Josh texted me a picture of our son driving home from getting his driver’s permit. I’d been aware that this was happening but with other things going on in the day I had forgotten. I was fine with the third one but the fourth one seems a little outrageous. It’s like when they all get up and leave the house to go running. What am I supposed to do about it? It’s too much to fight anymore, either to fight for my way or for even for my own self to be understood and hear “that makes total sense”.

Some people say in therapy, “So I guess I just have to deal with it”. It always makes me pause in that “not so fast” kind of attitude and have to say, “Well, maybe….what do you mean?” What you don’t want people to be doing is resigning themselves to some sort of internal or external situation that perhaps could actually be changed with the removal of a limiting belief. But as much as I don’t like it, and have to practice saying it non-bitterly, there are things in life that we all just have to deal with.

I feel like working in this field forces me to be daily immersed in what it takes to be healthy and whole. It’s like I need those kind of all-consuming reminders. So that makes me happy because it keeps me so grounded. I know I should be getting that from God too and from his Word every day. How much more it could be! But even when I’m not he has preserved his Word inside me and somehow that helps. The nurse and I talked about reading Ecclesiastes again. It’s not that long.

After Joyful Hearts I always feel these pangs of regret like I didn’t show up as much as I could’ve. I feel like this year I was better and have been through this enough times to know ahead of time to make the efforts. One of the campers had a blanket wrapped around him this morning. It had a picture of his mother’s face along with the dates of the years she’d been alive and the word Mom. She died three years ago and he was missing her this whole time.

It was just the thought of him feeling comfort being wrapped in the memory of his mother. He was 25 and so I obviously thought of my own sons and the thought that I could’ve somehow even possibly had some kind of effect on them that they would be comforted to be wrapped in my memory. Somehow I knew in my heart that I’d loved them, and that they would know that I had.

The day got progressively emotional from there. I spent some time with the nurse and the hardness of her life that is always the case. I don’t know why it always feel so emotional each year to be with her. I think it has to do with having someone who has known you and your family for so many years. I am seen in a way that I am not with the others here as well as remembered. She remembers Josh and I from my days of extreme panic attacks in the CGC basement.

Ethan and Laura are back from the wedding. They pulled in just minutes before I was getting home from work. The day at Hope went well but I was tender from the morning so everybody’s stories were hitting me harder. I truly care about these people. Today was my first time doing a family session, a set of parents with a young adult daughter. I really love having multiple people at once.

A couple was there with their newborn baby. I just see all these people and feel so unworthy or unqualified to be just a regular person who is supposed to be able in some way to help total strangers with their problems. As much as I want to pride myself on clinical skills or have it be more about applying my knowledge, I think so much of it is still in the heart realm, and somehow that part radiates and works in ways I’m not seeing, but that I can still feel.

Today was a good day at Hope. The sessions went well and I had a chance to meet with the new supervisor there. We meet for an hour every two weeks. He started out with the question, “What’s your story?” So I started at the part where I started at Lincoln after trying to find a counselor and encountering a long waiting list. I loved LCU. Then they closed and I wanted to go to a place in person so then I transferred to UIS and I also loved UIS. I slowed down once I got there.

So that went well. He’s nice and everything but thankfully we’re not going to have to worry about any of those other issues. You know when you know. When I was finishing internship in December I gave my other supervisor two books that had made me think of him. Yesterday when I was there he asked me which one he should read first and I him which one I thought he’d like better. Then he wanted me to write something in them to make it personalized. I took them back.

I can’t even believe I’m saying any of this, let alone still talking about it. People have the same question when I tell them about wanting to do a day a week somewhere else. Can you not do all of that here/there? I don’t know how to explain that it isn’t the same. One is a mission and calling of a way to be in the world. The other is more of an outlet for experimentation and creativity. At least that is what I imagine it to be. We all know every place will have it’s own things and realities.

I washed his cup today. It was sitting in the sink when I went to wash my hands after taking out the garbage that had been next to the desk in the office I use for probably months. I don’t put things in there. One time he came into that room when Arya and I were in there and told us somebody needed to take out the trash. She confessed to being the one to fill the garbage. My ten o’clock client cancelled at the last minute so I had an hour to work on notes along with those few other things.

After appointments I came home and stayed in bed until it was time to drive campers down to the beach. I think I overdid it on Saturday with all the outdoor activity. My hip has not been hurting but my legs are sore and I’m tired, again. At three o clock it was time to go back down and drive campers up from the beach. It makes me happy that they get to go down there. Half of them don’t swim but they at least get to have a change of scenery and do something to get them outside in the fresh air.

Josh and I had our date night and went to Freddy’s for supper. Freddy’s reminds me of Auburn because that’s where we ate on the way home from state. After that we stopped by Baskin Robbins to each get a single scoop of ice cream in a cup. After that we came back home before going back to the CGC for the bedtime med pass and to see what was happening over there. One of the buddies was crying so I went to talk to her about that. We have a lot of good counselors this year I’ve noticed.

It’s too early in the summer for me to be feeling the frustration of camp. It’s just the back to back weeks of having people I know here where I am out of my routine and needing to be giving attention to other people. I am taking off work. I am not doing dishes and no one else is here doing them either. My mom texted today trying to set up a date for my youngest sister’s wedding shower. I told her the summer was better for me because in the fall there is the baby and cross country traveling.

I finished my bio for the other counseling practice. I’m actually happy with how it turned out. There’s this whole onboarding checklist that I am currently going through and that was one of the things on the list. I actually feel excited about starting out with this other job and the chance to just gradually see where it goes. Now I’m having fantasies about my Thrive supervisor coming to me for therapy and getting to help him that way. I feel like I was supposed to help him somehow and didn’t get to.

Today was a normal day of being around for Joyful Hearts week. The nurse and I set up the meds for the week with a new system we talked about trying during last year. She does most of the work, don’t anyone get the wrong idea. I am actually not there at the bedtime med pass right now. It rained throughout the day and the power went off for a split second. I prayed as soon as it went off thinking about all the people in the CGC. Thankfully it came back on because they really do need it.

I want to write about something else tonight but I don’t know what. Work went fine, thankfully. I like working day shift better than evening shift I think. There are good things about each but ultimately I like just going in the morning and getting it over with and still feeling like you have some of the day. The thought of being there until almost midnight anymore just seems like something I could do if I truly needed to but isn’t what I would want or choose to do if I did have a choice, which I did.

The days still seem so full. I don’t know if I’ll truly ever have time to write or think about anything else other than what is going on here. In my head I have mature words from a seasoned life. I can hear them faintly. At times I feel like they do come out.

It’s Joyful Hearts week this week. The younger three boys are working and I’m thoroughly missing having my little chicks under my wings. Elianna is with Miles after spending the day in Hannibal. Ethan and Laura are rightly spending time with the other parents. Josh is being a boss and being present for all of the people. I almost forgot I’m supposed to go put Zorro to bed. Sometimes I wish I had a person to keep me company, when I’m too tired to do much else besides write something.

About a month ago I told a coworker from the nursing home I would work for her on the 6th. I’d been mentally preparing ever since. One day would not be bad. When a shift popped up to work on the 7th I ignored it until my boss texted asking if I’d worked it and it had been a very long time since I’d answered yes to that question. Every so often you really need to say yes. So I bit the bullet and said I would work and have been counting down the days until these shifts were here this weekend.

I made sure Josh set his alarm for 5 this morning. We both laid there in bed trying not to fall back asleep even though we both wanted to. Finally I sat up moved my arms and did some neck rolls. He fell back asleep and I got up to sit on the couch and drink some coffee and have some time before getting ready. This is a very long way to say that I eventually drove to work and walked to the door of my wing to be met with a confused family member who was walking out wondering why I was there.

They had scheduled two nurses and weren’t going to call either of us off until they knew everyone had showed up. I didn’t have the app so I wasn’t aware of any of this but this was all very fine with me. The other nurse had worked the evening before, had turned around and come back for the day shift after three hours of sleep, and was working a double the next day on REACH. She didn’t want to go home because she needs the money for a backyard fence. She wasn’t going to give up her shift.

It’s been two months since I’d been there so I figured I might as well get caught up on the residents. They were mostly still the same except the person in room 10. But once that was over I gratefully went home and made it back to camp before breakfast. I still have to work tomorrow. But the day was good and it was a good day for doing all the Saturday day things. Camp had a generations camp going on so there were meals for breakfast and lunch and a cookout for dinner before they all left.

Ethan and Laura are flying to Texas on Monday for her brother’s wedding on Tuesday. He’s marrying a girl he met online from Brazil. They left in the evening to go to Auburn for the weekend. The rest of us met Grandma for supper at IHOP. I just felt really blessed to not have to work the whole day and to be able to spend it with my family instead. I told Josh on the way home that there was no reason for us to get up at 5 again and that 5:30 instead would be plenty of time.

“Honey, when I’m above the trees
I see this for what it is”
~Happiness, Taylor Swift~

It was a good week with my family. Last night we just stayed up sitting in the living room. The kids were playing video games. No one was having any grand conversations. My sister and brother in law had gone to Casey’s to get pizza around 8:30. Their small kids were tired and needed to go to bed but when you rarely get a chance to just sit and hang out with family what is a set of parents supposed to do? Leave to go put their little kids to bed? They fell asleep in one of the bedrooms.

I had morning clients the past two days and that was it. Because I am a glutton for futility in this certain situation I asked my Thrive supervisor if we could try again to have a closing discussion. You would think that two therapists would be super great at communicating and working through conflict and hurt feelings, and it’s completely true. “Feel better now?”, he asked, and I said, “I think so”, but it was happening so fast that I didn’t get a chance to tell him that it isn’t able to feel better.

I picked up my keys to give him his key back but he didn’t want it. He couldn’t guarantee he’d be here on the next two Tuesdays. The woman at the new place has a whole box of key sets that she gives out to her people. What if none of this even works out with the other place? I know it’s a possibility and it wasn’t something I could handle at Thrive. I was too afraid to fail in front of him. I thought at first that was my growth or thing to get over. I probably could’ve but that isn’t the point.

I was embarrassed in front of the music teacher. I was embarrassed in front of the basketball boys when I didn’t play. I couldn’t handle being so mediocre in track where you had to run past people for four miserable laps. I’m actually really great at creating entire narratives in my head about what other people might be thinking or about what I wish that they were thinking. I saw a lady yesterday who I thought would’ve been a great character in a C.S. Lewis book. She would not get on the bus.

And this was one of the most Christian ladies in motivation and dedication to truth and righteousness. I didn’t realize how much of this job would include not changing people, but truly meeting them where they are at, I completely forgot about that part.

When I was a girl I was very flexible. I can still feel the muscle memory of running down the yard and bursting into a front handspring. If I’m not careful I could probably delude myself into thinking such a thing would still be possible, except to do so now would only be a cause for serious injury to my back. The arch ability needed to do such a thing is not there. I knew I’d never truly be able to make it as an Olympic gymnast, not just because I missed the early years of training, but because I was tall.

I’m in one of those weird reflective places where I don’t know what I am looking at. I don’t mean the outer appearance. I am used to the changes that have happened to my face and body. People talk about looking in the mirror and not recognizing the other person staring back at them. That’s kind of what it’s like but in the metaphorical way. Is that me? What about xyz? I don’t know this person.

Because something is different. It’s an acceptance of my tiredness and a walking away from the pastor’s family who is here for a week. It’s Wednesday and I still haven’t been in the right place to go talk to them. It’s the hum of God’s comfort as my background noise while I play other songs. They talk about women being invisible after a certain age. Truly worse things have happened. I think I now think those people who get all bent out of shape about navel gazing really ought to try it sometime.

Today was a rougher day at Hope. A couple of these couples are really struggling and I’m still trying to sort my way through the best way to do this. If I had to really break it down as to what needs to happen it’d go something like this: Heal from past things. Stop doing bad things. And start doing good things. All these things are happening at the same time but sometimes you have to give more attention to one of the things. And there is no order or linear path to follow with this, as they say.

I can’t remember if I said that me and the other marriage counselor are at some point going to put together some kind of screening tool for the website. It makes sense to me. Couples counseling, I think, is a form of group counseling and with group counseling they teach you to screen the members to see if they’d be good candidates. I’ve had my doubts about this one couple who was switching from a retiring counselor but after years is still limping along in a seeming crisis.

There are currently twelve on the waitlist. As much as I sort of dread taking on new ones and going through the whole learning and intake process, I do feel like overall I like the couples counseling better than the regular. I seem to struggle most with people closest to my age. Like there is not enough difference. I feel like I need to keep plugging along and being patient with myself and the process of learning. A major positive thing I feel I have going for me is that I know it can be done.