Today was a good kick off to camp day. We had the hog roast and there was a good turnout with lots of good help in the kitchen and elsewhere. We had a service out at camp and then the meal followed afterward. My sister in law and her family were here so that was nice. I am at the parenting stage now where I do not have to wonder where my kids are or try to keep track of them. I just cannot even believe that we have been here for ten years and that they are basically all grown up now.

After everything was over Ethan and Laura went home to change and get ready for the beach. They came back down with the container where the mice had been staying. They said they walked in and found the oven door all the way open. We’d been keeping them in the oven with the door cracked open in order to keep them away from the cats. But Laura found one of the mice on the kitchen floor with its head gone. Another one she found in the living room still alive after she heard it squeaking.

We figured the other one had been eaten (there were three). I felt so bad for Elianna since she’d worked so hard to keep them alive. I wasn’t really sure what to expect with them but after they were lively and still doing fine after a few days, I figured they must be getting enough food and warmth. When we came back inside one of the cats was sitting next to the garbage can staring at the paper bag in the corner. It’s turns out one of them was over there. So there are now two of them in a cupboard.

Everything was going fine until I wanted to get a card for one of the Auburn runners. One of the parties we were going to was a joint party for five of the Auburn boys, one of who we are related to through my mother in law’s family. So we had our cards for all the parties and I wanted to get this boy a card. I knew it was risky to even suggest it. But sure enough, when I brought the card over to the group, they said no and that was weird and that this person didn’t even know who I was.

So after a while of standing there they talked me out of it. I hung my head and put the card back in the holder and to the entire group said something like, “You’re just diminishing my heart like you always do”, and I left the store choking back tears and stood at the car door until they all came back from buying the cards. It’s been a while, but this one hurt for some reason. Once I was in the car and out of the public eye I could let out my tears and blow my nose and try to explain what this was.

It was heartbreaking when Ethan did not win that race. At the time, I had been stressed about it and relieved when the entire six-month affair was over. The researching shoes. The Christmas gift of getting them. The looking up training plans. The obsessing over times. The winter months of actual running and training. The kid who won had a 3 second PR that day. Ethan’s legs started to give out where he was wobbling and did not seem in control the last 25 meters. He fell over the finish line.

I wasn’t there. I’ve picked up bits and pieces of the story as its been told. He was trying to make state also in triple jump and was three centimeters away from the state distance. So he kept trying to give it one more jump, for a total of five. Because of this he did not warm up and had given more significant use of his legs. He went from triple jump to 800, the race he was really hoping to win. But Barth won instead and even after three more years of running he never ran another 800 that fast.

So what else was I supposed to do but be bondedly fascinated with this freshman kid who ran sophomore year, then junior year, and now is almost done running his senior year. If I couldn’t hate the kid I might as well get him a freaking card. I never said anything else about it, but I saw at the party that Ethan had given him his own card. I scanned the table with all of his medals but didn’t look too close for that one. They’re ranked first in the state in the 4×4 this year. I hope they win.

Dad and the kids went to go see fireworks in town tonight. Miles’ parents invited us. I came home from work today and ate something then laid down. I stayed there through supper which was down at the dining hall for the camp staff. Today was a good day but the weeks are still tiring. My favorite part about my job, if I had to pick today, would be getting to use my mind. My second favorite is being hospitable to the people who come especially when they bring a friend or family member.

We have graduation parties tomorrow so I am saving my social energies and stayed home from the outing. I was going to start reading in this somatic therapy toolbox book I’ve been wanting to dive into. I did read some of it. Zorro is outside so I will take him for a walk. But it’s late already and I am ready to settle down and go to bed. Earlier in the evening I cleaned up the laundry room and entry way spaces to get a head start on the Saturday cleaning since we will only have the morning.

I feel like I need to say this and then just keep moving forward. But I have felt a big relief since breaking away from the Thrive thing. Nothing was going to fix the frustration of not having a legitimate outlet to channel my feelings. And I was tired of feeling miserable for it. I’m just grateful to have had like I said, that sudden burst of clarity and total change in what I wanted. The Matthew Perry book helped. It made me realize that years of wasted love was not what I wanted for my life.

I don’t even know what to write about. I was gone for most of the day at work and so was not around to be aware or part of the activities. Staff training has started so people were busy doing that. There were some really nice “ah ha” moments in counseling today. It’s really great when that happens and you have that sense of things connecting. It balances out the times when your supervisor lets you know that one of your couples partners complained about you to the director.

I wasn’t hearing her enough. I do feel a little bad feeling like I have hardened in some ways. You really do have to be secure for this. But I am not going to bend over backwards to accommodate immature behavior or get people to change their minds about me. I think I have decided that it is at least worth trying to work something out if someone has a problem with you or if you have a problem with them. But you can kind of get a feel if things are going to go one way or the other. Sometimes a relationship just doesn’t work out.

Or never forms, whatever the case is. As I used to hear certain people say, “I’m not for everybody.” I did forget to ask today whether it’s normal or how often it happens to have interpersonal conflicts with clients. One would hope that it’s not very much. I really do love getting to know people and becoming familiar with their various lives and stories. It doesn’t feel one sided to me. It just feels like you were able to lend a hand or offer yourself in some way that caused you to grow.

The boys made state in their 4×4 race. What happened was that the number 3 seeded team in the state ran an unusually slow third leg which allowed our third person to pass him and gain a significant lead. Then our anchor took off and the number 3’s anchor who on his best day can run a 1:51 800 had enough of a gap to make up that he was not able to catch up. Our first two boys did really great. So they ended up getting 2nd which was enough to give them a place to go to state.

So nobody knows what happened to the number 3 team’s third runner who ran about a minute time for his split. Our team was .4 seconds off of the state qualifying time but they tell me if our anchor had had to run his hardest then they would’ve beaten that. But there wasn’t the pressure because he had a comfortable second. PORTA who was also ranked ahead of us and lost on their senior night last week while we were there also had an off night and ran ten seconds under their seed time.

So that’s how it goes sometimes. Enough stars align and it works out. I’m tickled for them that they made it. Once Judah had gone and I could relax more I just kept thinking, “where are all the fast teams??” They were in second or third the whole time. The team who won was also ranked very high in the state (5th??) so no one imagined making state because of place. But anyway. John got 5:06 in his mile which wasn’t sub 5 but was still a four second PR and he was happy with progress this year.

We drove two cars to the meet. The boys had to be their earlier so I took them. Josh came later with the rest of the family. I took a nap in the backseat and walked around and called my sister since I didn’t have any money to get in. I caught her up on my Thrive woes which were troubling me as I recounted the long and exhausting story. I do not take it for granted that I have sisters who I can talk to about things. I did tell him at the end that I wish this (our conversation) would’ve gone differently.

One of the boys brought his chess set along so we played in the stands. Elianna had three baby mice she was feeding after Ethan found them while he was cleaning out the meat cookers for the hog roast this weekend. I saw a woman from marriage counseling so I politely tried to not make contact. After the meet we went to find the team and get pictures. The 4×8 Concordia team was running in nationals so we stopped to watch that. I followed the lead car home through remote country roads.

Today was a weird day at Thrive. The first three hours I had a conversation with each of my clients and told them how I was leaving Thrive and that we had to figure out what that meant for the future of our meetings. I did not give any explanation. I sort of made promises that felt too early to know if I’d be able to keep. I have not signed on or started onboarding with this other group practice but I was presenting this like it would be a potential option, even if one not available at the current time.

And then I had to meet with the supervisor after that to further discuss this email that I sent to him and the sudden change of plans. I didn’t really feel like I had anything more to tell him and when I tried he said I was being very vague. He said he can’t read my mind and if I was needing more time from him in terms of professional guidance and willingness to be available for questions, then we just had to schedule it. I said it’s just you and me here. He said so you’re wanting a bigger team?

All of this was happening while he was on hold with an insurance company to remove a therapist who is transferring sites to go somewhere else. I tried to tell him there were things about the way he did things that were different than how many people say we’re supposed to do them. At one point he told me he had never in his entire time doing this had an experience like this where he was met with what seemed like so much entitlement. I wondered if I had a blind spot he was showing to me.

Well anyway. In all of this I have tried to make it work because there’s still that part of me that feels in some way that I’m supposed to be in this person’s life for some reason. I have no interest in breaking rules with this person or keeping myself tied to there because of some faulty belief system on my part.

We’ve reached the time of year where people are always at camp. The other day I was walking Zorro and down at the beach there were people swimming. They had two unleashed dogs. I thought, well, here goes nothing. So we walked past the people and Zorro and another dog stood nose to nose. The other dog’s owner said the collar had just died. Nobody barked. She took the other dog’s collar and gently moved him/her back and Zorro and I eventually kept walking over to the beach step path.

I knew who the people were. Sometimes I get jealous of the people who get to swim here. Is that not just the most nonsensical thing? I have to readjust to sharing. And I wonder if they ever feel a tad bit guilty, like, oh yeah, we just show up where this person lives and use their space. One of the kids tried to come into our house at 7:11 in the morning. I opened the door and he literally was trying to come in by walking in. I said the boys are getting ready for school. I didn’t want him coming in then.

The boys have broken their gaming habit. I’ve not observed for myself, but I have gotten reports that the oldest one has, if not completely given it up, then has at least significantly cut back. I’m not about to let that back into my house again. They are still in their chess phase and Laura also knows how to play now. I gave the boys a talk and said that is not what my house is for and that I don’t want to be a bad person. We had a good supper with everyone and it was fun to have the whole table.

“Mom, now we just need our entire house to look like this”, he said. After all these years, I think the boys are finally catching on to my vision. Why couldn’t the entire house be completely clutter free and peaceful? It’s too big of a dream to happen all at one time. It happens in bits and pieces, in fits and starts (is that the saying?). I know they all would love the order. But it is what it is and we do what we can in little bites. I tell them they will see it someday when they come back home to visit.

As I was clearing off the table, I found two pictures from the Ark Encounter. Josh’s dad took us and paid for all of us to go. We need to go back again now that everyone would be able to read and remember the…what do they even call those things with the words on them explaining the history and giving the facts? I tucked them into the homeschool scrapbooks that I have lingering hopes to make. It could all be gone tomorrow. I jumped at the text request to order more running shoes.

I decided it was time to forgive my sister for not taking me to the Eras tour concert several years ago. She took her best friend from college instead. She had told someone else about the previous concert we had gone to together, which did not end up being fun experience in terms of togetherness and enjoying our time there. So there was that too. I called her not to tell her I forgave her, but to say I was thinking of her and that concert. One of the boys vacuumed around the trim while I watched.

I’ve been obsessed with this Matthew Perry book for the past several days. The algorithm started showing me old clips of the show Friends, and one day I kid you not, it must’ve have been a Sunday, I watched Friends rerun clips for probably two hours. I didn’t make supper. I didn’t join in with whatever show the rest of the family was watching. I laughed in bed for two hours watching Friends. I’d never really watched the show much before, and definitely wasn’t watching when it was famous.

So of course I had to read Matthew’s memoir about his life and rise to fame and terrible struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. The way I look at addicts has changed. I would’ve never understood them before, and still I wouldn’t say I truly do understand them. They want love and all these things but keep on pushing it away because they cannot part with their substance. I really do think that anytime a hardcore addict or alcoholic gets sober its because a miracle happened.

But the rest of the day, most of it, was spent getting Ethan and Laura’s room ready downstairs. I paid Elianna and Miles $80 each to paint the room which we’d all completely forgotten about from earlier in the week. Dad packed bins into the storage room after cleaning mouse droppings off the shelves. I tried to get the boys to throw more away but one of them said to me, “Mom, we have to have some cool junk.” There’s still a little more to do. But overall we worked together and got it done.

It was a full week of I’m not even sure what. We had a staff meeting in the morning where we talked about things that had come up in the previous meeting. The major thing was counselor pay rates and what could be done to get the counselors raises with the recent inflation and cost of living increases. I guess it’s been four years since anyone has had a raise. The financial position of the organization was described as “very healthy” and it was believed possible to ask for more money.

I don’t have much of an opinion on all of it. The words the director kept using were “valued” and “important” in terms of the counselors needing to feel those things and that the rate of pay was linked to those feelings. The situation does concern me, but it’s not from a stand point of not feeling valued. As I thought about it more it had more to do with not making mathematical sense. You can be there for seven hours one day and only get paid for three if you end up with two cancellations.

The other hours were lunch and supervision. But anyway I know every job has its problems. I would still rather be doing this than getting paid for every hour I was there at my nursing job working, plus every hour I’d be paid staying extra. In other words it’s much less stressful and I enjoy the work more, including the hours. I came home and rested before it was time for me to pack a bag and head out for our overnight time at the Inn again. I packed light and used my track mom bag again.