My son and I are visiting Ethan and Laura in Nebraska. We left a little after 8AM and made the 8 hour trip. That’s about how long it is if you include two stops. I had this trip planned since the beginning of the year since it’s easy to know when this meet is going to be. Leading up to coming here I’ve been slightly dreading the drive. Before when I came, I stayed the night in Sioux Falls. This time we’re driving back after the meet.

It’s three and a half hours to Sioux Falls from Seward. So I’m picking up Laura around 3:30 when she is done with school. Then we will drive up for this meet and the college men’s race at 9PM. Do you ever make plans and then later as it gets closer you start to think, “I wasn’t really thinking this through…” I would just stay but then you run into the issue of hotel rooms. None of us really have the extra money for extra rooms.

Well anyway. We arrived around 4PM and checked into our bed & breakfast. It’s this cute old house where Elianna and I stayed. No one else is here so we have the place to ourselves. We ate supper at the apartment and then played the game, “Sounds Fishy”. It was fun until the very end when there was a slight interpersonal snag which I’m pretty sure resulted in hurt feelings. I don’t think it’s necessary to bite your tongue every time.

I think I am finally over this ridiculous infatuation that’s been taking up way too much headspace for, let’s see, almost a year now. Whenever I’m driving in there my head concocts these conversations. In the middle of the night over the past month or so I’m still thinking about it, what I’m going to say or how I’m going to bring this up. How I’m finally going to say, “You know what? I can’t take this any longer. I’m going to quit.”

Finally I was just like, “God, just give me the words when the time comes. I don’t need to be spinning around or thinking through every possible scenario. Just let me fall asleep.” You know, would you believe that works a lot of times? One of the points of supervision is to be able to talk through your client cases and receive support when you’re starting out. I continue to be amazed by things people carry and deal with in their lives.

So Arya is the new intern this time. It’s nice again to have a student. I’ve been starting to worry that I’m repeating what happened at Contact, where I’m making excuses for the supervisor and taking the new person under my wing. I’m planning on asking for input when I do supervision with the teacher. Like somehow there has to be grace for a person and also the room to say, “Um…so…your flaws are causing suffering for people”.

If I do not get to be done with this loathful school path at the end of these three and half months, I am going to have my personal version of a severe psychotic episode of screaming silently into the void and ripping out every stand of my hair. Hypothetically.

I went to this internship meeting with the faculty and the cohort that is supposed to be graduating next spring. There was information about getting registered for the licensing exam that is only given in October and April. They had better get on it now because it takes several months to get on the testing roster. I had a feeling about this, that somewhere a ball was going to be dropped.

The lady with the non-existent syllabus looked at me with the deer in the headlights look when I asked, “Is there still time for me to get signed up to take the NCE this fall?” The other test I have been studying for on and off for months is no longer part of the program requirements, because too many people were failing it. They’ve switched now to a simpler exam that I still have to take.

The teacher who I had class with before and after that meeting said he was going to follow up with it. I have no idea who to blame. My advisor? This other teacher who is in charge of communication about the tests? Me for not being more on the ball when I knew that this was something I was going to have to do eventually? I asked about the CECE in the spring, but not about the NCE.

I have one semester left and I refuse to do another. All I have to do is get through these next few months and do my homework. If my licensure is delayed I frankly don’t care that much. So I would have to wait a few more months to put this misery behind me.

It was nice to have a day to reset and relax. The boys slept outside in the backyard last night. Elianna dropped off Zorro around 5:45AM so she could go down and work in the kitchen. She’s going to be helping out in the kitchen during the week and on the weekends as needs arise. Fall is still a pretty active time for the camp groups. It’s nice that she has something to do and it gives us more of an excuse and chance to see her.

I folded laundry and the boys did some yard work outside. Josh and I sat on the couch in the morning and drank our coffee and took turns complaining about our work. Or rather, we voiced a few frustrations. I kind of think it’s fine to say those things around your husband or wife. It’s when you’re saying them to everyone else where it seems to be more undesirable. You have to be able to hear and sympathize with each other.

Lauren and I went for a swim in the lake. While we were swimming she noticed a log with six turtles sitting and sunning themselves. I could not believe we were seeing that many. Five of them jumped off on our way past the tree. It doesn’t matter if you’re quiet or not that close they still will hear or see you somehow. On our way back the sixth one jumped off. The surrounding trees are so beautiful. It’s like having your own private pool.

Today we had church at the outdoor chapel. It was held for the Labor Day weekend campers. We had about 15 people there with me and the boys. It was nice to not have to go into town and to enjoy a slower Sunday morning. The weather has been so beautiful and fall-like here. Our summer had some hot and humid days but it once again didn’t seem too bad this year. Camp is so pretty during the fall.

Dad and the boys went back to church later since the boys wanted to be there for the 5th Sunday potluck. I didn’t go since I had to work later. On my work weekends I can be pretty protective of my space. I will go to church or cross country meets but that’s about it. Last night I had a trainee on the floor with me which made the night more exciting. You never know if they’re going to stay for long but it’s fun in the meantime.

The boys had their first cross country meet in Clinton. It was a night meet so I wasn’t able to be there. I looked at their schedule and because of school I’m going to miss most of their meets. Two of them I will be gone to watch Ethan. So it left like three meets that I’ll be able to go to during the season. The nice thing about getting this out of the way is that by track season I’ll be done and go to all of the meets.

I’ve been following a woman online for like 10ish+ years. At first she had a blog but then it turned into Instagram and then into a Substack account. At the time I was probably thinking we had a few things in common. She was a pastor’s wife and a verbal processor, so she had to write all her thoughts. They were working on a church plant and she was raising six kids and I don’t know, I just was curious for whatever reason.

She writes under the Substack name Locusts and Honey. In the past year or two she completed a master’s degree in a spiritual director program. She was planning to be a spiritual director and meet with people and somehow serve in the church. Except now her husband is back to pastoring a church (after taking a break for mental illness and other things) and she just signed on for a job at a coffee shop, unrelated to her degree.

So now she’s wondering why she is yet again back in some kind of service work. I was minorly relating to some of this but what really was standing out to me is how she will only post incomplete pictures of her face. You see her face and there is only half of it, or enough to even see a majority but with only one eye. She has a pretty face with two eyes. I am to the point now where it’s almost irritating to me that she keeps doing this.

But I don’t want to be a troll and be like, “Please stop posting only half of your face”. I have almost said it several times but I know it’s not coming from a loving place. To me it’s just screaming, “I don’t respect myself”. She’ll show her husband’s full face, her kids’ full faces, but very very rarely hers. Another woman recently told me about her tick toc account so I’ve been watching it feeling bad for her. There is a reason people do this.

You put yourself out there because in some way it’s a way to cope with whatever it is that is missing. For one woman it’s her Substack, for another it’s her tick toc, and for me it’s my blogs. It makes me laugh. Cannot we all be happy, sane people? I hope one day this woman will just show her whole face without the weird artistic need to keep cropping it off. But it’s not going to come from me saying it to her, that’s for dang sure.

It’s crazy to me how quickly camp goes from teeming with people to basically having no one around. The reason I thought of it is because one of the day camp counselors came out to visit with his girlfriend and her dog. It’s not that I’d forgotten he existed, but when you aren’t seeing people everyday they slip your mind. And then it was like, “Oh yeah, there was this whole summer program that happened where he was here.”

The first week back to school went well, second week for the boys. I’m tired but that comes with the system shock of change. Instead of group today I was out at the desk. I really liked the peace and quiet and lack of necessity to have to engage. Tasks themselves are not difficult, it’s just a matter of learning the specifics then repeating them. The billing is going to be the most complicated and I haven’t done any of that.

I made folders for new patients, answered emails, returned a few calls, copied a check and deposit slip and put it with the folder specifically meant for that day. The environment is very free of clutter but there were papers here and there that I collected to be looked at and thrown away. The rest of the time I started filling in my calendar with reading assignments and due dates. I registered for a video we have to watch.

When I came home my son was running outside. He’s finding his new normal and ways to keep himself busy. We drove in with Dad to the vehicle place where one of the vans is getting the rest of what it needs for the boys to be able to drive it to school. I’m planning to go see Ethan and Laura next weekend for his opening meet in South Dakota. We Facetimed them for the first time this week so that was fun to see them.

They’re walking to school while the weather is nice. Elianna and Grandma came over for supper. Elianna came earlier to take Zorro for a walk and a swim. He has this weird thing sometimes where he refuses to eat. I cleaned in the mudroom while Dad and the kids made the pizza. We’ve been making it lately instead of ordering it. Afterward the kids were very chatty. I was exhausted but it still was fun to spend that time together.

It’s been a busy past few days. Tuesday was terribly long with being at Thrive in the morning, coming home for ten minutes, and then heading out the door to meet Elianna at the Y. She’s the only person in the world right now I would’ve said yes to for that. So I walked a mile on the treadmill while she did her things. After that I showed her the leg press machine that I always used to do whenever we went for our family days.

So then I left from there to class, having two on Tuesdays from 3-8:30. It was too long of a day and I am still paying for it. Overall I think my classes should be pretty straightforward and not too difficult. For the two classes that had a syllabus online, there are no papers to write or anything crazy. For the one that was the group format, she didn’t have a syllabus done. I will have internship hours every day this week.

I’m not saying any of this thinking anyone cares. It sorts my brain out to verbalize how the days go, and clues me in to what stands out. I actually really enjoyed my two client sessions today. It really is an interesting service to give a person your full attention. There are times I catch myself spacing out for maybe seconds at a time. I start to daydream but thankfully realize I’m doing it and then will come back into things.

Today was our first day back at class. I decided to take this human sexuality class with the teacher from last semester, to be 100% honest, because it was highly probable that it would be easier. I’ve had my hard semesters and don’t have anything more to prove with those. The trauma class was going to have way too much writing.

It’s conducted with a group format which I absolutely love. My favorite class of them all would probably have to be Groups for the exact reason of having the 90 minute group sessions at the end of every class. There were 10 women in the class which I am glad for because I think we will be able to be a lot more open.

Something about group therapy is extra fun for me. One of the reasons I asked my Thrive supervisor about helping with some of the desk and computer work is because I felt like I’d pretty much done all I could with group. Not that you aren’t always developing but while I had the time I thought I could learn something else.

I still don’t know how that’s going to work out. Today I thought was my first day “on the job” training but there was another new intern there getting paper work and then he had a meeting with a social worker student for about an hour. I watered the flowers and swept the front porch and tried to sort through the emails.

I also had a client session plus two again tomorrow. Right now I am not interested in adding any more, unless for some reason this desk thing doesn’t work out and he doesn’t end up needing me there. I like being versatile in jobs but I need to have some sense of direction or else I start to get too anxious about it all.

Elianna and Zorro moved out to Grandma’s house this evening. It’s very different when they aren’t going far and essentially staying in town. Her room, like her brother’s, still has about a third of her stuff in it. My sister and I were talking about this yesterday and it came up as a joke that it was time to raise my standards. With two kids out, and two more who are not even here much of the day, it’s reasonable to expect a cleaner house.

Sigh. It’ll still have to wait. At this point I have it in my mind that when my children come to visit in future years then they will see how much things have changed and forgive me for my less-than habits. They will understand it was actually them and that I’ve been able to finally achieve some long held house goals, and they will be happy for me. That’s how I imagine it, where we don’t even remember or much think about those days.

We celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday a few days late. We brought supper and dessert and did the dishes. Every time we’re there I notice the picture of Papa on the entryway table. It’s the one of him standing in the frame of the house. That he is missing all this, I feel like he would’ve just loved to be here and experience everything going on. To think of him and remember this way, I don’t suppose that will ever change.