To Write

Or not to write.

That is the question.

Which I have obviously already answered for myself as I am typing now.

I just hemmed and hawed a little, I have an early start, amongst the many early starts I have had for the last week and a half, and I was tempted to skip the blog and just hunker down with a hot cup of tea and a quick snippet of a video.

But.

I did not write last night and I missed it.

The irony being, too, that I had more time last night and there wouldn’t have really even been a question.

Except.

Power outage.

I got home to find out that a mylar balloon had gotten caught on a transformer on the block and it exploded, leading to two blocks in my neighborhood being completely without power.

It was a romantic candle light night in.

Let me tell you.

Fortunately my stove is gas and I was able to light it to heat up some dinner, but aside from that everything else in the house is pretty much electrically run.

So no lights.

And.

No internet.

After I had dinner I read a little by candlelight than decided to call it a night.

I sort of figured that this was the Universe saying go to bed.

I did.

It was nice.

I got a little extra sleep and I felt pretty refreshed.

I was still up early.

I had another early start at work today.

I worked 5.5 hours of overtime this week, coming off a full (emotionally full it feels like) weekend of classes, preceded by a full week of work, preceded by a full weekend of doing homework and writing papers preceded by a full, overtime again, week of work, preceded by a weekend of writing papers and doing homework, preceded by, yes, you guessed it, a full, with overtime, week of work.

I think it’s been a month since I have had a proper day off.

A friend of mine Wednesday night asked me about my schedule after I had shared that the whole being done with my Master’s program hasn’t landed and each day he asked I had work and clients.

Then supervision and prepping for graduation, then meeting with the ladies I normally meet with and my person and covering my commitments.

He shook his head and said I should take all day off on Sunday.

Maybe have a good cry.

Maybe just sit with the accomplishment.

I haven’t yet had a chance to sit with the accomplishment.

I tear up whenever I say that, I don’t want to be sad about it, but I do want to have some time to feel it.

I have just been so, so, so busy.

Grateful for the bits of down time I had today and yesterday at work.

Both days the baby slept on me.

Even though I started him out in the stroller for naps and he did a bunch of sleeping in the stroller on the back deck, such pretty weather today, but both times he woke up fussy and unhappy and insisted on falling back asleep on me.

Which is fine.

Baby nap equals a sitting meditation for me.

And sometimes.

A little snooze too.

I got that yesterday and it was lovely.

Especially since it gave me a little reprieve from the reflux.

It goes down when I sleep.

I don’t know why that is, but it is and I’m grateful for it.

Anyway.

There are moments of reprieve.

Today I got one in the park.

It was beautiful.

The baby was tired, the mom was working out with a personal trainer and we were at Douglas Playground which is really small and sweet and surrounded by great towering trees and blackberry brambles and it has a big green meadow.

Oh.

So nice.

I walked the meadow with the baby until he was asleep, watched the red tail hawk hunting for its morning meal, stared at the clouds, smelled the clover, breathed in and out and sat down at a picnic table rocking gently back and forth while the baby slept nestled against me.

I didn’t fall asleep.

But I was still and surrounded by beauty and in the sun and that was so nice.

So nice.

Yeah.

Grateful for my job.

I also got to pick up the oldest boy today from school, he requested a “date” with me.

How freaking cute.

We went to Bi-Rite Creamery for ice cream.

He got a vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles and the reverence with which he ate it was so sweet to behold.

Then a friend from school passed by and asked if we could come to Dolores Park and of course we could.

So this afternoon I got to be outside again, at a different park, in the sun, watching the sky and breathing and listening to the kids run around and chase each other and laugh.

Good for my soul.

I also didn’t have to cook tonight, Friday’s are often order pizza night, and it was nice to take my time getting back to the house and hanging out with the oldest boy, telling stories and making plans for the summer.

After work.

Clients.

I forgot to mention that.

I have had lots happening on the client front.

Including a difficult termination this week.

Which added in a little extra stress as I maneuvered through it.

Grateful it’s done, but it was challenging to do.

And ah.

Breathing easier.

Feeling good that I took the time to make the time to write.

It means a lot to me.

And it’s not that late.

Ok.

It’s late enough and I should probably go straight to bed, but I won’t.

I still need a little more wind down time.

A cup of tea will help.

A few minutes of a video.

Then off to dream land.

Good night y’all.

Happy Friday.

 

Abundance

Of tears.

Of tissues used for said tears.

Also of acknowledgements and validation and super sweet holding.

I do quite like my therapist.

I had so much happening this morning that I literally was at a loss as to where to jump in.

But jump I did.

We didn’t even cover half of what I was thinking I was going to talk about, which was fine, the one big issue I had awoken to this morning I dealt with my person on a phone call over my morning latte.

And though there was a lot of work that was done and an abundance of dumping, I even apologized at one point, I don’t normally dump, but I just had to get it all the fuck out.

She said, “bring it on, get it out.”

So I did.

It was a relief to do so.

I talked quite a bit about how much pain I have been in and how I felt like it was beginning to really make me weird in the head, she reflected that my body is working over time to keep me in balance and that it’s a hard thing to do right now.

It really is.

And it’s been pretty relentless these last few days.

I shared that I haven’t really dropped into being done with school, about how I almost fucked up my paperwork, but not really, but my head space has been foggy with dealing with getting everything done and being in pain whilst trying to do it, and that I didn’t beat myself up but that I was flummoxed at how side tracked I got doing what should have been a pretty simple tasks.

Simple tasks are not so simple when I’m busy and also trying to navigate through this experience with my body.

My sweet body that is just trying to get by and I am doing whatever I can to help it.

Second day of oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch, oatmeal for dinner.

I will admit, I haven’t had time to do decent food prep and not much energy for cooking when I get home.

Do a big therapy session, cry a lot, then go work a full-time shift with a teething baby and then after that go see two clients and be emotionally and empathetically available for them and expect myself to make a big fabulous dinner?

Nope.

Oatmeal.

I like oatmeal, so that’s not really an issue, but it does speak to me that there’s a lot happening inside that’s not in equilibrium.

I very much want to get back on track with my health.

I am grateful that I have an appointment soon to find out what’s happening.

And grateful for a therapist who let me dump for a while and then I got to talk about the other hard stuff.

I will be terminating a client on Thursday and there was a lot to process around the situation.

So we did that for a bit too.

And it was super helpful.

That my therapist went to the same school and did the same program as I really is such a helpful thing.

I get such nice perspective.

She doesn’t self-disclose much, but she does relate to me and I know that in the therapeutic alliance we have together that her experience helps me with mine.

Then.

I got to talk about the fun stuff, the happy stuff, the amazing I got a private practice internship!

It was such a joy to talk with her about that.

Especially since working with her helped me see that it was possible.

When my supervisor recommended it to me I was rather at a loss as to how to go about it.

My therapist opened that door, shared insights, and gave me places to look.

She did not tell me to approach the person I did, but she helped lay the foundation for that experience to unfold and I am so wildly grateful for that.

And that when things are supposed to happen, they just fall beautifully into place.

She reflected to me the amount of work I do and also what I could expect to charge as an intern would be higher than others just starting out as private practice interns.

She told me without a doubt I can charge $80-$100 per session.

Of course.

I won’t get that full amount.

But I tell you what I will get half of it at the minimum.

And that means $40-$50/hr.

So much more than the $0 I make now.

I have pretty much decided, you have heard it here first, that I will give up my internship where I am at as soon as I get my AMFT # from the BBS.

Once I have that number I can be paid as a private practice intern using my supervisor’s number, the woman I just basically got hired by.

We’ll have to set up W-2’s and there will be taxes taken out and other things I am sure.

I will have to pay for her supervision and I will have to pay a portion of the lease for the office.

She will take that out of the amount I am paid by my clients, and then she will pay me.

I will be making money and I will build a practice an I will have abundance.

That was the biggest take away from my therapist today, that I have striven so hard, all my life, worked and worked and worked and studied, and now, I am almost there.

That I am close.

In fact.

That I am closer than I even think I am.

I will be done with my current internship by September 1st.

That’s the plan.

I figure I will have my intern number by that point, it does take a little while for BBS to get all the paperwork and assign a number.

I am hopeful that I will be able to start seeing clients at my private practice internship after Labor Day.

Which feels about right and will be just after I have done the intensive for my PhD program.

I am so ready to step forward, ready to transition out of where I am, ready to start seeing the fruits of my labor.

I am excited about it.

I really am.

And I am ready to embrace all the abundance.

I.

Am.

So.

So.

Ready.

Halfway There

Tomorrow marks the mid-point to the semester.

I’ll be halfway through the last semester of my Masters degree!

I’m so excited.

And.

Yes.

I am completely done with all my homework.

Everything is turned in.

I did all my reading assignments.

And I worked on my dyad partner’s paper today at work, so that I have comments and responses to her paper, that’s part of the work for this big final paper, we work in groups and read our group mates paper and make comments and help them with their work.

So I did that today at the Upper Noe Valley Rec Center.

I just had the baby out for a walk and he fell asleep in the stroller, so I grabbed a cafe au lait from Xo Cafe on Church and Day Street, walked over to the Rec Center and did the paper and then I did the evaluations for school that I have to turn in as well for the class.

I got it all done.

I’m not sure how I wrote that damn annotated bibliography yesterday and did all the reading and that I saw a licensed MFT this week, after seeing clients, and worked a lot, I put in four hours of overtime at work, paid in cash when I left today, thank you very much, and still got to do the deal.

I mean.

Whew.

It’s a week.

Plus I terminated with a client tonight.

It was a good termination and the client and I parted ways very amicably and it was a mutual termination.

It was nice to reflect on the work that happened over the course of the treatment and to see how my client has changed and how, too, I have.

The client was one of my first clients and it was good for me to see how much I have grown since I started doing my practicum.

I only have about seven more weeks of being in practicum and then it turns into an associateship.

The California Association of Marriage Family Therapist has changed the title from MFTi (intern) to associate.

Once I graduate, I become an associate.

I will be an Associate MFT.

I will have a registered number.

And I will be fully on my way to getting my license.

The next hurdle will be filling out all the paperwork and getting all the signatures.

I first, though, have to graduate.

I need to continue showing up for classes, participating, and doing the work.

But It feels really good, and I want to acknowledge that, to be halfway through the homestretch semester.

I think ordering my cap and gown really put a big explanation point on it.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do for my graduation party.

I need to celebrate.

This Master’s degree is a huge deal for me.

Finding out what I am supposed to be doing and finding my way through school to get me to the point where I can become a licensed therapist is such a huge thing for me.

I felt like I was floundering for years not knowing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, nanny, go to Burning Man, yearn to be a published writer, never get published, nanny, think about applying to a Creative Writing Masters program, not get into it, nanny, go to Burning Man, maybe try living in Paris for a little while, come back to San Francisco, nanny some more, go to Burning Man.

Have huge epiphany at Burning Man.

Quit crappy nanny job.

Get better nanny job.

Apply to grad school.

Get in!

And suddenly I am going to be a therapist when I grow up.

When I reflect back on the journey of getting where I am now I am absolutely flabbergasted.

How did I make it through?

And I’m still working through it, but it feels so tangible now, the hard work is paying off and I’m almost there.

I can see the diploma.

I will be framing that post-haste.

In a really nice frame.

Really nice.

Just saying.

Anyway.

So, yeah, a party.

But I’m not sure how to do it.

The commencement ceremony is from 3-5p.m. in Hayes Valley.

Do I grab an early dinner with the folks coming to my graduation and then bomb out to the beach?

I want to do a beach bonfire at Ocean Beach.

Or.

Do I skip it and head straight back to the house and get shit over to Ocean Beach and get things set up.

I feel like I need to enlist some friends to get things set up but then I’m responsible for this and I want it to be nice and I want to appreciate the friends in my life who have been so generous with me during my time in grad school.

I think I may skip trying to make dinner plans.

Maybe instead, I can do a nice brunch before hand and then go to the commencement and after ward head to the beach.

That way I can be there by 6p.m. and set things up.

Not that I’m planning anything hard or fancy.

Fire wood in a box, couple of blankets, a folding chair or two, a cooler with some sparkling water.

That’s it.

Folks want more than that, they can bring it.

Mostly I just want a reason to have a bonfire at the beach and I can’t imagine a better excuse than I am graduating with a Master’s Degree.

I want to invite lots of folks, and acknowledge all the people who helped me a long the way, past employers who wrote me letters of recommendation to get into the program, to my current employers who put up with me not working one Friday a month so I can go to classes, to friends and visiting family, and families I used to nanny for, everyone who gave me one single word of encouragement, I want them there.

Or at least to extend the invitation to be there.

And when the sunsets I will have tears on my face and joy in my heart being surrounded by friends, family, loved ones, and my community.

I cannot fucking wait.

Bring on this weekend of classes.

Let’s go!