My Loving Present

You are my holy ideal.

My passion.

My archetype cohered to my heart.

Differentiated.

And.

Separated.

Yet.

Connected to this fire of love.

How I am put together.

Ingrained to my flexible soul.

All that stuff.

All these things.

Opening into space.

Breathing my heart open.

Opening me to more to be more.

I see a table-cloth, red checked.

Flaring out.

A blanket of hope and a lens too.

Complex and beatific.

Oh the awe for you of you about you.

The depth of you.

My value increasing with every breath.

Virtuosity in the cello string.

The thrum of my song of love.

Adoration of crows.

Murder of my ideas of who I am.

Into who I am becoming.

Filtered through this

Harrowing of you.

Exacerbate me.

Explode me.

And.

Reconstitute me.

In your love.

The fall from being.

Into your arms savages me and saves me.

Activating me.

Another layer comes forth.

Another exploration.

Basic trust.

Support.

Strength.

Foundational love.

My own capacity,

Opens.

My heart in my chest.

Exposed to the air,

The fire and heat of you.

I stand strong and still in this knowledge,

In my being.

I let myself bathe in the bliss

Of you.

Your love, flying in the

Face of impossibility.

Which guides me to my expansive

Home.

Embodied and alive.

In the benevolent glory,

The astonishing glow,

Of you.

Financial Aid

Fucking hates me.

But.

I don’t care.

I have gotten a lot more assertive in asking for help from the financial aid office at school, especially since I have had to jump through hoops that I didn’t even know were there to get what I need to get.

After innumerable e-mails I think I am almost there.

Of course there was one thing on the application that made no sense to me, not an iota and I probably filled the damn form out wrong and they won’t give me the money.

GIVE ME THE MONEY.

I need it for therapy.

That sounds a little desperate, I know.

What could be so bad that the lady has to have, HAS TO HAVE, being the operative word, therapy?

Oh, you know, sexual abuse trauma, incest, neglect, physical abuse, history of alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, racism, eating disorder.

Nothing at all that indicates needing therapy.

Ha.

I am being a little flippant.

I have addressed a lot of these issues and I have done an extraordinary amount of work on them over the years and I have done therapy before, but.

My school program requires it as a part of my degree.

And really, it does make fantastic sense, I need to have my shit taken care of so I can show up and help others take care of their shit.

It’s the classic put your oxygen mask on before helping others on the plummeting airplane.

And.

And.

AND.

I found out from my therapist today that my hours with her do actually count towards my 3,000 hours that I need to accrue to get my MFT license.

It’s going to change though, the BBS (Behavioral Board of Sciences) is going to phase that out.

By 2021 you won’t be able to count personal therapy hours toward your 3,000.

And the thing is, I want those hours to count very much, because as it turns out each hour or personal therapy is counted as three.

THREE HOURS.

Holy shit.

So.

It turns out that tonight I went into my Track My Hours app and I made sure that I was using the Pre 2021 dashboard  and I entered in my hours as my therapist suggested I do and voila!

15 more hours.

I have had, after today, five sessions with her.

Multiply that by three and I now have 16 hours.

There is was in black and white.

Valid hours: 16.

Total hours to accrue: 2,984.

Fuck yeah.

I will take that.

This is going to be huge and such a help to be able to acquire the hours.

My therapist went through the same program that I am doing and we talked a lot about the process and I was so freaking grateful to be seen and have my experience validated, especially in regards to the financial aid stuff and when she said, oh yeah, these hours count, you’ll have your 3,000 by 2021, you’ll be able to use your personal therapy and all you need is for me to sign a piece of paper with my MFT license on it.

Such a huge gift to find this out.

And.

She also suggested that I actually do talk to my offsite supervisor about my work as a nanny, considering how much time I have spent in the heart of so many families, that I actually may be able to get some of my child and family hours covered.

I would never have thought of it, I had a teacher who told me she thought nannies should get hours accredited to them, considering how nannies tend to be involved in a lot of family dynamics and bear witness to children and how they grow and learn, that it would make sense to grant nannies some hours.

I mean.

Fuck.

I’m going to at least check it out with my supervisor.

It’s probably unlikely, but hey, I do have over a decade of work with children and families, that kind of work experience should count for something.

And it does.

My therapist validated that today too, that I have been doing this work for a very long time, that I have, in essence been learning how to be a therapist for years.

She’s right.

It’s nice to let someone be right.

It was nice to be seen too, we have a good connection and I am so grateful for the sessions.

I already can tell that things are working themselves out and it’s an unexpected and lovely support of my experience with school and the anxiety that comes up for me when I am dealing with all things school.

I feel a lot more open with what’s happening and so grateful that I am doing the internship this summer, especially now that I know if I can all my hours by the end of 2020 I can count my therapy hours too.

Such a gift.

Just have to repeat that since I want to pinch myself and gleefully clap my hands.

Who knew?

Therapy doesn’t have to be a vale of tears.

Although.

It is also that.

A vale of tears.

I was sharing about a very sweet interaction I had with a previous charge and a gift that he had given me, a painting of my house, where I live, and this beautiful watercolor of a rainbow, “Carmen!  This is where you live!”

In a house under a rainbow, full of color and light and love.

“You had a lot of emotion come up for you when you shared that,” she said.

Understatement, pass the kleenex box please.

“Can you tell me about that?” She asked.

He saw me, this little boy saw me, and I represented love and color and joy to him, that my home, where I live is in a house full of rainbows, and if you have seen my home, well, there might be some truth to that.

What she said next I’m not sure that I could express how it landed, nor exactly what she said, but I can tell you how it felt, it felt like love, that the love in me was being reciprocated by the love in that little boy, that he saw me for who I am and he shared with me what that love looked like for him.

That we saw each other’s essence and what a gift for me to give that to him.

I had never looked at it like that and it felt.

Well it felt.

True.

It was a really lovely way to wrap up the session and I left having felt something big shift.

I don’t have to analyze it or reason it out.

I can just feel that I was seen, I was, and that I am a big fucking rainbow of love.

I’ll take it.

Thanks therapy.

I’ll take the hours too.

Only 2,984 to go.

No big deal.

Heh.

Last Night’s Blog

Site Down*

My WordPress site has been down all day.

I don’t know exactly why, but I can’t post a new blog and I’m a little frustrated with it.

They upgrade and change things far more frequently than I like but since it’s a free hosting service, I suppose I’ll let them off.

I mean.

I could pay for a domain and I could upgrade to a “better” blog within the site too, but the fact is I’m fine not paying for anything at the moment.

I just had a big calming talk with my financial insecurity fear and myself.

I wrote a check for my health insurance payment and I start therapy tomorrow.

And I am seeing my money dwindle fast.

It felt a little scary.

Hey, rent is due soon too.

But.

I have enough.

I am enough, I have enough, God didn’t bring me this far to drop me on my ass, and I will be taken care of.

The money is there, I told myself.

And yes, the therapy is not something I wish I was paying for at the moment, but I need to do it for school and I need to do it for myself and well, I tell myself, I am worth the money.

So off to therapy I will go tomorrow and I will live one week at a time and one week at a time I will let go of a little money to get me further along on the path that leads to my goal.

Today I fantasized what it would look like if I won the lottery.

Not a big whopping lottery, but you know, say 4 million.

The amount of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts raffle.

Which is also known as the San Francisco Dream House raffle.

The proceeds benefit the arts community, specifically the Yerba Buena Center that is downtown across from the MOMA.

I have always loved their space and every year I see that raffle come up for the dream house and I find myself fantasizing about what it would look like if I won.

You either get your choice of a house, the one on raffle is up in Twin Peaks, or you get the cash prize.

This year it is $4 million.

What I would do with $4 million.

Pay off my student loans and pay for the PhD track through my school.

Buy a house.

Yes, I would, I don’t want the one up in Twin Peaks and I could still buy a house and have money left over, pay off the student loans, get more schooling.

I wouldn’t quit school.

But I would sure as shit quit work.

I’d just go to school and go to yoga and I would buy myself a new cello, go to the Luthier on Divisadero Street that the San Francisco Symphony goes to, and I would take lessons.

I would buy myself a brand new Jeep Wrangler Sport in Midnight Blue.

I might get a trailer for Burning Man.

I would probably get a trailer for Burning Man, who am I kidding, I would definitely do that.

I wouldn’t bat an eye at going to therapy once a week, heck I might go twice for a little while just to see how that feels.

I would travel.

Natch.

Venice, Barcelona, Madrid, Mallorca, Greece, Ibiza, Hawaii.

Paris, of course.

Did I mention I would pay off my student loans?

Yeah.

It’s fun to daydream a little bit.

And I did have to give myself a gentle little pep talk when I was writing out my health insurance payment for the next three months, remember, you get money from your employers, you’ll be ok, for health insurance, remember you’re going to work this weekend to help them out, you’ll make extra money this week.

I’ll be ok.

I am going to be working and schooling a lot for the next few weeks.

But.

One wonderful thing I discovered.

I was wrong about when the kids are on Spring Break!

I thought it was this week and it’s not.

In fact, it’s not for another two weeks and the family is going to be out-of-town for a long weekend, so April 10^th and 11^th, the Monday and Tuesday after my next weekend of classes, I will have off.

Which is good as I’m looking at working three weeks in a row straight.

I am going to need a couple of days off.

I was so grateful to find that information out today.

It took such a big amount of stress off my shoulders.

Plus, I had thought I wasn’t going to have any down time this week to finish up my school reading, if the kids are off on Spring Break I have to be engaged, I can’t just pick up one of my therapy books and read.

But.

They are not on break and I will have breaks all this week at the house for quiet and reading.

I didn’t today, but I wasn’t expecting to, so when I found out I will have the next weeks to do homework during the day while the kids are at school and I’m on my lunch break, well, that’s huge for me.

There was reprieve in my body today and in my being and I appreciated so much having it.

And I got to have some good baby snuggles today and the biggest smiles, he’s starting to smile and it’s just so good.

Warm baby snuggles, sunshine forecast for the next week and a half, long lunch breaks I can read homework during, autonomy at work, my health insurance is paid and I start therapy tomorrow.

It’s all good.

And.

The money will be there when I need it.

It alwasy is.

Seriously.

 

*This post was written on Monday, March 27th.

House Sitting Is NOT

A vacation.

In fact, I realized after last night, I really don’t like house sitting.

Oh, the house I am at is lovely and there is nothing wrong, I just did not and have not let myself see how much it is not the best fit for me.

I would rather be in my own place, in my own space and doing sustaining work.

Work that I got just another little more of a taste for today.

I went into the design firm and spoke with my boss, who so does not feel like a boss, which may be part of the reason I love it so much, I love my boss, she’s my friend.

But I also like how the learning is going and seeing myself trying to do new things, trying to learn new things and letting myself believe that new work stuff can be done.

We sat and talked about projects she has coming up and what I can do to be of help to said projects.

I am super excited to be any part of what is happening and despite being told that I don’t need to take out the trash and the recycling, when she left, I did just that.

There is something to be said for cleaning up the space that I will be working in.

The action of tidying it makes me feel good, I know that my friend will be happy to see it clean, and it is my sneaky way of getting into the space more.

When I was not certain what to do at the bike shop I would sweep the floor or re-organize the stock room, straighten the t-shirts, or dust.

The small actions of keeping the space neat not only grounded me into feeling that I was accomplishing something and keeping busy while being paid, it also allowed me to be making a sort of mental inventory of what was in the store.

I am doing the same when in office space.

I am seeing what she sees, I am organizing it in my own brain, I am putting myself in the middle of the space to see what there is to be seen.  I don’t know why this is helpful to me and I don’t need to know why, I just know that being around her and gleaning information from the design studio helps me somehow.

She will be out of the office for the next few weeks and I will be doing a lot of the work remotely.  Some of it, certainly, from here at the house sitting gig.

Some of it at the office.

I don’t need to go into the office to do the work, but I think it will be helpful for me to log some hours there, it will feel like going into a job and I believe that will make me more pro-active until I get used to the feel of working remotely.

I also like the area and I love the space.

I like being back in the same building as the bike shop and seeing the landscape from a different vantage.  I like being in the Mission and I like that I know my way around it.

I like that tomorrow I am going to meet up with another dear friend and go see her house and see the in-law she has.  See if it may be a better fit for me than the space I was offered in the Bay View.

I am leaning toward the beach offering more so than the Bay View offering.

Partially as I have never lived out by the beach.

I have lived in the Bay View.

It’s sunny.

It’s in San Francisco.

But it is still Bay View/Hunters Point.

Besides when your girl friend says, “there’s not a bath in the studio, but I am putting in a deck and a hot tub in the back yard that you can use,” well, that right there beckons like nobody’s business.

Cold foggy night?

Who cares.

Let’s hot tub!

The idea of being settled down is a nice one for me.  Really get myself planted and put and work on furthering what feels like a legitimate career for me.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, I don’t deny it, and I can stop the fantasizing around it.

I realize that, I heard it recently, ‘I want the reward without doing the work’.

I want to be in a career without having learned the ropes, here’s your opportunity.

I want to be fit and healthy without having to think about what I am eating.

Another problem with house sitting, “help yourself to the food.”

NO.

Not a good idea for me and yet, every time I go rifling through, neglecting to properly take care of myself and being ok with microwave popcorn for dinner instead of healthful food.

So today, to celebrate access to a car I made a run on Rainbow Grocery and spent nearly $100 on good wholesome (not all vegan) food.  I plundered the stone fruit–yellow nectarines, black plums, two different kinds of apples–organic Fuji’s and Pink Lady’s, Japanese sweet potatoes, organic raw carrots (great for snacking on with humus–man why did it take me so long to find humus, my tasty new friend), organic Roma tomatoes, Coconut and raw chocolate tea, Stump Town Holler Mountain coffee in the whole bean, Nancy”s low-fat cottage cheese, Judy’s extra-large brown organic eggs, Ezekiel sprouted grain English muffins, one yellow zucchini, one green zucchini, and bananas.

Excellent.

I am willing to keep house sitting here and there until I get into my own place.

But after that, I think I am going to pass on doing it.

Although, it really is nice to be trusted by your peers, your friends, your families.

I mean you should see all the keys on my key chain right now!