We’re at the time in the summer where I start to feel parched for anything home related. The puzzles were supposed to be an attempt to combat this. Instead of simply just trying to cope with the summer disruption, try to thrive in it and still work to create good experiences. So that was something different I did that I feel like was helpful. Every so often I really challenge myself so then I asked my husband how he thought I should cope when I am feeling the same old famine inside.

After his answer I said, “I hear you saying I just need to be mentally stronger. Praying for years. Trying to work on myself. What do you think I should add to that list?” Well, how about if when you are feeling disconnected you make a bid for connection instead of just being mad or grumpy about it. “Ha!!”, I thought, the old “just ask” trap. But I was feeling feisty and just said, “Can you give me four compliments right now please? I’m feeling parched for verbal water.” Intelligent. Lovely. Respectful. Hard-working.

I hung my head in dismay. The same ones he always gives. But why didn’t it feel any better? I even let it go when we had started to go down into the “Why do I have to keep asking…” rabbit hole. So then I challenged him. How about you try to say something or give me a compliment with some empathy, some awareness you know what my life is like. That was too much. But then he came back, hugged me awkwardly but without my resistance, and said a few more positive things and that he wishes he was better at having these things flowing out of him all the time. That somehow got in and moved things around. I felt better after that.

Today was my first day at the new private practice. I had one of my Thrive clients in the morning and then I hung out until noon for the group supervision time. She does two sessions each week on Tuesdays, one at noon and one at 1PM. For the rest of the time I sent some work emails, straightened the playroom, and talked to two of the other therapists there that I knew from school. One was at Thrive with me for a semester and both were in the last internship video class I had.

So that was cool to have some people. It was nice to just shout out “Hi Kyle!” like it was absolutely nothing and without any kind of hesitation or awkwardness. I actually got to help the other one finish what she needed to get the rest of the things sent in for her license since nobody showed us how to do and we basically had to figure it out on our own. The only reason I knew how to do it is because I went to the licensing office in person because thankfully the state buildings are so close.

I was really nervous but now I think I’m going to like it. I still need to get things figured out with insurance. I kind of feel like I’m being difficult if I say I don’t want to take any insurance, like I’m forsaking the codes of humanitarianism. I am really glad that I made the decision to go to Hope (and that it worked out to go there) because it has allowed me to jump in with both feet and just get started seeing clients so fast. It seems like it’ll take longer to get clients and others need them more.

So I am navigating that. I do still feel, like I’ve said, that I have gotten harder since starting the Hope job and now transferring over to this one. You can have a heart for charity work and still understand that there are people who abuse the system and take you for granted and don’t care about their lives as much as you do. So you just have to get over that and realize you’re not here to help everyone and it isn’t possible to do so. In the meantime I do need to earn some money here too.

The others, I think, will pick up on that too. Right now they’re all still seeing internship clients mostly pro bono. I will still do a pro bono client at Hope but there they make them pay $20 a session. So I don’t know what to think about this place. Today I really liked it even though it was mostly just getting acquainted with the different environment, people, and ways that they do things. I have been bummed about leaving Thrive but I still feel like I made the right decision by being done there.

This morning I started organizing my closet and trying on clothes that I’ve had hanging there but haven’t worn in a while. Every so often I have one of those merciless clothes purges. I want it so that the hangers are the same and that everything is back in it’s designated place again. I found a few new tops that I can wear to work and a dress for my sister’s bridal shower. The boys needed shorts so while I was looking for those things they found what they needed. It was a good shopping trip.

Next we went to Walmart to buy tomato cages for Elianna. They browsed the electronics and we all kept each other in check not letting anyone get out of hand with looking or wanting to buy something. I decided we needed some puzzles for something else to do at home. Camp creates the illusion that there is always something going on and a lot of times there is, but I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t always want to be at camp. I like being home and having some peace.

So I worked on that tonight. Everyone else was busy, including Laura who is taking three summer classes so that she doesn’t have to take them during the fall or spring of next school year. It’s been a super productive day with I don’t know how many loads of laundry washed, dried, and folded. I swept and mopped the dining room and kitchen, vacuuming the living room and the love seat which must be done nearly every other day. My clothes are still all over our room and needing put back.

We had a good rest of the visit with my sister. She came to church with us and then left after that. I can’t believe I’m going to complain about this but I’m not sure if I’m liking the new summer schedule with church. They are doing the thing where instead of two services they are only having one at 9AM. Instead of alternating communion at the different services they are doing it every week. So church always takes about an hour and 15 minutes at least plus then there is Bible class afterward.

We didn’t get home until 12:30 today. So I am not a huge fan of that part but I don’t think I’ll complain about it too much. I filled in this morning for one of the pastors who is on vacation and taught the junior and senior high Sunday School class. We talked about (OT) Joseph. The nice thing about covering is that you don’t really have to follow a plan and can just pick something. I wouldn’t want to do it every week because I like our Bible class. I’m supposed to do it again next week too.

I took a nap before going to work. We’d made our plans to have our Father’s Day celebration once I was home from there. So at about 8 we gathered around the kitchen table. My watch is supposed to get here Tuesday. We had a cake and ice cream and everyone had to go around and say something about Dad that made him a good dad and then we did something similar for Ethan. My things were that he was competent with kids no matter what age the kids were and that his organization with our chore charts over the years and writing out the family calendar every week makes things better.

Several ladies from Auburn threw Laura a shower today. It was actually really nice. She looked like a fairy with her pastel pink dress and then this garland wreath the ladies had bought for her. Her mom though she was being a very good sport by wearing the wreath on her head and also wearing the sash that said mom-to-be. It looked like she had planned the entire ensemble. She didn’t realize how much stuff they would get and they wondered several times where they would put all of it.

I remember how much of our first apartment was taken up by baby things. The wall was lined with everything you could need. There’s a part of all this start still has not quite taken hold as something real. I’ve mostly been fine with all of this but today I did get a little emotional. Josh’s mom bought them their car seat/stroller set which was the biggest gift of the group. It just blessed my heart that she is still loving her grandkids and doing so now by helping them get the bigger items they need.

I’m just eager to drive out to Nebraska and be there. To bring them diapers and help to change them. I remember with Ethan wanting so bad to see his face and wondering what he would look like. I still remember the first time I saw him when whoever was holding him held him up. It’s been a tiring day and we never even made it down to the beach. The boys are also very tired from being up so late for two nights in a row. I told them everyone was going to bed early. They need their rest too.

Today was a better day at work. I feel like I watched a relationship end but I do think it was probably for the best. At the very least I decided we needed to end the session. I’m starting to get a handle on when it’s productive and when it’s not. They lump couples and marriage counselling together like they’re they same thing but in my experience at least they are definitely not. In couples therapy there is no God element and typically they’re younger. The marriage ones have something different.

Several shifts came open this weekend. I’m working 3-7 on Sunday and maybe would’ve taken more if my sister hadn’t called and said she was coming down for Laura’s shower. She’s trying to be a good aunt and said her sister only becomes a grandma first once. I was really happy to hear she was coming. We’re going to have a sleepover in the boys’ room because they have plans to camp out in the hayfield with other camp staff and friends. I’m anxious about it but it’s just one of those things.

Laura’s mom and sister picked her up this afternoon to take her back to their house and have a sleepover themselves. Josh told me he ordered a watch for his father’s day present but I still want to get him an actual present. I don’t know what it would be. For mother’s day I had asked for another chair that I could sit in outside. They got me a camping chair that rocked. I haven’t used it yet but definitely think it’d be good for cross country meets in the fall. It was either that or a chair to tan in.

I love the extended daylight of summer. These days you can walk home from outdoor chapel and still see the road after 9 o’clock at night. Tonight was underground church and so I walked down to the dining hall to make an appearance and see what was going on. The staff was getting ready to start out into the woods. Josh was the jailer and Laura and I sat on the dining hall porch and wondered how long we should stay down there. Eventually she and I walked back to the house.

She was going to change and get ready for the devotion. I changed clothes and got ready for bed. They had a baby appointment today and everything was going well. I think she’s a little frustrated with the simplicity and briefness of the visits. It does sometimes feel like a total waste of time. But those uneventful and routine visits are always something to be grateful for. She is 31-32 weeks.

This summer is going a lot slower than last summer with the wedding. I knew those days would fly by and they did. This year seems to be dragging on a bit more and I suppose that is something to be grateful for too. To my husband’s utter dismay I’m sure, I can’t seem to get through summer without becoming down, depressed, or lonely. I do my best to connect with the kids when they’re around. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know them anymore and I have no idea how that happened.

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.