Well, I tried

I really did.

I even got up before my alarm went off.

Nightmares.

Fucking had a using dream last night and in my dream I woke up, still dreaming, thinking that I had relapsed and I had to tell my person and then I was going to be new all over again.

I woke up in the grey foggy light of the Outer Sunset in August, it could have been 6 a.m. it could have been 10 a.m., although my alarm was set for 8:30 a.m. so I knew it wasn’t that late, but for a moment I really thought the dream was for real.

I tried to shake it off.

I saw it was a little after 8 a.m. and just decided to get up and get going, sleep was pretty much ruined at that point, another twenty minutes was not going to do me any good.

I got up.

I put on my swimsuit.

I made my bed.

I did my prayers, read my books, breathed.

I grabbed my swim bag and I set out for Sava Pool.

Only to be foiled.

It’s closed for maintenance!

Until September 7th.

I was a bit upset, although not horribly, part of me was very proud of myself for getting up and going and seeing the pool through the glass made me happy.

I thought for a moment of heading over to the other side of town and maybe hitting the pool on Arguello, but I had a lot to do today and a friend from school happened to text me asking if I wanted to catch up and grab coffee at Trouble.

Seeing as how I wasn’t able to swim I figured I would settle for gossip and coffee.

Although I was a bit on the fence about going to Trouble.

That’s my landlady’s hang out spot and I wasn’t really wanting to see my friend there if she was there, we have been avoiding each other, but it’s still not very comfortable here.

The loudness gets to me quite a bit.

And sure enough, she was there and I could hear her laughing from the corner of the 7-11 across the street.

I pinged my friend, asked him to come over and we just had coffee at my place.

Saved me from a five dollar cafe au lait.

I still can’t believe what some places charge for coffee, it’s like what some folks charge for rent.

Despite our coffee plans being slightly misled, it was good to catch up with my friend and see what he’s been up to and how supervision is going for him and share my plans for my private practice internship and all the things.

He has wanted to do a group with me a number of times but our schedules have just not quite coincided.

But.

Lovely to catch up and good to have a person to talk to about school as I am so close to heading into my next phase.

I did a little, actually a lot, of writing after he headed out and that felt good.

I reflected on the phone call I had with my person this morning as I was driving back from the closed pool and relating the details of my nightmare.

How my alcoholism doesn’t like it when I am having intense feelings and the using dream was a way to try to escape from the feelings.

But the feelings came anyway.

I cried a bunch today too.

It’s still early, I’ve been told, there is going to be a lot to grieve, keep letting yourself feel them.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I know.

But fuck.

It is hard.

And I’m a psychotherapist, I know the importance of not stuffing my feelings.

I’ve been damn good about it, I think, my person certainly has made a point of reflecting to me that I have, that he’s consistently amazed by the things I am moving through and the grace with which I am doing so.

I don’t always feel graceful though.

And I burst into tears three or four times today.

So.

There is that.

Ugh.

I just miss him so much, I feel crushed by it, I bought him cards today without thinking about it.

I used to write him love notes all the time.

I made it a point to find sweet, unusual, poignant cards to give him.

I like letters.

I like writing.

I like paper and envelopes and thoughtfulness.

I bought the cards thinking that maybe, maybe one day, hopefully not too far down the line, I’ll be able to write him cards again.

Perhaps I was foolish.

Perhaps I am foolish.

But for a moment it appeased my heart to have the cards.

I want to see him.

I know I  can’t.

At least not right now.

I want to talk to him, text him, email him, send him smoke signals.

And I can’t.

I want to kiss him, hold him, be held by him, express all the love in my body and heart and soul to him.

And I can’t.

All I can do is keep feeling these things and taking the suggestions I have been given and believing that God has this relationship, and that we are both being carried and loved.

That’s about the best I can do.

That and cry.

I am just going to go and cry some more.

Damn it.

You don’t remember me, but I remember you
‘Twas not so long ago, you broke my heart in two
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart 
Caused by you, you

If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hand of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you

Love is not a gadget, love is not a toy
When you find the one you love 
(S)he’ll fill your heart with joy

If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hand of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you

Really?

Already?

FUCK.

I just read over the syllabus for one of my classes.

Vomit.

Vomit.

Vomit.

I am not ready.

No.

No.

No.

Sigh.

I got an e-mail from a friend of mine in the cohort, we take almost all of our classes together and I switched out a class to be in the this last class with her, tipping me off to a website builder that I could use for class.

I was like.

What?

Wait?

Is the syllabus already up?

And fuck me, yes, it is already up.

I read it over, I got a little tired reading it.

I think I just want to go back to reading my pleasure reading book and not look at a syllabus again for a day or five.

My next weekend of classes is January 19-21st.

It’s still a few weeks away, but it’s looming.

Fortunately the class that has the syllabus up has no readers or textbooks I will need to buy.

Unfortunately and I’m super annoyed by this, I do have to use readings, readers, and textbooks from my previous classes.

The class is Integrative Seminar, and it basically requires that I write a 22-29 page paper with a personal narrative of when and where I had revelations in my classwork and what those looked like and how I will bring those insights into my therapy sessions with future/current clients.  Plus a part of the paper has to be a clinical review of one of my current clients.

Ugh.

That’s a fucking pain in my ass.

Not that I can’t write that many pages, I won’t have a problem doing that so much, but um, I didn’t save my notebooks from my previous classes, I recycled most of them, I also don’t have the majority of my textbooks, I sold them back.

ARGH.

I do have one ace up my sleeve, I just now literally realized.

I have a program on my computer called Perrla.

It basically is a graduate student’s wet dream.

It helps format papers in APA (The American Psychological Association) and it builds your bibliography for you as you’re writing the papers.

I should have all my papers from all my classes, except for maybe the first couple I wrote, that are saved in my Perrla program.

I can reference those papers to write the bigger paper for this class.

That will be my saving grace.

So grateful I just remembered that.

Really no need for me to get all anxious about shit anyway, I’m a writer, I will write.

I have had some pretty transformative moments in school and I have grown so much in my personal life that I am sure I will be able to knock out a 30 page paper with ten references pretty damn quick.

Plus, thank God!

Thank fucking God, I keep really good notes from my supervision sessions with my solo supervisor.

And I am fairly certain I have all my notes from supervision and now that I know I’ll be presenting a case I can take more prodigious notes while in session with him.

I don’t know what I’m bitching about.

All things considered I will be writing more than 30 pages for a PhD dissertation.

God only knows how much writing that will entail.

I talked my therapist a lot about that today, amongst other things, like coming up on my 13th sobriety anniversary and what I will be doing to acknowledge that, and how I sent out an inquiry to the dean of the school I’m thinking about applying to.

My therapist is way behind me going for it.

It’s nice to have that support.

And she made a really good observation that by the time I will finish up my PhD I will also be close to accruing all my hours for licensure.

That sure would be swell.

My PhD and my license.

I’m so down for that.

I got a response to my inquiry late afternoon today while I was at work.

I probably had gotten it far earlier, but work was a busy one and I didn’t check my phone until nearly end of day.

And there it was, a message from the dean in response to my ask.

She told me two very valuable bits of information–the program only accepts students in the fall and the deadline for the upcoming fall semester is the end of February.

My timing couldn’t be better.

She asked that we make time to chat soon either in person or over the phone.

I asked for a phone interview to discuss the program after I get out of supervision next Monday morning.

I am going for it.

I can’t believe I writing that and at the same time it feels exactly like what I am supposed to be doing.

I am genuinely excited.

Sure.

It will be more work, but I’m used to it at this point, I’ve been doing the work now for over two and a half years, I know what needs to be done and the time it goes by so quick.

“How’s school?”  A friend asked me New Year’s Eve.

“I graduate in May!” I told her, I might have squealed, jumping up in down a tiny bit.

“Oh my god, didn’t you just start?”

Yeah.

That’s what it feels like, like I just started, and I also feel like I’ve been doing it for a really long time, the school bit has very much informed my last two and a half years, it has colored literally everything I have done.

And not done.

Oh the social stuff I have missed out on.

Then again.

I cannot fathom the growth that I would not have had if I not been in school.

The growth I have had is astounding.

Nothing says personal growth quite like going to school to be a counseling therapist.

Shit.

Let me process some stuff ok?

On top of getting back into therapy.

Thank God for therapy.

It’s been so good for me.

So I’m not mad at what I “missed” I have gained so very much.

And I’m just going to keep growing.

What a magnificent thing.

To be on a path where I am always learning and growing.

That is a gift.

Seriously.

God Damn

I got a lot of shit done today.

I am, in fact, still getting shit done.

I am cooking a pot of chicken soup as I blog.

I am trying to do some peremptory food preparation for the next weekend of school so that this Saturday and Sunday I can give my full attention to the papers that I have to write.

Speaking of writing papers.

I got a lot of my Trauma paper mapped out.

I have four pages of notes and references from four different sources all set up and notated.

In fact.

I laughed at myself when I was finished listening to the podcast for the second time (in full, a couple of the segments I listened to three or four times) and I had all my paper notes and references complied.

Fuck.

I have a 10 page paper with all the work I complied today.

The paper is 5-7 pages.

I will have more than enough material to cut a fine suit from.

I am actually excited about writing the paper, I have such a clear idea of what needs to be done, I thought about writing it tonight, however, I wanted to wait until I had a clear swath of time.

And I like to have my down time when I get home.

Of course that down time tonight includes a couple of loads of laundry and making homemade chicken soup with veggies and brown rice, but it’s not writing and focusing in a scholarly way.

I am awful proud of taking the time to do the work that needed to get done though for the paper, I spent a great deal of my breaks this week working on the Trauma material.

I will be ready to pop out that paper Saturday and then turn my full attention to the Community Mental Health project that I need to do on Sunday.

I will work on that all day Sunday, nothing else planned, on the books or off, for that matter.

Tomorrow at work during my break I will go over my Community Mental Health notes and the half hour interview I did with the program that I am writing on.

I will basically do the same thing that I did for my Trauma paper, map it out, make notes, post-it note my notes, and go back over the reading material that I am going to utilize for my paper.

I’ll provide my frame-work for the paper and then be able to sit down on Sunday and write it.

That one is 8-10 pages.

I feel like it should be the other way around, my Trauma paper has so much richness to it and so much to explore, it should be the bigger paper, but I don’t make the rules, things might be different if I did.

Ha.

I’m super grateful that it’s coming together.

As I get closer and closer to my Paris trip.

Today to incentivize myself I wore my Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick that my dear French friend gave me as a birthday present.

Nothing like getting a gift bag of Chanel makeup for a birthday.

It was such a lovely gift.

Part of me, a very large part of me, is so thrilled that I will be wearing Chanel makeup on my trip, I know it’s silly, but Chanel products are above my paygrade, so when I got them, I felt like the proverbial kid in a candy shop.

The first time I went to Paris I discovered Sephora.

Oh my god.

I wasn’t able to get myself much, I was there on the slimmest of budgets.

I remember I actually got my sister a lipstick, as they had a brand that was the same as her name, although slightly different spelling, and I got myself a set of red barrettes.

I loved those barrettes so much.

Today, when I put on the red lipstick it reminded me of those hair clips and I realized, yes, that’s definitely a souvenir I will let myself get when I am in Paris, hair clips.

Maybe some red ones like the ones I got my first time there.

It seems surreal that I will be going back.

I remember when the woman I was working with in Paris told me that it was going to be ok that I moved back home to San Francisco, that Paris would always be there, that I could come back and make another go of it.

I’m so grateful that I had my time living there and I can contrast it with the life that I built and then re-built here.

I have it really good.

Oh.

Sure.

I make half the median income that the city recommends to get by and I am taking out student loans for therapy, hahaha, but ultimately, my life is really rich.

REALLY.

Abundant.

It’s gorgeous.

I have so much.

I have an amazing job.

I have a great therapist.

I have an internship.

I get to go to graduate school in San Francisco.

I get to live in San Francisco.

I get to write every day.

What writer doesn’t long for that?

Every day.

I get to live a recovered, full, useful life.

I get to travel.

I get to go to Burning Man.

I get to ride a scooter to work.

I get free parking when I’m there.

I have laundry in the garage, I get to wash my clothes for free.

I have chicken soup cooking on the stove and hot sheets in the dryer.

I am listening to amazing music on my Macbook Air.

I have a lot.

I have happiness.

I have self-esteem.

I do estimable acts, that helps.

I have red lipstick.

I have pretty perfume.

I have love.

I have friends, family, chosen and of origin, I have my cohort.

I have Ocean Beach a hop, skip, and jump away.

I have beautiful tattoos.

I have poetry.

I have abundance, joy, happiness, freedom.

I have.

All the things.

All the things.