I just pumped my right arm into the air and yelled, ‘Yes!’ when I saw on the internet (on a site I have open most of all day, every day) we were expecting thunder this afternoon.
I fear I may be losing my street cred with my peeps at work. On the other hand, I find people are endeared to weirdos.
Put away the watercolour paint markers, the normal everyday markers, the coloured pencils. No need for the face emotion masks or the getting to know you boardgame. The thoughtfully placed stuffed animals are sitting around staring at each other, because my first ever session as the sole counsellor with a family has been cancelled.
Sometimes you get what you wish for. I said to TMD this morning that I wasn’t sure whether to hope they did or didn’t come. I was really looking forward to it, and I like this family a lot, but I was still nervous. It also would have been my first ever on-site family session. I think that if they had come and we had all survived the session (or even – gasp – enjoyed it), my confidence would have been boosted.
For weeks people have been saying I must be so frustrated not seeing clients yet. I really, really wasn’t. I fully expected a big gap for induction, training, getting to know how things worked around here, etc. Now I am getting bored – probably a very good sign that I am ready to start my therapeutic work again. This is the longest I’ve gone without providing therapy since before I started my training! I’ve had one or two phone sessions, but somehow it’s not the same.
C’mon people.
In other news, how much do I love the movie Wall-e? A lot. I admit to crying at various points and being quite stressed out – like when his little cockroach friend gets left behind. I applaud those folks at Pixar, making me care about a mini-me version of Johnny 5.
My mother is very excited about the fact that I might Move Back Home One Day, and I think my sister has gotten into it as well. All of this from an innocent email wondering if my qualifcations are transferrable to that country, which stemmed from the idea that I definitely want to do more training in a couple of years. While waiting for the train this morning, I thought about these two places. Past Country and Present Country, with no clear winner of which would win the title of Future Country, if either.
It occured to me that I have never been a real grown up in Past Country. In this place I live now, I’ve had actual adult jobs, completed two postgraduate courses, bought a house, bought a car, lived a grown-up life with my grown-up wife, etc. What do I really know about Past Country? I’m not even totally clear on the types of jobs availble for working with young people, for example (excluding the obvious ones). TMD has said she would move back into the camping field should we move there, and this morning I was thinking – is it possible for me to be happy if she works in that type of job?
And that’s even if a camp is happy to take on not just the suberbly qualified TMD, but also her lesbian partner and their children. It’s been a long time since I’ve faced the type of discrimination that is inherent in Past Country. The sort that is so thick and murky fingers reach into every area of your life. Would I want to live in that environment? Raise my children there?
The simple fact is, I think I am more comfortable in Present Country. While it was a huge culture shock to move here originally, and I faced feeling really low for the first couple of years, now I have grown up and into this place. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to live in Past Country. In all sorts of fantastical fantasy ways I would prefer it, hands-down. But is it possible? I don’t know.
All of this is completely arbitrary discussion anyway, as we would not move there until there was a national policy on immigration with regards to same-sex marriage. But the way things are going, that could either be much sooner than we ever predicted – or decades away. I’m not sure. Those of you living in a country where gay marriage is not legal and therefore immigration is a bitch, what is the vibe?
Out of curiousity, I just googled ‘writing exercises.’ I found a site that has a five minute exercise per day for every day of the year. The first one I read is something like… George has high blood pressure. His wife has just come home from the grocery store; she has bought things that are not good for George. Write with dialogue.
I read it and could almost picture my brain yawning.
I don’t usually like other people’s exercises, with a few notable exceptions. Birdwatcher lent me a book called Wild Mind or something, and it was chock full of delicious ideas that I was delighted with. Most of them were more vague, though. Such as writing for fifteen minutes, continuing with the statement ‘I remember.’ This is what I like – my own choice of ideas, words, paths to explore. I don’t really give a fuck about George’s high blood pressure (he couldn’t even have an interesting name, could he) or the massive fight he and Georgina are about to get into.
I can picture some Spaghetti Os spattering against the walls, but this is shortly followed by my metaphorically brain as the gunshot rips through my head.
(Ooh, this reminded me of the bit in The Shining where the dead guy’s brains show up on the wall in the Presidential Suite. Sweet!)
I was writing in my paper journal this morning about how my problem isn’t with characters, it’s with story. This is perhaps the opposite of when I am verbally storytelling, and also perhaps the opposite of the way I’d like to be. That being said, those godawful Dan Brown books. He may be able to plot a fast-paced story, but his character description is worse than in romance novels written for housewives. Actually, he’s probably one of the worst (albeit famous) writers ever.
Whereas Stephen King is all about the characters (and also ends up with pretty solid plots, as well), and his stories seem driven more by the people in them than the events. I think that’s not a bad way to write, and maybe it makes sense for me seeing as I’m all up in other people’s psychological spheres all day long.
The key is managing to start writing without stopping because it’s going no-no-nowhere.
In other news, when I went to the hospital they asked about 65362575 times if I was pregnant and finally bullied me into taking a test. This sort of heterosexist thinking really got me angry, and it was surprising that TMD had such a wildly different take on things, saying I should just go ahead and take the test. Let’s think about when I last had sex with a man – probably 1998 or 1999. Unless he had some long-life sperm, I don’t think that’s going to do the trick.
I fully accept they had legal reasons to ask. I also accept that theoretically I could be cheating on TMD and fucking men. But surely they should have asked her to step out of the room and to speak to me alone if that was an issue?
I finally caved because the lovely surgeon (the only one who was not completely – and I hate this word – retarded about us being a lesbian couple) begged me to so she wouldn’t get in trouble with her boss.
Grr. Argh.
I think it also probably annoyed me because I would like nothing more to be pregnant, and having to tell 50 different people 100 different times that I was not pregnant was fairly harsh.
I am so happy. I love TMD, I enjoy my work, I smile a lot. I just wanted to say.
I also know Epilady doesn’t read this (yet, how do you work into conversation that you like someone enough to let them read your blog?), but if she did I would want her to know she is fabulous.
And I won’t share anyone’s laundry up here (how different this blog is to my 1996 shit stirrer), but I think everyone reading this needs to pause a second and just appreciate their life.
A recap:
The first time I heard the term ‘wet dream’ I was in fifth grade, standing at the bottom of a skiing hill termed as ‘expert.’ It was just after the dinner break in my weekly skiing lessons (for four years), and the sixth graders had just started their sex ed lessons.
A year later I was most disappointed to find out that sex ed really was nothing more exciting than a one hour lesson so boring I can’t even remember it today.
—
I am an accredited sexual health worker, specialising in working with young people. In fact, I’m accredited at the highest level it is possible to be. I am also a counsellor, a fake special education teacher, a camp director, a writer. Do I really want to train to be a psychologist?
My sign language skills have flown out of my head than they ever flew out of my fingers.
—
Everything seemed much more disconnected on the train. Here it seems logical, the way things join up. Still, I know I am missing a lot of what happened on the train. Ah, John Mayor (Mayer?), your music couples so well with my green tree-d morning ride.
My dress is so short that I don’t even need to touch my toes to expose my ass. Let’s hope people around me believe I am wearing leggings, as opposed to the tights they really are.
It’s funny how for months – okay, years – I wanted out. Day Job was stressful, Day Job was this, Day Job was that. I went for a lot of jobs, and I always ended up snug as a bug in a rug…at Day Job. Now I’m in this fantastic full time therapy role, and jobs are flying at me right, left, and centre. There’s a book I halfway read once, which talked about how those things you were natually good at were those things you should pursuing as a career. I don’t think it’s just an innate talent, but also an interest which drives you to learn more and perform better.
Therapy is that thing for me.
On the table is the offer to become a clinical group supervisor. I’ve not decided either way. This morning, my LOVELY boss at Operation Fingerpaint offered me another great opportunity – to do group work with children. And the two seem to marry together neatly, as the out-of-normal-working-hours required to facilitate this group would allow me to take the time off in order to do the whole supervision thing.
It just feels very baby versus career right now. Do I really want to work an evening a week, plus a three hour slot somewhere doing supervision? Part of me wants to turn everything down and just see what it’s like to have a normal job with normal hours. To relax a little. Another part of me longs to be a supervisor…and also recognises how great groupwork would be in terms of my own learning.
I guess I can have a baby and a career – and I’d better make the most of it now. Every time I see my little niece I wonder if i really would be able to go back to work and leave my child. I don’t know.
At any rate, I’m back at Operation Fingerpaint after almost a week off. I need to buy my mother’s very belated birthday gift before my lunch break is over, and probably also think some more about this supervision thing. I really need to reply to that email as it’s been a few weeks, but I’ve not really discussed it at all with TMD yet.
This is what happened with the other offer to become registered on a private practitioner’s list – I never followed it up. I instinctly know that while I do love one-to-one adult therapy, I don’t have the time or space in my life for it right now. And besides, I’ll be getting it at this job anyway.
I’m almost thirty.
That’s unrelated, and very related – all at the same time.
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