Another Sunday in Quarantine

I didn’t go outside today.

I wanted to.

I didn’t.

Well.

That’s not exactly true.

I did go out on my deck.

I am so grateful for my deck I cannot even begin to tell you.

It has saved my life.

I went on a long walk yesterday, I am grateful for long walks, and it was not the best walk ever.

Too many people

So many people.

Go the fuck home people.

Sigh.

I love the area that I live in (although I don’t love where I live exactly, deck excluded, the landlord and his wife are not sustaining very well right now and they fight a lot.  A LOT).  It is beautiful. I’m within a five minute walking distance to Golden Gate Park or to Sutro Heights Park.

I can make Land’s End in fifteen minutes.

I’m a three minute walk to Ocean Beach.

Except.

Well.

Dodging the people not wearing masks or walking in clumps makes the time a bit longer.

I know to avoid the beach.

I know it makes me upset to see so many people out having their sunny beach day.

I want to holler, “it’s my fucking neighborhood, go home!”

But.

Well.

I don’t.

I just stay home instead.

Yesterday’s walk was focused primarily on walking the steep hills around my house so I didn’t run into as many people as I would have if I had gone down hill.

I took one look at down hill and headed right up.

I got pissed and then I thought, just stay on the hills, walk away from the beach.

It’s a constant conversation I have with myself.

I know people are getting squirrely.

I know that folks are tired of shelter in place.

Me too.

Me too.

Me too.

And.

It’s not over yet and there are still new cases getting reported and people are still getting sick and I cannot be one of them.

I only have myself to rely on and so I walk wearing a mask.

I walk six feet plus away from people.

I walk out into the street to avoid contact.

I don’t go out much on the weekends.

I didn’t go out today.

I don’t know about tomorrow.

It is the holiday after all and the weather is going to be nice.

That’s a part of the problem.

The beach doesn’t get beach weather.

Most of the time it’s cold and foggy and windy.

But when it’s sunny, over sixty degrees, and there’s little to no wind.

Packed.

I know if there wasn’t a pandemic, it would have been bonkers yesterday.

Or today.

And what I saw was bad enough.

Also.

Since the city closed down the parking lots along the beach.

Everyone parks in my neighborhood.

Or at the SafeWay grocery store on Fulton.

Last Sunday I tried to go for a walk and I got so overwhelmed I headed home, it was nice last Sunday too.

One too many groups of young adults wearing masks on their foreheads, elbows, and knees, but not over their mouths and noses, drinking Boba tea and taking up the entire sidewalk, for me to cope.

I walked past the SafeWay on my way home and the lot was full.

FULL.

But.

There was no line to get into the grocery store.

The parking lot was being used by all the beach go’ers.

I wanted, as I have wanted on a few occasions to call the cops.

And.

Fuck.

I cannot do that.

Waste of money.

Waste of time.

But what I can do is stay home, take care of myself, and let people do what they’re going to do.

I cannot control anyone.

I can only control my own actions.

And those not all the time.

Although, aside, I did not reach out to my ex today, which is miraculous, I felt the pull of him in my blood like the sunshine on my skin.

Oof.

Hard.

Anyway.

I decided today to just forego outside and walks for the rest of the weekend.

I made phone calls.

I had FaceTime.

I wrote a lot.

I printed off the dissertation proposal.

Four pages of instructions.

I worked on my CV.

Very proud of that actually.

I sat outside and ate my lunch on the deck and got my sun that way.

I kept the sliding glass door to my deck open all day.

I heard how busy the neighborhood was.

I kept to myself.

I felt much better.

Even though I missed taking a long walk, I did not miss getting agitated.

I have a big Monday.

I have seven clients.

No Memorial Day off for me.

I’m ok with that.

I am beyond grateful that I can work.

I will go for a long walk on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and maybe Friday, depending, I’ve a lot of clients Friday too.

I will keep hitting up the Zoom meetings.

I will stay positive.

I will eat well.

I have not eaten any take out since shelter in place.

I don’t really when there’s not a pandemic.

But I did like going out to eat.

Saving some money cooking all my own food that is for sure.

I will work on my dissertation proposal.

I met with my dissertation chair yesterday morning for an hour and mapped out a plan for the summer.

I want to be defending my dissertation proposal the weekend of August 27th, 28th, 29th.

There will not be an intensive.

It will be via Zoom.

And that’s ok too.

I have a plan.

I will stay busy with that, my clients, and the new position with the Daily City Youth Health Clinic–I started on Friday.

I scheduled my first client yesterday.

I will get through this.

And one day.

Hopefully, not too far in the future.

I will take a walk outside without a mask on either.

This too shall pass.

Ground Hog’s Day

I’m beginning to not know what day of the week it is.

That is a little surreal for me.

I am still sticking to a type of scheduled and since I have had group supervision and individual supervision the last two mornings, I’ve actually been setting alarms to get up.

Which reminds me, I need to do that for tomorrow since I have a video session in the morning with a client.

I sense tomorrow and Sunday are going to be the weird days for me.

I had supervision, an online meeting, and two clients today.

Plus a long phone call with a dear friend from my Master’s program and a long walk through the park.

I was actually a little upset today on my walk.

The beach was busy!

I mean, I sort of get it when it’s a nice day and the surf is good, but people, we got a shelter in place happening and further admonishment from the governor to hunker down.

I was surprised to see so many people and so many groups!

I had to take my judgmental self away from the beach.

It was too busy with people and the parking lot at the Balboa side of Ocean Beach was packed!

I headed instead to Golden Gate and hit the horse paths.

There’s horseback riding paths that criss cross the park and they are not nearly as trod as the regular walking paths.

I didn’t see a person and when I did pop out of the park on the Fulton Street side to head back to my house, I graciously gave everyone a wide berth or crossed the street to not make contact.

And.

Even with that decent amount of activity I felt it begin to creep in, the malaise of being confined to my own space.

And I really love my space.

So.

I had a mid-afternoon dance party and I did some meditation afterward.

That felt better.

But it is beginning to all blur together.

I had zero, and I mean like none at all, motivation to do school work.

I know I will have to this weekend and it will help break things up to focus on papers and drafts and getting work in.

Which also reminds me, where the hell is the draft I turned in last week?  I need to get it back so I can make revisions and implement changes that the professor wants.

Tomorrow all I have is one client.

I did make plans to meet a friend on the other side of the park to go walk her dog on the beach.

Her side of Ocean Beach on the Outer Sunset side, won’t be as busy as my side on the Outer Richmond side as my side has parking and a lot of surfers hit the break out here.

No break on the Judah Street side in the Outer Sunset the next nearest break is Noriega, so there won’t be cars and surfers and big families playing soccer (that’s what got me, a big group of I’m assuming family, playing soccer, there were just too many folks too close) and she and I can walk apart and let her dog frolic in the waves.

I have connected so much to the neighborhood this week, I am grateful for that.

I have taken long walks every day in the afternoon either before or after lunch and I have seen things and walked parts of the park that I have only driven past.

That has been lovely.

I also know that I am very lucky to be so close to such a large park too.  It is big enough to give wide space to others when I come across them.

I am also going through parts that aren’t often used, like the backside of the archery field or the horse paths.

I figure I will also do a longer hike at some point and really explore Sutro Baths and Land’s End.

If we are not under martial law at that point.

I keep hearing rumors about that, but I’m trying to stay out of the rumor mill, it does not help me keep my equilibrium and that has to stay in place.  I have clients to support and therapy to do.

I have also given up the office I just started subletting a few months ago.

I only use it one day a week and the woman who is my individual supervisor and my landlord has given me more access to the main office I am in.

I now have access to it in a full time capacity.

So I called the woman I sublet from and told her I had to give it up and I gave notice.

I will still have to pay rent on it for this month and I think also next month and possibly the month after.

If we are able to go back to work in our offices I may use it a touch more, but I doubt that is going to happen.

My agency is preparing for three to six months of this strangeness.

Most of us have the feeling that we won’t be going back on April 7th when the three weeks of shelter in place is up.

I’m preparing myself mentally for a longer haul.

Of course I am hoping that doesn’t happen, but I am preparing myself for the possibility.

So, yeah, gave up my Monday office.

And it’s all going to be ok.

I have food, I have shelter, sunlight, access to my deck, places to walk still (hoping that will hold out a little longer), friends to have long conversations on the phone

Oh yeah.

And.

Homework.

Sigh.

I still have lots of that.

The Opacity of Love

I really should be doing homework.

Really.

But I am not.

I’m just going to sit and type and see what comes up and let it out and let myself take a moment to just process and just keep being sad.

“You’re really sad,” my friend said to me tonight about my break up.

Fifteen days now, but who’s counting?

I am sad.

It seems surreal that it is over and done and there’s been no contact, although there’s been thoughts, let me tell you.

I haven’t though and I won’t.

I keep telling myself if and when I’m supposed to see him is not up to me, it’s up to God.

I had a thought today.

What if I never see him again?

Ever.

I just about lost it.

There was a small murder of crows in the sky over the valley today as I looked out from high in Glen Park at work eating my salad at lunch, and I felt as though there were throwing my heart around out there.

I have taken down all the pictures and deleted all the texts in my phone as well as the phone history.

Man.

We talked a lot.

His number, his name, his face, all through my things.

All through my heart.

In my soul.

In my body.

I went to a workshop over the weekend, just another thing to keep me endlessly busy so that I get through this patch.

I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I’m socked in with the busy to help it pass.

Though I still cry at night when I got to bed.

The slip of golden moon through my back window the other night had me utterly in tears.

I suppose at sometime the tears will stop and I will move forward with some modicum of grace and hopefully with serenity and ease.

I’m not sloppy.

I’m not always losing it.

Only once really badly in the car.

I am not even sure what night that was, maybe Saturday night?

I don’t know.

It was bad and I should have pulled over, but I pulled it together enough to get home.

I felt like if I stopped I’d just be on the side of the road sobbing for hours.

An exaggeration I suppose, but it hurts.

It really does.

Physically too.

My reflux is back with a vengeance.

I remember when my ex told me he thought he might be the reason for my reflux and I waved it off.

Now.

Well, let’s just say that it’s not only plausible I totally believe it.

I suppressed a lot of things to be in the relationship.

I figured he was worth it.

True love was worth it.

In some ways I think it still was and I have no regrets.

But you know, my body was screaming at me that it wasn’t working and I just pushed it aside for a long time.

I’m hoping once the grieving passes the reflux will too and I’ll go back to my normal self.

I also know that reflux is caused by stress.

My food as been really good and I have been under stress.

I’ve been heartbroken, seeing clients, holding space for others, nannying, and doing my PhD coursework.

I’m stressed.

So.

Blogging tonight.

Because that helps

Even if it hurts, whenever I write about it, it hurts, but I figure the more I write the more hurt gets out and the easier it will be to bear until one day I won’t notice it anymore and there is no more to bear.

I’m doing the best I can.

“You have so much love to give,” my friend assured me and that I was sensitive.

I am.

Things hit me hard.

Music moves me.

Love.

Magic.

Living.

I am alive.

I keep reminding myself of that.

I don’t want to hurt myself or use or act out.

I’m not calling up old lovers letting them know I’m on the market.

That just sounds awful right now.

I cannot imagine being with anyone else right now.

But I am not going to stop loving and I’m going to put my sensitive, vulnerable, tender heart back out there.

If anything I have learned that I am lovable and worthy of love in the deepest truest sense of the world.

To have experienced what I did, the passion, the love, the validation and how he saw me, I have that experience to grow from and to cultivate more love with.

I keep writing I forgive myself.

I forgive him.

I love myself.

I love him, I let him go, it wasn’t working, I had to get out, and it still hurts and the fire is extreme and I want to cut off all my hair.

I even talked to my hairdresser about it.

“You can come in and try on short-haired wigs and think about it,” she said, sweet as pie.

I might.

I might not.

I focus on something else.

(I have a lot of hair and it’s nice so if I’m going to cut it off I’m going to make sure it’s the right thing to do)

I think about the tattoo I want.

There’s two that have been haunting my thoughts.

One a tiger dragon graffiti that I took a picture of one night when he and I were walking around China Town headed to a late night dinner.

The other from a card I gave him.

I bought it on my birthday at a little bookshop close to Zuni where I met friends for dinner.

It was a picture of a little girl tugging on the moon and trying to pull it towards her with a rope.

That was us.

Me, the little girl, crying for the moon I could never have.

I could never really have you baby and I have to forgive myself for hoping that one day that wouldn’t be true.

But it never was.

I’m still just a little girl wishing for something she cannot have.

A fairytale.

A fantasy

My sweet fantasy man.

I miss you so much.

So very much.

The moon will wax.

It will wane.

And one day.

Perhaps.

I won’t think of you when I see it.

Perhaps.

 

 

The Last Goodbye

I have been thinking about this blog for days now.

You may have noticed that I have not written for a few days now either.

I was saying goodbye to the love of my life.

I never thought that I would write that sentence or that for the last year and three months I would be so involved with a man who I would have the opportunity to say all those things.

Love of my life.

Soul mate.

Partner.

The best thing in my life.

The best thing in my sobriety.

And yet.

There they were, over and over and over again, these declarations of the rightness or, the validity of, the beauty and power of love, lauded all over me.

I have had the greatest love of my life ever these past months.

Yet.

I had to leave him.

I can’t explain why, oh, I could, but I have no inclinations to air it all out, suffice to say what I wanted was not available.

I thought I was alright with that at first.

I did.

I thought this man is so damn amazing, so handsome, smart, kind, tender, sexy (fuck do not get me started) and funny, god damn is he funny, no one, and I mean no one, has ever made me laugh the way he did, ever, that I could deal with anything that the relationship handed me.

I kept it off my blog.

Oh.

You could catch glimpses of it here and there, but I never really talked about him.

And then I did.

Back in January.

I broke up with him.

It was like death.

It was so anguished and sorrowful and painful that I had friends reaching out to me to express concern.

I was vague, in the blogs, and it could have easily have sounded as though I had lost a loved one.

That is what it felt like, a death, I felt like death, I had never experienced such grief.

I remember relating to him later that I had not felt the depth of despair that the break up caused as when I had lost my best friend at 32 in a surprising and awful accidental death.

I felt more grief in my person when I lost the love of my life, that loss was harrowing.

But as my therapist once reflected to me, “you never really broke up.”

We couldn’t not be together.

We tried to be friends.

We tried to be compatriots.

We tried to not see each other.

We couldn’t.

We saw each other and then the inevitable swan dive back into the romance, the heat, the passion, the relentlessness of it, despite knowing that it wasn’t the best for me, I continued, I was in love.

I am in love.

I still am in love with him.

I still have this hope that something will shift, change, a magical thing will happen.

I know that is fantasy, but it is there.

In reality I also know that was has happened inside me, on the interior, in my heart, has not be sustainable.

I just couldn’t do it anymore.

I was hurting myself too badly.

It is hard to be a psychotherapist and try to hold onto something so painful, but try I did.

Of course.

I did fuck loads of work around the relationship.

Inventory after inventory, looking at myself, my patterns, how I love, the previous relationships and what they looked like for me.

I looked at patterns of attachment with my parents, I explored my psyche, I prayed, I meditated, I asked consistently for help and guidance from my support network.

No one ever really told me what to do, but so many could see that it was not a working relationship for me that, well, worked in my benefit.

God damn did I try though.

A part of me, larger than I perhaps wish to admit, still wants to try, to beat my heart a little more on the impossible wall that I was trying to scale to get to the place the relationship could flourish and grow.

I can’t though.

So I did the thing I never ever, fucking ever, thought I would do.

I asked for no contact.

Today was day one.

And there was no contact.

Although, truth, I felt him in my bones and body all day, an unremitting ache that has me in its grip, the burden of showing up for work and clients when all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and cry myself back to sleep.

Sleep where I may perchance to dream of him.

I fucking asked for no contact.

On one hand I am appalled.

No texting.

No phone calls.

No emails.

No social media.

On the other hand, I am quiet and proud of myself.

It was horrendous, it was the hardest decision I felt such an ache for the loss of connection I cannot put it into words.

And I knew.

I knew, damn it.

That it was for the best.

That it is the “right” thing to do.

What ever the right thing to do is.

I am barely holding on here writing this.

I want to detail all the last words and gestures, the sweetness, the sadness, the anguished tears I shed, but I cannot sully it with my words and my sharing.

These last two nights I have been with him and I have no desire to share any more of it than that, the last two nights I have been with him.

And I miss him horribly.

I will be crying for a while.

There is so much loss here.

I have to give myself time to grieve.

So.

Forgive me for not sharing anything more.

I am devastated and that will have to suffice for now.

Devastated.

What Are You Doing

For self-care?

My group supervisor asked me after I checked in around a client that I have to do a lot of outside resourcing for.

I blurted out, “baking!”

And it’s true.

Last night I made cookies for a dearest ones anniversary.

It was the first time that I have made cookies in my little home here by the sea.

You could say this person is extraordinarily important to me.

So.

Important.

And I knew that I wanted to make cookies for them.

Peanut butter chocolate chip.

Oversized.

Soft and warm.

Full of love.

I was fluffing the butter and creaming the sugar and adding all the super extraordinary rich smelling ingredients together in the bowl and reflecting upon how much I love this person.

I was thinking of Isabella Allende’s book “Like Water For Chocolate,” and how the main character cooks her emotions into her meals.

How the other characters in the book respond to the emotions in the book, bursting into flames with love and passion and feeling.

Cooking and baking for me are a kind of meditation and they are soothing and full of self-care.

Granted.

I didn’t eat any of the cookies.

I didn’t taste them.

I don’t eat sugar or flour so to make them was sort of a big deal.

It was the first time I had sugar in my pantry in four years.

I found it was fine.

I wasn’t tempted, I wasn’t at all.

Not even to lick my fingers.

And I sense that was the lynch pin for me, that I didn’t have a motive for the cookies except to show this person how much I love them.

Not.

Ooh.

“I’m being secret and baking cookies in my house and all the goodies are going to get eaten.”

There was purpose there and in the purpose, such pleasure.

In fact.

I forgot how much I enjoy baking.

I have been baking a lot at work too, a pear tart, an apple tart, banana bread, plus I make a ton of food, pastas mainly, for the family that I would never touch.

“You’re the best cooker ever!” And, “these are better than granny’s,” are compliments I have gotten from my charges.

I have to take their word for it.

I almost never taste the food I make for them.

But.

I can smell it and sense what works with what and I think about the woman who owns and runs Tartine Manufacturing and how she is known to make the most extraordinary bread.

And.

Oh, the Universe is sly and funny.

She doesn’t ever eat any of it.

She’s gluten intolerant.

But like, me, I presume, there is a great satisfaction in the baking.

I know I felt super happy baking my cookies last night.

Really good and sweet and loving and I planned it so the cookies would be warm when I handed them over.

I love little details like that.

I like giving.

I am remembering when I used to make sugar cookies at Christmas time and bring them into work.

Or candy.

I made a lot of Christmas candy, back in Wisconsin mainly, after I moved to San Francisco I still did a bit of baking but not the candy making and after a few years, 2009, I stopped baking, when I began to get abstinent around my food.

I occasionally made something for someone.

A pie here or there.

But it’s really been years since I have had all the ingredients in my home to bake.

Heck.

I had to buy a cookie sheet last week.

I didn’t mind though.

I had such a good time doing the baking.

And.

I also did a lot of cooking over the last two days.

I roasted a chicken too, yesterday.

I figured I would be using the oven and if I could get some food prep out-of-the-way it would be super helpful as next weekend I’m in classes and I like to have my meals made up before the weekend of class.

I just grab something out of the freeze and a piece of fruit and I’m set.

And today.

Well.

I was up late last night and decided I was going to let myself just sleep today.

Skip yoga, coddle myself, be sweet to myself and just sleep.

Of course.

I forgot I had set an alarm to go off so that I could go to yoga.

Haha.

Can’t sleep in even if I wanted to.

And it was good, I needed to connect with the outside world right away.

Although, I didn’t get out of bed to do so, just lay in bed talking on the phone for an hour.

Slight aside.

Talking on the phone is magic.

I am happy that I have people in my life that still like to talk.

There was luxuriating in the being in bed and not making myself go to yoga, don’t worry, I’ll be going tomorrow, there’s only so much “laziness” I can condone in myself, and being gentle and soft and slow and letting the morning have its way with me.

And it was extraordinary, I didn’t feel rushed and yet I did get all sorts of things done.

I wrote a lot this morning, always helps.

I got a hold of the dealership where I am interested in getting a car from and started some preliminary work, submitted an application and talked to the manager of the sales department and got some good insight.

I wrote my mom’s birthday card and got that in the post.

And.

I made chicken soup with spicy Andouille sausage.

Yup.

All before I left for my internship.

So when my group supervisor asked what I was doing for self-care, baking popped right out of my mouth and was followed up by, “making soup.”

Comfort.

And.

Love.

The best kind of self-care.

Showing up for myself.

And showing others how much they mean to me.

So much gratitude for my life.

So much love.

So, so, so much.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Seriously.

Hello My Old Friend

So nice to get re-acquainted.

Not.

Fuck me man.

I got anxious today.

Now.

That should go without saying, having been diagnosed with clinical anxiety and clinical depression about a decade ago, that I would have anxiety now and then in my life.

But.

Shit.

I’d sort of forgotten.

Good grief.

It snuck up on me today.

Perhaps because I had suddenly some unexpected down time and that can make me a little tight in my chest, a little thread of something is wrong running down my spine, unscheduled down time, what the fuck will I do?

And I had plenty to do, I always have something going on.

I did loads of writing.

I did loads of laundry.

So happy the landlady replaced the washing machine, the gift of not having to go to the laundry mat next to the 7-11 on the corner of Judah and 46th is no joke.

I did yoga.

I had lots of lovely phone conversations today.

I went grocery shopping.

I cooked food for dinner.

I had a scrumptious salad for lunch on the back porch during the half hour of sun that came out in the Outer Sunset.

Man.

It has been foggy.

I’m about ready for that to be over weather wise.

I went and got right with God.

I did some meditation.

Life is great!

And.

I ordered books for school and looked over another syllabus that got published for my fall semester.

That’s when I noticed it, the corroding of my nerves, the odd feeling in my body, the small shivers of panic.

Oh.

Hello.

I had forgotten you.

And.

Oh.

Hello.

Fuck off.

I don’t need you around.

I mean.

I really don’t.

Anxiety pulls me out of the moment, catapults me into the future, where there is not god, there is nothing, there is only fear and terror and pain.

And it’s always a bad future.

It’s not a sweet, kind, gentle, loving future.

Nope.

It’s a.

YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING FAIL SO YOU BETTER MOVE YOUR ASS NOW.

Kind of future.

And I still might fail.

And that’s ok.

I mean.

It is at least familiar.

I know this feeling, I have had it before, and I can live through it.

And I didn’t have a panic attack.

I had the scattering of one at the beginning of the last semester when I was super uptight about practicum and getting my internship nailed down.

Fortunately I was having a work day where the mom and baby were at her office and I was going to pick up the monkeys from school.

I had some down time at work to do cleaning and fold laundry and prep stuff for dinner and I got an e-mail regarding some financial aid thing and then another about registering for practicum and something in me just popped.

I got super wound up and it felt like a cement bucket of fear was riding on my chest and creeping up my throat.

Yay!

Anxiety.

For two and a half years I took antidepressants to deal with the depression and anxiety.

I stopped right around my five years of sobriety.

I came off them real easy.

I had been on the lowest dosage anyway.

But.

I felt like I didn’t need them anymore and I was riding my bicycle a lot and nannying some pretty energetic kids and I was doing ok.

I was also began eating a diet abstinent from processed flour and all sugars (except those occurring naturally in fruit, bring on the apples!) and that was a big thing too.

My diet got really clean, I got daily biking exercise, and I was out in the sun a lot pushing a stroller to and from multiple playgrounds.

The anxiety dissipated.

And.

The depression fell away.

I lost lots of weight.

I got happy.

Sure.

Shit happened.

Life happened.

When it was a dark and rainy winter the depression would slide back in a little, but for the most part.

Nothing.

Until.

I started grad school.

Anxiety nightmares.

Stress dreams.

Mild depression each winter semester.

Nothing that I couldn’t titrate with a touch more sleep or with a little more exercise and then I added some flax oil into my diet and rode it out.

The anxiety was easily the worst my first semester of school.

Now.

Today.

Not so much.

But.

It was there.

And truth be told.

It annoyed me.

It pissed me off.

I was like.

No.

NO.

I am not doing this again.

I know what this looks like and I know how to handle it and.

AND.

It never has been that bad.

It never has been the nightmare of not having enough time to do all the things and read all the things and write all the papers that my over active imagination likes to tell me it’s going to be.

Not once.

Not.

Never.

I never stopped blogging, which I told myself I would drop if it got bad.

I never stopped doing morning pages, ditto, I’ll stop if I can’t handle the writing load.

Oh.

Sure.

There were days here and there when I didn’t.

But I was pretty steady through it all.

I also know from experience, this for me is the most basic form of faith, that I always get things done.

And that there really is no need to be anxious about things.

I sent out a few messages, got some sweet responses.

Made a phone call to my person.

Wrote out a gratitude list.

And went about my day.

There are things I am going to have to do and my fall semester this year will look different from my last two as I am in practicum and I am seeing clients and I’m basically a practicing psychotherapist.

Not a psycho.

Haha.

Sorry.

Gallows humor is probably not the most attractive thing in a therapist.

Or is it?

Anyway.

I reached out to my supervisor about my schedule and I saw some openings and some things that I may have to adjust to and change-up.

But.

Overall.

I got this.

I got my books ordered.

I am still waiting for the release of one more syllabus though, I may still have to purchase a few books, but that’s fine.

I got my first text-book in the mail and I started reading it yesterday and yes, it will start traveling with me as I go about my week.

I worked through the anxiety.

I had a nice quiet talk with myself, assuaged my worries, gave myself the you can do it pep talk and basically really breathed into it.

All in all.

I can handle this and I was told that this would be a challenging year.

Haven’t they all been?

But.

That I have seen others walk through it and I know if they can do it so can I.

Plus.

I have a pretty amazing support system, fellowship and community.

I’m going to be just fine.

Because.

I already am.

Today.

Right now.

In this beautiful moment.

There is nothing wrong, and my life.

Well.

Let me just say.

It’s fucking fabulous.

Amazing really.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Seriously.

UGH

Today went right into the shitter.

Literally.

Damn it man.

I dropped my phone in the loo.

Fortunately two things.

One.

I had literally just cleaned it.

Two.

I was on the way to the loo, so really it was just a clean bowl of water.

But never have I cursed my bladder so, I completely forgot that my phone was in my back pocket, I just had to pee.

Had to.

I had gone up to the market to grab a few things in case I wasn’t able to get out to the grocery store tonight and when I got home it just hit me and I dashed in and well.

Fuck.

The phone fell in.

And.

Damn it.

It got stuck.

It was lodged, so it sat in the water for seconds.

Too long.

Too long.

Too long.

I did manage to get it out and I wiped it down and stuffed it into a container of brown rice immediately.

Note to self.

I need to buy more brown rice.

Ugh.

I pretty much had an off the grid kind of day today.

No Iphone meant no phone calls, texts, photos, social media.

I was a bit flustered and peeped online real quick to see what it would cost me to replace my phone and realized I didn’t have enough time to give a real look over and also that it takes time to deliver a phone and I really can’t see going more than 24 hours without it.

It’s my alarm clock.

It’s my life line.

I mean, seriously, I make recovery calls on that puppy all day long.

Nothing too serous going on with me.

Just a busy week, a phone interview with a prospective family–a 40 minute interview–that was nice but ultimately I don’t know that we are a great match, I’m already priced higher than what they were looking for, but the mom really wants to work with me and asked me what I would consider negotiating for if I went under the table.

I realized I could.

But.

I also realized what I would take for under the table is still probably too high for this family and also that there wouldn’t be room to go further, they would be paying the top of their range and really wouldn’t have room for raises, insurance needs, etc.

I have sat on it all day, partially because I didn’t have a phone to email back with.

And also to acknowledge to myself that even under the table with my skill set I could probably make more and to not cut myself short to work with a family that I may like personally, but professionally may not be the best fit.

I’m probably going to pass on even making an offer and encourage the to keep up the looking.

I’m ok to just sit on things for a day too.

I don’t relish the thoughts of not having a phone or having to purchase a new one.

Mother fuckers are expensive and I’m very attached to having mine with me.

I use it a lot at work, texting with my employers, using the camera, I use it for work too, like as in my alarm clock to get up for work.

Tomorrow I have an appointment before work and I really do hope I get out of bed in time for it.

I’m pretty sleep trained, so it shouldn’t be too hard, I have a general sleep schedule during the week and the time parameters fall well in between what I would typically be up for.

I mean.

Honestly.

Most of the time I get up before my alarm goes off.

Now.

Monday is going to be different, I will be back at the little side gig and I have to be up way early and at the house before I typically get out of bed now.

So.

I will have a phone by then, by tomorrow afternoon I think.

I do hope the submerging in rice trick does work.

I also managed to find one packet of silica and shoved that into the container too.

But.

If it doesn’t, I’ll be swinging by the Sprint store on Mission tomorrow to get a new Iphone.

And it’s a bit confusing how Sprint does it.

I was chatting with the rep in the store about what phones they had for Iphone upgrade and was really surprised that they had the 7 in the store.

I could have walked with it.

But.

I would have been leasing it.

I asked about buying it outright and was given a bit of a run around and I actually decided to wait.

Just wait.

As much as I wanted to have my phone, to be connected, to be in the social swing of things.

I also didn’t want to drop unnecessary money on a phone if there’s a chance that given enough time sitting over night in some rice my current phone will work.

Especially since I just dropped all my spare cash on the ticket to Paris in May.

And I have no regrets about that at all.

I just found it funny that after spending a bit of money I would go and drop the phone in the loo perhaps precipitating having to spend more money.

As though this month hasn’t been spendy already with the scooter repair and unexpected costs of having to deal with that.

Anyway.

I paused.

I’m going to give it a full 24 hours in the rice and fingers crossed it will work.

I will get up tomorrow, make my appointment, to see my advisor, finally, and then go to work.

I’ll check it at work.

If it’s works.

Yippee!

If it doesn’t.

Oh well.

New phone it is.

Regardless, I should be back on the grid tomorrow early afternoon.

Message me via e-mail if you need to get a hold of me, or ye olde facecrack.

And thank God.

Tomorrow is Friday.

I’m ready for the weekend.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I am.

Time To Edit

My mouth.

Or my pen.

Er.

My blog.

Haha.

Nope.

I mean.

Well.

Maybe.

I have done the thing where in I have facecrack friended a blind date before our first date.

It doesn’t feel like a blind date though, we’ve texted a lot, had a few phone calls and awkwardly face timed twice now.

We’ve got a date for Saturday and it’s been discussed that it’s going to be an all day date.

I also clarified if this was a hook up or a date.

Not that I am opposed to the hook up, he’s sexy and there’s chemistry already, so, there’s that, but it seems more than a hook up, there’s a lot of commonality.

Especially in the not drinking/drugging thing–he’s straight edge and well, if you haven’t figured out what I do you can always ask me privately, I’m not into breaking it all the way down on my blog, it’s um, not seemly.

Plus.

We both have loads of tattoos, always a plus.

Like pinball, baseball, music, books, and it’s apparent he’s intelligent.

I am liking it.

The only draw back is the distance.

I feel like I’m sort of breaking my own rule about dating someone on the other side of the bridge.

Hooking up might be different, but dating is a challenge with distance.

Never the less, there will be a day long date Saturday and I’ll know more at that point.

I’m tentatively excited.

I don’t want to have expectations.

They lead to resentments.

But.

Yeah.

There seems to be something here and of all the Tinder dates and matches he’s definitely head and shoulders above the rest.

So we have enough friends in common that we inevitably both posted on a mutual friend’s facecrack time line in regards to her anniversary today.

And there it was.

“I see you,” he texted me.

I laughed to myself.

I had already done the facecrack troll on his page.

I chided him a little, but totally said yeah, we can friend it up.

Despite being very well aware that all my blog posts are visible to anyone who friends me.

There’s a lot of incriminating shit here.

And.

There’s none at all, all at the same time.

I am transparent, most of the time, I put it out there and sometimes it ain’t pretty.

That’s ok.

If my blog scares him off, then well, it wasn’t meant to be.

I do know that I’ll most likely curtail any more writing about him.

Especially if this leads to dating, which I suspect it could.

No need to live in the future though, just taking it one moment, text, call, date at a time.

I have plenty, plenty, plenty on my plate.

The reading for school, the negotiating my last weekend of school–a lot of people want to have get togethers and hang out and such and I’m rather of the opinion that I would rather not, but I also kinda would.

I’m on the fence.

Like I said just a moment ago, I don’t have to figure it out now.

I know that I’m definitely hanging out with one of my girlfriend’s on Sunday, she’s goingt to crash over here and we’re going to have a slumber party.

And another of my girlfriend’s and I are going to the Steampunk Masquerade Ball at NIMBY the following weekend.

I like my cohort.

But I’m not sure I want to get real wrapped up in trying to spend time with everyone before the weekend is over.

I mean.

I’m still going to have to go to work and do the deal and I’ll have papers to finish before I head to New York too.

Ah.

See.

I can get caught up in the future so quick.

Be still my funny head and relax, all is good, I’m on track with my reading and I have a date for Saturday with someone I find funny, smart, sexy, and attractive, who I already know I can carry a conversation with and who won’t kiss me with beer breath.

I just keep showing up for what’s in front of me and the weekend will get here when it’s supposed to.

A little yoga.

A little work, a lot, boy, talk about work, today was a long play date with two other kids from school, I cooked up a storm and must have gotten a great work out in–all the toys I picked up, I cannot begin to count how many times I bent over and grabbed Lego’s or train tracks up off the floor, Magna Tiles, stuffies, blocks, Octonauts, books, markers, all the things.

A good bit of doing the deal.

I have a little something to do every night after work, someone to meet, somewhere to go, some church to sit in and get settled down about my life, recovery, all the jumble of work and school and time management and dating.

It’s been fun, though, this flirting.

I will not say that it hasn’t.

But yeah.

Thinking about it as I just texted him a good night thought, it’s time to not write about it anymore.

It’s not my place to reveal details and also, I know myself well enough to know I put my heart on my sleeve pretty damn quick.

Hell.

It’s usually out there all the time anyway, but I don’t need it to be seen so quick.

He may not have figured out the links to the blog yet anyhow, but I would rather him get to know me by hanging out with me.

And.

Well.

Since I feel this has potential, it’s got legs, it might go somewhere, well, then it’s mine to cherish and experience, keep private so to speak.

Oh.

No worries.

I’m sure there will be plenty of titillating things for me to write about.

Fuck.

I can make just about any blog I write provocative.

I’m a flirt.

At least in print.

Fingers crossed I can convey it in person.

Heh.

I’ll let you in on that.

I will be flirting.

And I will be wearing a dress.

Polka dots maybe.

Giggles.

See.

Already, an inside joke to myself.

I got to stop while I’m a head.

Nighty night

Y’all.

Full House

At least it’s a gigantic house.

But there’s a lot of us here and today I had a moment of needing to be completely alone.

That is not going to happen, but I did take time to reach out to a few people and check in and do the things that I need to do to keep myself centered and sane.

I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked either, one of the boys had night terrors last night and I woke up to a little boy screaming.

Not the best sound to wake up to.

I wasn’t needed to assuage the dreams, but I found it took a moment to drop back off to sleep and the full impact of so many folks in a space, when I am used to my own space has made me desire the silence that I surround myself with in my home.

I am quiet in the morning.

I get up and do my deal and for the first two hours sometimes, two and a half hours of the day, I don’t interact with anyone (granted 45 minutes of that time is devoted to my morning bicycle commute of 6.5 miles through the city).

I read.

I write.

I eat a mindful breakfast.

I check some e-mails and my bank account and make a mental list of any bills that may need to get sorted and the general effluvia of the day that needs addressing.

There is not that same quiet here.

There are four parents, four boys- 2 and 3/4s, a three-year old, and 2 five-year olds, one baby–a five month old baby girl that I just want to squeeze and squish and kiss every time I see her and I cannot help myself, I flirt with her like nobody’s business.

I’m partial to dark-eyed babies with curly brown hair.

Hell.

I am partial to all babies, whatever flavor or color, they all are delicious.

There is also another nanny, a dog, a caretaker that comes by the house every evening without fail right before the boys are being corralled to the dinner table who throws the whole house into complete ruckus as he checks the swimming pool and the garden and waters the plants and does any minor maintenance that needs doing.

That’s a lot of people, personalities, and activity happening around me.

I feel that I have done a pretty damn good job with my self-care, the family has certainly helped with that–accommodating my “strange” food diet, no sugar no flour, and being mindful of keeping the boys out of my room and space.

I have stayed with my current routine, the one that I would do if I was at home, so I get up two and a half hours before my shift starts, which has shifted a bit later here than it is in the city, also keeping me working later in the day than I am used to, but as I said to the mom tonight when I realized I was getting testy, in my brain, not with the family or the boys or the situation (a gentle reminder that I am out of my milieu and my comfort zone and a deep breath) where can I best be of service?

And when I was told, clean up the kitchen.

Ok.

I did it.

I felt a bit like the help.

Then I realized.

Hello.

You are the help.

Then I remembered, I feel best when I am of service.

So I happily scrubbed the kitchen while the boys and baby all went out to the wide swath of green grass behind the house and ran around the verdant paddock, not even realizing until I was half way through, oh, this is nice.

It was quiet.

The noise is not unpleasant, it’s just a balancing act, knowing when I need to engage, when I need to pull back, when I can help the other nanny, when I can help the other family or my family.

I also know that I am not a live in nanny.

I never have been.

I don’t know that I ever could be.

I like the autonomy of my own space.

I love the going home at the end of my day.

And that’s not the case here.

I have not left here since I arrived on Sunday evening and that in and off itself is surreal for me.

Despite the house being large and rambling and the grounds wide, the house is on 13 acres, I haven’t gotten out a whole lot to do exploring.

Mostly I am getting my exercise running up and down the back stairs and hunting down the various swim suits and rash guards for the boys.

I am getting into the pool everyday and that is enjoyable.

I mean, really, how bad is it when I am getting paid to swim in the pool with my charges on a sunny afternoon in Sonoma.

The constant presence of the parents is something I am used to from working in the city, just not the presence of two other parents and another nanny.

I remind myself to take care of myself.

To stay connected with my people.

One of whom is actually going to meet me in Sonoma tomorrow evening.

I cleared it with the parents to go out tomorrow and do that thing I need to do.

The timing has not been great for getting me out to do the deal and I am beginning to feel that, but tomorrow, I get out and I get to meet one of my ladybugs who is going to drive into Sonoma to meet with me.

Thank you Jeebus.

I need it.

I actually called and left her a message telling her I needed her to call and check in with me, because my solutions are sub optimal, but when I hear someone else’s problems, I suddenly have none.

Like really?

I have any problems.

Please.

I found out twenty-four hours ago that I was awarded a second scholarship for $30,000.

Which brings me to my total awards package of $80,000.

Again, who has problems?

I called my mom and she suggested that since things were going so well my way that I should be looking at getting my PhD.

Mom.

Can I please enjoy the moment?

Just let me.

Ugh.

I know better.

And that’s when I knew I was just a little spiritually off kilter, don’t go to the dry well expecting a drink of water.

My mom means well, but I know better.

I wanted something from her, I wanted acknowledgement, love, accolades.

I don’t need to look for validation from outside sources and when I realized I was doing just that I started making the necessary conversations happen to get me out of the full house and off into the world for a sit down in a church basement on a crappy folding chair.

It’s a lot more comfortable place for me to sit then in my head.

The house may be full and I may get overwhelmed at times, but this is a temporary situation and I know I am doing a really good job for the family.

I am grateful for that.

I’ll be grateful for Friday too.

But until then.

I will continue to ask, “where can I best be of service?”

Because when I do that.

I know that I am exactly in the right place.

Full or empty house.