Time Gone By

Thanks to Hannah for reminding me that this blog is a thing and maybe I should be a bit more devoted to it.

This semester has continued to be one that challenges me and stretches me past where I thought my limits lived.

There is the crazy balance of school, work, practicum, next practicum searching/interviewing, family, and friends.

There is also the constant battle to maintain my sanity. Altering medications and whatnot. Feeling that the old familiar incapacity to get out of bed and the literally gut-wrenching anxiety caused by the thought of social interaction.

There is my maybe-dying, cancer-ridden aunt.

There is the dog next door that doesn't get enough love and that I want to take inside my heart and let her live there and give her treats all day until all she wants to do forever and ever and is lay cuddled next to me in bed.

It's funny how giving is the only thing that seems to fill the hole. How choosing work in a field that is immensely humbling-child abuse and neglect, and next year, childhood cancer is one of the only things that keeps my head above water.

This semester has so far been a constant battle between feeling like a rubber band stretched to capacity and wanting to stay curled in a very small ball in the corner of my bed, willing my body to become one with the mattress and pillows and sink into the softness of it all.

Here's to getting through.

And It Begins

I'm pretty used to being stressed somewhere beyond my limits. But this semester, I'll be working the equivalent of a full time job while also attending school full time.

Those entries written over break where I wonder about love and energy all seem a little humorous in this moment.

A day of reading case files and watching women humbly ask for diapers and food to keep their babies alive has my perspective a bit shifted this evening.

I don't think I'm comfortable discussing the details of my practicum on this public forum, but I'd be happy to talk about it more specifically (while maintaining my client's confidentiality, obviously) in person. What I will say is that it works to prevent child abuse, save babies lives, and create healthy families and communities.

Here's to a semester of long days, broken hearts, and learning a little about myself as a social worker and a lot about myself as a person.

A Few Big Leaps

Looking back on things, as this time of year is so wont to make one do, I notice a pattern in my life. Some of the most important decisions and moments in my life were the ones I made without thinking very much-that were made even when they were confusing and were more like jumping backwards off a cliff than carefully choosing which door to open.

Let me give a few examples. April 2008. Texting (future) best friend to say I'm not ok and need help. I barely knew him before that. And after that, he was sealed as my life partner.

May 2009. "I've decided to stop ignoring my urge to sleep with women." Looking back, I remember so LITTLE of my thought process. Just that I did it.

January 2010. Let me just go ahead and move to the UK for six months and see what happens. What happened was amazingly difficult lessons, beautiful friendships, and a whole lot of healing.

November 2010. I'm going to get an MSW.

January 2011. I'm going to become a doula.

November 2012. I'm going to leave someone that loves me fiercely and is never short on compliments. Leave someone who made me feel secure in being loved.

My New Year's Resolution is to "stop forcing situations to be things they aren't." I'm trying to stop wondering when the next backwards jump is coming, and let it just happen when it does.

Let things happen as they will.

Let them happen.

Just...let them.

I'm My Worst Client

Since starting my program, I play the game of "what would I tell myself if I was my client" a lot.

I've come to the conclusion I hope I never have a client like me.

I'm all about letting go of things you can't control. And in 90% of my life, I would say I excel at that philosophy.

But there are certain things. Certain texts I wish someone would send. Certain calls I wish someone would make. Certain words I wish someone would say.

And no matter how much I ask the universe for those things, I can't control them.

I know this, and yet I still have to intentionally shut down those thoughts more often than I would like.

I'm craving a little direction today. A little "here is what you should do and here is what you should feel." A little "I'm here and you didn't have to ask."

Wanting someone to be there and being unwilling to ask for it is one of my least favorite traits in a person. And yet on some days, I find that philosophy dominating my thoughts.

I try to think about whether or not it is realistic to be willing to let go of things I can't control all of the time, or if I would tell myself (as a client) that a 90% is pretty OK and it's normal to feel this way sometimes.

Where does being kind and gentle to yourself end and self-indulgence begin?

How Different?

How different can two people be and still be friends?

I've just caught up with my childhood best friend. She's a beautiful person and still someone who knows how to call me out on my bad decisions. We've seen each other grow up, though from a distance over the last 10 years. From the days we were attached at the hip in middle school, we somewhere took some drastically different paths.

I've always felt (and still do) that we each chose the kind of life that was right for us. Our differences have always been part of the strength of our friendship, but is that sustainable?

Is there a point where the queer sex-positive feminist and the youth pastor can no longer really speak the same language?

She has always served to remind me that Christians are not just those people who hate my kind of people and want us to burn in hell.

But at the same time, I've never had the courage to ask whether or not she thinks my future partner and I should be able to get married. Be able to have kids together. I've never had the courage to ask what she will tell her future children about me. Never had the courage to ask if she has or would defend me if the opportunity arose. I think I don't ask because I'm afraid to know the answer. Afraid that the crazy journey of life has led me to a place in which I lose one more important person in my life just because I'm trying to live as an authentic version of myself.

And maybe sometimes I think of her as the kind of woman with the kind of life that would make mine a lot easier. I wouldn't have to spend so much time worrying and crying about the fact that one day, my mother may very well lose her family and friends when they find out I'm a lesbian. I wouldn't have to carefully hide parts of myself and dodge questions.

I'm trying to think about what I would say as a SW to a client talking to me about the same problem. I would tell her that a friendship in which you dodge important questions maybe isn't such an authentic friendship after all. I would tell her she knows what's best, but maybe she should think about just asking her. I would tell her she isn't doing anything wrong. That the loss of people in her life is the fault of others and not her own. I would tell her its so hard and its not fair, but there are so many people in the world who want her to be happy and don't think she's defective even a little.

This post has wandered, but that's just where I am right now. A little lost.

Where Should It Go?

My focus, I mean.

Do I tell myself to keep my head in the books and my heart on a short leash?

Or do I let myself live with some sort of reckless abandon for whatever experiences may come my way?

I didn't mean to end things with N to find things with someone else.

So what does it mean if I'm developing a serious crush?

What does it mean if I don't know what I want...only what I never want to feel again?

What does it mean if I get distracted from the goals I should be pursuing in the search for my bigger and better happy?

Is there enough to go around?

If not, where should it go?

A Semester In Review

Remember how I was going to blog all about the process of moving home and starting graduate school and maintaining my sanity?

Well then the life I planned to write about actually started to happen.

And there was so much LIVING to do, and too little time and too many words to ever sit down and follow through.

But it's Christmas night now, and I have the time.

The basics? I'll remember this semester as one of new beginnings. I ended my relationship of almost two years because I decided to take the risk of finding a bigger and better happy. It had become, for me, a relationship of just barely enough. I decided I deserved a relationship that overflowed.

I met this group of friends that I feel like I've known my whole life. I remember someone telling me that college is where you meet your bridesmaids. Well, except for B.W., I can't say that was true for me. Yes, I met some absolutely amazing women and made meaningful friendships, but never in the way I thought I would. But grad school? It's been like another chance. These friendships I'm building feel like home, and I can't explain enough how much it feeds my soul.

Living with my parents? Actually pretty awesome. Home cooked food, minimal bills, and mom snuggles when I'm sick. Now that I'm back on the single scene, I feel it cramping my dating style a bit, but that's nothing a little ingenuity can't solve!

Oh, and school. That big thing I'm paying all the money for. It is what it is. Great? Maybe not. Good enough? Definitely. It's a means to an end.

I saw one more baby come into the world since the last time I wrote here. An exquisite labor with a scary birth. It was an experience that taught me a lot about myself as a person, a doula, and a social worker. I hope I never have another experience like it, but I'm thankful I got to experience it and that mom and baby are happy and healthy now.

Here's to a semester of figuring out life a bit more. And figuring out this whole keeping up with a blog thing a LOT more.