Swing and a Miss

I asked a guy out.

He said no.

“You’re not my type. I’d rather just be friends and go out dancing with you.”

Gotcha.

He also said he was blushing.

I asked him out over the phone.

So.

First.

Props to me.

It stung, still stings a little, but frankly, I’m glad I killed the fantasy.

And.

I think, regardless of whether or not I was his type, he was interested, just ambivalent.

I’m not down for ambivalent.

I want to be someone’s all in.

I deserve that.

So, truly, I am grateful for having gotten it out of the way instead of having myself perseverate on it and be an idiot around him.

Hell fire.

I went to a sports ball thing today only to socialize.

I am trying to be out there, doing things, dancing, connecting–I went to a game night last night and played Cards Against Humanity.

I’m not going to get asked out in my apartment.

Unless I do the apps.

I don’t like the apps much though.

It’s been a minute since I’ve had sex and it’s tempting to get on the apps, but I’m just going to sit with the discomfort and keep asking guys out.

I think.

I do like the idea of being asked out too.

I know that this is just a part of life, dating is easier for some, harder for others.

I mean, I got my reasons why it’s been hard and I have been doing some life changing work with my therapist, so I have hope.

I also blocked and deleted my ex’s number in my phone, so removing the possibility of reconnecting there.

I’m living in a faith based world and not responding from a place of scarcity.

At least, not at this moment.

I will say.

It was fun to have a crush for a couple of weeks.

And in the long scheme of things, I have had a crush on someone for years and found out, I wasn’t his type when I finally got up the courage to ask, years later, yikes.

This guy was two weeks and I pulled the asking out trigger.

Much better.

Quicker.

I sense I’ll connect with the person I’m supposed to connect with soon enouch.

And there is a gentleman out there in the world that I am interested in too, that is not available for a relationship, but might be for fun and we’ll see if anything comes of that.

Maybe it will.

Maybe it won’t.

I messaged him recently too.

He’s out of town.

What I do have to say is, for fucking being 50 years old, I’m grateful to still have a sex drive and a willingness to date and seek and be alive.

It’s all a practice, right?

Just living, doing, breathing, eating nice food, going out dancing, making new friends.

I mean the dude I asked out tonight still wants to be my friend and I’m pretty certain he was flattered, it is flattering, I think, to be asked out. He said he still wants to go out dancing and being a part of the crew that has been going out to the clubs.

So, I have another friend.

That is not a loss.

It’s just life.

And I get to be alive.

Grateful for that.

Grateful for making it through the pandemic, through watching fellows in my circle over dose and die or commit suicide, or just die from things that happen, heart attacks and cancer, and all the other things that are out there.

I am alive.

So I got rejected tonight.

So what.

It just means, the guy was not the right person for me.

I have also said no to guys that didn’t feel like a fit.

Though, the other night, I was lamenting to my best guy friend that I really did let a good one get away in between a break my ex and I were on, and I was distressed in hindsight, but if it was meant to be, it would have happened.

Like I said earlier, I’m doing a lot of therapy work around relationships and dating.

I am so grateful for my therapist.

In fact, I was angry in my last session when I think about the three years prior to him when I was with a different therapist and we never got into the things I am walking through with my current therapist.

I was like, literally, I want that fucking money back.

Granted, that former therapist got me through my Master’s program, so I can’t hate on her, we just weren’t a good fit.

My current therapist is a fucking fantastic fit.

Being able to work with him has been mind blowing.

Fucking hard.

But so worth it.

So.

Here’s to striking out.

But also recognizing that I got off the bench, up to plate and I swung.

I’m good with that.

Seriously.

Put me back in coach, I’m ready to play.

Longings

I have been sitting with this topic for a little over a week now and really contemplating what I long for.

Last Friday, not this weekend, but the one prior, I had a pretty revelatory session with my own therapist.

Who clearly stated something that I have never been able to articulate.

That I am afraid of my longings.

As soon as he said it, it threw light on so much of my life.

He asked me, “what happened to you when you were younger when you longed for something?”

“I was shamed, humiliated, made fun of,” I answered immediately, there was no pause to think.

My therapist went further, “you were striped naked, you were beaten,” he introjected. “If you longed for something you were going to get hurt.”

Tears filled my eyes.

Fuck.

Of course I am afraid of my longings.

I was also taught a lot of other not so great things.

I’m not enough, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’ll be alone forever, I’m not lovable was basically the message I got.

I had to earn love, achieve love, work for love.

And so often, I still did not receive it in a way that was healthful for me.

I was eviscerated for my achievements as well.

Mortified by achieving, yet also pushed to achieve.

I have to do everything myself, take care of myself, and defend myself.

Things I learned to do well.

I also have to take care of everyone around me.

I am not allowed desires, dreams, hopes, longings, and if I should voice them I’ll just be ridiculed for those longings.

One of my longings is for romantic intimacy.

Partnership.

Shit.

I just teared up.

That old story, here, right now, I’m not even allowed to talk about that.

Or write about it.

Dare I even post this blog about it?

I think so.

Because.

I am trying something different.

First, that re-engaging with a former ex this past September, a few weeks after Burning Man, was me falling back into the pattern of not letting myself long.

It didn’t work and I extricated myself.

With a lot of help from my people, sitting quietly, listening in to my body–all the reflux flair up that I hadn’t had for years came right back with a fucking vengeance.

And of course, my therapist, “the question is, why do you want to be with someone who is not honest?”

Ouch.

And why?

So I stopped and it ended as it was going to anyway, I knew it wasn’t good for me.

Moving on.

Doing work.

Doing the therapy.

Writing a lot.

Letting go.

Surrendering.

And when I said no to making myself small, all these kinetic, beautiful little miracles started happening.

I got my diploma in the mail the next morning.

I got unstuck with my book project and started a process journal.

I reached out to a photographer and asked to collaborate and got a “I’m very interested!” response and a “let’s meet for coffee.”

I saw a friend I haven’t seen in nearly two years and took her out on her birthday to breakfast.

I started writing the epilogue to my book.

I started blogging again.

I started, trying, I’m not always great at it, but trying, to lean into my longings.

I shifted my schedule a bit to open up my Friday nights so I can socialize more.

I’m digging into really old, deep, entrenched stuff with my therapist.

He said some very interesting things, he usually does, thank god for him, he’s the best therapist I have ever worked with, receently.

Like in my session this Friday.

He reflected that people are drawn to me, but that I project an image and instead of that, what would it look like if I was a magnet instead?

I knew what he meant.

I can have a big personality, I have presence.

For instance.

Dating.

I usually do the asking out, I think I have to, that no one is going to be drawn to me and that my longings will go unseen and that I have to ask, so I do.

A friend told me about this recently, “you come across as boss lady, soften it a bit, no body is going to ask boss lady out.”

Ok then.

Soften.

Draw to me rather than push away.

No more asking out guys.

Wait.

Let myself be asked out.

Actually, I have always, always, longed for this.

I have so infrequently had it happen, it seems a dream to have someone ask me out.

But, I think that it’s because I come across as unapproachable.

And I pine for that which is unavailable–not so much anymore, I am leaning, thank you–which is to say that my action is to focus on what is not really there so not to be hurt if I long for something.

Remember, I was shamed for having desire.

And I’m not talking erotic desire, I’m talking desire for affection, love, conviviality, joy, awe, wonder, laughter, closeness, honesty, play.

And.

I won’t sneeze at erotic desire either.

I am a sensuous being.

I long for touch.

The pandemic was rough yo.

Plus, the surgeries I had last year made it tough too, hard to feel sexy when you’re in pain.

Anyway.

Dating.

It’s back on my plate.

But this time no apps, no asking people out, no projecting out to the world.

Just a softening into the longing, articulating vulnerability, being ok with being messy, messy hair, no make up, well, not all the time, I do love me some lipstick, letting go of the crazy hair (hell my hair is crazy enough on its own) and going back to my natural color and yes, letting it go gray. I am of a certain age, it’s ok.

Just leaning in.

Soft, warm, sweet, longing, Coleman Hawkins on a rainy November night, with misty fog encapsulating street lamps, the heat turned on, the cats cozy curled up next to me, hot, homemade soup in a bowl, and looking out the windows at the darkening sky with longing that soon, yes please, there will be someone sitting next to me, who will put his arm around me and listen to the music with me, kiss the top of my head, and be absolutely ok with just me.

No striving to prove myself or be different, bigger, brighter, shinier, faster, more fabulous.

Just me.

That’s it.

And that is all that I need to be.

Warm, vulnerable me.

Slow it down

Whelp.

I might have been ready to buy a house.

But the bank ain’t.

Oh well.

And actually.

Some relief.

It felt like it was moving a touch too fast.

I was beginning to feel anxiety about client’s cancelling and am I bringing in enough and how much is a mortgage payment going to be?

OH.

That’s a lot.

And fuck.

I better secure some more clients.

And shit.

I need to publish a book and can someone bequeath me some money.

I don’t really play the lotto, but maybe I better start.

Fun things the brain likes to cook up.

But, as it turns out, I am not in a position to buy anything.

This year.

I had a meeting, phone meeting, with the mortgage broker my real estate agent suggested.

And he was very clear.

Nothing to do here.

No bank is going to touch me.

I’m self-employed.

I need two years of stable income.

It’s not that I’m a risk per se, but that banks are very hesitant to loan money to the person who doesn’t have a proven track record of making money.

Cool.

I get that.

So the agent said, you appear to make enough and continue to make this much and you should be fine to get a loan.

Next year.

So.

The project is on hold and I’m not going anywhere.

Unless, yeah, some long lost relative has some money for me.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

That’s so not happening.

Anyway.

I actually felt a lot of relief when that happened, the mortgage broker saying, not this year and I’ll contact you about this time next year and then we’ll talk.

Gave me a reprieve.

Gave me some relief.

It’s not off the radar, but it’s some ways out.

And of course, time moves quick at my age, next year will be here before I know it.

Still.

Being able to take my foot off the gas and recognize that I don’t have to suddenly work more when I already work a lot, was a relief.

And.

Summer’s tough.

Folks travel.

I’ve had a lot of cancellations with people traveling.

And I’m ok with that.

There are still new clients coming in, I have a consultation tomorrow.

I picked up a new client last week.

Turn over happens.

That’s a part of my business.

Faith that things will move and taking the necessary actions and letting go, gently, of the results, is the best way forward with me.

I also hit up the MOHCD first time buyers program zoom.

Mayors Office of Housing and Community Development.

I had thought I had a chance at some of the loan programs they offer first time buyers.

And nope.

I don’t.

The city counts gross income.

EVEN for someone who is self-employed.

So it doesn’t matter that my business eats about half of what I make, the city will count all of what the business brings in.

Sigh.

So.

I make too much money.

Funny that.

Not quite enough money in some eyes and too much in others.

I did at least save a little time and exited the zoom early when I learned that piece of information.

I looked about my apartment, it’s a sweet little space, and I realized, hmm, I have plenty, I have more than enough.

I live a lovely life.

I have two cute cats.

I have a business that I run and own.

Literally.

I am an SCorp.

Well, my business is an SCorp.

I actually have 1,000 shares if you are interested in investing.

Not that I would ever go public.

Not that I even know if that’s an option.

Totally no clue, but yeah, my accountant filed the paper work for me, my business, to become a corporation rather than a sole proprietor.

Cool.

I have no idea what it means, except, that ultimately it’s supposed to save me some tax dollars.

Ok.

A lot of this is over my head.

I don’t know anyone in my family that is a business owner.

This is all unfamiliar territory.

But there are perks, so many.

I call my shots.

I schedule myself.

I still am loving the off on Fridays gig.

I love my job, that helps so much.

I am grateful for all the other jobs I’ve had as well, they have all served in one way or another–taught me how to listen, how to care take of others, how to watch for cues in the environment, having an open door policy when I was management in the service industry, all the confidences I have held over the years.

It all added up.

I shared with someone recently, that I have been groomed to be a therapist, I was built to be one.

I am grateful for it all.

It hasn’t been easy.

No.

Not at all.

But.

It has been beautiful.

And for that I am grateful.

And that house that I have built to reside in, the corporeal one this soul inhabits.

Well.

It’s damn solid and I am content.

So much so.

A house can wait.

My home is already secured.

Baby Steps

I had an in person session today at my office.

It was good.

It was also good to actually meet this client in person as we have never met in person before.

They started with me during the first shelter in place lock down.

I am coming up on the anniversary of that event.

And having some anniversary feelings.

I remember well the week prior, two years ago, things were playing out in the on again off again relationship I had been desperately trying to figure out for years.

Not playing out well, in the end, that relationship ended.

I still have pangs over that.

Why didn’t he figure it out?

Why couldn’t we make it work?

Why?

Why, I am always reminded is not a spiritual question.

It doesn’t help and knowing why is some sort of balm my brain wants to have to explain away the inexplicable.

It just was.

It just couldn’t work.

I just didn’t work.

And no matter how hard I tried I only got hurt.

I have been thinking a lot about relationships, dating, who I am, what I want.

In some persistent way I have always stowed away this thought of marriage, commitment, partnership.

Yet.

I have never really gotten close.

Despite a former “semi” proposal when I was in my mid-twenties from my one and only really “long term” relationship.

Is five years a long term relationship?

Anyway.

Why marriage?

Why partnership?

Wearing a dress, having a ceremony?

Societal expectations?

Family expectations?

My expectations?

Expectations typically lead to resentments.

I do crave company and touch and physical connection, I’m not going to deny that; but historically marriage is actually not great for women.

In a heteronormative marriage that is.

They work more, care take more, do more of the household labor.

Men actually statistically reap huge benefits being married.

Women not so much.

So why do I want it?

When I think about what I want I think about the physical connection of being with a man, I like closeness and, I hate the fucking wording of this, one of my “love languages” is non-sexual physical touch.

I’m cuddly.

Which the last guy I dated did not provide.

I love sex.

Don’t get me wrong, sex is definitely still a need, that drive is still there at 49, and may it be for some time thank you very much, although a touch softer of a demand then it used to be.

But affection.

I crave affection.

Hand holding, massage, leaning into someone, having my head rubbed.

Sigh.

But does that have to preclude being married?

I mean.

I might be putting the cart before the horse.

Am I shutting myself down from potential connection thinking better do it for the long haul?

Also.

What do I need from a partnership that I’m not already giving myself?

I love to travel, I love my home, I have a great space (when it’s not being invaded by the sonic intrusion of DJ Douche Bag upstairs), I don’t share it with anyone.

Well.

My cats.

They do think they own everything.

I keep my space the way I like it.

I have my schedule the way I like it.

I do my own thing.

What do I think I am missing out on?

What if I wasn’t missing out on anything?

I think some of this is just being really comfortable with my life and starting to find a nicer balance now that I’m not in the PhD mode all the time and have gotten a modicum of space from the last surgery I had and some decent recovery in my body.

Also.

Thank God.

My back is feeling much better.

A very easy weekend, lots of rest, lots of heating pad.

I’m actually using the heating pad right now too.

It is just nice after my day at the office.

I still need to dial a few things in there.

I’m going to pop over to Black & Gold on Valencia and pick up a vintage coat rack I’ve been eye-balling for months.

I could use an alternative set up chargers for my MacBook and a small extension cord by my desk for all the things I need plugged in–not all of my sessions are in person, I still am doing plenty, the majority of my session via video.

And one more hanging plant for my office.

But other than that, it’s such a sweet, welcoming space and I was happy to be there in my sessions today.

I ran five, only one was in person, from my office and one from home this morning.

Tomorrow I will be at home fully, all my sessions are remote.

I will be going in again on Thursday as I have a client that wants to be coming back in person.

This client was one of the last, although not the last, clients I saw in person prior to lock down.

It will have been two years.

I’m so grateful for this small baby step into a different experience with therapy and seeing my clients.

It’s not “back to normal”.

I don’t know if it’s the new normal.

It’s just nice to be getting a little more engagement with the world.

And maybe that’s how I look at dating, partnership, relationships.

Just with some curiosity and lightness and that I don’t have to figure it out.

Figure it out is a shit slogan.

For now.

Everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

It always is, truthfully.

I just sometimes get stuck in thinking it would be better if….

If what?

And why wait to be happy, when…

I am happy now.

And that is good enough.

It really is.

Back at it!

After nearly four weeks off, I went back to work today.

I started out this morning by guest lecturing (remotely via Zoom) at CIIS in the Clinical Relationship class on erotic countertransference in the clinical dyad.

That was fun.

I did that for about an hour then transitioned to my first client of the day.

Fortunately for me, a phone session.

Followed by another phone session.

Followed by a video session.

Then a break.

Phew.

Break much needed and yes, yes I did, I took my first unaccompanied walk!

It was just a block, don’t freak out.

And I went super duper slow.

Like.

Ridiculously slow.

I walked to the mailbox and mailed my rent check for December.

It felt great to be outside.

Though intense, and I walked back much slower than I had walked to the mailbox.

Then I had lunch in bed.

Now.

I will say that was my only meal in bed and for that I feel pretty happy.

I had breakfast at my “desk”, aka, my kitchen table and tonight I had dinner in my living room sitting in my reading chair.

Normally I like to sit on my pink velvet couch and enjoy the view of the night sky out the window framed in soft yellow string bulb lights.

However.

My couch is too low to sit on comfortably and get back up from.

By the end of my sessions tonight I was definitely feeling stiff and I had gotten a bit swollen up, but I really didn’t want to eat dinner in bed.

Although, I will say that I did not force myself to write this blog at my desk.

I’m writing from bed, propped up on pillows, three behind my back, two underneath my knees.

I can push myself a little, but I’m not a masochist.

And I know that going too hard back into things is not good for my healing.

Gratefully I am in a profession that is not too active.

Granted prior to my surgery I have a times found this challenging–being so sedentary.

Before becoming a psychotherapist I was a nanny, in fact, I nannied a good way into being a therapist–nothing says good times like juggling full time work with full time school and getting my hours to become a therapist.

In a sense, until very, very, very recently, I was working six to seven days a week.

So this down time I’ve had recovering from the surgery has also been surreal.

Lying in bed watching a lot of videos.

I did some reading too, but mostly I think I just slept and watched videos and tried to not be in self-pity when the weather was screaming gorgeous out.

I literally missed the best weather of the year indoors for three and a half weeks recuperating.

That being said.

Once I am fully healed up I will be outside and moving and doing all the things.

My next post-op appointment is December 10th.

At which point my surgeon will let me know when I can start exercising again–more than just walking.

I sense it will still be a slow journey towards being as active again as I was prior.

I cannot wait to get back into the swimming pool.

Or!

To go out dancing.

My, oh my.

I have missed dancing.

I mean, pandemic quashed that in a major way, though I definitely had a lot of private dance parties by myself in my kitchen.

Then I had a burst appendix in February, followed by my first surgery, the brachioplasty, followed by the belt lipectomy.

My dance moves have been severely restrained.

I have a friend who is all about the dancing and keeps sending me invites and I’ve had to turn them all down.

I had a teensy narrow window of opportunity when I was feeling better resourced after the brachioplasty and able to move my arms without feeling like they were going to rip apart, and I had just defended my dissertation, that I could have possibly gone out.

But.

My friend was out of town and I spent that weekend getting my household prepped for the next surgery.

Considering how slow the healing process takes, it will likely be March, April, May of next year before I’m really able to hit a dance floor again.

But it’s there, just on the horizon.

And today gave me just a tiny glimpse of hope for that.

In a sense, I had a full eight hour work day.

I lectured for an hour, then had three sessions, had a break and then did four more sessions.

That was a pretty big day to start back in.

I’m tired.

And also.

Just a smidgeon exhilerated.

It was so good to see my clients again!

I missed them.

And I missed my morning routine.

It felt really nice to make my breakfast this morning, make a coffee, sit at my desk, read my emails, eat, drink my latte, write my morning pages in my journal. Rather than get up, make breakfast, bring it back to bed and crawl back into bed for the majority of the day.

Sure.

I was stiff sitting at my desk and had to keep my core still, but fuck, it felt so damn good to be back to a semblance of my normal routine.

I am also grateful that I have a late start tomorrow morning.

I will let myself sleep in and I will take it very slow in the morning.

I also normally have a late session on Mondays, but not today, and that helped.

I checked in with my person at lunch too and let him know how my day was going and said out loud that if I felt like it was too much I would cancel on my evening sessions.

I did not have to do that.

I did have to be careful to sit still and be really gentle getting up and out of my chair in between sessions and taking bathroom breaks.

And I did it.

Such a relief!

I got through my first day back.

Such simple joy in getting back to my routine.

Grateful.

Seriously fucking grateful.

I’m back in the saddle again.

Overwhelm

I got hit with it yesterday.

I was on a Zoom call.

When am I not on a Zoom call?

I was going over the lesson plan with the former professor of the Psychodynamic’s class that I am teaching this fall at CIIS.

The class that starts next weekend.

And.

I got panicked.

We had been on the call for a while, an hour and half maybe, she’s also my supervisor, so I was also doing client work, it wasn’t all class prep.

But, the last half hour of it was and I suddenly felt myself totally start to lose it.

Like a slow motion melt.

I should have known.

I was wearing cat eye makeup with black eye liner.

Guaranteed to have an emotional moment and cry, I mean, duh, I should know by this point.

But.

Yeah.

Anyway.

I teared up, I got blown up, and overwhelmed and sort of lost it.

I said, “wait, stop, I don’t understand what you just told me.”

It sounded something like, “PDF, blah, blah, blah, download, blah, blah, blah, upload to Canvas, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, just sent it to you, blah, then you blah, blah, blah, and that’s it!  You’re all set.”

I literally had zoned out.

I am not a great tech genius.

I am ok.

I mean, hey I publish this blog.

Although half the time I just think of it as turning on a light switch, I don’t understand how electricity works, just that when I flip the switch the light turns on.

Same here.

I sit down, I type some stuff, I edit it for spelling mistakes and then I hit the “publish” button.

I have no clue how it works.

You probably know this.

I don’t have some spiffy amazing page.

I don’t understand back end stuff.

My back end is what I am sitting on in my chair.

Basically what was happening was the back end stuff for the platform the school uses for online learning.

Also.

Let me reflect that when I agreed to teach this we were not in shelter in place, there was no pandemic (although there were some weird things going on out in the world.  I do remember telling my supervisor that I felt like something big was going to happen. I thought maybe there would be a dot.com bust not a pandemic), I was going to be teaching in person, lecturing in front of a class.

NOT ON A ZOOM CALL.

Fuck.

So figuring out how to handle the class and transition to online teaching and making PowerPoints (why God why?) and uploading this and creating that.

And fuck.

Vomit.

Shit.

I am the wrong person for doing this.

I am not going to lie.

I wish I wasn’t teaching.

I wish I could just quit.

Technically I could quit.

California is an “at will” state.

I could get fired at any time and I can quit at any time.

However.

I just don’t think I can quit five days before the class starts.

I can be an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole.

Also.

Jesus fuck am I glad I did not accept the core faculty position.

The thought of having to do more work like the work I have been doing to prepare for this class makes me want to throw up with anxiety.

I already have enough anxiety.

Which was pretty obvious to me yesterday.

I love my therapy clients, but everyone of them is stressed to the max, hello pandemic, the current political situation, riots, economy in the tank, and oh yeah, the fires.

The world is literally and figuratively on fire.

I have had a low grade constant headache for the last four days.

I hate even complaining about it.

I”m safe in San Francisco, but the smoke is bad, I don’t have to evacuate my home like so many people I know.

My supervisor had to evacuate her home three days ago.

I don’t have problems.

I do have a headache though.

Currently in California there are 560 wild fires happening.

There’s a lot of smoke.

I made myself go for a walk yesterday despite the smoke.

I could only handle being inside for so long.

And.

Yeah, the overwhelm thing and me crying on a Zoom call with my anxiety about getting all the tech crap set up for the class and I was kaput.

I had intended on working on my dissertation proposal defense yesterday and I just had no juice left.

I mean none.

I called a bunch of friends and left messages and tried to focus on listening to others instead of whining about my stuff.

And then.

Oh.

The loveliest thing.

I connected with a friend who also was out for a walk and we literally happened to be three blocks from each other.

I hadn’t seen him since right before shelter in place and it made me want to cry.

He’s housesitting in my neighborhood!

We walked, socially distant, in our masks, through the smoky streets of the Mission District and caught up and laughed and joked about hugging, but we did not.

I felt a lot better.

Not good enough to give my proposal any work, but better.

Truth.

I haven’t worked on it today either.

Except in my mind and in my heart and in my psyche.

That’s my soul.

My PhD work is around healing sexual abuse trauma.

Mine in particular.

And it’s a lot to hold.

I just have to acknowledge that.

When I’m strong and resourced and the world isn’t on fire or in a pandemic or a crazed political state, I am able to do the work.

Right now.

The work is letting myself off the hook.

Resourcing with friends.

Breathing deep (inside my sealed house).

Sleeping eight hours a night.

Watching silly light hearted tv (Glee).

Sitting with my cat.

Calling friends.

I’ll get the proposal done (another PowerPoint, ugh again).

I will teach the class next week.

I will be great in them both.

Because I am smart and strong and I am a good teacher and I will make mistakes and that’s ok too.

I will show the fuck up.

As I know from showing up in the past.

It really is 90% of the work.

The rest is non-judgmentally allowing myself to teach without expectations of perfection.

I’m perfectly imperfect just the way I am.

Recognizing that is the work.

So.

Yeah.

My proposal.

It will get done and I will be ok.

Everything is going to be ok.

It really is.

Hello Again

It feels like forever.

And it has been awhile.

But I am still here.

Still writing, though not so much on this platform

I have missed it, but I have also been too tired most days to log in and write.

I write in the mornings still, long hand, my three page a day habit, thank you The Artists Way, thirteen years and still going strong.

I have thought about this though, my blog, the thing that I would do religiously come rain or shine, good day, bad day, nothing really happened today day.

I sort of had a nothing happened today day, with highlights of, this is surreal, though I’m used to it.

Sort of.

We’re still deep in the pandemic and although it’s been five plus months now, there are times I’m still caught off guard with the strangeness of it.

Or that I am estranged from my friends, fellows, family, colleauges.

Oh the desire to hang out with friends at a coffee shop.

Although, truth, I did sort of last weekend.

I drove up to the Russian River area with a friend, one of the few people allowed in my bubble, and we did get coffee at a cafe in Guerneville.  There was no sitting inside, though, grab and go.

So many things are shut down, but when I get the chance to go to a cafe or a restaurant I have done so.

It happens quite infrequently.

I do better weathering things on my own.

I have been very safe and very cautious and kept pretty to myself since this has all been unfolding.

But yeah, a trip to the Russian River and being out in the sun felt extraordinary.

It’s not a big deal typically, but a bunch of months of quarantine and I felt like I was playing hooky, albeit wearing a mask, from the pandemic.

Also.

Just getting out into the sunshine was so good.

San Francisco, got to love her, has been having her typical “summer weather” which is cold, foggy, overcast and quite dreary.

Add that to the general malaise of the pandemic and it’s a bit depressing.

So when my friend suggested we head out of town and get some sun I hesitated, I have things to do (homework, prep for teaching, zoom meetings), but folded as soon as I googled the Russian River and saw the trees and sun and water.

I’m glad I did.

I am also grateful for getting out of the city.

I haven’t been outside of the Bay Area since before shelter in place.

I realized the last time I had gotten out it was Christmas when I went to Paris.

Now, that’s nothing to shake a stick at, but it also meant that I hadn’t left the city in over six months.

I don’t, fyi count Oakland, Berkeley, or Alameda, all places I have gone to, as getting outside the city…they just feel like continuations of it.

Though, San Francisco is definitely in transition, it is still the city, and once in a while to appreciate the city, I need to leave it.

I will go up one more time to the Russian River before summer ends.

Just a quick day trip to work on some teaching prep the weekend before I start teaching Psychodynamic’s.

I’m not exactly excited, truth be told, I haven’t felt like I’ve had much of a summer–my private practice therapy business has been full (and yes, I do know how lucky I am to have work to do) and I have been doing so much psychoanalytic theory reading, my brain feels about shot.

But.

I have finished, as of today all the books that are required reading for class.

I also, I haven’t shared much about this, turned down the core faculty position I was interviewing for.

I found out how much work was expected and how little money was being paid for it and I changed my mind about wanting to work for the school–I was making more money as a private professional nanny then what they were offering for a full time core faculty professor in a master’s program.

No thank you.

I kept thinking to myself that I did not work this hard to keep working harder for less money.

I felt bad, for a moment, when I told my individual supervisor who really wanted me to take on the teaching position, but I realized if I had taken it I would have been terribly resentful with myself for taking on so much work.

Especially since I am still working on my PhD.

It’s been a minute since I’ve been here, so I cannot recall if I have written about that the last time I was blogging.  But.  I have made some progress there.  I have my external third committee chair member and she has my dissertation proposal as does my internal second.

So.

I await their critiques and get to start working on a Power Point (ugh) to defend my proposal.

Once I defend the proposal I will move into PhD candidacy.

I am ready for that.

I am hoping that I will get to defend by the end of this month and then turn around and start doing the study part of my dissertation.

My hope is to do the study this fall and then do the writing for the dissertation in the spring.

I want to put in one more year and be done.

In fact.

That is my goal.

One more year at the school working on my PhD and teaching one master’s class, then I’m done.

I’ve been on this track for five years now.

I’m ready to finish it.

I have it in my sights and I am hopeful that I can put down my head and push through this last year.

I suspect things are going to be challenging with the pandemic continuing to rage and whatever weirdness is up and coming with the pending elections, but I shall keep busy, keep pushing and get through.

And.

When it’s all said and done and I have my doctorate.

I am going on a big fucking trip.

I’m thinking fly from San Francisco to London, train to Paris, then train to the South of France, rent a car there and tool around and then reverse the trip back.

Two, maybe three weeks.

That’s a carrot to work towards.

Seriously.

It’s Been A Minute

And I almost, but I didn’t, didn’t write.

I was all like.

Ooh, Hulu, get me some Hand Maid’s Tale.

Then I thought, really, when was the last time you blogged lady?

It’s been a minute.

There’s been a pandemic.

The thing is still happening.

And life for me did not slow down.

Pro tip: next pandemic, be enrolled in a PhD program.

I was so, so, so busy with this semester.

And it was hard, like hella hard, ridiculously hard, over the top.

Add one pandemic and make your academic career triple fold with stress and anxiety.

There were a few weeks when I couldn’t get it together.

I cried.

A lot.

I pushed back on my studies.

A LOT.

I did want to do it, I thought about dropping out, I didn’t.

I wouldn’t.

But I did think about it.

However, in the end I am so grateful I pushed through.

I wrote some tremendously good papers.

I scored a perfect 50/50 on my Method’s Comp Exam.

I had a professor tell me she cried while reading my work.

That was nice to hear.

I’m still waiting for my Lit Review to get returned to me, but the draft that I turned in before the final draft, well, the opening comment from the professor was “Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!” So I feel pretty confident that the final paper was well received.

It was a push though.

I was so grateful I rallied and got through.

I have one last goodbye Zoom class call on Saturday, but pretty much it’s done.

All done.

I have officially finished the three year course work in two years.

Now I head into the proposal phase of my PhD program.

Which I hope to get done over the summer.

There will be plenty to do and I gave myself this last week “off” sort of, to chill, although in reality I did no such thing as chill, I was just not doing homework.

I was instead training.

Yeah.

So many trainings, so many screens, so many videos.

I felt so burned out from it yesterday.

Over it.

OVER IT.

However, also ridiculously grateful.

I was hired to be an interim therapist for the Jefferson Union High School in Daily City.

Technically I was hired through Daily City Partnership, which is a non-profit that supports the high school.

I will start next Wednesday.

I will be seeing 10-15 teenagers a week, doing an hour of supervision, and and estimated four hours of paperwork.

20 hours total.

So pretty much right back to being busy.

And like I said, stupid grateful.

First, busy will help to deal with the shelter in place deal.

Second, those oh so elusive child and family hours.

I need them to get fully licensed as an MFT.

I am 261 hours away from the required 3,000 hours the state of California requires one to have to get the MFT license.

A part of that requirement is 500 child and family hours.

I have been acquiring them by working with couples, which count as “family” hours, but I don’t have enough couples in my current practice to get all the hours in an expedient way.

So when I was approached about being a therapist over the summer to support the high school kids I was thrilled.

Due to the situation with shelter in place and COVID-19 the school board allocated extra funds to bring in a therapist over the summer to support the kids.  Typically they don’t have a summer therapist, they get therapy during the school year.

But.

There’s been such a demand for it they decided to help the kids over the summer and I was approached and applied for it and last week Wednesday I was interviewed and hired on the spot.

That felt pretty damn good.

The pay is shit.

But.

It’s pay.

And really I need the hours so even if I didn’t get paid I would have probably taken the job.  In fact, dirty little secret, most therapist don’t get paid when they go after their child hours.  It’s pretty rare.  Most of the schools rely on unpaid interns.

I could rant about that quite a bit, but I don’t have the energy.

I am just super happy I get to help out some teenagers and get my child hours and get paid and get through the summer by staying busy.

I have 22 clients in my own private practice, which is pretty damn good, all things considered.

A lot of folks in my agency have lost clients.

And I did too, but I have also maintained clients, worked with them, drop my fees when and where I could, implemented a lower sliding scale, and I picked up a couple of clients too.

So I’m holding steady.

And God damn am I grateful I can work from home.

I feel so lucky about that.

I am still paying rent on my office, but so it goes.

I did let go of one of my offices, but I’m holding onto the other for a bit yet, I don’t know how long shelter in place will go and I don’t know how many of my clients will feel comfortable coming back into my office when it does, but I don’t want to give it up yet.

I know a lot of therapist have.

Many are going over completely to the idea of telehealth–video and/or phone sessions.

I will be doing a mix of it when things all settle out, whenever that is.

I now have clients in and outside of San Francisco because of being able to offer telehealth and I will keep these clients when I go back to my office.

Things are good.

Weird.

Don’t get me wrong.

Fuck.

I miss people.

I miss people something bad.

But I’m busy and grateful to have things to do and that I live by Ocean Beach and can take long walks, and I’m fed and housed and safe.  I’m very fortunate and I know it.

I hope you are well and taking gentle care.

Biggest hugs!

You Know You Love Some One

When you record yourself reading “All The Hippos Go Berserk” by Sandra Boynton.

At top volume and with much expression.

I got some of the sweetest little voice messages from the littles I used to take care of.

The family and I did a FaceTime session early in the week and I have been getting all sorts of pictures of them and their adventures during shelter in place.

I miss them a lot and I miss the snuggles.

Tonight, while I was in session with my last client of the day, the mom sent me voice recordings of the kids saying “I love you.”

Oh my God.

I just about died.

I have been thinking about sending the littlest guy a recording of the “hippo book” as he calls it.

“You read me the hippo book!”

I bought the book and “Belly Button Beach”, also by the same author, as birthday gifts for him when he was two.

Listening to him repeat back the words to me still makes my heart melt.

I often would read them to him at nap time.

“I’ll read the hippos once and then nap time,” I would tell him.

The last time I did that was the last time I worked for the family, my last time putting him down for a nap.

My last time reading him the hippo book.

When I finished he said, “sing me song.”

That undid me.

I sang him my standard lullaby, “Hush little baby,” and choked back the tears.

Might have been the hardest lullaby ever to sing.

He fell asleep holding my hand.

Oh, my heart.

Such a sweet guy.

So, after receiving the sweet voice messages I knew I had to record the book.

I have the damn thing memorized, so it wasn’t too hard, and I threw in a little commentary for the little guy too.

We would have our own little conversations about the story and what all the silly hippos were doing.

Then I sent it to the mom and asked that she play it while he looked at the book.

They sent me back video of him looking at the book while my voice was reading it to him and he talked back at the phone like I was there.

“I love you Carmen,” he said again and again.

That was the best part of my day.

It was a pretty good day too.

Only cried three or four times.

Mostly during supervision with my supervisor talking about my clients and all the fear and anxiety and terror that so many of them are going through.

I have had 21 therapy sessions this week, I have one left for tomorrow, then Sunday off before I dive back in.

I am doing pretty well holding it all, but it does leak out at times.

It is right there at the top of my heart and I can’t always contain it and the tears spill out of my eyes and roll down my face.

I am so grateful for my individual supervisor, she really held my stuff today and let me process all the stuff and work my way through the muck.

Most of the time I am really good at shaking myself out when I finish with clients and I have little routines and rituals at my office that help me do that.

But right now.

My office is my desk, which is also where I study and work on my homework–which frankly has suffered this week, I will not lie.

My office is my desk, my laptop, my phone, the video camera in my Macbook Air, all of which are located in my house.

My one room studio.

Thank God it’s a big studio, but it’s still a challenge.

I am also aware of how lucky, really, really, really lucky, it is that I can work from home.

Despite how much I love and adore the family I used to nanny for, I would not be able to nanny right now for them even if I was still employed.

The timing of the situation coinciding with me making the full transition over to being a psychotherapist still astounds me.

I am beyond grateful.

And I am working my ass off to stay stable and grounded, to eat good food, to cook nice meals, to take walks when I can, to wear nice clothes, put on my makeup, do my hair.

The only concession I have to the fact that I am doing my therapy practice out of my home right now is that I wear my Tretorn sneakers instead of my Fluevog heels.

I had a fleeting, and I do mean fleeting, moment when I giggled to myself, I could do my therapy sessions in my bunny slippers.

Um.

NO.

Bad idea.

Not just because I couldn’t take myself seriously as a psychotherapist if I was doing sessions in my slippers, but I love that at the end of the day I can slide off my shoes and put on my slippers and that indicates to me that my day is done.

That was what I used to do when I was coming home from the office and my day out in the world–get home, kick off my shoes and put on my bunny slippers.

Yeah.

I know.

I am a 47 year old woman who wears bunny slippers.

I once had a lover tell me he couldn’t take me seriously when I was wearing them.

Of course that just made me want to wear them more.

In fact, it is almost slipper time.

I have had a good day.

It’s ok that I cried and it’s ok that sometimes it’s hard and it’s ok that I’m not keeping up with my my homework.

Actually we are on “Spring Break” so I don’t have any thing due, but I have a lot of work to do for two big up coming papers and a class that I am going to be teaching.

But over all.

I am ok.

I am making it through and staying grounded.

It definitely helped to get silly and record myself reciting the story, helped remind me of how loved I am and how lucky I was to have the nanny job with the family for the three years and three months I worked with them.

And.

Really.

Bunny slippers do make things a lot better.

Seriously.

Ground Hog’s Day

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

That is a little surreal for me.

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

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

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

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

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

I was actually a little upset today on my walk.

The beach was busy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And.

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

And I really love my space.

So.

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

That felt better.

But it is beginning to all blur together.

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

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

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

Tomorrow all I have is one client.

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

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

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

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

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

That has been lovely.

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

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

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

If we are not under martial law at that point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m preparing myself mentally for a longer haul.

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

So, yeah, gave up my Monday office.

And it’s all going to be ok.

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

Oh yeah.

And.

Homework.

Sigh.

I still have lots of that.