Being Proactive

I got a lot done today!

I also forgot a couple of times what day of the week it is.

Heh.

It is not often that I have the luxury of forgetting what day of the week it is, but I did today.

It was sort of nice to just do the next thing in front of me and let go of the results.

Life goes pretty smooth when I do that.

I am happy to report I got up and went to yoga.

Two days in a row!

And despite having the next few days “free” in the mornings, I won’t make another yoga class until Thursday or possibly Friday.

The classes available don’t quite fit my schedule.

A schedule that does have a few time slots of delicious opening, but that I have made some time to see friends and do lunches, grab coffees, catch up and connect.

I’d rather connect with friends right now than worry about making another yoga class appear in my schedule.

Suffice to say.

I am glad I went though, it felt good and I felt good for going.

I also did meet with a lady today and do the deal and I got a lot of work done to apply for the paid internship that I have been researching.

Namely.

I updated my resume for the position and I reached out to two supervisors to write me letters of recommendation.

Both gave me a resounding yes they would be happy to do so.

That felt really good.

I’m about half way done with what the application requires for the internship.

There’s a lot they want to see.

The rest of it is a matter of sitting down and doing some writing and figuring out a mission statement for myself and my vision of a private practice.

Fortunately, in my last semester one of my classes, Integrative Seminar, made a big point about this and I feel like all I have to do is go back through the notes I took to be able to give the internship what it’s looking for.

I also have to do a business plan.

That feels a little more challenging, but they have some templates and I’ve been reading over everything and I believe I can come up with something that will do the job.

It is certainly good practice no matter what comes of it.

I do feel good about the internship though, my friend whom I spoke to about it really felt that I would be a good fit and after speaking with her, I feel the same.

I also have to acknowledge that in the 8 days since I found out the internship that I thought I would have had fallen through I have done a lot of footwork to find a new one.

I have researched and reached out.

I had a coffee date to sit with my friend and find out if it was a good fit for me.

I reached out to two supervisors for letters of recommendation.

I also reached out to the woman who I was going to intern with and asked her if she still had any interest in renting out office space to me.

I don’t know that it makes sense for me to rent my own office.

In fact.

I don’t think that I could afford it.

Hell.

When I look at what’s available on craigslist as I navigate through my current living situation, I can’t afford what’s out there to rent, let alone a full-time office space.

The best bet for me is to do what my friend does, she shares the office she works out of with another therapist.  She’s in her office two days a week with clients, the other five days the licensed MFT is using it.

I figure that the woman who was going to supervise me does have office space availability, I mean she did when we talked and unless something has changed she probably still does.

Thus the email inquiry.

I also asked if she might still want to supervise me, but under the auspices of the internship who would pay her the rent on the office and pay her a fee for supervision and then the internship with take out admin fees from my account and whatever is left over would be my paycheck.

It will probably take some months before I even get money, but if I do it right and I work at it in a steady way, I could be making a decent amount after about half a year.

Not enough to quit being a nanny, not by far, but enough to help pay the bills and maybe go down to part-time nannying instead of full-time.

Of course.

I also have my school program coming up to contend with.

I have been thinking it will be much like my Masters degree the last year of it, working pretty much full-time as a nanny for my current family, seeing clients after work, and then doing my homework on the weekends.

I will slowly accrue hours.

And that will be alright.

As long as I’m not stagnating.

It’s work, but work towards an end goal.

And I really like being a therapist.

It feels good and right and it feels like this is how I bring more love into the world.

I saw the Mister Rogers movie, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” today with my person.

It was so good.

I was so happy he persuaded me to put aside our recovery work for an afternoon and just go duck into a movie theater and watch an amazing movie.

If you haven’t seen it, go!

It was astounding.

And I grew up watching Mister Rogers, so it felt especially poignant.

I also appreciated it and the principles of spirituality, basic child psychology, inclusion, and love that he was obviously basing his life work around.

It was a beautiful movie and I left feeling hopeful and happy that as things progress it’s all going to work out.

I just have to keep love in my heart and be honest in my person.

I have faith I can do that.

I really do.

So, So, So

Tired.

Like wiped out.

Of course I got up today at 4:30 a.m. so that might be a part of it.

But.

I also realized that I haven’t had a day off in, what, ten days?

I always forget that about mid-week after a weekend of classes.

Oh yeah, I didn’t have any days off because I was in school over the weekend.

Which means I worked my full-time job, went to therapy, went to group supervision, went to solo supervision, and saw 8 clients last week, then I had a full weekend of classes.

And come Monday I went right back to work, solo supervision, therapy, clients, etc.

I have two more days of work, two more days of clients, group supervision on Saturday and a CBT webinar I have to do on Sunday.

Sunday is shaping up to not be much of a day off, but I will have some down time.

Which will likely be filled with school work, but I will also try to slide in a yoga class or two during the weekend and god, I so need a mani/pedi and face waxing.

Yeah.

I said face.

I’m this close to getting electrolysis.

It’s a luxury expense, but then I think about the money I spend to have it done and I could have probably already have paid for it ten times over.

Some things feel like luxury.

Some things I don’t think about dropping money on.

I see a gift for someone that I know they will like.

And money is not a problem.

I have it.

Yesterday, for instance, I totally was only getting my charge some stickers.

I mean, rainbow stickers, maybe a couple of horses and some hearts, but nothing over a couple of dollars.

I also had an ulterior motive, I wanted to pick up a card for my best friend whom I miss awful bad and so being close to Serendipity in the Mission I decided, heck, kill two birds with one stone.

Get my charge some stickers and pick up a card.

Except.

Ha.

She saw a stuffed unicorn with rainbow mane and tail and it was over.

I mean.

It was magnetic, the girl just went straight to a basket of unicorn stuffies and grabbed hers right out.

“_______________ I want this one!”

And then she did it.

She turned the eyes on me.

I have never had her do that to me before.

My god.

The child has some power.

I took the unicorn and looked at the price tag.

I could afford it, in fact I had taken some money out earlier in the day when I was shopping up at Whole Foods in Noe Valley, and I had almost exactly what the unicorn cost.

I got it for her.

The happiness in her face.

I will never forget that look.

I also had to take a picture, those big, sweet, melty eyes and how she held that unicorn, oh my gosh.

And then today.

I was in early, early to help out the parents who need me to do a drop off to the school and she brought the unicorn in to be her quiet time nap cuddle toy.

I was beyond thrilled.

It felt very special that she had to have it with her and I’m so grateful I got her something that she loves so much.

The mom was telling me how much it means to them that their kids get a long with me so well, that they had actually been looking for a nanny for over a year when they found me and they are very happy with me.

We’ve booked ourselves out all the way through the school year.

Which means basically that I have a job for as long as I need.

My contract will end on January 1st of this year.

I have no doubts at all that we will be renewing and at that time I will ask for a cost of living raise.

San Francisco has not gotten any cheaper to live in and I am so getting a car.

That came up yesterday in my therapy session, what it means to have a car, the last time I had a car, to rent it or own it, my finances, how I can navigate getting one.

My therapist said, “having a car in this profession is a deep kind of self-care.”

And the moment she said it I knew how true that was, to be able to come and go on my schedule, to not be seeing clients wet from having ridden my scooter from my day job to my internship in the rain, to not be riding in risky weather.

Getting a car is a deep movement into self-care for me.

I’m ready to do it.

I have to figure out time, of course, it feels like it just slips through my fingers, but I think that the week and a half that my family is away for Thanksgiving will be a good time to do it.

Mid-November.

I may have to deal with some rain before that time and I can take cars.

If time opens up for me before that I will do so, if not, I’ll mark November 16th as the day I want to have my new car by.

That’s a the Thursday before Thanksgiving and my family will be flying out the evening before on their vacation.

I’ll have a day off during the middle of the week when it’s not too busy, not a Saturday at 2p.m. when everyone in the world is out looking at cars.

That’s the current thought around that.

And it’s exciting.

I got a portion of my financial aid released to me, a few more dollars into my savings account and I’m in need of some clothing staples, and maybe one nice new dress, and the rest will be earmarked toward the car.

I’m really going to do this.

And I’ll make sure I’m well rested for it, not going to the dealership tired.

Oof.

Anyway.

I’m starting to ramble and I just want a hot tea, a pear, and a snippet of a video.

Then off to bed.

My bed looks so good right now.

I cannot wait to crawl under the covers.

Seriously.

It’s going to be good.

So.

So.

So.

Good.

One More Day!

One more day of work.

Then.

Off to New York.

I have made some decisions regarding my trip.

One.

I am not taking the subway to the Air BnB when I get into JFK at 10:30 p.m. at night.

I don’t feel like showing up to the place after midnight.

I’m going to get a car.

I am going to let myself not worry about navigating the trains, I’m going to let myself have a little experience, see the city from a car at night.

I think the view alone from a car will be worth the splurge.

I am also going with a good amount, obscene it feels like, of money.

I have saved all semester and I have a comfortable little cushion to let myself spend and the luxury of not being anxious about making the right train and transferring to the right line is well worth the cost of a car.

In fact, I’m also going to take a car to the airport when I return as well.

My flight back is way early, 7:30 a.m.

Which is awesome since with the time change it puts me at getting back to SFO around 9:30a.m. and I took the whole day off from work.

I’ll probably train it back to the house from SFO.

I’m hella comfortable with that commute.

But in New York, I’m going to let myself have the experience of not being anxious about train times and getting here to there.

I will take the subway while I’m there, I won’t be on a time frame, it’s loose and flexible.

I want to go to the MOMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, but if something comes up and I miss one of those because I am having some other grand adventure, than cool.

I’m going to be flexible.

I um, heh, want some souvenirs, because that’s how I roll.

And I did actually come up with a tattoo piece that I may go have checked out at Three Kings in Green Point.

If I can get it for a good price I will.

If it seems like it would take up too much time and energy then I won’t.

I do want a pair of earrings, or three, a bunch of notebooks, bunch of stickers, postcards from the museums I make it to and what ever the hell floats my boat.

I would love a sweatshirt and I always love getting a hat from the city I visit.

I don’t actually have the one I got there two years ago, I am not sure where it got off to, but I don’t have it.  I do have the one I got in Paris in 2007 and I love wearing it, I am always reminded of the street where I got it, the time of day, and how I just fell in love with it.

I’d like a good New York cabbie hat or fedora.

God damn.

I am excited.

Coffee galore, walking, oysters at a restaurant somewhere, photographs, graffiti, I want to make sure I bring my camera and rechargeable batteries.

I am also thinking about getting one of those brick recharger deals.

I drain a lot of juice on my Iphone when I take photos or when I use it to navigate anywhere.  And if for some reason I’m out and about in a part of town and don’t feel like subway back to Clinton Park, I’ll get a car and that means having my phone powered up.

I will be out on the town.

I will not be hanging at the Air BnB.

That is simply to have a place to sleep and do my blog at night.

I plan on being up and out and going the majority of the time and it would be handy to have an extra bit of juice for the phone.

I met with a lady this evening after work and told her about what I was doing and why and her whole face lit up.

“That’s like bucket list stuff for me,” she said her face glowing.

Girl, if I can do it, so can you.

So grateful that doing nice things for myself helps the women I work with give them the allowance to do the same things too.

Travel was such a dream for me when I was younger and I am so grateful that I am allowing myself more and more to embrace it.

I was writing this morning about where I want to go and things I want to do.

Take the Empire Builder Train Line.

Go to Paia, Maui–see the place where my grandmother was born.

Go to Burning Man in 2017 since I can’t go this year.

Go to Hudson, Wisconsin and see my best friend and her family.

Those are the tops on the list, but there are so many others.

I would love to go back to Alaska and really see it during the summer.

I still want to see Venice and go back to Rome for more than a weekend with more than the 50 Euro I went with.

I am still in awe how that happened.

Rome for 50 Euro.

Cape Town, South Africa.

Toulouse, France–I owe it an amends to be seen truly instead of the drunken, hung over stupor I did it the first time.

So many places.

And you know.

I’m going to go to all of them and more.

Because I am alive, I love myself and I am fucking awesome.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

But for a woman who came from where I did to be where I am at it is only by grace that I am here and I feel like I owe my God the happiness and joy I find in traveling.

It fills me up, it lights me up.

New places, new experiences.

New faces.

New art.

God.

I can’t wait to just cram my face full of art.

I’ll have something to compare the new MOMA to when I get back.

I haven’t been to it yet, not having really had time to what with school and work.

But I will when I get back.

Especially since I won’t have to be doing homework every weekend.

Hell.

I’ll also do some little trips around here.

Why the hell not?

Get on a train and see where I can take it.

Scooter down the coast.

Or up it.

I’m not sure about taking my scooter over the bridges, but I could see going around the coast  a little.

Oh summer vacation.

I am so happy to meet your acquaintance.

Feels funny to say that at the ripe old age of 43, but there it is.

One more day of work and then some play time for me.

I have so earned it.

Seriously.