Shorted

I totally shorted myself.

By a year!

I have been ruminating over the last week about how I’m just not going to get all my 3,000 hours to get my licensure by the time the BBS (Behavioral Board of Sciences) in California changes its policies.

I must have the hours accrued by the end of December 2020.

I have been telling myself for the last week that I only had two years and there was no way, no fucking way, I was going to get those hours by the time the regulations changed.

Thus shorting me all my personal therapy hours, which count not as one hour but currently count as three.

In 2021 the BBS will no longer count personal therapy hours.

I need 52 hours of personal therapy to graduate my program, that alone is 156 hours toward my 3,000.

And at this point I will take what ever I fucking can.

I can accrue up to 300 hours of personal therapy.

Believe you me, my personal therapy work helps me so much.

I am at a new place in my life in my perception of who I am and of what I can do and of where I am going, the therapy is like Miracle Grow for me in my current stage of life, I feel like I am gaining so much getting to process what I am working on with my therapist and that helps me be a happier person and it most certainly happens to help me be a better therapist for my clients.

The other change is the BBS won’t count Couples as twice the hours, right now one hour of doing Couples Therapy allows you to accrue two hours towards your 3,000.

That’s a big deal.

Especially, I feel, since Couples Therapy is a lot harder than one on one therapy.

I mean.

Fuck.

There’s two people to deal with in the session, it should, I feel, absolutely be counted as double the hours.

Anyway.

I was navigating my feelings around this yesterday as I checked in with my person and I shared that I was just not willing to try to squeeze any more into my schedule.

That there are things and people and experiences that I need to make room for.

I don’t just want my life to be a constant grind of accruing hours.

Life is more than work.

I have this need to always be working, I have a fear that if I don’t I won’t be safe, that I have no one to lean on, that I am ultimately the only one who can take care of me.

I was a parentified child.

I was precocious, smart, attractive, fast to learn and fast to become the grown up, I lost a lot of child hood experiences because I was forced to deal with adult things way too fucking fast.

I didn’t have parents I could rely on.

I had to rely on myself.

I had to be a child doing an adults job with the skill set of a child.

Granted, as I said, a precocious child, but a child nonetheless.

This has left me at times in awkward and challenging situations where I feel there’s no one to trust, there’s no one I can rely on, that I am forever going to be failed and lost and left behind and abandoned and alone.

I have to make it on my own.

But.

Well.

That is unsustainable.

It negates my desperate need, a very human need, mind you, for connection and community.

I don’t want to isolate myself.

I don’t want my sole drive to be my career and getting there as fast as I can.

I want to enjoy my life as it’s happening.

I talked to her, my person, and really accepted that it wold be ok if I didn’t make my 3,000 hours by the time the licensure changes.

“It will just take you a little longer,” she said, “but you’ll do it, it will happen.”

And I gratefully surrendered and acknowledged that I do a fuck load of work and that it is enough.

That I am enough.

I will be ok.

Then today I’m writing my Morning Pages.

I’m reflecting on the conversation, I’m thinking, well, shoot what are my goals, what do I want?

I want my PhD in Psychology.

Yup.

I want to be a doctor.

And I want to have it by the time I’m 48.

Then.

I thought.

Well.

Then I’ll have my goal be private practice by 50.

And something seemed off.

I’m fast forwarding!

I’m not that old!

I’m 44.

I’ll be 45 when I graduate with my Masters.

The PhD is another two years of acadmic work.

Which means I’d be a doctor by 47 and I could start my private practice way before I’m 50 and then all the sudden I was like, what am I not seeing?

I’m missing something really fucking huge.

I looked at my writing.

Sometimes I’m not good with numbers, I tend towards dyscalculia, and then I suddenly realized

Fuck.

I’m turning 45 in 2017.

December of 2017.

I need to have all my hours by December of 2020.

That means I have three years!

THREE!

Not two.

I have three years to get my hours.

Well, fuck me.

I couldn’t believe it.

I’d basically spent a week being a bit anxious about how the hell I was going to manage to get all my hours and then coming to the conclusion I wasn’t and just accepted that it would be ok.

And then today.

In complete acceptance, writing about it, I realize I have an extra year!

Acceptance is the key to all my problems.

Holy fuck.

What a radical idea.

It was like magic.

I laughed out loud at myself.

It’s still a daunting task, but it feels navigable now.

It did not, not at all, feel that way all last week.

Super fucking grateful I got that figured out.

Fuck.

Hahahahahahahaha.

I am my own worst enemy.

Seriously.

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.

Hello Again

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?

I have missed my little blog, I have.

I got back from Burning Man last night.

I am back a day early and I cannot be more grateful for it.

I needed to get back, I was missing my world.

I also wasn’t wanting to sit in any kind of exodus line, the last time I had tried to leave on Sunday morning I ended up being in line for almost four hours.

Four hours on playa.

Four hours to go three miles.

No fucking thank you.

And I had to be back by today to give myself enough time to recuperate and unpack and unwind.

And.

Um.

Shower.

Holy Mary, mother of God.

Fuck me.

That shower was something else.

A spiritual experience for sure.

I knew when I heard that the temperature was going to rise and peak out on Sunday that I wanted to come back Saturday.

I didn’t need to see the Man burn.

I have seen it burn ten times.

I wanted to get home without a shit ton of traffic.

I asked the woman who I had traveled with to the event if she would be amenable to leaving a day early and she was quite down for it.

And in given that there was a death last night at the burn I am extraordinarily grateful that one, I did not witness it.  And two, that I had left before the event turned morbid.

Death happens.

But I am relieved that I did not witness it.

I had a very different burn than I have in the past.

First, of course, because I was not working it.

I had to laugh, even when I tried to pick up a volunteer shift at Artica slinging ice, I got turned down, they had more volunteers than they needed.

Every time that I thought I might have worked, it was pushed down and away.

I spent a lot of time sitting in Center Camp Cafe writing.

I sent lots of cards and post cards off and I did a lot of journaling.

I hung out at my camp with the ladies of the Nest, a sweet group of women that I have known for years and witnessed their growth into extraordinary beings.

It was super sweet to have such a girl centric time.

I wasn’t on the prowl for the playa boyfriend.

I didn’t need to look for anything.

I have everything I want.

I went dancing twice.

Once in camp, an amazing dj came and played at our potluck dinner for the camp.

The music was the best I had experienced in years at the event.

I danced hard for two hours.

Happy in my body and light on my feet.

Although, the knees felt a little rough the next day.

I got to know a few folks in my San Francisco fellowship whom I have known for years but not really connected with.

I went on bike rides with the posse.

I got caught in dust storms unlike anything I have experienced before.

Prior years I was always working very close to my accommodations and they included access to trailers.

A dust storm would spring up and I would be hiding out in a trailer.

A huge dust storm came up and I was obliterated in it.

The “clean” spot on my face was where my dust mask was.

I mean, you can’t even tell I have tattoos for god’s sake.

I had been caught off guard and though I saw the storm coming, it came up too fast for me to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I spent about an hour of it laying on a bench outside of the Temple.

Completely exposed.

I rested my head on the bench, curled up next to the fencing it was by and held on for what literally felt like dear life.

I kept my eyes closed.

I wasn’t wearing goggles.

My bad.

Stupid too, since I have a pair.

I was, thank god, wearing something, my big aviator sunglasses, but my eyes still got totally coated with dust.

It was an extraordinary experience.

Not exactly pleasant.

But I surrendered to it and rode it out saying prayers inside my head and breathing slow and steady.

There was a break in it and I thought go!

I got my bike, made it five feet and it whipped up again.

I was told later the wind was roaring along at 45 mph.

The dust battered me and I held still straddling my bike for about another hour.

There was a man standing next to me on a trike.

He might have been three feet away, probably less and he was invisible to me.

I could have reached out to him and touched his arm.

I didn’t.

But.

Knowing there was someone else there made it palatable.

The experience was mind-blowing.

No pun intended.

It also lead to an experience that I had never had before.

I got topless at Burning Man.

That has never, ever happened.

I stumbled into camp, with another of my campmates who had gotten blasted by the dust too and we let the women in camp strip us down and clean us up.

She got completely naked.

I couldn’t quite do it and in fact was walking away to wipe myself down solo when I realized what a monumental task it was going to be and I started crying.

I went back and said, “help me.”

And they did.

I dropped all my pretenses, and my clothes, well, I couldn’t step out of my under wear, there really is a limit for me, and just surrendered.

I got sprayed with a vinegar and water mixture and then a baby wipe down.

I got all the dust off my eyes and eyelashes.

I actually left my hair up in the puffs and antlers and let it be the way it was.

I was told it looked pretty spectacular and just let it be.

I had to have help getting dressed and it felt as though I was a priestess being made ready for a ceremony.

We all went out that night in a mutual friend’s, who is staff at the event, car.

I wore a long white dress and fresh makeup.

I had my hair up and added some goggles to the mix, I wasn’t without them the rest of the event.

We rode around the playa, the six of us, sitting regal in the back of the Jaguar convertible, the “Shaguar” which was painted hot pink with black spots on it.

I felt like some sort of playa princess.

And I was happy to be with the women around me.

All of whom I wouldn’t have met outside of recovery.

I am lucky and grateful to have them in my life.

I felt seen and loved.

Really loved and really included.

What more could I ask from Burning Man?

I’m so glad I’m home though.

I missed it more than I had expected.

And my heart is glad to be here.

Despite having a bad tummy today, which happens sometimes after coming back from the event, especially after being smacked so hard by the dust, I am happy to be home.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

So very free.

Don’t Stop Writing

I was told recently.

“I like reading what you write.”

God.

I love that.

Validation.

Although it’s not why I write and I am struggling with that.

Let go, I whisper to myself.

But.

It’s hard to let go of something that I have been in relationship with for seven years.

I have to shut down my blog.

I haven’t written the last few days and I can feel it in my bones.

Actually, that’s not true.

I have been writing, a lot.

Just not my blog.

I have been busy.

And the not writing I can take with a great big grain of salt because I was busy doing wonderful things and having life altering experiences.

Life is happening.

My God, is it ever.

I started my internship.

I take my first client next week.

I have read my client file, contacted said client and set up our first session.

I am navigating all the paper work and all the insurance stuff, more stuff, all the stuff, the policy papers and the keys, oh my God, the keys, I have a lot of keys right now.

Which is fine.

I jangle when I walk, but whatever.

Today I had my first group supervision training.

It was great, I learned a lot, it’s rather like being in a small classroom and getting to ask the teacher all the things, and I took some notes and got the questions I needed answered.

Most of my questions had to do with administrative stuff as I haven’t met with a client yet.

All the others in the group have been seeing clients and thus they brought up what they needed to have addressed.

It was great learning for me to just sit and listen and I did have some input and that was nice, I was able to see a few things and offer some different perspective and I was thanked for my experience and my insight.

Which I appreciated as well.

I also asked about my blog.

This blog.

My baby.

My love child.

My little place in the universe to pour out my heart and talk about all the stuff on my heart and in my mind, or to get out all the stuff in my mind so that I can listen to my heart better.

I have known, probably since I started school, that one day the blog was going to end.

But.

The writing doesn’t have to end.

And that was what my supervision group gave me today.

I got very affirmative feedback from everyone to take down the blog off social media and make it completely anonymous.

I have already pulled it from my Instagram account and I privatized that account so random folks can’t join it, I have to approve the follow request.

I have also dropped a few folks off the friends list on Facecrack.

I could probably winnow that out a little more as well.

It was recommended that I change my name on Facecrack.

I’m not sure to what, but I know a few people in my cohort have already started doing that.

It’s a damn good idea.

The next suggestion was to not link my blog to Facecrack.

It would eliminate a lot of my readers.

I mean.

A lot.

But.

It would provide me with more anonymity and it would also give my client room to see me as a therapist, not as some poet girl, Burning Man aficionado, single lady in the Outer Sunset riding around the city on a scooter.

Then.

Sigh.

Ugh.

It was suggested and I knew the moment I heard it that it was the next action to take.

That I stop writing this blog.

Double ugh.

I knew it in my gut, but I teared up.

I am tearing up now.

Fuck.

I know that because I have such big feelings that I am going to be a great therapist because I can empathize, but shit, sometimes it’s just a bitch being sensitive.

Granted, I wouldn’t wear it any other way, that is, my heart on my sleeve.

 

Gerber daisies in a Mason jar.

Dark pink stars on slippery green stalks opening toward the light.

Petals kissing.

And blushing soft.

Mouths like hungry little beasts blossoming into the warm air.

My heart.

Threaded with light.

Opening and beating against the back of my ribcage.

Tender under the bruised spaces on my breastplate.

This then.

Each moment timeless and gone only to be longed for again.

And again.

And again.

 

I digress.

But you get the point?

I like to express.

I like poetry.

I lie.

I love poetry.

I am a whore for it, like cello music and Clair de Lune and Brahms and Mozart and Chopin, I prostrate myself to it and hope, really I do hope, to gracefully surrender to whatever beauty is taking me at that moment with a kind of asunder that only perhaps is heard inside my soul.

But hear it I do.

And to renounce this forum feels terrifying and sad.

So sad, the richness of sweet lipped tears on the tops of my cheeks and the sudden catch of my breath in my throat.

Oh.

All the feelings I don’t want to feel.

But.

OH.

All the feelings I get to feel, I am so grateful and graced and loved.

Beloved.

I am.

And I am aware of my great fortune.

But.

This then, begins the end of my blog.

I have to let you know I won’t stop writing.

Nope.

I just won’t be writing here any longer.

I will have an end date on Auntie Bubba.

She has been such a good girl to me and shown me my strengths, and oh yes, my defects, those in spades, all things intimate and good and intense and wounded and sad and well, just all the things.

Yes.

All the lovely things.

This bearing witness to my own journey.

I am forever grateful for it.

So.

As this chapter closes.

As the Book of Bubba comes to an end.

I will admit.

That I am not finished.

That I am not written out.

That there are more words and worlds of words and galaxies and yes, a universe to still discover and write about.

There is a theory about the Big Bang and how the universe was created and when the universe will end and that it all came from one spot and explodes out and then shrinks back in on itself.

This is called the Big Bounce.

This is all very general and not very theoretically informed, mind you.

However.

It speaks to me and what I endeavor now to share with you.

I will be starting a new blog.

I am not done.

This blog is, however, just about done.

I will only publish a few more blogs here.

I am not quite ready to say good-bye yet.

But it is only days away.

I will start a new blog and I will continue my writing, my growth, my learning, my pushing my edges and finding out more and more who I am through this medium that speaks so much to me.

Writing.

I will not be connecting it to my Twitter account, in fact I am damn close to doing a deactivation on my Twitter account, I don’t feel like I use it all the often any way.

I will not be posting my blog on Facecrack.

I will not be making it known who I am.

I will be writing anonymously.

I haven’t a name yet.

Just a taste on my lips, like the last kiss at the end of the night, the push of tongue into my mouth and the startled stillness in my heart that precursor to the shaking tremble that befalls me and  tells me, yes, here, go here.

I will consider sharing with some of my readers my new blog.

But you will have to message me privately.

Which you may do by posting a comment.

I approve all comments before they are linked to my blog.

I will message you my new blog when it goes live.

Otherwise, seven years later, I will bid this space adieu.

They say that after seven years all the cells in your body turn over.

I know not what will be next.

I just know that there is a next.

And I thank you.

My readers.

Who ever you are, where ever you are, for humoring me and my poetry and my words and my tears and my heart ever beating upon my bloody damn sleeve.

With so much gratitude.

I thank you.

 

Ratchet It Down

I’m trying to get mellow.

It has been a long day, much was done, much accomplished.

Biggest accomplishment was getting out to do the deal at a spot up in Potrero Hill that I don’t get to very often anymore since it’s an 8:30 p.m. gig and I’m trying to not be out that late on ‘school nights’ but, I knew when I was watching the lights of the city come up as the sun set that I needed to go and get my connection on.

And I did.

And it was good.

I got to see some folks I haven’t seen in a while and get reconnected and get some good hugs and see some sweet faces.

Always a plus.

And now I’ll be able to go into work tomorrow and be a kind, tolerant, generous person, the kind of woman I want to be.

I told myself it was going to be a long weekend.

No days off for this lady.

So I wanted to be getting the connection in.

I will also be doing the deal all through the weekend, but there’s not much down time for me.

Super grateful I got all the school stuff out-of-the-way.

So much stuff.

I met with my advisor today who is also the head of the department, which is fun, I get to share my experiences and suggestions with someone who has a vested interest in creating positive change in my program.

I’m not quite sure how we got on topic, something to do with the goal of pursuing the PhD and how I will need to do a lot of writing and I just chuckled and told him that my writing is fine, that I have a writing practice that I have been doing steady as she goes for ten years.

And this little blog that I have been doing for 7 and 1/2 years.

I have a practice you might say.

I told him that there are some folks in my cohort who have expressed some jealousy at how fast I can whip out a paper.

But.

That I have a method to it, yes, the practice is super helpful, I mean, fuck, it keeps my typing speed at a maximum I’ll tell you that, but it also is a practice and the more I do it the easier it becomes.

And.

I have a method to my madness when I am writing a school paper and I shared that method with him.

His eyes lit up.

“Do you think you could do something for me?” He asked.

I nodded yes and he laid out his idea for a teaching panel about how to write papers.

He wants me to sit on it and help incoming students with the process of writing papers.

I was very flattered.

And I’m always willing to share my experience with doing the work.

Of course.

It’s work.

That’s the thing, it’s not hard per se, but there is effort involved.

Sometimes when I talk to people about what I am doing or how I am doing I apparently give off this casualness about the work, but it’s work, I show up and do every day.

EVERY DAY.

Twice a day.

And let me be honest.

It saves me, it nurtures me, it is art, it love, it is poesie, it is pretty flowers in my hair.

I can make up the most fantastical amazing things the words and ideas and images I can suddenly be standing on the Trocadero in Paris and be transported to the sound of the Seine and the batobus going by, the cars rolling over the bridge or me, on my bicycle rolling along the bike path headed towards Rue de Commerce to see some fellows and get to down and do the deal.

I can see squares with green grass and gravel paths and benches under beech trees.

Or.

Like tonight.

Riding my scooter home from Potrero Hill the moon, oh the moon, a heavy-handed ladle of butter in a midnight blue velvet enamel coated spoon, the syrup of sweet heady jasmine floating to me through the cool air.

Or.

How that one turn from Fell Street as it becomes Lincoln Avenue and the open swath of green grass that leads into the park proper, how the air there is always cooler and brushes over me like a cat with cold fur from being outside in the night.

Furry and soft and petulant.

Then the over blown smell of cut clover at Keezar Park, a rounded bend in the road and the moon now to my right peeking and booing from in between the Monterey Pines in the park.

Divinity.

I mean.

Shit.

I could go on like that forever.

There is a logic to how I write and there is a rhyme and reason.

Sometimes I can explain that desperate call in my heart and sometimes the words fail.

But.

I keep showing up anyway.

And that is the trick.

“Just breathe and show up,” I told myself this morning as I walked out the door, saying good-bye to my little home by the sea to scooter off to school and jump through the next hoops to do the work to eventually, one day, be a great big grown up therapist instead of a junior baby in waiting.

I jest a little.

But.

It is a long road ahead.

Nonetheless.

It is important that I acknowledge the movement forward.

It is a big deal.

All my papers signed off and turned in.

All the “t’s” crossed.

All the “i’s” dotted.

I even talked with the financial aid department today.

I wasn’t expecting to be in practicum this summer, it just came together that way.

The summer practicum costs about $2200 to do.

Basically $1,098 per credit, was what I was told, with the caveat of “don’t quote me on that, but I believe that will be the cost” from the financial aid admin I spoke to today.

I decided at one point that I don’t want to take out any loans for school this summer.

I have a little in savings from my tax return.

Then.

I  got a financial aid e-mail from the school and I thought, maybe I should, that way if anything happens I won’t have to dip into my travel savings.

I really want to give myself a nice break in May and be able to do all the things in Paris that will make going to Paris all the fun that I need.

So.

Tomorrow.

One more little hoop to jump.

My paperwork is turned into the registrar and it’s official, I am an intern.

But.

The “course” needs to be paid for.

I will do the application, give myself the gift of a worry free trip in May and get my grad school on when I get back.

Internship begins May 22nd.

I will be ready.

Yes.

Yes, I will.

Things Falling

Into place.

I am not nearly as anxious this Tuesday as I was last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, which seems so far away, but was truly just a week ago, I was in a high state of panic and anxiety most of the day.

Today.

Well.

Not so much.

I thought about it at one point.

I should get anxious!

Really?

That’s your solution?

Get anxious.

Nah.

Did that all day last Tuesday, the thought was fleeting and I was glad to let it go.

Then again, I was also quite busy at work attending to all the things that I wasn’t able to yesterday since the kids had a day off from school.

I was pretty much on the go from the minute I got to work up until the minute I left for work.

Which left little time for anxiety.

I also, thank you to the office of the practicum placement team, got a lot of relief yesterday.

I had a big outstanding question in regards to my supervision for the internship.

Because I am not going through the ICC’s (Integral Counseling Center) I have to an off site supervisor, so my need to skip doing the ICC’s because I needed to have flexibility with my work schedule also presented me with an additional logistic–finding an independent supervisor that was willing to take me on with my weirdo schedule.

The school made a big list of supervisors available to us, but I have to say I was a little dismayed to get a lot of “sorry, I’m not taking on supervisees right now.” when I was making my first rounds of inquiry.

The person whom I’m meeting with tomorrow also was not 100% on board, but he asked what my schedule allowed for and as it turned out, serendipitously, he has a current supervisee who will be leaving him at the same time that I am needing to start, and the time he has available would be work for my schedule, I would go in to see him before I go to work on Monday mornings.

Monday, FYI, which is already a hard day, hello, it’s Monday, is shaping up to be a twelve-hour day.

Two hours off site supervision, seven hours of work, two and a half hours of internship.

9 a.m.-9 p.m.

Yeehaw.

I won’t be starting it all at the same time, however, there will be some breathing space to get used to the additional hours.

IF the supervisor tomorrow takes me on, pretty fucking please, I’ll start an official summer class of two credits Monday, April 24th.

I don’t actually start my internship until Monday, May 22nd.

I’ll be in school until the weekend May 5-7th and then I’ll be in Paris May 11th-May 21st.

Yes, that’s correct, I will start my internship the Monday after I get back from ten days in Paris.

Le sigh.

However, I’ll be starting soft and slow, I probably won’t take on a client that first week.

I get ahead of myself.

All I have to do next is show up tomorrow and be my best self.

I’m not crazy about the fact that the weather is supposed to be shit, I won’t be able to ride my scooter into the interview, but hey, that’s what car share apps are for.

I just have to make sure I give myself enough time to get there and be sorted out.

He made it very clear that I was to be in the office waiting room by 9:30 a.m.

Not buzzing to get in, but actually in the waiting room by 9:30 a.m.

Which is not on the first floor of the building, so I want to be there in a timely manner, give myself a little leeway, a little breathing space, a little moment to pause, pray, and let go, to remember that showing up is the biggest action I can take and that the rest of it will follow.

If he accepts me I have the paperwork ready to be signed and then I can get his signatures and proceed to the next part, which is to take that paperwork to my academic advisor and to the head of the department for their signatures.

Lucky for me, the head of the department and my advisor are the same person.

Once he signs it I can take it to the papers, there’s a lot of them, to the practicum office and hand it over to the woman who so kindly called me to respond to the e-mail question I had.

“You get those signatures from _________ and _________ and I will personally walk it all over to the registrars office for you.”

Thank God.

I can’t wait to have this part of it behind me.

I know there’s so much more to go, this is just one small moving part of a whole machine, a machine that feels super complicated and monstrous and big and behemoth, but it’s doable if I just do a tiny little bit every day.

Some days.

Like tomorrow.

The small bit is actually a bit bigger, but in the end it really is just going to meet a person at 9:30 a.m. on Fell Street in Hayes Valley.

Which, I have to say, is nice place for me to be in supervision, it is easy for me to get to and I know the neighborhood and I’ll b able to do my work commute from there fairly quick.

Plus, there’s good coffee in the neighborhood–Ritual, Blue bottle–always a plus.

It feels really nice to not be so stressed out.

I am super glad the anxiety has faded away and though there is a lot to do, I can feel that I am making progress and the unknown is not so scary now that I have a tiny bit better of a grasp on what I need to do next.

I remind myself that I have only this 24 hours and all the things that needed to get done got done.

I’m happy, I’m healthy, I saw people I love today, I took good care of my charges, and made their dinner and got super big hugs and appreciative compliments about my cooking from both of the kids.

Which is a big deal.

And I know what is just next in front of me.

And that’s all I need to know.

Take the next action in front of me.

Let go of the results.

Easy.

Heh.

 

That Was Fun

And it didn’t kill me.

It was just tacos.

And I don’t like tacos.

But.

I went anyway.

I know, did you read that, I don’t like tacos.

Who doesn’t like tacos for fucks sake?

I love tacos, people, love them, rub those greasy soft tortilla wrap things all over my naked body, smear me with guacamole and sour cream, drape me in cheese.

And then watch me binge out on all the other things that I would be eating if I decided to eat something that I refrain from for my abstinence.

I was laughing with a friend.

Like anything with sugar.

“You can’t just have one piece?”

(or one beer or one shot or one line)

No.

Chocolate cake would eventually go something like this–one piece of chocolate cake, becomes two pieces, becomes, let’s eat the whole damn thing, and have a big glass of milk and since nothing is better after a “meal” let’s have a cigarette and fuck since I’m smoking I might as well have a cocktail and if I’m going to have a cocktail let’s call my dealer and get a bag of blow.

And.

Well.

There it is.

Chocolate cake equals cocaine.

You think I jest.

But that is my truth.

So no tacos for me.

I had the taco salad without the taco.

Fuck.

I had Mexican food twice today, that was not planned.

Much of today was not planned, on purpose, I wanted to leave some space to be free to actually have a day off and be flexible.

I did get up and do yoga, my arms are a little sore, but not too bad.

I had a nice leisurely breakfast and took a hot shower and went to meet up with my person and do the deal and cry a bit about being overwhelmed with the internship stuff and school and practicum and stuff and life.

She slowed me down, and really helped me get into the present, into today, into the joy of living and admonished me to have fun, which she actually does a lot now that I am thinking about it, she often tells me to have fun, and I decided to take her suggestion and see if I could have fun.

It wasn’t always easy today, I can get stuck trying to make things happen, but I just tried to let myself go with the flow and show up where I was supposed to be and after that see what happens.

What happened was a nice lunch, a manicure and a pedicure and then a scooter ride over to Waller and Stanyan to Free Gold Watch to play pinball.

I actually got sore wrists from playing.

Hehe.

Does any one get carpal tunnel syndrome from pinball?

I might have today.

I played my favorite, The Addams Family, and also I played The Twilight Zone a lot.

Then I zipped over to Turk and Divisadero, got right with God, made a confession at group level about being wildly adverse to fellowship and needing to do it and supposedly having to have fun and I don’t want to eat tacos.

And I got merry hell from my friends and ended up going out to some taqueria on Divisadero with a crew of people and hanging out until there was no one left to hang out with.

Got to love it when I take suggestions.

I don’t regret them ever.

Oh, sure it’s uncomfortable, social stuff is, being vulnerable, letting people see you, but I have community and as I do ramp up with all the school stuff I really am trying to keep my toe in the pool, maybe even sit on the steps and get a little submerged.

I remind myself, hey you, you like to swim, don’t be afraid.

And I will be afraid and that’s ok, but I don’t have to let the fear run the show.

It did a lot early in the week when I was freaking out about my schedule and meeting with my site director and setting up what my internship was going to look like.

I was anxious and in so much fear.

It was unnecessary, it was unpleasant and I just got spun out.

Anxiety is useless.

It’s worrying about the future and trying to worry so hard that I have all the fretting out-of-the-way before the actual event happens as a way to control the uncertainty of the event.

I want to be in control because if I don’t know what’s going to happen, something really bad might happen.

So I find myself pre-emptive and I fret.

God, how I fret.

And you wonder how it was that I was diagnosed with clinical anxiety ten years ago.

Yeah.

I had no clue that was what was going on with me.

It’s always been there, I just hadn’t the vocabulary to describe what was happening, or the knowledge that it wasn’t normal, or that there were things I could do to alleviate it.

Or that, I don’t know the horrific shit show of things that happened to me as a child were traumatic and might have long-lasting effects, like, um, I don’t know, being scared to be out of control of my environment because something bad this was coming.

Anxiety?

Nope.

Not me.

Bwahahahahaaha.

Fuck.

Grad school has definitely stirred that pot, from working with the stuff that comes up for me, working through a lot of it, processing, training myself, learning how to deal with my emotions, finding things that stir me up, realizing how things land in my body and how my body is affected.

All sorts of things.

I am super grateful for all the things and the getting to work through them and not have “death by tacos” and hanging out and getting connected with a group of pretty awesome, talented, kind, cool, smart folks.

In other words.

I had fun.

Mission accomplished.

 

Oops

I did it again.

And again.

And.

Yes.

Again.

Until I stopped.

It took about twenty minutes and then every once in a while I would do it again.

But.

It got better.

I went to a restorative yoga class tonight.

I did not know anything about restorative yoga, although I have had a friend recommend it to me.

Now I know why.

It took me a minute to get into it and while I was getting myself there I had the intruding thought come into my head about when I was going to do yoga again.

Fuck.

Martines.

Stop it.

I’m doing yoga and planning on when I am going to do yoga again.

My brain is not a good yoga partner.

There’s a part of me that recognizes, despite my resistance, or maybe because of it, to yoga in the first place, that maybe, especially since it’s been recommended to me by the people I do my recovery work with, that maybe it’s good for me.

And as person who enjoys feeling good I can see that I want to feel good more often.

But it’s hard juggling everything and as I walked back in the door to my house I had a sudden shift in perspective.

Hey, how about you give yourself some props.

You went to yoga.

You actually made it in on a day during your school weekend.

This is a first.

I have been doing yoga on and off for about a year now.

I had a three-month hiatus late-summer when I was going through a very rebellious stage of not wanting to do it and I got out of the practice.

But.

I came back to it in November and have been trying to establish a consistent routine.

That being said, I have never managed to get in a yoga class on the weekend that I am in school, it’s too busy, I’m at school for 29 hours over the three-day weekend and most of the time I just want to sleep if I’m not in class.

So, yeah.

Be happy that I went.

It was good.

Different.

Much slower.

I never broke a sweat.

But I did stretch and I did meditate and I did relax.

In fact.

Twice I nearly fell asleep.

It also felt sweet, spacious and generous to myself, to show up to Yoga Beach, my studio right down the block at 46th and Irving, and take an hour and fifteen minutes just for me.

Not for my job or my school or for family, not for anyone else but me.

I just went to the site to pull it up and whilst looking for a nice photo to connect y’all with and I came across one of me in class!

Heh.

Of course I bet I’m the only person who would know that was me.

I recognized my hand.

There is a certain way I often find myself holding my hand which comes from the years I spent training kung fu.

I also recognized my tattoos.

That feels nice, having connected to the studio enough that there’s a shot of me in a class.

I like that I have met some new people and I like that I am finding myself breathing better, better able to regulate my stretching and sleeping better.

When I go.

And I haven’t been going as often as I’d like.

But.

Yeah.

Fucking big props for getting myself there today.

Especially with one hour less of sleep at the end of a long weekend of classes.

And.

I got through the midterm weekend, got all my stuff handed in, showed up, participated and got the next set of actions for what I need to do to mover forward in my internship.

I’ll be meeting with my supervisor after work on Tuesday at 6:30p.m.

I’m going to interview him for a project I’m doing for my Community Mental Health class and get all the paperwork signed and filled out for the practicum.

I am also going to ask him to recommend a supervisor and I may also ask him for personal therapy recommendations.

I thought briefly of going back to my old therapist, but there were some things that she did that didn’t always sit right with me and though I gained a lot from the time I was working with her I feel like I would be better served with a new outlook and experience with a therapist.

Lots of stuff to do.

Monday tomorrow, back to work.

Meeting with some people, three, this week to do the deal, getting to my regular spots and getting re-connected, I always feel a little off as I don’t do the recovery work as much during the school weekend either, a 11 hour day in school is challenging to do and to then add in other things, I have found little success doing that.

I haven’t had a full nights sleep in four days.

And there is so much to do already.

So.

Pausing.

Breathing.

Soft, slow stretching.

Yeah.

I think that’s a win for my personal self-care.

The studio is not going anywhere, I remind myself and though I may not be able to get back until next Saturday, which will be my first day off in two weeks as per regular when I am in school, I am ok with that.

I went today.

All I have is today.

I am perfect how I am.

Flawed.

Imperfect.

Lovable.

And.

Enough.

 

 

 

Help Me

To see what I need to see.

And let go of what I can.

I have had this on a loop in my head all day.

Help me to see what I need to see and to let go of what I can.

I close my eyes.

I open them.

I see leaves scuffling by along the pavement.

I see a tree, tender and green with new growth against the luminescent blue sky.

A man drives by in a delivery van, smiles and waves.

I feel the sun on my face.

It is warm.

Very simple these things.

I don’t have to exert myself so much.

I don’t have to force things or make things happen.

Things have their own damn schedule and time frame.

God’s timing is perfect.

I did a big inventory over the weekend and it is still resonating with me.

I basically inventoried the institution of being single.

Yeah.

I know.

No biggie.

Hahahahahaha.

I told my person I only had one resentment and that it was about myself, as per usual, I’m thinking about myself.

And when I told her it was because I was single she suggested that I look at the inventory differently, that I inventory the institution of being single.

Ooh.

I like that.

I am resentful at the institution of being single because.

I don’t feel like I’m enough.

I am broken.

I feel jealous of other people.

I am less than.

I am lonely.

I have to do everything by myself.

I feel like people are pitying me.

I feel angry.

I feel entitled.

Yeah.

Nothing to unpack there.

Fuck me.

Affects everything about me.

I can see my selfishness really well in holding onto this, so much so, playing the victim, holding on to self-pity, being less than, loads of moral inferiority.

And the funny thing is that when I realized that when I think people pity me, that means I think people are thinking about me.

So not true.

Oh my God.

I am not just all that and a loaf of bread.

I mean.

I’m a pretty decent, kind, loving, human being, but most people are not going around thinking about me and my dating dilemmas.

I mean.

Holy shit.

Selfish much?

God damn.

And of course I’m seeking self-esteem, and more self-pity, it’s a self-pity party, I mean, didn’t you get the invite?  I’m also definitely seeking control, and to be the director.

“Stop exerting yourself more!” She told me, “You’re still a work in progress, God’s timing is perfect.”

Heaving a big sigh of relief at that one.

The dishonesty part was easy for me to see too, that I control my life, ahahahahah, that’s a joke.

And the fear is awful basic–abandonment, never being in a romantic relationship, dying alone, unlovable.

Then she asked me something that I had never even thought about, “where have you been inconsiderate in regards to this resentment?”

Oh.

I’ve been inconsiderate?

Shit.

I have been inconsiderate.

I had my eyes opened in a big way.

Where have I been inconsiderate?

In denying someone my company, my higher power wants me to be happy.

Damn.

I mean.

I never, ever thought of it that way, that I’m denying someone the pleasure of my company.

Fuck.

So this week I have said yes to a dinner party with classmates and a former teaching assistant.

I have said yes to working on a class project with someone in my cohort.

I have a lunch date with my friend and art patron from Burning Man on Sunday in North Beach.

I have said yes to those people who want my company and who have asked for it.

I have not chased after experiences or people who aren’t interested in me.

I said yes to camping at Run Free Camp for Burning Man because the head of the camp asked me to join them this year.

“Go where the love is,” a friend of mine often reminds me.

Yes.

That.

God, please help me to see what I need to see and to let go of what I can.

Help me to stop trying so hard to try so hard.

I felt lighter today, to tell the truth.

Maybe because the rain lifted and the sun came out.

Maybe I just feel things shifting and I am more and more accepting of who and what I am.

That I am not broken, I don’t need fixing, that everything is working out in my favor, that I have done the work and I don’t have to constantly be grinding.

I mean.

That being said, when time does permit, I do need to keep on homework tip.

I did well today.

I finished all my Community Mental Health Reading and I got a good chunk of Couples Therapy kicked through.  I have finished the Trauma reading too and I have the idea for my Trauma reflection paper sketched out in my head, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or so to kick out.

I’ll do it in between doing the deal with a lady and my dentist appointment on Saturday.

Leaving me Saturday evening to have a dinner party with school mates and a weekend where I am not wondering about the drama show, the horror story, the fright that I try to entice myself with, the Carmen show.

“You’re the director, main character, scriptwriter, casting agent, staging crew, lighting, I mean, you are doing it all, just stop exerting yourself so much, stop,” she finished.

I laughed.

I cried.

I let it the fuck go.

Oh.

I may pick up the show again, but for the moment I have stopped trying to revise the script and make it into something other than the awesome reality of my beautiful life.

I am a beautiful creature.

Lovable and worthy of love.

You don’t pity me.

I don’t need to pity me.

God please help me see what you want me to see and to let go of what I can.

Seriously.

I am done.

Over it.

All yours.

Ready to stop being inconsiderate.

So much so.

Today Was A

Fuck yeah kind of day.

I was chilled most of the day, but I did look cute.

Although perhaps a little on the shivery side.

I wasn’t expecting to be out all day long and I just never made it back to the house once I was out and about.

I sort of know better, but oh well, that’s all I really have to complain about, I was a little cold today, and now that I am home, a hot mug of tea next to me, the heater turned on and my candles all lit up, oh yes, and some nice Saint Germaine de Pres on the radio cube, yes, I said radio cube, it’s like a trip toy for rave kids candy flipping, but I’ve had it for years and years and it really does work–an old IHome cube.

I have had it forever and it’s been to many a Burning Man.

Not this year though, nothing that I will have to hook up to electricity, I won’t be working the event so very doubtful I will have access to any sort of power hook up like I have in the past.

I digress.

Burning Man was not today, although it did come up in conversation a few times.

I am pretty dorked out that I get to go again.

Anyway.

I did go to things today.

I went to yoga.

I am glad I did, although, yes, I had a moment or two when I didn’t want to and it’s hard to get back on the horse, but I did.

I wasn’t able to go at all last weekend since I was in class all day and it’s hard, I see how fast I can lose the benefits of the practice, but hey, I went, and it was enough.

I am enough.

There it is again.

Hello.

Yes, I repeat, I am enough.

After yoga, a quick hot shower, a yummy hot breakfast and a tasty coconut/almond milk latte.

Living the high life.

Then.

I gratefully accepted the reprieve in the rain, it cleared today, but shall be back the next few days, and I uncovered my scooter and rode it up to 7th and Irving.

I met my person at Tart to Tart and embarked on some inventory.

We did some reading.

I did some writing.

I did some crying.

Damn it.

But.

Such good crying and also a lot of laughing, sometimes seeing how my foibles are impeding my journey just makes me laugh and how I think and how it does not serve.

Oh.

Does my thinking, NOT serve.

So.

I got some amazing perspective and some really good suggestions.

And.

Yes.

That’s right.

I took them.

I ran with them all day.

Guess what?

I had a fucking fabulous day.

FABULOUS.

I went and had a mani/pedi after and got my eyebrows wrangled.

Then I took myself out to lunch at Marnee Thai–duck breast curry with plantains.

Holy Mother of God.

So freaking good.

I did a little shopping after that at Ambiance.

I actually took a friend’s suggestion around self-care.

Well.

Close.

My friend had suggested I go get a massage.

I went to a hot tub instead.

It was bliss.

So good to get a soak and let all the kinks get worked out.

Then a scooter ride over to Turk and Divisadero to hang out with my fellows and do the deal.

I even fucking fellowshipped after and discovered a new place for food that I had not been to in the neighborhood.

Hung out.

Socialized.

Ate hella good food and let my hair down.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time and I was able to nip the isolation blues in the bud.

Sometimes a girl gets lonely.

I could have bailed on the fellowship, I had food at the house, but I really craved some company tonight and I am so much the better for just hanging the fuck out with my people.

They are like no other.

Yeah.

I know.

I am biased.

But.

I do know a special and amazing group of people.

They’ve got my back and I’ve got theirs.

I felt a lot more a part of and I want to continue making that effort.

I shared with a friend tonight that it really can be a challenge to navigate doing grad school work and work and recovery and socializing.

I isolate sometimes because I am scared.

But.

Also.

Because, um, yeah, I have hundreds of pages of reading to do and papers to write.

I may not get to the paper I was going to write today.

And I’m just fine with that.

I have time and my time was so much better spent letting myself be of and in the world.

I rather like my San Franciscan world.

Sure.

It’s not the same city it used to be, it’s changed, but then again, so have I.

Change happens.

Change is the only reliable thing that is consistent.

I can try to control things and I am a sucker for routine, but once in a while I need to break out of it, evolve and see what comes of that action.

I may go back to where I was, all up in my head, but i have a solution that works.

I mean.

Fuck.

It works.

I am so grateful for that.

So much so it’s sort of stupid.

Don’t care if I’m a dork about that too.

Something lovely about my gratitude.

Something lovely about not having it all be on my time, my schedule and my way.

God has perfect timing.

Perfect love.

And wants me to be happy.

I can stop trying so hard to make things happen and just let them happen.

I don’t have to watch the horror show in my head.

I’m pretty bored with the characters and the casting is awful, and really it’s over dramatic, fear filled, and unrealistic.

Reality is so much more sexy.

And I certainly had a sexy day today.

Yes.

Yes.

I did.