I don’t even know how to start this. It was an interesting day at Hope as I am trying to wrap things up with the people I am seeing who I won’t be seeing anymore, and also get things figured out and organized with the ones who I am going to continue seeing at the other place. I saw a man today who I say man but he is young. He’s been working through a lot of things and before I knew what was happening, after a series of prompts and questions, he was down on his knee in front of me.

He reached out his hand and touched my face. Then he moved his hand past my face and into my hair to the back of my head. The entire time he was looking into my eyes holding a very intense gaze. I swear I cannot make this up. I was trying not to breathe because I could taste my own coffee breath. I was also hoping he was not going to reach for my hand or hands because they were very clammy and cold in that particular moment. His face looked the same but slightly different up close.

“And then I would pull you in”, he finally said after I don’t know how long it was we were paused like that. And then he stood back up and went back to his seat. I had been stunned in the moment not knowing what he was going to do and not knowing what I was going to do if he was going to come any closer. We talked about love and how love does not hurt people. When I am close to the man I know most there are no concerns about cold hands or coffee breath. There is no self-consciousness.

Lord. The session after that I had a hard time concentrating. This particular woman is someone I love and feel particularly blessed to have met and known. She is poor and can only afford church sessions. I have her my phone number so she could have it in case she ever needed to reach out to me. When her session was over we stood up and hugged and she told me “I love you” and I told her “I love you too”. She is one of those people who seems simple and low IQ but has a very big heart.

And a super strong faith. I don’t know why all of a sudden this feels like too much, all these people and their souls. I hope I get to see her again here.

“The trees are doing that thing again”, my son said to me as he walked by the window. I’d just come in from being outside. “Yeah, isn’t it great?”, I said to him, or something along those lines as he was getting ready for school. I made the boys their bagel sandwiches as I tried to once again savor the moments until they left for another day. Cross country is over so now they are meeting with their track coach and teammates on certain days of the week to lift. So they still get home in the evening.

I’ve not been on Instagram much these days, but I was on their long enough to run into a post about temperaments and their favorite excuses. This is the classification where you are either Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic, or Phlegmatic. These words were at least around when my grandma was helping to raise us because I remember her talking about them. She was a Choleric and I was a Sanguine-Melancholic. I don’t remember what her secondary word was but everyone has one.

But I definitely related to the slide that had my issue. “I will do it when I feel inspired”. Then it said, “Enthusiasm can begin a good work that distraction leaves unfinished. Practice constancy: choose one modest commitment and complete it before chasing the next idea. Warmth becomes more trustworthy when people can also depend on you.” So then I looked up constancy and found, “the quality of staying the same without increasing, decreasing, or changing. Steadfastness. Firmness.

Loyalty. Fidelity. Dependability. Lots of good words.

To think that there is coming a day when I will, Lord-willing, soon not have to go to work quite so much is really giving me hope that this new phase can be better. My son and I were talking yesterday morning about how I know that he’s older and that the entire point is for him to grow up and for us to not be spending as much time together. But it doesn’t change the fact that when I am not spending time with him I feel like I am missing something. I feel incomplete in my mission.

I was talking with my supervisor today and finally found the words. I told him I was processing and n shock at how much doing couples sucked. There was no other way to describe it. I still want to do it but I want to reflect for a while before jumping back in with ones I don’t know. I have a whole wall in my mind that I want to dedicate to attachment and relationship posters that I found by an independent digital artist and seller on etsy. But other than that I don’t even want to think about it.

Just get me out of there. Today in Bible study we talked about thankfulness. The pastor asked what the big deal is about being thankful. After being in pain from holding in commentary and feeling like there wasn’t any chance to talk for nearly the whole hour I finally said it was because thankfulness is being closer to how we were created to live. We go through these purifications and sufferings and it produces in us a happy heart that loves God and wants him to know the depths of our feelings.

It’s been a long day. I’ve actually been pretty hyper and happy today except now that I’m home and in bed the fatigue is finally registering and hitting me. We had a staff meeting this morning at Hope which contained no information that I needed to know but at least was useful in earning me $50. There’s still just something about it that I can’t put into words. I wouldn’t say my heart broke, but it definitely cracked somehow and now I’m needing some time to let those cracks fill back in.

I was at my other place in the afternoon and still really love it. I love the environment and the people who work there. One girl I was talking to today who is a counselor told me she was flying out tomorrow to film a movie in Hollywood. I knew that her boyfriend was famous (to others) from someone telling me when we had the same class together. But I didn’t realize she was in movies. She said acting has been more like a hobby in her spare time but now it is starting to pick up for her.

Hopefully I keep liking it there because there is no where else to go after this. I had some really weird blunders today where I mixed up a text message between two people who had very similar looking first names. Another time I was trying to empathize with a girl who’d dealt with an injury all summer. When she was talking about how she’d gained weight I said, “Well yeah plus it was wintertime!” I tried to make sense at first, but finally had to just say “I don’t know why I said that!”

People at work keep congratulating me about this job change. Both clients and coworkers. It’s been slightly discombobulating because I associate congratulations with a wild excitement. There is some of that somewhere but it’s still very muted. I’ve more been feeling like I’m doing something wrong, or giving in to some kind of defeat. Feeling like here I go just not being happy and changing again.

Like I have any experience with this! My husband says it’s because if you are the one making the change people typically assume it’s because you are doing something that is better for you and making you happy. If even one person could’ve told me “marriage is hard” or “look at the data”, which people did say, but by the time I scanned that list and saw their names my mind was made up.

The demographic I connected the least with was women my age. I say that and yet two of my solid and going to be longer-term clients are women my age. One of them…I’ve never said it but I’m sure we’ve both thought it…one of them could’ve been a soulmate best friend if things had been… I don’t know how I’ve lived here over ten years and never knew this person was so close or existed.

The others were…I have no idea. They never told me. I think I might’ve pressured them too much to bring their husbands in for sessions. When so many problems seemed to be tied to this particular roadblock…oh well it’s in the past. I’m scarred from the couples therapy but I’m going to change how I do it. We are going to have a system and during session time they can apply the lessons to their life.

That’s me saying things again. One man told me he’d been gaslit by women his whole life, including by me and the other therapist they’d tried. I felt…enlightened to hear this. There was no defense or fight to retain him, and I was relieved to no longer be making those longer day accommodations so that people would not have to be using their sick time. The money envy on my end became alive.

Do I want to be like Mother Theresa and be this spotless saint of endless giving? In some ways I know that I am her already. At first, after a while, I thought I’m only going to see couples who are Christian and married. But now again I’m thinking why should there be limits on anyone who is seeking love or wanting to experience more love in their life? People are meant to be happily paired.

I know more the risks and probable outcomes.

I’ve almost used all of my $100 bills from the past three or four Christmases and birthdays. They’ve gone fast lately with one going to Elianna to buy groceries when she was out visiting Ethan and Laura. Another I gave to her to use toward purchasing a $135 10-class yoga card. Somehow we were talking and it got me thinking about needing to do some kind of regular body work practice like the heated yoga flow classes I used to love. I am 100% positive she is going to love them too.

Then one needed money because he’s been spending all of his on dinner dates with his girlfriend. It’s like every weekend sometimes twice and even during the week when they are getting together. I told him her family might actually want to still spend some time with her. So I gave him another one but he had to use some of it to stop by Dollar General and buy dad and I coffee since we’re out. You would think we would have some savings or something but whatever we had is now gone.

So I have one more left now. They’re rolled up in an old Xanax bottle on my dresser. I can’t remember the last time I’ve taken one or needed one. It became more difficult once they kept insisting that I couldn’t get my $3.18 refill without coming in and spending $120 on a co-pay for a $400+ doctor’s visit. It’s like, I’m a mom who needs pills to cope with my nerves at the track meets sometimes. All these rules that don’t actually serve or help the people who need medicine.

The college XC team had their conference meet in Iowa today. Vaughn was back to getting first on the team and finished fourth overall. He is one of the friends who watches Lila and I feel an incredible awe that my granddaughter gets to be watched by a superstar. He’s very humble about his abilities and is one of the nicest people you’ve ever met. He has a childlike personality that seems very innocent. I like to talk about Vaughn like I actually know him even though I don’t.

I’ve just met him a couple of times and seen videos he’s made and put in the team chats. It’s crazy how God makes people like that. Not only do they have the gift of the talent but then they also have the gift of the gentle and unassuming spirit. It makes me in love with them all of the more. Now I’m just getting awkward but I don’t care, it’s true. I found this song today called The Earth and Us by William Augusto. It reminds of the theme song in A Beautiful Mind which makes my heart ache.

I told you
I love you
in a dream

But you keep
asking for a sign
I was real

Now I’m back to feeling like I want to talk about work all the time and all these interesting people. At the other place I do not think about the people as much but at this one I do. Today I was more caught up in all of the heart reasons I am leaving. I would categorize it into three groups and I do apologize for any cringe terms or language. But there are the ones where I feel like we have bonded very deeply and significantly. That is the smallest group. The biggest group is mostly everyone else.

And then there are the ones where I had bonded to them and they left. I feel like I will always have in my mind these beginning people and those initial sessions of trial. But I also do not feel the need to dwell to much upon that. With the exception of possibly last year we are at the lowest we’ve ever been for money so this isn’t exactly the time to be spending hundreds of dollars on therapy office supplies and set up. So I’ve only spent about $40 so far. I talk about the office issue too much too.

It’s not really that big of a deal. I really can adapt and be content in a lot of environments. I still want a blanket warmer and bolster pillows and oversized throws and weighted Indian blankets. So we’ll see. Whenever I do these three in a row five minute meditation practices it almost always has me dreaming about somatic therapy and very rarely some sort of task such as schedule an appointment with the chiropractor. I realized I kind of ghosted him and never used all my purchased sessions.

Zorro and I walked down to the lake before work this morning. Dad and the littlest were at a chapel visit in Champaign so they had left earlier in the morning. All of my appointments showed up today which was nice. It’s gotten better since the summer but the damage was done and it went on long enough that the other choice became more appealing and made too much mathematical sense.

I didn’t mean for it to go this way. The Hope supervisor says I have nothing to be sorry for or to feel bad about but I do feel bad and I do feel sorry. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I’m sorry that I basically just got there and now I am leaving. Today it was announced in the Teams chat so the rest of the staff knows now. I told my nursing boss that I was not able to keep up with ongoing requirements.

So that’s officially over now too. I need to remind myself though that being with one person at a time for 4-5 hours a day is much more doable and enjoyable than being responsible for 14 patients on a wing for eight straight hours. A part time job can be 15 hours a week and still bring in significantly more than if I worked two 8-hour shifts. One I could do for at least two more decades.

The boys were off school this morning for election day. It was nice for everyone to wake up and not have to focus on getting out the door. Somehow we started talking about how we needed to take another vacation to Florida. I told my cousin after the wedding that I needed to come down there and see what this Disney thing was all about. My aunt loved Disney and all of them love Disney. Every time we’ve gone down there they ask us about going but we have always declined.

So we told Dad our idea and before we knew it he was marking it in his calendar. We were talking about going in February or March before track season and he said it would have to be on a week when he didn’t have a chapel visit scheduled. I said that it’s early enough beforehand that he could still reschedule or cancel it. But thankfully during the boys spring break in March there weren’t any chapel visits scheduled. I told Elianna that we’d have to figure out something to do with Zorro.

I made the boys their sectionals video tonight. I’ve gotten lazier with the video making and sometimes things are out of order or the song and the pictures do not perfectly line up at the end. But it is what it is and hopefully they still appreciate them. The conversations have already switched over to track already so quickly. Josh made a really great supper–I love when he cooks. It was like every other day of trying to savor the moments and never quite feeling like you’re catching them all.