I’m feeling more and more relieved as I’m checking off my assignments. In the morning I had group where I had to lead my group session. I hadn’t been ready any of the earlier times but I’d reached the point where I felt comfortable doing it without resistance. The second presentation was later in the evening for our research methods class. Our group went and finished within the ten minute time frame.

The morning started with a little bit of drama. The boys were getting ready for school and one of them called from the bathroom to have me come in there. Casper had pushed the vent/light covering out from the ceiling and was trying to climb into the bathroom from the attic. He and Tom have been staying out there since it’s colder at night. It took us about twenty minutes to get him back through the ceiling and out from the garage.

The boys call him “Dip” which is growing on me. They call Zorro “Bo” which is cute. There was a new person at group who was looking to re-home two cats, but I told him I could not take any more. People think it’s crazy to have so many cats but I tell them you hardly have to do any work for them. I honestly don’t understand why people don’t have more themselves. Some people are allergic so that I get.

I told him I’d play the counselor role. No I don’t like talking in front of people. Or it’s more like I tend to get incredibly nervous. But let’s be real, at this point, I’m supposed to be beyond some of this discomfort and more sure of myself. So he would be the client and I would be the counselor and we would do a 15 minute portion of a session in front of the class. From there the class would practice writing a case note.

Tradd has been the fictional client for the past couple of weeks. He’s a 20-something white male college student getting ready to finish his undergraduate degree. I’ve only had one client close to this demographic and I found him to be the most difficult one. There are clients where they are the ones who lead the session and you struggle at times to get a word in. Then there are ones where you struggle to get the words out.

Before we started I told him, that if I get stuck, I need him to help me. So that was the deal I thought we had. Somewhere in the middle, when he was talking about being a failure, all I had was a blankness. This teacher wants emotional processing. I looked at Tradd and said “help me”. I felt confused that he did not then feed me a line. All he said was, “Keep going. Failure. Just stay with me.” I don’t remember the rest.

I feel like I should have a handle by now on the end of the year/semester and holiday stress. It just feels like a relentless stack of tasks that does not disappear until the middle of January. On top of that is my work boss texting me saying my CPR card is going to expire and I am behind on my annual computer-based in-service trainings. I told her I’m not going to have time to get in there to do it for another few weeks.

We had our research project meeting on Sunday and it did not go the way I would’ve chosen, but I guess I ultimately chose it. I’m having stress because we used ChatGPT on the assignment. I feel like we could integrate terms from our multicultural class and see this as a form of assimilation. I had never even touched this tool until the other day. To fail in the eleventh hour because of such a bottom of the totem pole class and assignment over a breach of academic integrity would just be the stupidest.

Thanksgiving is coming up and every year I feel the weight of putting this on, because I am the blessed one with connection to affordable and big enough venue access. I know how important this is, how it is creating connections and experiences that give greater meaning to our lives. The other thing is my videos have not been HIPPA compliant. I’m completely out of excuses. I did my best but/and I still broke the rules.

It’s that time of year when growth demands change. The boys were tasked with taking every coat and sweatshirt off of the entryway hooks and sorting them into piles of keep or not keep. I fold their clothes and don’t know whose underwear belongs to who anymore or whose shirts are what person’s. I definitely wasn’t going to be able to figure out the coats and the abundance of hooded items. Several bags were packed up.

So Dad, the boys, and I headed into town to find again the needed items. Elianna met us there. We looked around in Goodwill and it isn’t the same. There was not a rack of used coats to be found. I did find one thinner sweatshirt in the Christmas clothing section. It was colored a faded soft red with the word LOVE across the chest. The O was a Christmas tree. Next we drove to Sierra where two of the boys found cozy and quality winter coats. There are the coats for going out and then the coats for snow playing.

After that we went to Walmart. Target would’ve been nicer and not so hard on the nerves, but the priority in this case was saving money. Another coat was found along with two pairs of dress pants. Believe it or not everyone needed dress pants again. Dad reminded them why they are needed, because it’s good to look nice sometimes. We bought whipped cream and hot chocolate mix to bring home and enjoy the evening.

It’s been a nice couple of days with the weather. Zorro was with us Thursday while Elianna was gone to spend the day visiting Miles. I had told her that going to a college just because your boyfriend goes there wasn’t a good enough reason to go to a college. She wasn’t against the advice, and the saving of money, but staying in town while the rest of your friends go away to go college has not been without certain drawbacks.

If a love is meant to be it will last. Now I’m sure along with that you have to include things like effort and occasional lost sleep to hopefully just talk through an issue. There can be so much resentment that builds up in relationships. Not too long ago I finally started treating resentment like it was an addiction needing me and it to be brought through the 12 Steps. I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I cannot overcome this.

So in that case a negative thought is similar to a craving. Cravings supposedly only last for 15-20 minutes. Once they pass you are through them and can go about your day, hopefully now without just having derailed it. I tell him it’s the crone energy starting to manifest. I’ve been the maiden. I’ve been the lover. I’ve been the nurturer and caregiver. I have been the woman who ran with the wolves and swam with pelicans.

But I need you, he said, I still need you to be these other things for me. You can have the best of all four of them I told him, but if you reject any of them they all disappear. You cannot expect me to have lived this long, to have gone through this much and not have any guidance. Your strength as a man needs an outlet and so does mine as a woman. When I am unable to give you my strength I implode. I fill with fury.

We won’t be like the rest of them, who never figure out how to get their acts together and still have resentments 40, 50, 60 years. I say my patience is over and I am done with the waiting. He corrects my false story which emboldens me to correct his. And I can hear it, I will always hear it when the hearing is mutual. “I really do just love you”, and I feel it in my heart like a glare. like an angry resistance that fades with the midnight.

I asked ChatGPT to write me a poem
to my surprise it said “sure”
and I gave my criteria

The poem appeared
and I actually liked it
Here is a sample
edited solely for brevity

Turning trees whisper ancient lessons—
every gold-touched ending a doorway,
every breath of change
is a vow the world makes.

I feel your presence like a lantern
glowing just beyond the mist—
not yet seen, but sensed,
like a memory from a life I’m still walking toward.

I step across the trembling edges,
letting the wind rearrange my shadows,
letting the earth rewrite my pulse.

I laugh at the absurdity
the way it wrote this so quick
the way the sky made me glad

We Facetimed Ethan who was home by himself. Laura was at a study session being held by a professor. He propped the phone up against the wall and stood at the sink doing dishes. We asked him what was new and at practice they’d had their post-season 1600M time trial. He’d done well, with an impressive 80% of the men’s team clocking new 1600 PR’s. The coach decided they’d be running through Thanksgiving this year.

Usually that’s when they take a week long break, one of three weeks off from running they get all year. It doesn’t really seem like all that long ago, but things have changed quite a bit from the first season to now. I used to know when the time trials were and prayed about them in my journal and texted good luck and waited for the results. This time I didn’t even know it was happening, reminded today that those were a thing.

Every so often I think to pray for my kids more, to expand my mind to ask for something other than “Help me get this paper finished” or “Help me get my work done”. Those types of prayers have been in the books for four years. I am wondering with school ending if this means I might gain some of my mind back, if I might regain some strength and motivation to make time to move again. This time at night I remember them all in my prayers.

For whatever reason I’m feeling grateful today. It was a good day at Thrive with a good group discussion. I love group so much I don’t know how else to say it, but it’s not like that energetic kind of love. We have a feelings wheel in the group room that people can use to identify whatever emotions they are feeling. The negative emotions always seem too negative and the positive ones always sound too charged. At peace is the closest.

Or settled or stable. Arya and I planned to start to work on our research methods project that is due next week. Neither one of us were in a brain state to be understanding directions about things we don’t understand. So while we talked about it a little bit, it’s been pushed off until Sunday when our other group partner can join us for a group call. After today I’m down to just over ten hours that I need to complete.

I’ve been up since 3AM since I could not go back to sleep. I drove home from class last night and came away again with that feeling of being charged but also a feeling of longing. I’ve enjoyed these classes, the teachers, and students and will miss this.

I came home from class to find Dad and the kids outside looking at the Northern Lights. Ethan had texted me saying he and Laura had seen them. Elianna was texting say she could see them from Grandma’s house. My siblings chat was also busy with pictures.

Dad and the boys had gone to Arby’s for supper. They’d been out picking up a foosball table that someone had offered to give to the camp. I wasn’t going to eat but I ended up giving in to the even faint hunger. I made a bologna sandwich and gave my son a bite.

Everyone came in and we were on the couch enjoying each other’s company and I said, “Well guys I hate to do this but I think I’m going to head to bed and start to wind down”. Somehow this led to a conversation where I was explaining the five love languages.

Ethan and Laura have an entire week off for Thanksgiving break. I have no expectations other than that I’d like them to be there for at least part of our family Thanksgiving weekend. It’s not even that I’m trying not to be too possessive or demanding. And it’s not so much that I don’t even care. It’s just that if they’re here, great, I will try to enjoy it and make it nice for them too, and if they’re not here, I’ll miss them but I understand.

And will want them to have a good time wherever they do go. So that’s that. I was back at Thrive in the morning after being off for over a week. That situation more or less has positively corrected itself but he was in my dream the other night calling to ask how things were going. I have to do a group session between now and the end of the semester and my topic of choice is self-compassion using a video from the researcher Dr. Kristin Neff.

It’s hard not knowing yet where I am going to be working. I was thinking more today that there really are many benefits to this other private practice where I had an interview and would be able to work. She’s been much more frequent with communication and seems to really know her stuff. She said she is fine with me doing Christian counseling there. Long-term there would be more income earning potential.