Grumpy

It's not often that I get grumpy.  I get frustrated, and angry, and anxious, and occasionally withdrawn, but grumpy?  Not very often at all.

However, tonight I am genuinely grumpy.  Fussy.  Crabby.  Irritable.  Surly.  Here's why:

1.  It is hot.  It is so freaking hot.  I don't have central AC, which is fine, but the heat index of over 100 with over 70% humidity has taken a bit of a toll.  I have a fan in my bedroom, and a little AC unit thing in the living room, and a ceiling fan in the kitchen...and honestly, 99% of the time it doesn't bother me at all.  This week, though, has been killer.

2. I'm so freaking tired of the news.  This happens to me every now and again.  I just get completely burned out and disillusioned with the world.  I try taking "media breaks," but it's hard when your friends and colleagues are politically minded, sharing articles and making conversation at work.  It's hard when you just want to hear what the traffic conditions are as you're stuck on I-70, so you turn on the radio.  It's hard when you want to laugh and watch a funny video of a sneezing baby panda or a cat riding a vacuum and your YouTube suggests videos with headlines that make your heart hurt.  It's hard when your client is 15 minutes late and you can't start a task, because you know they're coming, so you pull up Huffington Post on your phone and are bombarded with headlines of "Chilling Photos of Bombing Suspect's Arrest Emerge," and "Trayvon's Mom: 'I have no clue' now how my oldest son should stay safe" and the whole sickening Rolling Stone issue, and 3 Planned Parenthoods closing in Texas, "College Rapist Punished with Essay, $75 Fee."  (Yes, I also saw the article entitled "Pizzeria Owner Denies Masturbating in Kitchen After Security Picture Leaks"...but you just reach a certain point where you even feel angry about that, you know?).  I know this passes.  It always does.  But in the meantime, when I'm this hot, it's just hard.

2.5 (Because this is closely related to #2)  There was also a link on Huffington Post to a series of pictures about why dogs are awesome and why you should have a dog.  I clicked it this evening, because it was better than racism, glorified bombers, and rape.  It started out adorable...cute pictures of dogs doing cute things...but then it turned into this thing that was all sentimental and cute and made me cry, because when I'm grumpy, my emotions just bubble right below the surface.  I mean, for real?  When did I become the type of person who cries at pictures of dogs?  

(Uhhh...I've always been that person...but don't tell.  Shhhhh....).

3. I got my butt kicked by a small child.  He seriously wore me down.   Hour long tantrums in which

furniture is hurled, it takes 2 staff to clean out a room and 2 staff to hold the kid, and the child screams inappropriate things for 45 minutes...they'll wear you out really quickly.  As an aside -- my favorite quote ever from a very angry, tantruming child?  It's a tie between: "Fuck you, you fucking swamp monster!" and "You're a potato head!  I hate you Mrs. Potato Head!" and "Wait until I rip my underwear!  You'll be sorry when I rip my underwear!"  There were a couple good lines tonight, too.  The kids are really hurting and mad, so I shouldn't laugh...but sometimes, at some point, 30 minutes into a killer tantrum, when you get called a swamp monster...it becomes pretty much the funniest thing ever.

4. I had a migraine before the tantrum, and it was totally my fault.  I stopped at the grocery store this morning on the way to work, and I bought a bottle of Starbucks "Iced Coffee + Milk" that was in the check-out lane while I was there.  There were two different ones - one that had a blue label that said "2% milk and lightly sweetened" and the other said it was caramel flavored with a yellow label that said "2% milk and lightly sweetened."  Not being a fan of caramel, I opted for the blue label one.  I DIDN'T see, however, that at the TOP of the bottle, in little letters on the blue label, it said "low calorie."  Even though companies and scientists and the FDA and researchers and whoever say that artificial sweeteners don't cause migraines, I can tell you with absolute certainty that they do (for me).  Also, I find that this stuff hides in things where you wouldn't expect it, and while it IS always labeled as "lite" or "low-calorie," sometimes, those words are hard to find.  I bought yogurt the other day that I then had to return because I got mixed up between the "low-fat/2% milk" yogurt and the "low-calorie-will-make-you-feel-like-death" yogurt. 

I realized what I had done because of the taste (and it DOES taste different), but even just the couple sips was enough to trigger a migraine.  It makes me grumpy that (a) this causes me migraines, (b) everything has this crap in it, and (c) it's so hard to identify.  Let's come up with one word, or one color, or something so that it's not a guessing game.  Like...green labels with the words CONTAINS ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS in bold, nice and big would be perfect.  Thanks.

5. I have this really complicated interpersonal situation going on that is stressful.  It requires me to practice drawing very firm boundaries, repeatedly, in a very direct manner.  This is hard for me.  It makes me uncomfortable and anxious, and I feel really mean.  I know that this is something that I have to do, but the other person isn't making it easy.  It isn't easy for either of us.  All my other ways of attempting to navigate the situation have been unsuccessful, however, so for my own well-being...I have to do it.  Reminding myself that I am worthy of this is hard. 

6. I officially fell off the gratitude train.  Starting and cultivating a daily gratitude practice has been the most helpful thing I possibly could have done.  It gives me perspective, and it helps me to stay grounded.  Today, though...I'm not feeling quite so grateful.  I'm hot.  I'm tired of the fact that the world sucks.  I have Post Migraine Funk Syndrome.  I am tired from navigating pissed-off kids.  I am tired from stressful interpersonal situations that make me question myself. Gratitude is the sugar for the lemonade.  Without it, your lemonade will be drink-able, but it's going to suck a little bit.

But I am grateful for my dog, because he is hilarious and loving and cuddly.  And I am grateful for watermelon, because it is cold and juicy and delicious.  And I am grateful for the fact that tomorrow, I get to wake up and start all over again.  I am grateful that none of this grumpiness needs to carry into tomorrow.  And I am grateful for the perspective that, even if it does, I will get to start again in the next moment, and the next, and again in the one after that.

Our best session

I have a client I have been seeing for about two months now.  She comes every week, and I would be lying to you if I said that I thought we had made progress.  In the initial session I had with her and her 3 year old son, the child was so out of control, I had to take all of the furniture out of the room and we concluded the session on the floor.  He was aggressive and disruptive and destroyed property.  His mother has a 7th grade education, a cognitive impairment, a mental illness, and a huge heart.

Last week, in an effort to try something different, I decided to try to teach her how to play with her son.  Armed with some zoo animals and Legos, I went into session with an outline and a plan.  I talked to her about imitating his speech and his sounds.  I showed her how to imitate his play.  I asked her to describe what he was doing, and I demonstrated this for her by describing what she was doing.  I asked her to praise him for playing and for all of his appropriate behaviors.  She expressed understanding every time I checked in, but I knew she wasn't listening.  She was far too busy eyeing those Legos.

"You know what?" I said, abandoning my plan.  "Let's do this.  Let's all get down on the floor and play together.  I'll show you what I want you to do, and I'll tell you what to say sometimes, too.  How does that sound?"

"Good," mom said, as she plopped herself on the ground.  She picked up the Legos and started building.  And building.  And while I'm praising Kiddo, and imitating their play, and reflecting his sounds, mom's still building.  "Hey look," she said, finally.  "I built a robot."  The smile she had on her face was the biggest I had seen.

At about 5 minutes over session time, I realized this wasn't going to wrap up on its own.  "Hey guys, let's play for two more minutes and then put the toys away," I said. 

"Okay," said mom.  Kiddo started putting the blocks in the bin. 

"Nice job putting the blocks away," I said.  "I love the way you're helping."

At the two minute mark, I said, "Okay, let's get the rest of those blocks in the bin here, mom."

"Just one more minute," she said, rooting through the blocks already put back in the box, looking for a small yellow one.  She caught herself and looked up at me with something in her eyes that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  Fear?  Anxiety?  "Can I have one more minute?" she asked sheepishly.  "I just want to finish building my dinosaur."  

I left the session feeling a mixture of success and failure that I wasn't sure how to navigate.  In terms of objective measurement and goals achieved that I could put into my progress note, there were none.  I educated mom, and she didn't hear it.  I demonstrated for mom, and she didn't get it.  But she sat on the floor and she played.  Clearly, this was something we had to do first.  Mom left smiling, and I knew for a fact that she would be coming back.  Perhaps that is success, I rationalized.  Perhaps that is what we were meant to do today.

                *****

The next week, I went into session with a plan.  We were going to be structured.  We were going to get things done.  We were going to get everybody on board and do some serious work.  I went into that session determined to make some change happen.

"Hey," said mom.  "I need to call his doctor, because he's got his asthma real bad, and I have to give him his medicine, but I don't understand.  Can I call here so you can help me?"

I looked at the kid -- at the dark circles under his eyes, and the slight wheezing I could hear, and the runny nose he wiped all over his hand, and his face, and his shirt. 

"I need help," mom said.  "I've gotta call because he's sick, but I don't always understand because I'm not a good understander and nobody helps me."  She picked up the phone.  "So I thought 'Dr. Auto  will help me with this.  Dr. A will make the phone call for Kiddo.'"  I smiled outwardly and sighed inwardly, abandoning my session.

"Since I've been coming to see you, I've been getting things done," she said.  "It's like I feel like I can get things done now because I have somebody who wants to help me.  So we can make this phone call, right?"

"Let's call," I said.  And we did.  When mom got off the phone, she said, "I can't get him into the Head Start.  Won't nobody call me back, and I'm just getting angry because they tell me they'll call me back and then they don't, so I yelled at'em real good the other day.  I tol' them if they ain't gonna help my son, then...you know...somethin's WRONG with them."

"Did you call the number I gave you last time?  Those are people who can help you."

"No, because see, I'm not a good understander when I call places like that, so I want you to help me.  I've got the number right..." she began rooting through a plastic grocery bag filled with papers that she brought with her.  "It's right in here somewhere," she said.

And so we called.  Halfway through the conversation, mom got frustrated, shook her head, and handed me the phone.  "I don't understand," she said, anger rising in her body.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hello...what happened...who is this?" said the voice on the other side.  We talked, and I clarified, and handed the phone back to mom. 

"You're doing great," I said.  "You've got this."  She smiled and continued the conversation. 

When she got off the phone from that conversation, she said, "And now I want to get my other two kids in therapy."  She almost giggled.  "We're getting so much done!" she exclaimed.  So we called that number, too, and we scheduled therapy appointments for her other children.  When she didn't understand, she handed me the phone.  When I saw her getting flustered, I told her how well she was doing, to take a deep breath, to ask for clarification in a calm voice.  As she was leaving, we stood together scheduling the next appointment and she said again, "I feel really good about this.  Since I've been seeing you, things are getting better because I'm getting things done.  We got a lot done today.  And I get to come back next week, too, and talk to you again about Kiddo.  That's what I be tellin' people.  Ain't nobody helpin' me.  Sometimes I just don't know what to do and I don't understand so good."  She leaned in to me slightly, and said softly, "if we get him into Head Start, I want to try to get my GED.  You think I can do that?"

"I think that's a fantastic idea," I said smiling.  "I'm so proud of you and all the changes you're making.  I love the way you're asking for help, and you are figuring out how to tell me what you need."

"Yeah," she said.  "I feel really good about this.  I think this was our best session yet."

"Me too," I said.  "I feel really good about this, too."

**All identifying information has been changed, and this represents a number of clients I have seen over the past several years, not one particular individual**

Tuesdays are long, take two

So....Tuesdays are long.  I said that last week, and here we are at Tuesday again.

I know bloggers who do fun things during the week that break it up, and break up the posting every day business a bit.  You know, Manic Monday, Wordless Wednesday, Throwback Thursday...

I got up at 5:30.  I got to work at 7 and wrote notes for 2 hours.  I had supervision at 9.  I did paperwork at 10.  I had group supervision at 11 for 2 hours.  Then I traveled to another building, saw clients for 4 hours back to back, waited for the shuttle back to the original building, and drove home.  I got home at 7:45.  That's a long day.

So I just tried to think of something cute and alliterative for Tuesday that would lead to me finding a cute/awesome/funny/profound picture that I could stick on here and call it a day.  Unfortunately, the only thing I can come up with is "Topless Tuesday," and that's just not appropriate.  I blame it on the fact that I am so damn hot I can barely think straight, and the dog wants to lay up against me and pant, rather than laying on the cool wood floor.

I'm really racking my brain here for you guys, but the next thing I came up with was "Tofu Tuesday," and that doesn't seem like something that would go viral, either.  Plus, although I eat a lot of tofu, I don't know that I have any tofu recipes worth sharing, mostly because my recipes consist of dumping things together that look like they might go together and calling it a day.  It works out for me, but to write it down would be too much right now.

The final T I can come up with is Tuberous Sclerosis, only because I spent time talking to a colleague about it today.  Tuberous Sclerosis Tuesday doesn't have such a nice ring to it, either, so I'll leave you with this instead:

You cut your hair!

It's a weird sort of night.  I came home from work earlier than usual: all my families seem to be on vacation, as I seem to have a relatively light week coming up.  (Although, now that I've said it, I've probably just jinxed myself).  At any rate, after coming home, I took the dog out, ate some dinner, got changed, and laid down on the floor to play with the dog.  I woke up about an hour and a half later.  I always have vivid dreams, but if I take a nap, I nearly always have some crazy weird dream that further disorients me.  I'm now in that post-nap, grumpy and disoriented state, trying to sort out the fantasy from reality.  Also, almost 2 hours on the floor is a little rough on the neck and shoulder blades.  Contacts were not meant to be napped in.  I'm not a fan.  We'll blame it on the heat.

So now, here I am at 9:15, feeling vaugely disoriented and grumpy.  I had all sorts of plans for tonight that have been put on hold as I try to figure out what to do next and where I go from here.  There are notes to be written and dishes to be washed, but my brain is still stuck trying to remember snippets of the dream that are escaping me, trying to analyze them and have them make sense so I can move forward.  They won't make sense, I can assure you...but I always like to try, otherwise, it leaves me feeling incomplete.

I didn't like naps when I was a baby, and I certainly am not a fan now.  (I know, who doesn't like naps, right?  I like the idea, for sure, but in all actuality, they turn out to be more trouble than their worth).

Anyway, I'm also thinking about my hair.  Or rather, I'm not thinking about my hair, I'm thinking about people's reactions to my hair.  On a whim yesterday, I decided I was going to get my hair cut -- and got about 7 inches taken off.  It's not that I haven't had short(er) hair before - I have, but it's been a while.  I'm not a fan of drawing attention to myself.  If it's a planned sort of "drawing attention" (like public speaking, etc), that's fine.  But other random things that draw attention to me?  I'm not a fan.

I'm not a fan to the point that when I do something like get my hair cut, I weigh "how much of a reaction is it going to get from other people, and how willing am I to put up with that right now?" in my decision making.  Is that weird?  I'm pretty sure that's weird.  It's not like I now have a mohawk, or like I also happened to dye it purple....I just got it cut, like any other normal person cuts their hair (not that mohawks and purple hair aren't normal-- just saying that it's not like I totally went outside my character).  I just don't like that type of attention.

As an aside, these little things can be a big deal, too, when working with children with autism.  Their need for routine and sameness can extend to their need for people to look the same.  For about two months after I got contacts, one of my favorite long-term clients continued to state throughout the session, "Uh-oh...Dr. Auto...no glasses!  No glasses, Dr. Auto!  Ohhhhh...no glasses.  Where-a glasses, Dr. Auto?  Where-a glasses?  At home?  Glasses home?  In-a car?  Broken?  All done?  Glasses all done?"  One of my other (highly verbal) clients also perseverated on the lack of glasses: "Huh," he said, "you're still not wearing your glasses.  I think maybe you like the contacts better.  Do you like the contacts better?  I think you like them better.  You used to wear glasses but now you wear contacts.  It's different.  You look different without your glasses.  I think I liked your glasses better.  I think maybe sometimes you'll still wear your glasses.  Do you think so?  Do you think maybe sometimes you'll still wear them?  If you don't feel like wearing your contacts, I bet.  I bet that's when you'll wear your glasses, right?  Is that right, Dr. Auto?"

So, today at work, everybody made the obligatory, "you cut your hair!" comment.  Given that I took 7 inches off, it's not like there is really a question about this...it's not exactly what you would call subtle.  Then there are all the follow-up questions: what made you do it? Do you like it? Have you had short hair before?  Did you dye it?  It looks darker/lighter/highlighted/different.  It makes you look younger/older/different.  It makes your face look thinner/tanner/different.  It makes your eyes look prettier/bigger/greener/different.  The opinion follows: it looks cute/nice/professional.  I like it/love it/think it was a good decision.

These are 100% nice things to say.  Nobody said, "geeze, that was a bad move," or "hopefully it grows fast, right?"  And honestly, I like it.  It's not like I hate it and everybody giving me positive feedback on it is pissing me off because I hate it.  I just don't like the discussion.

As I write this, I think there are several reasons behind my thoughts on this.

I grew up in a family where decisions about what I do with/to my body were a big deal, and everybody seemed to have an opinion that could override my own.  Decisions about how to wear/cut/style my hair were a big deal, and the decision wasn't really mine.  There were/are always comments about how another person looks, their hairstyle choice, their clothing choice, etc.  I'm used to these conversations happening below the surface: the real meaning occurs below the content of the speech in the tone and inflection used.  In the frequency with which the conversation arises.  In the suggestions that follow.  For example, the comment would sound like, "oh, you got your hair cut!  Well...that certainly is a...a change.  Where did you go?  Are you sure you want to go there again?  You know, the place that I go is really good, it's in the shopping center by the Weis, and I know that if you go and tell Mandy that you're my daughter, she would be SO THRILLED to meet you."  Or like this: "huh, that was an interesting choice of length.  You know, you and I have a similar face shape, and I always tell them X, Y, and Z so that it doesn't accent my forehead quite as much.  Just a thought." 

In my extended family, the comments are just weird.  Like, you get your hair cut and everybody starts to comment on how your ears are a nice shape.  I'm not kidding, that actually happened.  As in, Jewish grandmother sounding voice saying, "Ohhhhh my Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, just look at your ears.  They are nice ears.  You're lucky you have nice shaped ears.  I never did have a nice shape to my ears, but you!  Look at those ears!"  On the other side of the family, they're a little more direct: "Well...uh...what made you decide to get your hair cut, hun?  Huh.  Okay...well, you know, I'm pretty good at helping people with little touch-ups on their hair-dos when they don't turn out quite right.  Do you want a little touch-up?  No?  Well how about a nice barrette?"

So.  When people comment on my hair (or whatever), I always feel like I'm waiting.  I'm listening between the lines for what you're REALLY saying to try to discern how you really feel about it.  It's not that it matters.  I don't really care.  But I'm waiting.  I suspect I'm not alone in this.

Also - why?  Why, with everything in the world is there to talk about, are we all so obsessed about talking to each other about our appearances?  It is your decision and no one else's how you decide to look, dress, wear your hair/make-up/lack of make-up.  What you do with your body and your skin is your decision only, and I just don't know that it's my or anyone else's place to pass judgment on it.

I'm aware, as I write that, that what other people hear as "compliments" sometimes sounds like "judgment" to my ears.  Am I alone in this?  How do we remove the judgment piece in the exchange when we are giving the compliment/comment?  How can we remove it from our ears when we are the recipient?  What would change if we never commented about each others' appearance?  Is that even possible?

How do we ask the questions?

It's been a good day - a day in which I remembered to slow down, to check in, to take care of this body as I begin a new week.  I needed to re-cultivate the mindful awareness I so easily fall out of.  This is what I do: I fall into and out of mindfulness, and always, always, always I return.  It takes the simple things to bring me back.  Chopping vegetables tonight was what did it.  Standing in a hot kitchen with the fan going, chopping tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers, knowing these things are going to nourish me this week, there is a sense of "rightness" about it all.  A sense that this is what I need to be doing, as my body sighs in appreciation of the rhythm I create.  There you are, it seems to say.  Welcome home.

I have a post I want to write about Trayvon Martin, and about compassion, and about justice, and about intersectionality, and about how as much as you try to deny it, this stuff really does impact you.  We are all connected.  Have I said that enough in the past 14 days?  We are all connected.  Injustice for one person affects us all.  All oppression is connected.  Like many, I am angry, and disappointed, and sad, and confused, and...well angry again about this outcome.  But, unlike many people smarter and more politically minded than me, I don't yet have the words put together to write about it.  I will.  Just not yet.

In the mean time, one of my favorite hymns has been going through my head today.  I can't find a great YouTube video of it, so for those of you unfamiliar, you're going to have to imagine.  The first verse and chorus are as follows:

We'll build a land where we'll bind up the broken

We'll build a land where the captives go free

Where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning.

Oh, we'll build a promised land that can be.

 

(Chorus)

Come build a land where sisters and brothers,

Anointed by God, may then create peace:

Where justice shall roll down like waters,

And peace like an ever flowing stream.

 

What will it take for us to build this land?  What is it that we need to be doing to ensure that we are doing our parts?  What is it that I need to be doing to ensure that I am doing my part?  What am I doing currently that contributes to the fact that we live in a world where injustice continues to occur with regularity?  What can I do to change?  And you...what can you do to change?  How do we ask these questions of ourselves?  How do we ask them of one another?  How do we take these questions and live into an answer?

 

 

 

Just because we're both alive

Mary Pipher is one of my favorite authors and a definite role model, although I have never met her.  I read her book "Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls" when I was an adolescent girl myself, and remember being amazed that she seemed to "get me" more than I had ever managed to "get me" at the time.  When I decided to major in psychology in college, I read "Reviving Ophelia" for a second time as an assignment, and then moved on to some of her other books, just for fun.  While in graduate school, I must have read her book, "Letters to a Young Therapist" three times to help me make it through, and each time, I found exactly the motivation and inspiration I needed.  She is a psychologist, and also a writer, and her books always remind me that I am called to do both.  To be both.  Writing is as essential for me as water, and "getting published" has been my goal for as long as I can remember.

On a whim, I actually wrote a letter to Dr. Pipher last year.  I'm not entirely sure what prompted it, and I'm not entirely sure what I said anymore (although I'm pretty sure I have it saved somewhere).  What's important was that (a) this was the first time I wrote to someone out of sheer admiration and respect and (b) she wrote me back.  I'm not sure of everything she said (although I know I have it saved), but I know that she told me that I should be writing and publishing.  Ummmmm....OMG!  Even a year later, it makes my heart dance.  One day.  It's going to happen.

At any rate, I opened up my copy of Mary Pipher's "Writing to Change the World" this evening, as I found myself (yet again) short on inspiration, and remembered that there are some prompts somewhere in the book.  However, as typically happens when I open a book, I was sucked into reading, scanning what I had underlined, reading my notes in the margins, and generally swept deep between the covers.  At the end, I was surprised to find that she had a section on blogs.  She ends the short section like this:

Blogs are conversation cafes and technological speakers' corners.  They offer people of the world voices in a great dialogue that could build communities...  They are tangible manifestations of the central fact of the universe: Everything is connected.

Blogs offer us zero degrees of separation from people anywhere and everywhere.  We can "hear" the voices of ordinary citizens reporting their stories.  With blogs, we can build I-thou relationships with people very different from ourselves.  Over time, blogs will continue to connect us, teach us empathy, and perhaps even save us from ourselves. (Writing to Change the World, p. 205)

I am not deluded into thinking that by pressing "publish" on a post, that many people read my blog.  I can see the stats.  I also don't need many people to read my humble ramblings right now.  I'm not in this to win friends or readership or recognition.  I write because I need to write.  Because, in my heart, I am a writer.  I write because I have stories that need to be told.  I write, because I love to read and feel that connection with something and someone I have never experienced or met.  I write because I want to connect with the world, and this is one of the ways I know how.

I'm intrigued by her last line: "blogs will continue to connect us, teach us empathy, and perhaps even save us from ourselves."  When I write, my heart and soul are bared.  I can't hide it.  If I am going to write it, it is going to be genuine.  I don't know how to write any other way.  Even when life was extraordinarily rough, writing is part of what got me through.  From the time I was 9 years old, writing has saved me from myself again, and again, and again.

However, in spite of knowing the importance of writing for me personally, I routinely question myself and ask, "what's the point?"  I have folders and flash drives and binders full of writing and poetry.  I have an entire box overflowing with journals I've kept since elementary school.  I make commitments to write every day, and my heart and fingers are happy to be writing, and still I ask: "what's the point?"

I know what the point is.  I always know.  The point is writing.  The point is the words, and the joy of the words, and the way they dance and skip around in my brain and tickle my fingers as they try to make it out onto the page.  The point is the connection.  The connection of brain to fingertips, of pencil to paper, of head to heart, of my heart to your eyes and ears.  The point is the connection of my heart to yours.  The point of writing -- of my writing -- is for me to know, and for you to know, that we're all not alone.  That this world is an amazing, beautiful, painful, terrible, and ridiculous place, and we are all in this thing called life together.  My writing may speak to someone today, or tomorrow, or never, but at least I know I tried.  I put my heart on the line and left pieces of it for someone to find, just because we're both alive.  Need there be another reason?

My writing is not going to change the world, but maybe it will connect us.  Maybe it will spark a moment of empathy.  Maybe it will change a thought, or a moment, or a choice, and maybe -- maybe -- that is change enough.

 

Love. <3

On Pikachu, Charmander, and Self-Care

So...it's going to have to be a short post again tonight.  I had a full day of drawing Pokemon characters, hospitalizing kids, and managing tantrums.  On the plus side, according to my client, I can draw a pretty good Pikachu and an awesome Charmander.  At least, I think that's what her smile indicated.  On the other side of things, it could have been a "wow you really suck at drawing Pokemons" smile.  The good part about working with kids is that I can be really silly and goofy and quirky, and that generally works in my favor.  I've been seeing one client for about a month now, and I had never seen her smile until this week.  How did I do it?  Well...I messed up at CandyLand.  I pretended to be in love with the "Duke of Swirl" guy on the CandyLand board.  I played a "game" in which we jumped up and changed seats 6 times in a row.  I ran down the hallway at full speed.  I played with a foam butterfly glider that came back and hit me in the forehead.  I made cars kiss the fish on the mural in the hallway.  The bad part about this is that sometimes, you act really silly, goofy, and quirky, and it makes you look like a fool in front of your colleagues.  That happened this week, too.  I'm okay with it.


I also gave a 3 hour presentation this week on Applied Behavior Analysis to a class of Masters level students.  I didn't look like a fool there, which was a good thing.  I am always surprised when I do presentations and don't get nervous.  Doing presentations and speaking in front of people used to be torture.  In college in particular, I HATED it with a passion.  Now?  The actual speaking piece is no big deal.  I still always question if I actually know what I'm talking about (and generally conclude that I don't), but then I talk, and I answer questions, and words come out of my mouth, and I walk away thinking "damn, I can really pretend like I know this stuff!"


As I said yesterday, I also did something this week that shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was.  My body hates me for it today.  I keep vacillating between thinking "you did something that was hard for you to do.  Celebrate the fact that you did it, and that you are stronger for having done it.  Take time to acknowledge that your body took a hit with this one, and that it needs time to recover" and thinking "yeah, it was hard, but it shouldn't have been.  Pull yourself together, ignore the fact that your body is yelling at you, just move on."  I know which one is the "correct" way to go about this, of course, and I know what I "should" do.  I'm also frustrated and not good at listening sometimes, and even though I tell myself "growing hurts sometimes.  These steps are moving forward," it feels like moving backwards.  It feels like failure, even if it's not, and I just don't handle that well.  Self-care is such a struggle, even when my body is yelling "NOW" with every firing of every neuron.

Now, my dog is snoring beside me.  I think it's time that I let myself off the hook and try to join him.