Life After Module

Well, I think I faired rather nicely considering it's been two months since my last (and hopefully final) surgery. I did start my period and picked up a mild cold, and performed a wedding all during the module. I decided to skip today's portion of classes because it was only going to be for two hours and was non-supervised, peer discussion of our Beginning Theory of Counseling papers. Yesterday we discussed them to my point of satisfaction and I feel rather goodly about the feedback I received, and gave. I have only read two papers out of the 8 I was supposed to read (which reminds me, I will have to plead with the other members to e-mail me theirs so I can read them).

I am and was exhausted by going to module. I thought going to a room and sitting on my ass would not be exhausting. It is. The chairs are uncomfortable, my gut went wonky with eating greasy restaurant food (and I wasn't buying cheap fast food) and the early mornings were the bane of my existence. My bag did spring a leak during Friday afternoon's class and so I was feeling really miserable and low and decided "This is it. I'm going home and not going back." But then as I drove home and stopped for a pizza I realized that I only needed to go back one more day for just a couple of hours and I could manage to get up at 6 am and do the half-day. I thought if I slept in my own bed, was able to worship the kitties for a couple of hours, and sleep beside Pooky that whatever was ailing me and making me so tired would slough off like dead skin cells.

My theory worked. I felt better when I got home. There was a message on the answering machine. My mother: "Hi. I'm in the hospital. Give me a call."

Turns out she had yet another DVT. Her third blood clot and now it is in her other leg. She most likely threw a few tiny clots on Friday accounting for her shortness of breath and chest pains. She's getting IV heparin therapy. The doctor says she most likely has a genetic disorder with her blood. She'll have to take blood thinners for the rest of her days.

I think she must hold onto a sense of indestructability because she told me about this blood clot of hers back when I was having my second surgery. She can easily wrap herself up in a flotation device and set sail on the river of Denial. Whatever wisdom I could offer her I gave freely about such things as: "Don't fret about closing the shop. Things work themselves out. What is most important is not denying your health. Yes, life does go on, but you can always pick up the pieces when you are ready to. And if you meet people who won't cut you some slack, so be it. There are those who will understand."

She lamented that she is bored by being in bed. The doctor won't let her walk for fear of her throwing a much bigger clot that could kill her. He said he doesn't want that sense of responsibility on his conscience. She was a bit peeved to not be able to move, but I said that she does need to take it seriously right now.

Then she regretted not taking time off for a real vacation and was realizing how this felt like a forced vacation without the amenities. I said that she really should take the time off for a real vacation, that by not doing so her body made her take one. It's true. Our bodies will eventually win out in the end. We haven't yet mastered that whole near-immortality thing just yet.

I found it difficult to sit with my mom, not because I hate hospitals. In fact, they feel like home and are comforting to me. Yet, what grates on me is her personality. I wanted to just lecture to her constantly about everything that was wrong. So I stayed quiet and tried to control what I decided to talk about. Mostly I just let her carry on. It was safer that way.

As I drove home I thought how weird it is when we grow up. I recall living every day with this woman, and did so for about twenty years. I was sad to leave home in many respects, for I didn't feel completely ready to leave home when I did, but at the same time was ready to leave home because she was so irritating to me. Yet, there was that precious time in childhood when she meant the world to me and I couldn't stand being away. The same goes for my dad, too.

We really do lives most of our lives away from our parents, and yet those tender few years we do live with them stay with us for the rest of our days! I was trying to wrap my mind around it all. What caused me to feel so differently about my mother over the years? I found myself very maudlin about how very little time families really are together. I miss my siblings, the daily interaction we had with each other. Now it's such a chore to find the time to e-mail them, let alone see them or spend an hour or two with them.

I find myself wishing for the "old days" in which families didn't disperse like dandelion puffs in the wind, and that siblings stayed near the family homestead, or in some cases, never did marry and remained at home carrying on as usual and then caring for their parents when the effects of old-age set in. (I am reading the Anne of Green Gables series and the Cuthberts come to mind. Many other characters in the books also similar.)

We look back on those times and realize how unenlightened they were about family dysfunction, child abuse and molestation were kept secret, and men and women had rigid family roles. Really, though, it was all there but how it was dealt with is much different than today. I just wish that the good parts—like the togetherness—wasn't left behind in favor of living a modern lifestyle. I imagine that is the price to pay for switching from being agricultural to industrial. There is no need to stay near home because the career or job you need to have is always "elsewhere".

I'm finding that my opportunities in the counseling field is limited simply because I am in a community that doesn't need or value them that much. Most of the people are court ordered into "treatment" and don't enter into by choice. The number of privately practicing therapists/counselors in my county can be counted on a pair of hands. The community agencies are less than a handful.

So I know if I want to "make it" in my field, I will have to move to where people seek and want access to my services. I don't want to move to Seattle where I feel that there is a glut of therapists. I'd like to find an area that is open to therapy, and hasn't yet been tapped. My romance for the south beckons to my soul, and I know that the culture of the south is vastly different than what I am used to. Still, I feel up to the challenge of finding my way there and seeing if I can't establish myself in the midst of that culture.

One of the great marriage therapists of the differentiated school of thought, David Schnarch, once had a practice in New Orleans before moving to Colorado. If he was able to gain popularity and experience success down there, I feel that there is hope that I, too, can find my southern home someday.

Of course, ideally I'd love to live in the little Hamlet of Shrone. Only I think it isn't really a town anymore. It was once upon a time...

Now, I am going to share with you something that may sound oddball, but hear me out about it, and promise to consider it kindly, and not poke fun. In reading about reincarnation from Edgar Cayce's readings, he said often groups of souls will collectively reincarnate together. It is more than just families reincarnating, but can be whole communities.

When I learned Shrone was a real town, and I found so many other dear souls in my life who are Shrones, I started to think that maybe—just maybe we all once lived in that town of Shrone and we were dearest of friends. For Cayce also says that there isn't radomness in the people who come into our lives. The people that impact us the most, that we form friendships with, are indeed those souls we've incarnated with before.

In my heart I have this "fear" that when I do have the chance to travel to the town of Shrone I may very well feel overwhelmed on a spiritual level, that it is my one true home, and that I won't be able to leave it. I strongly feel that there is one place on this planet that is my True Home. And in my heart of hearts, I would so very much like to realize my wish for all of us Shrone to one day meet in the town of Shrone—for the first time in this incarnation, but a reunion of our souls.

We've got 7 pumpkins to carve: one for each human and cat, and then lights to string. I have a wedding tomorrow evening before the little ones come seeking candy. We have been very good about our pre-Halloween candy consumption. I don't want much of it left over even if that means Pooky will sulk a bit.