Almost There!

I have successfully made it through two full days of school.

You know.

Oh.

Only.

About 22 hours so far.

And.

Seven hours left to go.

Yes.

Sunday is always the easiest and the hardest.

I’m generally ready to wrap it all up and move on.

Yet.

I feel the loss to the “real world” of my cohort and my two best friends in program.

I am such a lucky girl.

I really am.

I have gotten to have this terrific experience and make some amazing friends.

There are people in my life that I so appreciate and love that it makes me almost faint with the feeling.

I had a really nice lunch today with one of my friends and we talked love and life and school, crushes, relationships, sex, travel, Paris, grace, talent, gifts, the things we appreciate about each other and how we just got to be in the right place at the right time to make the connection.

She is amongst a few of my friends whom are incredulous that I am not in a serious dating relationship.

At this point.

I have no real issue with it.

I’m who I am and I am exactly where I’m supposed to be and there’s no changing me or making me better, I’m just perfect.

Imperfectly so.

I don’t have to embark on some self-improvement plan.

Granted there is still so many areas where I can and do get to grow.

Great.

Glad to hear it.

I’m down for some more fun though.

That’s generally where I am at this point in the school weekend too, I want to play, but I still have one more day of getting through and tonight is not the time to play.

Despite having just done a big session of play therapy in my Child Therapy class.

Not quite the same kind of playing that I am alluding to.

Ahem.

Anyway.

I’m just glad to have the energy to be writing my blog and doing the little things here at home to get me ready for my last day of the class.

Then.

I’ll have almost a month off.

Well.

Not really off.

I have papers that will need to be written.

Two so far on the plate.

And of course, loads and loads of reading.

I think I may also have another paper to write, but I don’t feel like looking at the syllabus right at the moment.

I am just happy to be getting through the weekend.

I also made an appointment to see my advisor next Friday and well, get some advising.

Sometimes the experience feels overwhelming and I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Then.

Days like today, when everything flows and I have connection to the material, not always to the way it is taught, I don’t feel quite as connected to the classes and teachers as I have in the previous semesters, but there is some excitement in learning new tools and having new experiences.

I still feel like I need a little play.

I have some dance music on ye olde Spotify.

The Kungs.

I am quite digging on them.

My dear, darling, amazing, sweet, kind, French friend made me a play list and I fell in love with so much of it, and a few of the artists I have ended up adding to my list of albums and I have been listening to The Rooftop Sessions from the Kungs and it just makes me happy and joyful and full of dancing energy.

I could just jam out on this for a little while before making another cup of tea and winding down for the night.

I really don’t want to wind down for the night.

But.

Ah.

Balance.

And I suppose this is good for me, a weekend of school before starting the new gig on Monday.

I’m not terribly happy about that, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it today, I figure no use in getting resentful.

I don’t care for how I felt manipulated into taking the job, but despite the way it happened I do believe it will lead me other places.

I remind myself.

There are no mistakes in God’s world.

I’ll be heading over to the new family after school tomorrow to see the house and get a lay of the land.

I’m going to make it brief and see if I can hit up some of my fellows after that.

I miss my people.

I also do, after a long weekend of school, I don’t get the interactions and connections that are so vital to me over the weekend, especially getting grounded before starting out another week of work.

That being said.

I have had strong connections to my school friends and I feel really held and supported within the cohort.

I feel like I have a place and I have a talent for doing the work.

Grateful.

So grateful.

For these things.

People who see me and allow me to be myself.

I am more and more my authentic self and easier in myself with embracing it all.

There is a great feeling of seeing myself and being transparent.

I feel like there are times when I am pigeon holed or seen in a certain light or manner or style and there’s good reasons for that.

Some of it is a defended stance, I have had a lot of grief at the hands of some and I am tender around how I interact with the world.

But.

Sometimes.

Some people.

Wow.

I just let them right the hell in.

Two of my friends in school remind of that.

How lucky I am that we connected and that I get to be with these bright, beautiful creatures.

It is an amazing gift.

God damn, this music is so good.

I’m crushed out on my life.

My music.

The warm feel in my heart for my friends.

The blessing of getting to be in grad school.

The growth.

And.

Oh.

Yes.

All.

The.

Love.

Seriously.

Luckiest girl in the world.

Feeling A Little Bit

Screwed.

Fuck.

I am wide awake.

My last class of the day was really energizing and fun and my professor was on fire and the lecture was great and my brain was firing on all pistons.

And.

Then.

We had a dance party.

I was only going to stay twenty minutes, half hour tops.

Ugh.

I stayed until the security guard was kicking us out of the building.

Sigh.

I have to do my final presentation on my last paper for Multi-Cultural class tomorrow.

And.

I am the first one up.

I had thought I was going to go today, be the last person to speak and get it out of the way.

Nope.

Le sigh.

Oh well.

It did give me some space though to explore a few ideas and I really like what I found in that exploration as well as somethings to talk about in my last therapy dyad of the year.

Of the year.

It’s almost done.

Not really.

But.

Classes are almost complete.

I have two more classes tomorrow and I’ll be done by 4p.m.

One of my girlfriends and I are going to hang out, grab some sushi, do some doing the deal and have a sleep over.

It’s a slumber party!

She skipped the dance party and I think she will be much more well rested than I.

That being said, I am super glad that I went and got some of the energy out of my system, some of the anxiety of being in school and just a little body release.

My back is still a little tender from yoga and I was bunched up in desk/chair all day long.

Grateful to get in my body, get into the music and play with my fellows and cohort for a little bit.

I’m sure I will rue the decision tomorrow as I get up to my 6:30 a.m. alarm.

Oh well.

I am glad I went to the party, I was glad to show up, I was glad to dance, I was glad to free myself, for a moment in time, from the constraints of note taking, processing, reading, writing, interacting, engaging, showing up for, and the whole she-bang.

So even though I am wound up and energized I’m ok with it.

I’m sure I’ll crash at some point tomorrow, I’ll fade, I’ll need a coffee injection or five, but I will be ok.

I’m a little concerned about the next week and getting all the things together that need to come together–10-12 page paper on the concepts of transference and counter transference, a take home exam, a paper on The Trauma of Language and Lancanian theory, a posting to Applied Spirituality and a final small paper for that class as well 2-4 pages.

I’ll get it all done.

I know I will.

My friend from cohort and I who had made plans to go to the Steampunk Masquerade Ball at NIMBY consorted and decided we both had too much work due by next weekend to feel comfortable going out to the event.

I will be getting the things done that I need to do so that I can fly out the next weekend to the Big Apple.

New York.

I’m coming for you.

Which reminds me I need to get a hold of my friend in Brooklyn and ask about his place and how I get in and all that since he’s out of the country when I’m there.

I still can’t quite believe that I have a place to stay in Brooklyn.

I should see if my friend wants anything from San Francisco.

I want to bring a guest gift.

Seems appropriate when he could have Air BnB’d his place and made bank while he was on his trip and he’s not charging me to stay there.

I love my friends.

I am such a lucky girl.

I couldn’t have gotten through the grad school program without some of the women that I met in the cohort.

Extremely grateful.

Extremely privileged to get to know these woman.

And men.

There’s been a great TA who I have really connected with and he’s been such a source of support and connection, as well as one of the guys in my cohort who I actually interviewed with, way, way, way back last year in March.

Hard to believe that I have come so far.

Seems like just yesterday that I was filling out the application and sending in my letters of recommendation and getting my transcripts.

So much has happened.

So much still has to happen.

But I can see that this chapter is coming to a close and I am grateful to share that experience of saying good bye to the cohort, the school, the year that I have been a first year grad student.

“Oh, it’s official,” he said to me as we were chatting.

He being a second year student in the program.

“You’re second year now,” he added definitively.

Well.

Almost.

I have to get through tomorrow and knock out those papers, but yes, I am almost a second year graduate school student.

It feels pretty good.

It feels a little surreal.

But over all I am super proud of all the work I have done and shown up for.

I read all the things, I have turned in all the papers on time, so far, shown up for every class, every lecture, every dyad.

Yup.

I did not miss a single day of school.

That is in itself a mighty thing.

And I remind myself of that again and again.

Just show up.

And right now.

I just need to show up for bed.

I have to wind this down.

I need a few hours of sleep to finish out the weekend.

So close I can taste it.

So.

So.

So close.

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.