Got The Shot

Thank God.

For a minute today, and oh did I get to practice acceptance, I thought that I wasn’t going to be able to get the shot, but I did.

I did.

The shot I’m referring to is the professional photograph that the producers of People Who Usually Don’t Lecture requested.

They want a photograph for publicity purposes.

Eek.

Publicity.

Scary and kind of cool all at the same time.

I sent them a photo I had taken of myself mid-summer, but they requested I send them a photograph that wasn’t taken on my phone.

Sigh.

I’m pretty damn good at taking a selfie, I’m not sure what that implies about me, narcissist, vain, self-involved, maybe, but I do know my angles when it comes to taking my own photo.

I usually take a lot and from certain angles.

I know my best side.

But fuck.

When it’s someone else taking my picture I’m horrible.

Weird ass smile, wrinkled forehead, strange faces, odd ball angles, I manage to look much heavier than I am, I have no clue what to look at where to focus and I’m goofy.

Thank goodness for my dear friend who took time out of her very busy day to help me.

At first I felt like it just wasn’t going to happen, she had a lot going on and I felt a tad guilty about asking her to spend time doing something pro bono, but she told me to get my butt to her studio in the Mission and we got the job done.

I sprung for lunch and got take out from FarmHouse.

And I must say, slight aside, fucking good food.

Really good.

I was impressed.

And I just had the Tom Kha Soup with chicken and some brown rice, but fuck, it was delicious and might be the best Tom Kha I’ve had in the city.

I will be going back, if the soup was that freaking good I’m sure the rest of the food is.

Plus I really liked the decor and it had a warm, vibrant feeling to it.

Anyway.

I picked up lunch and we got a chance to connect and I gave her the down low on life and school and all the things.

So good to reconnect.

And to get the shot.

Yes.

A lot of them were absolute duds.

Not her fault, nope, me and my self-conscious posing.

But we got there and I’m super happy with the resulting photograph.

I’m not sure how many she took, but probably close to a 100 frames.

Which we narrowed down to 16 shots, then six and finally two.

I sent the two off to the producers and I’m done.

Well.

With this part of the process anyway.

I still, obviously, have to do the lecture, but the photograph was a stress that I wasn’t expecting.

Gratefully my friends studio is close to my internship, I wasn’t on my scooter today with the rain, no thank you, and I didn’t have to travel far from her spot to where I needed to be next.

I had a bunch of time in between the photo shoot and my client, so I popped into a cafe and did two hours of reading.  I finished my Jungian Dream Work reading for the semester and got a good bit into my Transpersonal reading.

That felt great.

And I had done a good hour of homework before I headed out the door to do the photo shoot.

I finished almost all my CBT reading, which is good as I have a webinar I have to attend on Sunday.

I also finished all my reading for my Drug and Alcohol class.

So for Jungian Dream Work and for Drug and Alcohol I could actually start writing the final papers for the class if I wanted to.

That also is a nice feeling.

I feel like I won’t start the writing for that yet, I want to focus on getting the rest of my reading done for my other classes and finishing the online components for the classes that have that requirement.

There’s still so much to do, but having made a big jump into the material today, I feel like I will be able to address all the reading by the end of the weekend.

Even with seeing three clients tomorrow and having to go in before my group supervision on Saturday to do a rehearsal for the People Who Usually Don’t Lecture folks.

It will be the first rehearsal with all the people who are speaking.

There are seven of us.

I’m super curious.

I know one of the participants, it was his story that had a bit of our relationship in it that piqued the producers into wanting to meet with me.

It will be great to see him and hear his piece.

I’ve read a good bit of it, it’s a great piece.

I’m certain that the caliber of speakers is going to be quite high.

I have rehearsed my piece once a night since writing it.

I don’t want to let down the producers.

And, well, it’s a fun thing to be participating in, and it’s not school related or work related or client related.

Although.

Ha.

I do talk about all those things in my lecture–work, school, my internship–just with a much different slant than I typically think about my life.

It’s my story and I know it really well, but they, the producers, had me sharpen certain things and I’m eager to do the work to be polished and participate in the project.

It feels like an honor to have been included.

I don’t want to let anyone down.

So it was really with much gratitude and happiness that the photo turned out so well.

Super grateful.

Super excited.

And ready to focus on the next thing in front of me.

Lots of life, lots of school work, and no little love.

So much love.

Grateful to focus on that too.

Beyond my ability to write about it.

But something I read earlier really summed it up, so perhaps I will end on a little quote from my Jungian Dream Work class reading.

“I falter before the task of finding the language which might adequately express the incalculable paradoxes of love.”

C. G. Jung

Made It!

I got through the last day of my three day weekend of classes.

With a little help from my friends.

I got a ride in this morning again.

And a ride after school, although I did not go straight home, no, I headed to the Castro instead and did something that I may rue at a later hour.

I had an Americano at 5p.m. while I was waiting for my friend to join me and go to dinner.

I probably should not have but I was trying to get out of the rain and the mindless milling about the Castro.

It’s fun to window shop, but not when it’s pouring out and the wind is blowing your umbrella inside out.

I ducked into Revielle and the coffee was delicious and I may be awake a little longer than I suspected I will, or.

I may not.

The Day Light Savings Spring forward made for a short night of sleep and I am pretty sure I’ll be able to find my way to sleep.

The question I’m actually debating is whether or not I have the chutzpah to go to yoga class tomorrow before work.

I would like to, especially since I was unable to make any yoga classes this weekend.

But.

Sleep may really be the answer.

Not like I have some challenging week ahead of me, but running three days straight on a slight sleep deficit does tend to add up.

I was joking with a member of my cohort about being sleepy and how that must mean someone in my class was a pathological narcissist as one of the transference characteristics is extreme sleepiness in response to the defensive structures that the narcissist has built up.

If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, I don’t exactly either.

But.

I am beginning to see that I may, that is, I may be getting it.

The material is really starting to ooze in everywhere and also I see parts of myself that are beginning to have more cohesion with the program and with my cohort, with the process of doing the work and the work, well, working on me.

I joked around a little yesterday about realizing that I had dated a closet narcissist, a melancholic and depressive, and a probable borderline personality.

That’s so sexy.

Not.

I have, however, not dated them for as long or I have avoided going out with them again and really, hey, hey, look at that, it’s not them who are the problem.

“So I realized,” I said to my dinner companion as we swapped stories and caught up and loved on each other, I am so happy to have this new friend in my life, “I needed to let him go and walk away.”

No texting.

No reaching out.

No waiting for the phone to ring.

Because all the people that I have dated have one thing in common, aside from mental illness, ha, just kidding.

They have all dated me.

I am the one with the issues.

As I shared with my new “therapist” today in our first dyad session.

I was a bit challenged by being the client, and it’s just me, being me, but I worked my way through it, and realized, even if the therapist didn’t, that I have done a lot of work.

Oh so much work.

On myself.

And the work, well, it can ease off, I could use a break.

I don’t feel like working on myself right now.

I feel like taking a break.

I feel like.

Perhaps.

Yes, perhaps.

This is a good time to not self-improve and just be delighted with who I am and the work I have done, to acknowledge, if just for a moment the work and I then accept it and let it sit for a while.

That feeling of acknowledgement.

Not that I’m going to sit too long.

I am like a shark.

I must keep on moving or I will die.

I joked with my “therapist” that a moving target was harder to hit than a still one.

And that’s really it in a tidy little package.

(Nutshell)

I get to sit with my results, not for too long, I don’t want to rest on my laurels, but I do want to take a moment and just notice for myself that I showed up every day on time with the readings done and the papers written.

I showed up and I participated.

I showed up and I connected with people.

“I just want you to know how much I appreciate the service you do, just by being here, just by being you,” she said today at lunch out of the blue.

I was not expecting that.

I was also told by someone in my cohort that my colorful outfits and flowers in my hair and my authenticity of self was a really refreshing thing, he called it, in fact, “a breath of fresh air.”

Grateful that I get to be of service just by being my authentic self.

Such a gift.

I had a really good day today and maybe that’s the coffee talking, but I really felt connected to my friends at school and then this evening up in the Castro, a roast chicken dinner with my new friend and an hour or so in a church basement to set me up just so for the rest of the week.

It’s just a work week.

Just.

Heh.

I will probably give myself the day off tomorrow from school work.

At least a day of grace period before I dive back into the reading and the next round of papers that will need to get written.

But I am officially half way through second semester, first year, of graduate school.

Midterm.

Crazy.

Crazy good.

I made it through March.

I have two more months left.

Then New York.

And a summer off.

I am more than certain I will be busy with other things between here and there, more adventures in dating, in letting go, in soft surrender, in acceptance, in lightening up.

And yes.

Having fun.

Yes please.

More fun.

Please.

Just as I am certain that I may not rest on my laurels, but I will take a moment to appreciate, with kind eyes, the work I have done.

Good job kid.

Good freaking job.