s the thing, it’s not hard per se, but there is effort involved.

Sometimes when I talk to people about what I am doing or how I am doing I apparently give off this casualness about the work, but it’s work, I show up and do every day.

EVERY DAY.

Twice a day.

And let me be honest.

It saves me, it nurtures me, it is art, it love, it is poesie, it is pretty flowers in my hair.

I can make up the most fantastical amazing things the words and ideas and images I can suddenly be standing on the Trocadero in Paris and be transported to the sound of the Seine and the batobus going by, the cars rolling over the bridge or me, on my bicycle rolling along the bike path headed towards Rue de Commerce to see some fellows and get to down and do the deal.

I can see squares with green grass and gravel paths and benches under beech trees.

Or.

Like tonight.

Riding my scooter home from Potrero Hill the moon, oh the moon, a heavy-handed ladle of butter in a midnight blue velvet enamel coated spoon, the syrup of sweet heady jasmine floating to me through the cool air.

Or.

How that one turn from Fell Street as it becomes Lincoln Avenue and the open swath of green grass that leads into the park proper, how the air there is always cooler and brushes over me like a cat with cold fur from being outside in the night.

Furry and soft and petulant.

Then the over blown smell of cut clover at Keezar Park, a rounded bend in the road and the moon now to my right peeking and booing from in between the Monterey Pines in the park.

Divinity.

I mean.

Shit.

I could go on like that forever.

There is a logic to how I write and there is a rhyme and reason.

Sometimes I can explain that desperate call in my heart and sometimes the words fail.

But.

I keep showing up anyway.

And that is the trick.

“Just breathe and show up,” I told myself this morning as I walked out the door, saying good-bye to my little home by the sea to scooter off to school and jump through the next hoops to do the work to eventually, one day, be a great big grown up therapist instead of a junior baby in waiting.

I jest a little.

But.

It is a long road ahead.

Nonetheless.

It is important that I acknowledge the movement forward.

It is a big deal.

All my papers signed off and turned in.

All the “t’s” crossed.

All the “i’s” dotted.

I even talked with the financial aid department today.

I wasn’t expecting to be in practicum this summer, it just came together that way.

The summer practicum costs about $2200 to do.

Basically $1,098 per credit, was what I was told, with the caveat of “don’t quote me on that, but I believe that will be the cost” from the financial aid admin I spoke to today.

I decided at one point that I don’t want to take out any loans for school this summer.

I have a little in savings from my tax return.

Then.

I  got a financial aid e-mail from the school and I thought, maybe I should, that way if anything happens I won’t have to dip into my travel savings.

I really want to give myself a nice break in May and be able to do all the things in Paris that will make going to Paris all the fun that I need.

So.

Tomorrow.

One more little hoop to jump.

My paperwork is turned into the registrar and it’s official, I am an intern.

But.

The “course” needs to be paid for.

I will do the application, give myself the gift of a worry free trip in May and get my grad school on when I get back.

Internship begins May 22nd.

I will be ready.

Yes.

Yes, I will.

Things Falling

Into place.

I am not nearly as anxious this Tuesday as I was last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, which seems so far away, but was truly just a week ago, I was in a high state of panic and anxiety most of the day.

Today.

Well.

Not so much.

I thought about it at one point.

I should get anxious!

Really?

That’s your solution?

Get anxious.

Nah.

Did that all day last Tuesday, the thought was fleeting and I was glad to let it go.

Then again, I was also quite busy at work attending to all the things that I wasn’t able to yesterday since the kids had a day off from school.

I was pretty much on the go from the minute I got to work up until the minute I left for work.

Which left little time for anxiety.

I also, thank you to the office of the practicum placement team, got a lot of relief yesterday.

I had a big outstanding question in regards to my supervision for the internship.

Because I am not going through the ICC’s (Integral Counseling Center) I have to an off site supervisor, so my need to skip doing the ICC’s because I needed to have flexibility with my work schedule also presented me with an additional logistic–finding an independent supervisor that was willing to take me on with my weirdo schedule.

The school made a big list of supervisors available to us, but I have to say I was a little dismayed to get a lot of “sorry, I’m not taking on supervisees right now.” when I was making my first rounds of inquiry.

The person whom I’m meeting with tomorrow also was not 100% on board, but he asked what my schedule allowed for and as it turned out, serendipitously, he has a current supervisee who will be leaving him at the same time that I am needing to start, and the time he has available would be work for my schedule, I would go in to see him before I go to work on Monday mornings.

Monday, FYI, which is already a hard day, hello, it’s Monday, is shaping up to be a twelve-hour day.

Two hours off site supervision, seven hours of work, two and a half hours of internship.

9 a.m.-9 p.m.

Yeehaw.

I won’t be starting it all at the same time, however, there will be some breathing space to get used to the additional hours.

IF the supervisor tomorrow takes me on, pretty fucking please, I’ll start an official summer class of two credits Monday, April 24th.

I don’t actually start my internship until Monday, May 22nd.

I’ll be in school until the weekend May 5-7th and then I’ll be in Paris May 11th-May 21st.

Yes, that’s correct, I will start my internship the Monday after I get back from ten days in Paris.

Le sigh.

However, I’ll be starting soft and slow, I probably won’t take on a client that first week.

I get ahead of myself.

All I have to do next is show up tomorrow and be my best self.

I’m not crazy about the fact that the weather is supposed to be shit, I won’t be able to ride my scooter into the interview, but hey, that’s what car share apps are for.

I just have to make sure I give myself enough time to get there and be sorted out.

He made it very clear that I was to be in the office waiting room by 9:30 a.m.

Not buzzing to get in, but actually in the waiting room by 9:30 a.m.

Which is not on the first floor of the building, so I want to be there in a timely manner, give myself a little leeway, a little breathing space, a little moment to pause, pray, and let go, to remember that showing up is the biggest action I can take and that the rest of it will follow.

If he accepts me I have the paperwork ready to be signed and then I can get his signatures and proceed to the next part, which is to take that paperwork to my academic advisor and to the head of the department for their signatures.

Lucky for me, the head of the department and my advisor are the same person.

Once he signs it I can take it to the papers, there’s a lot of them, to the practicum office and hand it over to the woman who so kindly called me to respond to the e-mail question I had.

“You get those signatures from _________ and _________ and I will personally walk it all over to the registrars office for you.”

Thank God.

I can’t wait to have this part of it behind me.

I know there’s so much more to go, this is just one small moving part of a whole machine, a machine that feels super complicated and monstrous and big and behemoth, but it’s doable if I just do a tiny little bit every day.

Some days.

Like tomorrow.

The small bit is actually a bit bigger, but in the end it really is just going to meet a person at 9:30 a.m. on Fell Street in Hayes Valley.

Which, I have to say, is nice place for me to be in supervision, it is easy for me to get to and I know the neighborhood and I’ll b able to do my work commute from there fairly quick.

Plus, there’s good coffee in the neighborhood–Ritual, Blue bottle–always a plus.

It feels really nice to not be so stressed out.

I am super glad the anxiety has faded away and though there is a lot to do, I can feel that I am making progress and the unknown is not so scary now that I have a tiny bit better of a grasp on what I need to do next.

I remind myself that I have only this 24 hours and all the things that needed to get done got done.

I’m happy, I’m healthy, I saw people I love today, I took good care of my charges, and made their dinner and got super big hugs and appreciative compliments about my cooking from both of the kids.

Which is a big deal.

And I know what is just next in front of me.

And that’s all I need to know.

Take the next action in front of me.

Let go of the results.

Easy.

Heh.

 

Help Me

To see what I need to see.

And let go of what I can.

I have had this on a loop in my head all day.

Help me to see what I need to see and to let go of what I can.

I close my eyes.

I open them.

I see leaves scuffling by along the pavement.

I see a tree, tender and green with new growth against the luminescent blue sky.

A man drives by in a delivery van, smiles and waves.

I feel the sun on my face.

It is warm.

Very simple these things.

I don’t have to exert myself so much.

I don’t have to force things or make things happen.

Things have their own damn schedule and time frame.

God’s timing is perfect.

I did a big inventory over the weekend and it is still resonating with me.

I basically inventoried the institution of being single.

Yeah.

I know.

No biggie.

Hahahahahaha.

I told my person I only had one resentment and that it was about myself, as per usual, I’m thinking about myself.

And when I told her it was because I was single she suggested that I look at the inventory differently, that I inventory the institution of being single.

Ooh.

I like that.

I am resentful at the institution of being single because.

I don’t feel like I’m enough.

I am broken.

I feel jealous of other people.

I am less than.

I am lonely.

I have to do everything by myself.

I feel like people are pitying me.

I feel angry.

I feel entitled.

Yeah.

Nothing to unpack there.

Fuck me.

Affects everything about me.

I can see my selfishness really well in holding onto this, so much so, playing the victim, holding on to self-pity, being less than, loads of moral inferiority.

And the funny thing is that when I realized that when I think people pity me, that means I think people are thinking about me.

So not true.

Oh my God.

I am not just all that and a loaf of bread.

I mean.

I’m a pretty decent, kind, loving, human being, but most people are not going around thinking about me and my dating dilemmas.

I mean.

Holy shit.

Selfish much?

God damn.

And of course I’m seeking self-esteem, and more self-pity, it’s a self-pity party, I mean, didn’t you get the invite?  I’m also definitely seeking control, and to be the director.

“Stop exerting yourself more!” She told me, “You’re still a work in progress, God’s timing is perfect.”

Heaving a big sigh of relief at that one.

The dishonesty part was easy for me to see too, that I control my life, ahahahahah, that’s a joke.

And the fear is awful basic–abandonment, never being in a romantic relationship, dying alone, unlovable.

Then she asked me something that I had never even thought about, “where have you been inconsiderate in regards to this resentment?”

Oh.

I’ve been inconsiderate?

Shit.

I have been inconsiderate.

I had my eyes opened in a big way.

Where have I been inconsiderate?

In denying someone my company, my higher power wants me to be happy.

Damn.

I mean.

I never, ever thought of it that way, that I’m denying someone the pleasure of my company.

Fuck.

So this week I have said yes to a dinner party with classmates and a former teaching assistant.

I have said yes to working on a class project with someone in my cohort.

I have a lunch date with my friend and art patron from Burning Man on Sunday in North Beach.

I have said yes to those people who want my company and who have asked for it.

I have not chased after experiences or people who aren’t interested in me.

I said yes to camping at Run Free Camp for Burning Man because the head of the camp asked me to join them this year.

“Go where the love is,” a friend of mine often reminds me.

Yes.

That.

God, please help me to see what I need to see and to let go of what I can.

Help me to stop trying so hard to try so hard.

I felt lighter today, to tell the truth.

Maybe because the rain lifted and the sun came out.

Maybe I just feel things shifting and I am more and more accepting of who and what I am.

That I am not broken, I don’t need fixing, that everything is working out in my favor, that I have done the work and I don’t have to constantly be grinding.

I mean.

That being said, when time does permit, I do need to keep on homework tip.

I did well today.

I finished all my Community Mental Health Reading and I got a good chunk of Couples Therapy kicked through.  I have finished the Trauma reading too and I have the idea for my Trauma reflection paper sketched out in my head, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or so to kick out.

I’ll do it in between doing the deal with a lady and my dentist appointment on Saturday.

Leaving me Saturday evening to have a dinner party with school mates and a weekend where I am not wondering about the drama show, the horror story, the fright that I try to entice myself with, the Carmen show.

“You’re the director, main character, scriptwriter, casting agent, staging crew, lighting, I mean, you are doing it all, just stop exerting yourself so much, stop,” she finished.

I laughed.

I cried.

I let it the fuck go.

Oh.

I may pick up the show again, but for the moment I have stopped trying to revise the script and make it into something other than the awesome reality of my beautiful life.

I am a beautiful creature.

Lovable and worthy of love.

You don’t pity me.

I don’t need to pity me.

God please help me see what you want me to see and to let go of what I can.

Seriously.

I am done.

Over it.

All yours.

Ready to stop being inconsiderate.

So much so.

Stood Up

But not angry about it.

In fact.

I was rather relieved.

I sort of expected the guy to stand me up.

And since.

I had spent the previous half hour slowly sobbing into a puddle at Tart to Tart with my person and doing some inventory.

I was indeed relieved.

I was a hot mess.

Fact is, I still am.

Which happens, I forget, despite my exhortations to the universe to have a magical and amazing Saturday.

Instead it was just tender and raw, or it wasn’t, I was, I am.

I just have to change some stuff and I don’t feel comfortable with it.

Fear.

Fuck everything and run.

Or.

Face everything and recover.

I got some big prideful pants on right now and they are not serving me at all.

I have been having some issues with work, not being able to set a boundary, hoping that instead it will magically happen.

That somehow my employer will read my mind and know that I need a break.

But.

Nobody’s a fucking mind reader and people are too busy thinking about themselves, hey, look at me, I’m thinking about myself right now, and nobody knows what I need, except.

Well.

Fuck.

Me.

So.

I’m not getting the kind of break I need at work.

And I feel appalled to admit it, that I’m not some fucking super hero who can do it all.

I can’t.

I’ve been trying.

I know that I am owed a break and I don’t know how to ask for it or to express that I need a break from the whole family, not just the kids.

It’s something I keep going back to and feeling this horrid shame that I need something from my job other than the paycheck.

That to do my job well I have to get more of a break.

That being in the house with any kind of responsibility to it is not a break, it doesn’t matter that I have done it in the past, rolled along, taken my break when the kid is sleeping and sometimes the nap is long and it is lovely and sometimes the nap is short and hey, as a nanny I just roll with it.

But the family I work for, work’s from home and I feel like I have to be on at all times, that I am always being observed and it’s fucking exhausting.

And I keep saying.

Everything is fine, fine, fine.

But.

It’s not.

See, I know my job’s hard, and the people I work with, not my employers, but the people I do do the deal with, know it’s hard, a lot of friends and my school cohort know it’s a hard job. But the parents, they don’t see it that way.

Or maybe they do, I mean, I can’t read their mind either.

I just know that being in an environment in which the parents are always there is like being constantly supervised and scrutinized and I’m just not in a good spot with it at the moment.

I didn’t get out at all from the house this past week, except once to the farmer’s market with they boys, I didn’t go for a walk, I didn’t get to take them to the playground, I didn’t have respite or the relief that I find when I am out of the house and not under the eye of the parents or the monitors and camera’s.

I also know, acutely, that so much of this is also of my own making, that I need to speak up.

I have once.

It was really hard and the parents had a hard time hearing what I said and I got what I asked for, but it went away, slow and sure, and now I’m back at that point where I wonder if it’s just not time to go back to working with babies again.  Or have the conversation once again, I need a break, that I’m not getting enough structure to allow myself the flexibility to the job as well as I could be.

“There are so many jobs out there,” she said to me today, “so many.”

I have to do some more writing.

She suggested I write out exactly what I want and then just say it, regardless of consequence.

Fear says, oh conflict, oh confrontation, oh shit, you’ll lose your job and wind up being abandoned and alone and homeless in the park with a cat.

Fuck off.

I am so sick of that fear and I am so tired of doing this same fucking work.

So.

Change.

I have to change.

My employers don’t have to change.

I have to change.

I also have to lay off the beating myself up about it.

It doesn’t help.

I hate feeling tender and vulnerable and asking for what I need leads to those feelings.

I suspect because I had a lot of denial around my needs during times when I needed to have things met.

The basic things, shelter, food, clothes, love, nurturing, unconditional support.

I got what I got and it was good enough.

I am good enough and I don’t have to look to my job to be my joy or my identity.

I also get to practice in this relationship whatever it is that God needs me to be working on.

There is stuff here.

Obviously.

I’m in the job until I learn what I need to learn.

I am in the job until I fail to be of service to it.

Ironic that I can’t be of good service if I’m not taking care of myself, so the uncomfortable task of self-searching and being open for something new, whether it’s a new attitude and approach to this job or it’s looking for a job that will fit my needs better.

I need to know what my needs are.

I can surmise that the discomfort of not asking for a break is rapidly becoming harder to bear than the discomfort of not taking said break.

I am not a super hero.

I can’t be a super nanny.

I don’t want to burn out and I can’t be the best nanny if I’m nursing resentments.

All of them pretty much aimed at myself.

I’m a sitting duck.

I’m tired of shooting at myself.

I give up God.

Got some guidance?

I’ll take it.

Thanks man, I’m tired of learning this lesson.

I surrender.

Which.

In some circles is considered going over to the winning side.

I rather like the way that sounds.

The winning side is where it’s at.

Seriously.