Tiny Pockets of Perfect

Little precious moment of complete and utter luminosity in my day.

Small things but grand, full of beauty and quiet happiness.

An hour before work with my favorite person in the world having coffee.

Getting a car downtown to meet the family I nanny for and the baby falling asleep in the carrier, I sat and watched the children playing and was warm and snuggled up in a corner and basically got to be still for an hour and a half.

Oh.

I suppose that is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for someone like me, who often moves fast, slowing down is a grand luxury.

Going slow on my scooter and missing the rain that happened.

Although the streets were slick when I went into my internship, they had dried by the time I left and I got home safe and dry.

The best leftovers from a dinner I made last night for my best friend.

Delicious and it reminded me of our time together.

Time that is precious and valuable to me.

Human connection.

Love.

Having a client consult cancel on me and having a full hour to do homework reading and the best, the text is really interesting.

I was a little concerned when I saw that I had to read a 184 pages of a book for just that one class for my next weekend of classes, but the book is quite compelling and I knocked out 58 pages in the hour that I had with no client.

A really good session with another client to end my evening.

And now.

Some Yo Yo Ma playing Beethoven.

I’ll take it.

And tomorrow is Friday.

Oh sure.

It’s still a full day, but it’s payday, which is nice, not that I’m spending any money on anything right now, I am trying to squirrel away for a new car next month, but it’s still nice and I worked over time for the family and when that happens I get it in cash instead of taxed, which is a nice bonus.

So I’ll use that for my “fun” money for the next week.

I’ll work 9 hours tomorrow at work and then take two clients afterward.

But then the weekend.

Yes, I will have group supervision on Saturday and I will also have to sit through an additional hour of supervision since my solo supervisor was away on vacation, but it will feel like a day off, this Saturday.

A day to get in a yoga class, to go do the deal, to not be too pressured to perform.

Group supervision really is just marking time and I don’t have to get highly present for it.

Solo supervision is another thing entirely and that will feel like work, but it will be just an hour.

Then.

Maybe a manicure, maybe a coffee in a cafe, maybe some stickers.

Heh.

I do like my stickers and I discovered a small stash of stickers from Paris this morning when I was doing my Morning Pages.

I had thought I was all out.

It was nice to find a few more.

I have tons of notebooks still from Paris, but yes, the sticker supply is fast dwindling.

I will need to re-up soon.

I am such a girl sometimes, but I’m alright with indulging my inner child, she didn’t get much indulgence growing up and sometimes, hahahahaahaha, I’m writing this sentence and out of the corner of my eye I note my fashionable bunny slippers, I need to indulge her.

Hence stickers and um, ha, bunny slippers.

I did not have slippers growing up.

Hell.

I didn’t have slippers as an adult for a very long time, but man, when I finally indulged, happiness!

Especially now that the seasons are fully turning and it’s getting chilly out there.

I was a touch overdressed on my scooter today, thinking it was going to be colder than it was, but the days grow short, the nights grow long, and the temperatures have dropped.

And now the rain.

A touch of melancholy.

A soft stirring of sadness.

And I remember that I am allowed to hold more than one or two or three emotions.

I can hold many.

Even the painful ones that hide in the pretty ones.

Tender and sad and soft and sweet and let myself have them so they don’t stay stuck.

I can get stuck sometimes and the words don’t come out right and I feel tongue-tied.

All of that too.

Even in the starred days, in the ways that light affects me and the pulling at my heart as it wanders far above in the night sky.

Sings to me this lullaby.

Loss and sorrow and surrender and unmitigated love and struggle and joy all of it.

Perfect in my imperfections, still making mistakes and growing.

Pain, the touch stone of spiritual growth, I remind myself.

The way that I can see all the loveliness and feel all the joy because I have experienced the other side and have something to compare it to.

I made myself sad without meaning too.

And left adrift in my melancholy I will listen again to the sound of the cello, winsome and low against the piano and the story it tells me slides inside my heart and falls like the soft rain outside my door onto my face.

I am not always good at this.

Being human.

But I am always, oh so very.

Very.

Human.

Which is perhaps.

The most perfect of all.

Perhaps.

All Systems Go

Fuck.

It was a busy, full, going on all four cylinders from the moment I got up, day, from early morning until.

Well.

Until.

Right about now.

I just got off an email back and forth with director of my internship, did a bunch of e-mails with some clients, booked some sessions, logged my hours for today in Track My Hours, and whew.

It’s like um, 10p.m.

I got up at 6:30 a.m.

That’s a full day.

I got some writing in today though, I hadn’t gotten as much morning page writing in the last week or so and it was really good to just let go on the page and scrawl away.

I also showered yesterday so I skipped it this morning, giving me a little more time to process all the junk in my head.

I don’t even know what I wrote, only that it felt good to write.

And.

I did a written gratitude list and sent another out to a friend via text.

I’m on a list he sends it to and I like getting it.

Not just because it reminds me to be grateful, it definitely does that, but to see what other people are grateful for.

I am grateful for everything.

My life is beyond my wildest dreams.

Sometimes it is strange and I wonder, how did I get here, but I know there are no mistakes in God’s world and I am being taken care of and having all the experiences I am supposed to be having.

Like being of service to the woman I am traveling with to Burning Man.

I am still having some trepidations about going with someone who is 74 years old, but I also am happy that I get to be of service to her.

It’s a nice to be of service to others, it gets me out of my head, and if you’ve never been to Burning Man it is super hard to imagine and of course, if you’re 74 there’s a different approach you’re going to make than if you are 24 or my age, 44.

How did I get to be 44?

Fuck.

Time flies.

I suppose I will look back in 30 years and wonder how it is that I got to be 74.

I’m going to be old.

I know it.

I also hope to be of service all the way to the end of my life.

I believe that’s the only way that I am going to be happy, by having a useful life, by helping others, it gives me happiness, it gets me out of my own head and I got to do a lot of it today.

I had a few phone check ins, one lady who I just recently met, and got to share some experience, strength and hope with her and although we are vastly different, we are the same person and it was good to hear how relieved she was to know that she’s not alone in her journey.

I got to talk with one of the other women I work with in recovery and I also got to see clients tonight.

And.

I worked with my supervisor.

I also got to go over my review with him, which was really enlightening and I got a better idea of how he thinks of me and what I am doing and that he also, although he didn’t exactly say it, likes me.

We had a great session and I learned a ton from him today.

I often feel as though I am taking a solo masters class in psychoanalytic theory when I am working with him.

I write a ton of notes and I can hear him in my head sometimes when I am with a client.

It’s exciting to work with him, he pushes me, he’s extraordinarily smart and intelligent, and I feel smart when I am working with him.

I like feeling smart.

I have always understood that I was intelligent, but the smart part of that eludes me, I have been mystified most of my life as to what people meant when they say, “you are so smart.”

I haven’t always felt that way.

Smart.

In fact.

I have often felt rather stupid, stupid in love, stupid in my life choices, idiotic some of the decisions I have made, or so I tell myself, but oh, the learning, the learning is so much.

I have such a wealth of experiences.

Mostly because I try to say yes to doing things.

Sometimes to my detriment, I’ll get too busy, I will get to wrapped up with my schedule and I won’t have the time to appreciate what is happening.

I try to find balance.

I don’t often succeed, but I try.

And I’m ok with failing.

Ah.

Who the fuck am I kidding.

I am never ok with failing, but I recognize that I am going to fail and that I will try again and again until it works its way out, whatever it is.

I guess what I am saying is that I live.

I am not sitting on the bleachers, I am in the game.

I am hustling.

Sometimes perhaps a little too much, but I know that it’s what it is right now.

And that all the things I did, mistakes, which were not mistakes, life experiences, travels, moving to Paris, moving back from Paris, trying things out, has led me here.

Right where I am supposed to be.

With the people in my life with whom I am supposed to be with.

Such gifts.

Such grace.

I didn’t expect it to look like this.

But.

I have to say.

It is a beautiful thing.

My life.

So beautiful.

My heart aches with it.

Grateful beyond words.

And now.

One more gratitude list before I retire.

Because.

Truly.

There is that much to be grateful for.

Every day.

Grateful.

Every damn day.