How The Hell

Did that happen?

I’m back in school tomorrow.

I just printed off my syllabus for a class.

I haven’t read a thing, not that there was a thing to read, not that I’m aware of, there probably is a thing or fifteen that I’m supposed to read, but the syllabus that was up for the class I printed off doesn’t technically have text books that I have to buy.

I’ll be using materials from previous classes.

It’s called Integrative Seminar and it’s like a master’s thesis class in which I will expound upon all the learning I have done in the past years of work.

I have learned a lot.

A lot.

“Carmen, sometimes that’s the hardest thing,” my therapist said recently, “you have done the emotional work and you are aware and you are educated and it can be really hard to see things that other people haven’t seen for themselves.”

Ayup.

I mean.

Then again, it’s always easier to see someone else’s problems, they’re not yours, so you’re not invested, it’s a different perspective.

My “problems” are mine and special.

I mean, hello, they’re mine, of course they’re special.

But.

The learning, it has been a lot and I have become very self-aware.

What works for me, what doesn’t, how my emotions are not something to be afraid of but signs to point me in the way I need to be going.

I don’t always care for emotions.

Oh.

That’s not true.

I like some of them a lot.

A LOT.

Happiness.

Love.

Although love has a wicked back-handed sting of pain to it at times that will throttle the breath right out of my body and make me feel like my heart is on fire.

But, um, yeah, love.

It’s so good, it’s so delicious, I want more and more and more.

I usually have to really cultivate it in myself though, how I take care of myself, how I am gentle with myself (not always so good at that, work in progress, you know), how I feed myself, or let myself rest or be kind, like say nice things about myself and acknowledge the work I do.

I mean.

The work.

A lot of that.

Other emotions I like.

Joy.

Excitement.

Affection.

Awe.

Love me some awe.

Hope is a good one too.

Elation.

I like to be elated.

Euphoria.

That one’s super fun.

Wonder.

Ecstasy.

Ooh, yeah, I like that.

I mean.

Those are fantastic emotions, I’m all over those.

But some others.

Meh.

Not so much.

Jealousy.

Anger.

Fear.

Worry.

Sadness.

Oh woe is me, I do not like the sads.

Melancholia, which is just sadness with a fancy name.

Frustration.

Envy.

Lust.

Well, heh, maybe I do like some lust.

It’s well.

Lusty.

Ahem.

Humiliation.

Pity.

Fear.

I do not like the fear thing not a bit, not at all.

Yet.

I have all of those emotions too.

The nice thing is knowing that I am allowed to hold more than one emotion at a time, in fact I can hold many and do at any given minute or moment of the day.

Sadness and love and fear and lust and anxiety today.

As well as happiness and contentment and sorrow and grief.

A great big mixing bowl of feelings.

Hey there, look at that, I’m in psychology, the “science” of soul suffering.

What is it about the soul and the suffering and the journey of it all?

I suspect it’s about love and whether or not I let myself have it, let it in, allow myself to be loved, to accept I’m lovable, enough, that I deserve all the best and most wonderful things and to act in those interests.

Not something I have always been able to do so well.

The neat thing, yes, I said neat, about all this learning to become a therapist is that I get to work on myself, so this Integrative Seminar class should be a good way for me to look back over the last few years and measure, really see, how much I have grown.

The other class.

Well.

The syllabus was not up so I am not worried about having to have read anything for the class.

I have gotten one of the books the professor e-mailed the class about and I’ll bring that with.

I’ve got class from 9a.m. to 4p.m. then I’ll be heading off to my internship at seeing a consultation for therapy and a doing a phone session with a client.

Then.

It’s officially Friday.

Dinner with my best friend and connection, conversation, life, goals, love, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings.

All the things.

It’s a full and busy weekend for me.

I also have to go into the dentist on Saturday and get my permanent crown put in.

I’ll be leaving school a little early on Saturday to get to my dentist appointment by 4p.m.

And I just realized.

Sigh.

That I won’t really have a day off until next Saturday, which isn’t necessarily true either, I’ll have group supervision that day, but it will feel like a day off.

It’s always a long run of days when I’m in a weekend of school.

But this is it.

The last semester to my Masters program.

The final push!

I will be meeting with my advisor tomorrow at lunch to talk about graduation and also to get my letter of recommendation for the PhD program in Transformative Psychology.

That is still definitely on the burner for me.

Whew.

Glad I’ve got my books and folders and notebooks and syllabi all set.

Lunch is packed too.

I just need to figure out what to wear.

First day of school fashion crisis.

I suspect, though, that as long as I show up, it will all be fine.

That’s half the battle, isn’t it?

Just showing up.

Super grateful to be walking into this last semester with a full and thankful heart for the process that has brought me here to where I am today.

I’ve come a long way.

Baby.

I really fucking have.

Teeny Tiny Case

Of the feels.

Fucking sads.

Go the fuck away.

Don’t you know tomorrow is Friday?

Bah.

Oh, body, really, do you have to do this?

Sometimes I wonder if my body cycles the way it does just so that I can occasionally access emotions that I sit on.

It’s like, normal Carmen just breezes through the day and I am pretty fucking unruffled.

Quick!

Pee before yoga, you got a minute, it only takes two to walk to the studio, go, fast.

And there like a little blight on my happiness.

The dreaded red spot.

Not the period, nope, that’s got about two days to go, unless I get lucky, insert irony here, and I get it tomorrow morning, which the rate my hormones are emotionally playing the violin may strike a day early.

Ugh.

I ovulated.

“Another baby down the drain,” my brain whispered to me.

Fuck you.

WHO ASKED?

I most certainly did not and was a bit abject that this is now the tact my brain takes to malign my day.

FUCK.

I hate overblown emotions.

I don’t like having the sad’s and I am not interested in the feel’s either.

Back off.

Maybe I should change the music, Regina Spektor is lovely and all, but I don’t want to think about Ne Me Quitte Pas Ma Cher.

It just makes me want to burst into tears.

And now I’m full blown crying.

Good thing this is not a video blog.

Bah.

I just miss someone.

And sometimes that happens.

And it catches you off guard and it doesn’t matter that you’re wearing red lipstick and look really cute, sexy pin-up hot, I mean, I do, I got some looks today, it doesn’t matter if you’re crying over fantasy spilt milk.

Some times things don’t work out and it’s not because there’s not love there, it’s just not there for you.

Every one knows its going to hurt.

Ugh.

I guess I just needed a really good sloppy cry.

I guess I am surprised that I still feel like this, the grief comes, it goes, it dissipates like the moon waning in the evening sky, the stars flashing while the moon whirls slowly over the arc of the sky.

And when I am awake, late in the night, when I so just want to be asleep.

And there’s still no cure for crying.

But the moon is streaming in and the whiteness, like snow illuminated, sand ripples, waves crash, the icing floating over the ocean, the glitter of diamonds, the shatter of breaking my own heart.

Darling let go of her hand, let go of her hand, let go of her hand.

She’s the kind of girl who’ll smash herself down in the night.

She’ll break her own heart.

And you know, she’ll break your own heart too.

The pain of knowing true love exists.

Oof.

Ok.

All cried out.

Fuck listening listening to this music any more.

Back to Mike Doughty Stellar Motel.

Ah.

Better.

Side bar.

My friend commented about Mike Doughty liking one of my Instagram photos and did I just freak out?

Yes.

I did.

And I freaked out more when he started following me and now he’s coming up on my facecrack page as a friend suggestions we have four or five friends in common.

I’m like, hey sugar, we don’t really know each other, but hey, hey.

I like your music a lot.

A LOT.

Swear to god I have listened to Stellar Motel on repeat now for a good solid week and a half, I’ve played it every day, at least once, often times more than once.

Now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just listening to Mister Doughty, but he’s kind of got my attention right now, plus, I like to think that I sound good singing his stuff, it matches my vocal range pretty well.

I love singing.

I’m not the greatest, but it does make me happy.

I sang a long to all sorts of things tonight trying to find the right thing for the boys to listen to.

Everything from “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” to Thomas Dolby, then Jim Croce, Van Morrison, Steely Dan, again Mike Doughty, but from Yes and Also Yes, not Stellar Motel, oh and some Art of Noise–the boys freaking love it.

I was at work late tonight and I go in early tomorrow.

And I found out I’m getting out a little earlier than I thought tomorrow as well, I’ll be done by 5:15pm or so, the family has dinner plans.

Swell.

I’ll get my nails did.

Or do some grocery shopping.

Definitely need to take care of doing the deal, not sure where, who knows.

After the emotional roller coaster of hormones, it seems to have passed, I really think I just needed a good cry.

And lucky you, you got to be the witness thereof.

I thought I had all my cries out, but sometimes there’s just another in there.

I’m being a bit vague about the whole thing and I’m not sure why, the person I am having the feels around stopped following my blog.

That hit like a ton of bricks.

We’re still facecrack friends, but I did stop following him.

It was just too hard.

I haven’t been on his page in weeks but it’s hard, his profile photo is one I took.

The last time I saw his page he was half naked on the beach.

I was like.

Um.

I can not look at that.

I’ve basically been in, shocker, a unrequited love relationship for months.

It started to fall apart in November, had it’s death knoll in December, buried under the glittering lights of Paris, dissolved in the New Year and the week or so before Valentines Day, well.

Yeah.

I haven’t done much writing about it because I was so fucking in love it felt like I was being consumed.

Oh fuck, here comes the waterworks.

It’s hard.

But I will live through it.

“Just be grateful that God gave you this man in your life so that you could get a chance to see how deep you can love,” she said weeks and weeks ago at Tart to Tart.

Yeah.

Like that.

I prayed for weeks, months, let it go, surrender, move on.

And I have.

I have stopped walking down that street, I don’t fall in the pothole, but man, the siren song of it lures.

I saw him sitting in Burger Joint a few weeks ago, the one by my job, and as I rode my bicycle past I said, “don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, fuck, looking, looking, fuck, yup, there he is, and keep fucking moving.”

That’s what it’s been like.

The anger that my person was talking about that needed a valve, yeah, might have had something to do with being mad at myself.

I assuaged myself for a nano second.

“But he said he was in love with you too,” and yup.

He did say that.

It’s a powerful thing to tell someone that you are in love with them and they tell you that they are in love with you too and there’s nothing he can do and there’s nothing I can do and it’s not important the why’s and where of’s, it just is what it is.

And I can cry in my soup, or tea, or whatever is in front of me, the collar of my red cardigan, my heart broken and bloody once more, or I can say hey, you lived, you loved–oh so hard–and you learned and now.

Well.

You get to keep loving.

Harder and stronger.

Bigger and faster.

With greater joy and fervor.

With all my heart.

And that heart is so big now, so full and open and blown apart, you’d be amazed at what I can hold.

I don’t regret a moment.

Or the experience.

I know greater love for having known this love.

I always will.

And for that I am grateful.

Hormonal or not.

I get to have this experience.

And knowing that.

I know that I am taken care of.

Always.

Blessed.

Graced.

Held.

Loved.

Always.

 

 

That Sounds Like A Really Nice Day!

She exclaimed to me over the phone.

We have just started working together and she’s got exuberance, that’s for sure.

And she was right.

As I sit here listening to “Bye Bye Blackbird” with John Coltrane and Miles Davis, it was a really nice day.

It didn’t exactly start that way.

I woke up with a headache.

I don’t often and when I do it’s usually due to being sick and so, the cold lingers on another day, I thought to myself as I looked at my phone, it was still early, go back to sleep.

I managed to get another little sleep snack in, but the head hurt and my stomach was saying hello, wake up, feed me, coffee me, let’s go!

Up I got.

Three ibuprofen, strip the bed sheets, toss laundry in the wash, fresh sheets on the bed, dress, read some stuff, kneel down and say some stuff, start the coffee, start the oatmeal, boil an egg, eat.

I could feel the edges of the chair and wished fervently that the head ache would dissipate and that the coffee ibuprofen combo would allievate the tightness in my skull.

Fortunately.

They did.

But I was sad.

With the sickness hand in hand the “sads.”

Not horrible.

But there.

I was just finishing up my oatmeal when my girl friend called and I got to check in with her and cry a little on the phone, I am just such a sad sack when I am sick.

It happens so infrequently that I have little humor with myself, or ease of being in myself, I want to be on the go, I want to be doing things with my time off, I don’t want to always be preparing for the work week.

I want.

I want.

I want.

And.

I want it my way.

Damn it.

My friend gently reminded me that I was ok, to stop beating myself up and then told me about the work she had to do today and what she wouldn’t give to have a down day, a day to sit and be cozy and read a magazine, to cook, or go for a walk on the beach.

Hmmm.

She has a point.

The grass is always greener on the other side, she added.

Yup.

That it is.

I had my cry, I got my friend check in on and then, oh, the head ache, I could feel it easing.

I made another cup of coffee–pour over Ritual, “San Jose” grown in San Jose de Pedregal, Colombia (so much better than the other addiction I used to have to another Colombian import), varietal, Caturra with the following flavor notes: blackberry, black currant, muscat raisin, and dark honey.

I couldn’t tell you if any or all of those notes are inherent.

It just tasted damn skippy good.

I savored it and flipped open my blue sparkle notebook and wrote four pages long hand.

By the time I finished the laundry was done in the dryer and I was folding up the wash as I heard the first knock on my door.

A cup of tea with a ladybug, some checking in, some reading.

Then a second knock an hour later.

More tea, more reading, more get right with God.

I felt fantastic.

Ha.

Screw you sadness.

I’m ready for the day now.

I had a quick snack and hopped on the bike, riding over to Noriega Produce–in the opposite direction of the Safeway and anything to do with the finish line of Bay to Breakers.

Aside.

It was not nearly the shit show out here that it was last year.

I’m pretty sure the grey cold weather had a lot to do with it and despite wishing for the sun to come out a little more today, I was grateful that the neighborhood was not a vomitorium nor a tipped over garbage can of wastrel and people pissing in doorways too inebriated to use the port a potties lining the way.

End aside.

I came home from the produce market with lunch stuffs and proceeded to enjoy my little lunch, homemade humus, raw veggies, hard-boiled eggs, and the first of the season’s organic cherries.

Luscious.

Then the cooking.

Italian white bean stew with crushed fire roasted tomatoes, zucchini, celery, garlic, onions, chicken, basil, oregano, parsley, sea salt, black pepper, set it all on low and let simmer.

I also made my stand by pot of brown rice and by the time I had finished eating my lunch and washing up the dishes, the rice was done and my stew was percolating nicely.

I turned down the heat on the stove to its lowest, threw on a hoodie, grabbed my bag and headed out the door to the beach.

I was banking on the cold and the grey to discourage away all but the most ardent of beach goers.

I was right.

It was deserted.

With the exception of sea gulls and sand plovers and a pod of very serious Outer Sunset surfer boys.

I walked and stuck my toes in the surf, it was freezing, but its such a habit to walk the tide line.

The water was grey, but smelled fantastic and I felt energized and also, yes a little sad, a bit lonely.

I made a phone call and had a check in.

“Get into the discomfort,” he said, “it’s uncomfortable being alone at first, and lonely and alone are two very different things,” he added as I choked up on the phone, the tears floating down my cheeks and mixing in the ribbons of pink hair flying about my face.

“I find that this spot is where God gets in, there is God in this, there is God there, sit in it,” he said, “find a bench by the sea wall or go sit outside of Java Beach and just sit in the stillness.”

Java Beach was too busy for that kind of solitary contemplation, I knew from the walk down to the beach, the cafe always does a brisk business, even when the weather is not accommodating, but the ocean side where I was walking would do the trick.

I got off the phone.

I looked out.

Sunshine broke through a grey bank of clouds.

Ensorcelled in the sunlight for a moment, I took off my glasses, stuck them in my hoodie pocket, and raised my face to the light just letting it soak into me, while the tide washed over my feet and splashed my ankles.

When I opened them.

The sea was grey again, but I know that sunshine was there, behind the clouds.

I am alone.

Not lonely.

The company I keep.

The woman I am.

I am my own best friend and I am never alone.

I always have that sunshine within me.

Once again finding the reality of God deep within.

God.

Love.

Same same.

You catch my drift.

I am not alone.

And.

It was.

A really nice day.