Today was kind of a bum day at work. I had two sessions in the morning and then the rest of the afternoon ones were cancelled due to threats of severe weather. The one I could’ve had was a no show. When I called him he was at work and said he’d completely forgotten about it. We have a policy where we technically can change $60 for a no show and we get half of that once it’s paid. The way I’ve been doing it is that everybody gets one freebie where they don’t get charged.
Some people have gotten two but those were extenuating circumstances. The couple I had today was a little more challenging than normal. Here’s the thing that I’m not quite sure how to deal with. You can have hurts that are so deep that people become almost validation vampires. When it gets to be that bad the validating and empathizing is certainly helpful, but it isn’t enough to start to fill in that gap. There has to be conscious decision on the vampire’s part to do some of it.
That’s a really hard thing to say to a person. It doesn’t absolve the other partner from doing things he should’ve already been doing for 28 years, but it helps to keep the process moving and needs to happen in order for them to keep moving. So I don’t know, maybe I’ll say it to her next time.
I gave him back his books and key and that was basically it. I did kind of think there’d be a little bit more but there really wasn’t much more to say at this point. I said “if you ever need anything, I don’t know what it would be”, and he said ditto, and that was it. I was talking to a client this morning about her struggle is being made worse by the fact that she is still holding out hope that she can drink in the future. The thought of being able to drink again is what motivates her.
So we talked about the white knuckling needing to be balanced by an opposite force, the letting go. The one alone is not enough. I didn’t know how that looked for her beyond the theoretical but I asked her what she would thank the alcohol for if she could thank it. For helping her become more confident. For helping her enjoy her life. And those are all fine and good. But now we’re going to make a different choice than the one to drink. Alcohol will somehow always be in her life.
But her relationship with the alcohol is needing to change. I don’t know, I don’t totally get it. So anyway, I’m just saving myself some misery and just accepting that this particular phase of the journey is over. Moving on to the next thing. It’s been my primary prayer throughout much of my time there, “please keep moving me into what you would have for me”, not the thing that I am wanting, not the thing that I am forcing. I leave a more secure and healed person.
My Garmin watch lasted less than a month. At the end of our staff meeting today I walked outside to our van. I had an arm full of stuff like my planner, a pencil, my watch, my phone, my keys and those sorts of things. I thought I heard something drop but didn’t think much about it. As I pulled out of my parking spot I felt and heard a crunch. I drove a little ways and stopped to look behind me to see what it was and sure enough I saw my aqua watchband on the ground. I went back to pick it up.
So that was disappointing and I was kind of mad at myself. Josh said now I know what to get him for father’s day. I thought he was being super romantic and saying that me buying myself a new watch would be one of the best father’s day gifts he could get because of how happy it’d make me. I think that’s sort of what he meant. He said he meant I could buy it for him but then I would just take it and use it and eventually keep it for myself like I do his other things, like his laptop that I use for work.
The summer is moving along. It really is kind of crazy to have the kids all in the house again. This will probably never happen again to have them all here this long. Besides being extremely grateful that Laura is not allergic to cats, and having to deal with the basement that finally flooded again after rains of not doing it, I think it’s going okay. The boys are staying busy with their brotherly fellowship. It warms my heart to still see them playing (not video games as much) and spending time together.
Today Elianna and I filled out an application to the community college. The online program she’s been doing has not worked out. It’s been such a pain in the rear to get an internship figured out that she’s more than decided that she doesn’t want to do that anymore. After several months of shadow days she doesn’t think she would enjoy working in a veterinarian’s office. Now she says she wants to be a dog trainer. That is what seems fun to her and like something she could imagine herself doing.
As much as I’ve had a few rants here and there about the college systems and prices, I really had to fight with her to get her to see the value in still completing some kind of degree. I was struggling to come up with a good reason other than it just seemed intolerable to me that my intelligent daughter wouldn’t finish at least some college. We finally explained it in a way that made sense, that an associates degree would preserve the credits she’s already taken before and in this other program.
During the meeting the new supervisor started talking about wanting to hire a psychiatric nurse practitioner. For a second I felt so disregarded as far as what I could bring to the table. I was thinking that maybe I should try to get my NP degree so I could partake in this particular stream of income potential. For a few seconds perhaps. But managing people’s psychiatric medications would be so far down on the list of enjoyable ways to spend my life, there’s no way it would even make the list.
So I am not going to do that. I made my first student loan payment today and I’m going to work on that instead. I really am just in a natural state of accepting everybody.
Lately I’ve been feeling like there’s some hurt between me and my mother-in-law. I’m not sure if it’s mutual, but it’s definitely there on my end. It started a few months ago where something inside of me shut off and stopped seeking. Seeking connection through conversation. My father-in-law was always much easier to talk to, partly because he would just keep saying things to fill space and expand on whatever it is he was talking about, even if it was just something that didn’t seem small.
One time he told me I was an astoundingly beautiful woman. That is not quite the adjective, but it was something of that nature. We were sitting in his pickup after I’d met him early in the morning trying to reach out for some kind of help. What I wanted him to do was to grab his son by the scruff of his collar and tell him to shape up. But for 45 minutes we sat in a parking lot somewhere in Springfield while he listened to my woes. If he wouldn’t help me then what actual hope was there?
So with him at least it felt like there was somewhere for my soul to go. The way I looked like this withdrawn and reclusive person to many other people because of other family dynamics is something I’m still coming back from and am mostly (finally) not angry about. Life is too short too miss out on these moments and gatherings. I’m trying, slowly, to connect where the events are, the 70th birthday party, the family reunion for an out-of-town aunt. But I still do want to talk to her about this.
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.
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