Today during lecture I learned a very important piece of information from an eight year old: "Pay attention to when cats are coughing." And why should we pay attention? Because if we don't bad things happen after a cat coughs. It made me think of Mr. B and Theodore Montague, the two who with great skill manage to yak in the most inconvenient of places.
Over therapeuticized
I have a moment here at lunch to post that I am alive, well, exhausted, and brain over-loaded with a lot of information. Yesterday we learned about narrative therapy and then tried it out with a real problem we are having. My problem is my frustration, which prompted me to acquire another Ugly Doll, this time Target, as he embodies what I imagine my frustration would look like if it took form. I think what does it for me is the single red eye.I've realized that frustration is a key theme in my life. When I had my aura photographed back in August, there is a distinct line of frustration present in my energy. This year I shall be working on evolving my frustration. Through the use of the narrative therapy technique, I came to realize how my frustration is a compelling force that prompts me to take action, but it also paralyzes me into dwelling and self-misery.
Other school crap
I miss being able to just "be". But I am also enjoying the social aspects. At home I am around the cats 24/7 and after awhile I start to think too much in feline ways. I have been good about not letting the thoughts of Smee suffering horribly consume my every ounce of concentration. I am focused and very present during lectures and activities. I brought my crocheting in during this morning's lecture on law and ethics.The food situation is nasty, but I am trying to eat what I can from the buffet simply because eating even cheap fast food can add up, plus the fast food leaves me feeling sludge-ish.
Show me the $$, please!
It's not good that on the first day of module the accounting lady said she had no idea I'd be receiving a supplemental loan! No check has been issued to me, so that means on Monday I get to make some important phone calls to find out just where my $20,000 disappeared to. I've not received any indication that I wouldn't be receiving it, so I'm sure it's stuck in the interdepartmental mail or whatever. The more that the money is actually needed, the longer it takes for it to be processed and the check cut.Internship starting!
Monday is just around the corner which means I will be starting my internship! I won't be seeing any clients that first day, and will be setting up my work schedule. I've heard stories from fellow students already about their clinical experiences with clients, and I'm not letting it make me anxious to hear how things have been; instead I use the experiences they share to learn from, and realize what could be done to help if I experience something similar.Well, I shall go get a cup of tea and see about resting before the second half of the day starts. We'll be covering structural therapy this afternoon, wrap it up tomorrow before lunch, and then after lunch we start in on epistemology.
Dear Readership of Home Burrough:
I'll be away at Module 1 of the new school year from Tuesday, September 26th, through Sunday, October 1st. I start my internship on October 2nd, so the next couple of weeks I shall be mostly absent from the blogosphere. I'm going to miss reading your blogs. I am assuming that my adventures into the world of mental health counseling will provide me with entertaining and amusing stories to share—about myself, not clients, as I must uphold HIPAA.
The upcoming year will be intense with so much to do, so little time to do it in. Along the way you'll get to accompany me when I am able to check in and blog about my emotional state, what new things I am learning about myself, and how my journey is going on my path to becoming a marriage and family therapist.
As much as my life is about to change in regard to how I spend my time, I know that I can crochet during class. There's a knitter who works on her projects, so I imagine I can also work on mine, too.
I'll be missing you this week! Hopefully I can check in from time to time!
It Doesn't Make for Great Diner Conversation
I returned to classes on Saturday to hear the lecture once again about sex offenders. Maybe I have heard enough sick, strange stories about what humans do to each other to no longer feel the "shock" of hearing the twisted actions a person can commit. I have been fortunate in that I remain one of the three in the "one in four" statistic pertaining to women and sexual offense.I see the horrific damage it does to a person to have been sexually offended. It stays with them forever; they do survive it, but I don't know how to describe the healing that they achieve. I feel sad and powerless about their experience. I am mad that in our society, even though we have all of this "awareness" that little boys and girls are still being sexually offended by adults, and in some cases, other children/teens.
It's hard for me to understand how a person could break the barriers and sexually offended a child or another person. I think of it as trying to describe the color blue to a blind person who has never seen. Deep within me I have a sense of utmost respect and value for myself and other people. To abuse them in such a way is a foreign concept to me. I then use my perspective to shape my opinion of such people, that anyone who could commit such unthinkable acts must have checked their soul at the door, abdicated their humanity along with it.
Our guest speaker works in the state prison system providing treatment to those who want to go through it. I am skeptical that the treatment works. I struggle to remain open to a sexual offender ever acting differently—normally. I struggle to see the sexual offender as being anything other than a creepy monster.
Which made me realize that I have a growing edge. The guest speaker put out the invitation for us to put together a group to visit the prison and observe the treatment program in action. I will put my name on the list to attend.
Where having a conflict with your instructors is normal, and expected
After speaking with the systems consultant (the school's provided therapist for the students) she encouraged me to make appointments with the two faculty that I had a pinch with as it would be necessary to clean up our respective conversations.So I left a note in their mailboxes requesting time to make appointments. Both approached me with a much more respective and friendly attitude and we set up times to converse. I feel like I have passed the first part of the "test". The remaining parts will be determined during and after my conversations with them.
Time to Say Good-Bye
Whatever I felt like saying to my former classmates I never did tell them. So much has transpired and that we're heading off in different directions that the importance of it lessened. What became more important was to offer them my joy in their accomplishment, share in their sense of achievement and to wish them luck on their future journeys.Often we never fully know the why of something "inexplicable" happening. As much as I appreciate the awe and mysterious that comes into my life, a part of me wants to understand why, while the other part of me says that in order to retain the beauty of the unknown there is no need to understand why.
I will never know why my surgery from a year ago resulted in a complication that resulted in my taking a leave of absence from school. That very same complication resulted in my reuniting with family members that I longed to reconnect with. I can look at what happened as both a "good" and "bad" thing, but these are just labels to convey that I got what I wanted and didn't get what I wanted. I have been left with a sense that whatever happens to me I endure, and continue even when my heart and soul is weary from the journey. I feel propelled by some force greater than myself, that my life force is strong, determined. Whatever it is I need to do hasn't been done yet.
I can't technically say that I am making up Module 7 this week because last year when it happened I was between hospitalizations and didn't attend it.
It feels a twinge bit strange to return to school like this. I will be encountering my old classmates. I loathe already that they will all ask me how I am doing. I hate this question simply because if I were in fact doing poorly I wouldn't be at the module now, would I? Also, I'm still bitter about how things turned out. I'll get over it in time or just harbor a grudge (LOL!) and move on. The burning question is how will I be with the new set of classmates I'll be (hopefully) joining in September? (I still need to secure an internship)
Going away from Tuesday until Sunday is going to be rough. I already miss Smee and he's right here on the desk with me. He's my morning wake up call and bundle of purring love. I need that to start my day! Then in the evenings I'll miss my Pooky Tyme. How can I settle into a peaceful sleep without Pooky first sanding my back?
Well, I'll endure. I won't be near a computer either. That sucks. I have my WW and TT scheduled to post but I won't be able to read everyone else's or make comments. I hope folks won't mind if I am delayed in reviewing their postings for that.
About the only good thing is that I am not allowed to eat the hotel's buffet laid out for the students. Their food is nasty! And this is a quality hotel, too. Thankfully a Thai restaurant is just a quick walk across a parking lot!
Until Sunday evening then...
People who have commented about the graduate program I attend often remark how alien it feels when you first experience a module. I think it could best be described as those movies or books you read in which the apprentice seeks a teacher to learn the secrets, mysteries, and inner workings of reality. Only instead of the lessons being held in a primitive hut, they are held in a hotel conference room on uncomfortable chairs, the teachers don't speak in riddles but they do ask a lot of questions (the teachers are trained therapists, after all) and there are 40 other apprentices just like you.
It struck me as I drove home after class today, that a majority of the reason why I feel confused and stressed and disoriented about a misunderstanding I had with two faculty members is that in this program it is part of the package deal to work conflicts with your instructor, who very well might illicit such a heated exchange! I don't think they they deliberately created the situation to test my skills, because that would be a major violation of the authenticity rule, yet a part of me does think that "What if they chose to handle this situation in the poorest way they know how just to see how I'd react?"
Am I being tested? I think so. They want to see if I measure up—how I come out in the wash. I find it very hard to believe that both faculty who have been instructing and working as therapists for 20 years would suddenly have no skills whatsoever about how to convey and express to me that I've done something "wrong" or to their disliking. These are people who are slick, know their shit and have demonstrated their finesse and skills to us numerous times during class.
It could very well be that they are just being human, not conducting themselves as the high-and-mighty instructors and therapists they portray. Yet this leaves me wondering, what is their authentic self? I have no idea.
All I know is that within the past 48 hrs I've had two faculty who have the power to deny me to continue in the program have words with me for a decision that I made and they are ready to make me walk the plank and beneath that plank is a swarm of blood thirtsty sharks.
For the curious, I decided that the best thing to do was to come home and conduct a wedding that was scheduled since Pooky had a situation come up that prevented him from performing the ceremony. My faculty says that I had agreed to attend all of the module and should not have left to keep my commitment with the couple—that my committment was with them (the school). It matters not to them that I already made up that portion of the curriculum and already received an AC regarding it, so it was a repeat.
I know that a failing grade can be changed to a passing grade if the student demonstrates they have mastered the material. I've never heard of it going the other way. This is the power that they are intimating to me that they have, at least insofar as, they are saying that I will need to somehow make up this missed day of classes. I fail to understand why when I already attended them.
See how this program is like being on a different planet? It's very alien indeed!
I got to my interview 30 minutes early. I read the latest issue of People magazine. If it weren't for waiting rooms I'd never read People magazine.
I think I cleared my head a little too tidy because one of the first things I was asked by my interviewer was to explain how my program has prepared me to be with clients. He wanted names of theorists, descriptions, and I'm sure something a lot more academic than I could muster to convey. It's not that I resorted to bullshitting my answer. I think he knew what my school and program is like because he seemed to familiar with LIOS. I described how we used genograms, look at the client in respect to their families and roles in their community. Family of origin and culture of origin are major themes that have been pounded into my tiny head.
I know in the upcoming year we will learn about 5 various treatment methods, I could only think of narrative therapy, solution-focused and something referred to as MRI (which I don't know what the MRI standards for), and I talked about how at a recent module we emphasized relationship triangles as they reflect systemic interactions and are used as leverage points. (Of course this is most likely boring you if you aren't into the whole counseling/therapist shtick.)
Funny thing about these sorts of interviews is that you walk away thinking how good it went, how bad it went, and that the interviewer is too damn good at masking their impression of you so you can't guess if you'll receive good news in three weeks regarding their decision.
Three weeks of waiting. I suppose I can manage to endure 21 odd days of not knowing—living in the mystery. Meanwhile, as much as I think I'd fit in at this agency, I shall keep making inquiries with others. Tonight I shall perform that séance where I channel Murray Bowen hoping that I won't have Sigmund Freud come through instead.
This morning this Murphy's Law on teaching came to mind:
If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
Corollary: If you are given a take home exam, you will forget where you live.
Corollary: If the test is online, you will forget your password.
I have no idea how this is relevant to today. I got for my umpteenth internship interview in a few hours. I'm trying not to let the ghosts of previous interviews and experiences accompany me. I am trying to find a shred of hope and encouragement still remaining in my body.
Let me see what the positives are regarding this particular agency. I know that many LIOS students have interned with various branches of the agency within the region, so I am hoping that the director is not flabberghasted by the enormous amount of internship hours I must log. I hope he is familiar with my program's requirements that I can video tape my client sessions. That I need 150 hours of direct, multi-body client contact. That I must be able to practice from a systems counseling perspective. And that on Wednesdays after 6pm I am allowed one royal fizzbin.
The negatives are that I am about to start my period. It is raining a thick, goopey type of rain. Maybe I am the one that fills thick and goopey because of my bloating and sensation of total body stickiness? I feel excessively ready for a nap and it is only 8:20 am. I am like Jacob Marley carrying with me the chains of all previous interviews, and do they ever weigh a lot! I hope I can devest of them along the freeway as I drive the hour to Tacoma.
Oh, and what else is on my mind? Well, when I went to apply for my supplemental student loan, turns out that my credit score dropped because of the recent charges I applied to my card. Those charges were the first I made since the holidays and they were made to book my hotel rooms for the make-up modules. Since my credit score dropped the loan was denied. I love the irony of it.
The obvious solution is to pay down my cards and hope to the highest of heavens my credit score will boost back up so that I can re-apply for the loan. I still have time. Only I hope it isn't like how they are quick to deduct money from your account but are so slow to issue a refund. It was literally a matter of days and my score dropped!
So the plans for a set of golf clubs for Pooky and a DVD-R for me will become true Christmas presents, and every spare dollar we can part with will go to VISA.
Thus, not only does school hinge upon me getting an internship, has a second hinge of being able to get that supplemental loan. The tuition at my school isn't covered by the governmental loan, and there are the expenses of the internship that I must cover (fuel, clothing, etc). I do hope that a third hinge doesn't manifest. At least not today—not when I am about to start my period.
I've returned from the mini module and I met with some of the people who are the Systems Counseling students that I will be joining in the fall. I also met with students who are part of the first year Winter track in the same program. I really connected with some people in the Winter track and lamented that I wish I could be joining them. However, the people I did meet from the Fall program also left a good impression on me.
Maybe it's because I have been through the program for a year, and maybe it's because the students I met have been through enough of the program that they have some experiences under their belt—whatever the functioning behind it all is, I felt different and interacted different with this collective group, and they interacted with me in a different way. I don't have the words to describe it just yet. Different is all that I can recognize.
This may be my last non-automated entry for awhile. I have my Thursday 13 stuff set up for the next couple of weeks. I have things that need to be done and am committed to getting them accomplished. If I did blog it would probably be to share passages from the scholarly books I've been reading and I doubt my audience would care to be informed about relationship triangles, self-focus, circular questioning, solution focused therapy, and so on.
Without fail my period has begun and I go to Mini Module tonight. I swear during my first year in the program my period would strike during Module, as if there is an energy field contained within the Module that induces such things to occur. Of course it has long been known that groups of women living together, such as in a dorm, will synchronize their cycles, but I don't know about Modules counting. We only meet for 4-5 days and I don't know how much time bodies need to get into synchronicity.
All I know is I think the Tylenol I've taken is being beaten to death by my cramping uterus. I don't have anything stronger. I think I'll go to the drug store and get some Pamprin. I recall that Pamprin doesn't exactly tame the cramps, but it makes you not care that you have them.
I suppose I should pack my clothes and things for the weekend. I already miss Smee terribly! This will be our first time away from each other. Smee is like my lint and shadow. We start the day together with love and end the day with love. I've never had a cat so attached to me and I to him. I'm going to have to call him tonight and talk to him. Hopefully that will soothe his nerves and mine too.
I think our closeness comes from raising him as a kitten. From the start I took to him, seeing immediately that he was a luckdragon and that he needed special attention if he was to make it. He never raced to the bottle like the other two, so I'd pick him up and pet him and make sure he got his fill of milk.
It's going to be a nice, sunny vernal day! If the wind calms down, which I hope it will, I will have to change my mind about it being a crappy month weather-wise.
Until I return from Mini Module....
It's that time of year for me to think about finishing up the odds and ends from my first year at LIOS. I have to make up all of Mini-Module 4. If you miss one day you have to make up the entire weekend of classes because that's they way things are. So I've got my room booked and I'll be spending April 21-23 doing that. I wish I could recall what this module was about. I had a very bad cold and was in a foggy frame of mind.
I will also be meeting the new to me first year students whom I will join in the fall as second year students. Confused yet? You should be. I'm technically a second year student, they are first years. But together we'll be second years come September. Actually, I won't be much of anything if I can't manage to acquire an internship.
Then I get to repeat all of Module 7. I dread this. I dread this with a passion because I will have to face again my former first year now second year classmates. The very same people who weren't there for me when I was terribly sick last summer. The very same people who would wax poetic on how they longed to help people in need, but just who in the fuck did they have in mind when they spoke about helping others? Did they mean paying clients? When presented with someone within their own community they ignored the call.
I'm still scratching my head over why this group did virtually nothing. OK, a handful of them got together bought me a get well card and signed it. In comparison, people with whom I've only interacted with online via their blogs and C'Ville called me, send e-mails to the hospital, and many of you sent more than just cards. I'm sure if some of you lived near me you would have made house calls.
I'm befuddled by how my former classmates who are going into the helping/caring professional field could be so negligent and thoughtless. It's like I didn't exist! When I did express my need for help from them, posting it on the group's bulletin board, all I got back were responses that read like this: "I think it's really great you can express what your needs are. I couldn't do that. I hope you are feeling better soon." WTF kind of response it that?!?!?! I can tell you: it is a sad-ass lame one!
OK, benefit of doubt, my former classmates have had a full year of growth and development. Perhaps now they will be different, but I don't want to sit and have that conversation with them in which I say what's my beef and they respond back with the program's party line of "I'm so glad you can state your emotions and what's bothering you." Or my other least favorite, "This is about you, not me." The reasoning being on that one still stumps me. Yes, it is about me and you are my problem. Don't worm out of it by making it appear that you are not involved and a co-creator of the situation.
All I can say is, I've got a TON of rage at them and I don't really want to show up at this module and unleash my fury on them because that isn't a good way to say hello after not seeing them for a year, but if I somehow don't calm down I'm likely to just vomit out all of the emotions instead of being cordial. I think the best thing to do is contact one of the program leaders and talk to her about my emotional state and get some guidance from her about it. Perhaps something can be set up in one of the days of module in which I have a talk with my former classmates. There will be crying, there will be tears—at least on my part. Never before have I wanted to say this to a group of people, but I really want to proclaim to them: Shame on you! You knew better and didn't do better!
Last night Pooky rubbed me down with some Cherry Almond body butter from Sensaria, and I spoke out loud what was on my mind. I am frustrated that my body is still healing and so going back to school and doing an internship just doesn't seem like I could accomplish it. If I push myself I am dead with exhaustion.
I feel that from this vantage point that there are more cons than pros to waiting until September to return to school. I don't think trying to get a part-time job would work as most employers aren't going to like hearing: I need sudden bathroom breaks and I may have to leave abruptly to go home (due to bag troubles). If I was already established with a long work history, this might not be a problem, but since I've never been healthy enough to do a 40 hr/week job, I'm sure it is rather plain that I'm not the model employee who never gets sick, never pees or eats, etc.
During the 9 months I could get caught up on my reading. I should be able to procure an internship in June when all of the positions open up again. Right now is a bad time to try to get one. I don't want to do an internship for 18 months. A year is plenty of time.
Yet, from now until September feel like a small eternity. Pooky says I could spend time editing and polishing his story. Maybe getting it published???
Even though there are more cons than pros to delaying school, I think that this is going to be my choice. I had hoped I'd be more recovered by now. I am upset that I'm not; I am trying to accept that this is where I am at, and that where I want to get is just going to take longer than I thought.
Maybe as the optimists say, that when I get there I'll know there was a reason for everything turning out the way that it has and how the future unfurls remains to be seen. I do trust in the Universe. I do believe in that schmaltzy thought that God gives us only as much as we can handle. {Though it would be nice if The Divine thought I could handle having a lot of money, LOL! Instead I get five cats ;-)!}
Pooky said not to worry about the finances. Somehow we'll make it. It will be tight, but we'll manage. I just hope more people want to get married during the off season months.
I see my doctor on Tuesday and I'll discuss it with him. He's a real easy going type of doctor. He's known me since I was 10 years old.
Now I just need to tell the school once they come back from holiday. I'm going to hate writing the letter, but I think it needs to be done. Dash it all! [insert mad emoticon here]
Today I realized that the folks at my local mental health center just aren't that interested in having me intern with them. I know in class we spoke about having to be persistent and make multiple calls and leave endless voice mails, but really. If they are interested, wouldn't they call back after the first message?
So today I called around to places in Cowlitz and Thurston counties, hoping that someone will take my bait and call me back. It seems that the standard method of operation at these facilities is to re-direct your call at least 3 times, but when you finally get the person who knows something, you get their voice mail. I think it is planned that way.
Well, I'll make calls again on Friday and follow up. That's all that I can do if no one calls back. Yeah, I know. I'll be making a second call to all of their voice mails, but maybe just someone will get back to me before Friday? Wishful thinking never hurt anyone.
I'm starting to really re-think the whole counseling field anyhow. I mean after spending what will total $130,000 in student loans, the best that an agency in Thurston county is willing to pay a counselor/therapist is $20/hr. A truck driver makes more money and most likely has no student loans to pay back, unless they are someone like me who realized long before I did that nowadays education doesn't count in the end; it's all bottom-line and profits, and you go where the money is because otherwise you scrape by.
No one cares what your financial situation is because everyone you know is scraping like you or is worse off. Unless you happen to be in one of those professions that actually pays, like accounting/banking, medicine, law, etc.
I question if it is even worth Pooky going for his master's because him getting his bachelor's hasn't helped him get promoted at Home Depot, nor has it helped him get hired. The only reason HD took him is because he worked there before. I don't even want to know how much student loan debt he has.
Maybe in the end we'll decide to play the game of life and say "fuck it" to our diplomas and become team truck drivers. That way we'll be able to pay our bills, plus have money left over to enjoy. And no, I'm not meaning to sound sarcastic, I'm dead serious!
Post Script
Ha! I told you so, and did you believe me? If they are interested, they will call. It's not quite 6 o'clock and I've gotten back two phone calls. I'm scheduled to interview with someone on Monday, and the other gal seemed that an internship could be arranged, I just needed to speak to the actual coordinator.Naturally, since we're going out tomorrow all day, the remaining calls will be returned, but I won't bitch one bit. (In fact, I think leaving the house actually causes them to call, along with the postal carrier to deliver that package I've been expecting.)
The *catch* with the interview on Monday is, he warned me I'd have to pay for the background check. I hope it isn't too costly. It should be only between $50-100, but I could be wrong. I'll find out more when I go talk with him.
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.
I'm off on Tuesday to Module 7 with the Winter track group. I'm so looking forward to meeting everyone. I've already made e-mail contact with some folks and everyone has welcomed me into their group. I have a strong feeling that everything is going to turn out fine.
Of course, I hate being away for so long. It is a long module. Pooky said since I'll have my own hotel room that he'll come up on Wednesday night. We'll have dinner, maybe some marital bliss, and then an early start of it the next day.
I won't be taking the computer with me, and if I get too lonely for blogging I can always log-on at the hotel for $4/hr, but since money is tight, I'll have to be very needy.
I'm glad that McDonald's has been running their Monopoly game because I've collected a breakfast sandwich, medium fries, and two large sandwiches for free, which I'll take advantage of because the McD's is across the street from the hotel. I will of course treat myself to some Thai food, a "blood burger" from Stanford's (the next best cheeseburger to Fuddrucker's) and probably something from Pizza Schmizza.
My ostomy has been working very nicely and I'm getting the feel for when it needs to be changed. I think of myself as a mother sensing when her baby has soiled their diaper. I had a strong craving for chocolate donuts tonight which means my period is on my way. I'm sure it is going to happen when I'm away; it always does.
I got my 10 page paper written, and looked ahead at future assignments. I noticed that there is a Theory of Counseling paper which apparently is the Beginning Theory of Counseling paper updated after a hard year of internship. I'm sure my theory will change after having to deal with people; it always does. Only with the final version you have to present it to a committee of faculty and peers and it increases to 20 pages. That's not too bad considering that most master thesis papers have to be plastic spiral bound and all of that presentation crap.
I won't have Module 1 until January of next year. By then I must have my internship or they definitely won't let me continue. My plan is to go to the agency on Tuesday when I return. I must make an appearance in person because so far nothing has happened by me sending a letter or making a phone call. If I plant myself in their office someone will have to see me.
I'm still not crocheting. How I've been expressing my creativity is through writing. I've been known to dabble in the fictional arts, and an idea for a story keeps plaguing me at night just before I fall asleep. So I've gotten a rough draft of the first chapter going. Do all writers start writing stories from the beginning? What I've started could possibly be the middle. I don't know. I feel the need to write.
One thing that is keeping me from completely freaking out is that as a second year student I may be chosen to be someone's mentor. I've not had that honor before and I am so looking forward to that. I've been thinking of the person who might pick me to be their guide.
I'm off to join Anne Shirley before I join dreamland. I got bought the entire series of books because I must know the entire life of Anne. I've only read a book or two from the series and I've seen all three of the Canadian productions starring Megan Follows. Megan does such an excellent job as playing "Anne with an e."
While I'm away surprise me with comments about all and anything that comes to mind. Make up a story, or tell me the stupidest joke you know. I'm going to terribly miss all of you, even though it is just a short handful of days!