Catching Up

wow...the last 3 months have been....intense.

In summation, Ryan's HS reunion in Bonner Ferry, ID, starting the Director position at work, more money but certainly more bills, first days of full time graduate work in counseling, cat Bewbies struck and killed by a car, Ryan refi-ing the house and his family starting to prepare to move out, my near-miss with a MS diagnosis, father herniating a disk in his spine and 2 weeks of hospitals, clinics, meds and physical therapy....yikes.

Things are intense right now. More to come...

Starting Over

Ryan and I went on a 'date' last night, as in a real one. It was great-We laughed and had fun and talked about some of the bigger stuff for a little while, but then also just went with it. It was great. I must admit that I feel a nervousness about me now, wondering what will come next. I'm excited but also a little scared, hoping this is the right move. It felt right last night. I hope this will work out....I almost feel the way I would if we had just met and had a great first date-hoping for more.

Everything

Can I be everything in this? I want to be....that's a start. Starting is what matters.

Moving Forward

I suppose my instincts were right when all these blessings came into my life in the last 6 months...something was bound to go wrong, and it would be something massive.

My 7 year relationship, almost all happy and fun and joy and companionship, has dissolved. I suppose it has been a few months that this has been progressing, and part of me saw it. The other part of me wanted so badly for it to not be true. Hell...I don't even know what true is anymore.

But I'm not special, I'm no exceptional story-this is the tale that has been told a million times in coffee shops and on phones and in emails and I am sure on numerous other blogs. The end of an era is a common occurrence.

I have spent over 1/4 of my life thus far with him. I did so because I felt there was a future in it...and for the longest time there was no reason to doubt that. Now, there is no clarity and no comfort. Just me and the cat.

But it's okay. There are many things I am unsure of now, but I am sure that I must carry on. I have no idea what life will look like in 6 months-what will have transpired, what will have happened with this and everything else. I just don't know, I can't know. Big plans don't make much sense right now. I have to take this day by day.

For today, I will continue to steel myself and find comfort in little moments, few and far between as they may be.

When do you let go and when do you hold on tighter? I just feel like I don't know anymore. At what point is a relationship simply done? If you've had many good years with someone, how do you judge if (when things get hard) it is just a challenge or it it is the indication that the relationship has reached its natural conclusion? When do you stop fighting, when do you fight harder? I feel like I can't find the answers in either heart or mind this time.
I want it to be good again, I want both of us to care enough to work for it...but if we don't, or if one does and one doesn't....there's nothing that can be done, right?

Maybe I need to go away for a while-go sit on a beach somewhere and lose life all together. But then wouldn't I be just running away? Do I want to be like that? Maybe I don't know who I want to be like in this context. I want to be sure again.....

I'm talking about me here, people....not you...unless I say that I am. :)

Game-Changers

2011 will go down as a banner year for amazing changes in my life. First the engagement in late December, then admission to the professional counseling program in March, and now a promotion to the Director position in my office with my colleague's departure in July. If all goes well, the next big one will be moving out in August and Ryan and I having the house all to ourselves-I am really looking forward to it! Boy is that needed badly!

I am counting my blessings today-challenges will come along with them, but I face them gladly and with thankfulness for the opportunities that I have earned with great work and great patience.

Troubles on the homefront again. Now faced with the reality that we could live together and make our relationship real and "grown-up," he shuts down and defers to the old doubts and fears. I leave at 4 in the morning, into a shockingly unseasonal snow storm and highways that are un-plowed. I slog along any roads that can be driven in such conditions, and make it back to my parent's house, to see the little face of my cat watching me as I walk through the door. No sleep, just sitting on the couch with the cat as she purrs contentedly. I turn on the TV and meander about for something meaningful. I end up watching one of my collection of semi-dark Rom-Coms about the pathetic dissolution of relationships. When the sun rises and parents awake, I surprise them by my unexpected presence and relate to them my recent movements. Day is spent between songs and films and a brief outing to circle the grocery store, knowing I need to go in and get things, but feeling unmotivated to do anything but drive.
Bad dreams strike at me when I doze off to sleep in the late afternoon. I awake after only an hour or so has passed, pulse racing and eyes sore. I've been here before, nothing new. Know how to cope....might be becoming a pro at it.
Sunday is a little better, slept a bit better. Try to be motivated to eat-no luck. Just a cup of iced coffee, thanks.
Stay up too late that night, watching youtube videos on my laptop-my usual session of musical therapy. Makes me feel a little less alone, and less like I've made a horrible mistake. Find common ground with a new song:

"There's a fire burning in my heart
reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringin' me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bare..."

Nothing like that ol' female empowerment in the face of heartbreak. Especially effective coming from a plus-sized, busty young woman with hair neatly beehived and bold, black eyeliner. Not a burnout Amy Winehouse alto, more of a powerful, rubinesque, Brit-motown girl. I like her, she's got sass.

Now here at work, quiet Monday as expected. Still combating office politics for promotion. Interview on Thursday-better blow them away with my professional acumen.

Going to do something a little crazed this afternoon-getting another tattoo. I know, so trite, huh? But this one has been on my mind for a while now, and when it does that for a couple years, I usually assume it's important to indulge it. It'll be #3...that's not so bad. Another badge for another stage of life and lesson learned the rough, hard-knocks way. I'm like a soft convict, with flowers and cats instead of skulls or Jesus marked on my back.

What about tonight? Dunno.
Maybe he'll haunt my doorstep, maybe not. There are words to say, but who knows if they'll be said. Not sure if the message made it all the way last night, anyway. I was tough-said things even when they were harshly real. I guess there comes a time when you have to, just so your head doesn't explode. Loving someone doesn't mean you never stand your ground. Besides, I'm not that kind of girl anyway...never tended to lay down and die. Never wanted to have someone else abuse my boundaries.

This day is interminable. Just want the clock to turn to 3 so I can go get my ink and go home and steel myself for the possibility of discussions tonight.

So it looks like I'll be competing against 3 people for the promotion in my own damn job. What will I do about this?

Deciding that I had better prepare myself for disappointment and decide what I am going to do to overcome it. I've done it before, I can do it again. It's not what I want to do, but sometimes life doesn't go the way you hoped and it's better to get up and do something about it rather than lay down and sob over it. I refuse to be a victim, I will use everything that happens as an opportunity to find the better option hiding somewhere else.

In other words, if they give it so someone else, I'm finding somewhere else to work hard.

The last couple weeks have been a bit hellish. Ryan chose to adopt 2 kittens, a concept I was less than thrilled with. I love cats, don't get me wrong, but kittens are always a task of wholly different proportions. As I suspected, they have turned out to be an immense amount of energy and work. And, of course, they are in less than great health being that they came from a hoarder house. So...three different medications every day for UTI, diarrhea, and upper respiratory infection. To compound this delight, one of the kittens is yet too small to be fixed and thus took to piddling on our bed, likely marking behavior. Bless the tabby, who was fixed and is doing much better, and God forbid...knows how to use the litter box.

Strange....after these last 2 weeks I feel markedly less intimidated by the thought of having children. We still have no place for them since we're still caught in the brother-and-mother-living-in-house bind, but hopefully we will get our asses in gear and have that addressed in the next 12-24 months. Hopefully...I love that word...so non-committal yet so optimistic. Only time will tell if reality will meet ideal on that whole, giant 2 ton elephant in the room.

Aside from the above dramatics, I anxiously await my fate at work with the prospective promotion to the advising director. All signs point to....who the hell knows when things will become clear. I'm sortof' trying to shift that simmering pot to the back burner as I can see expeditiousness is not the operation on that front. It's hard to be patient, though, as the news there will have a profound impact on my life for the next 2-3 years.

Oh...what else is there? This is starting to develop into a narcissistic rant, huh? I suppose I just feel the intense urge to spew my stressors of late, which is healthier than suppressing them.

Oh, right, and with all the matters pressing upon me, suffice to say that relationship status has been strained as we are both a bit scrambled. I know..I know....shit happens and either you get through it or you don't.

Oh, and there's a conspicuously clicking and grinding right knee mixed in with all of this. Residuals of my last, disastrous ski day in which said knee met swiftly with the edge of ski, leaving hideous bruise for several weeks and gradually evolving pain and stiffness. I find that when I scale stairs, my knee now makes a loud click, as though I had a prosthesis below my thigh. Very strange and uncomfortable, but beyond home care I am not motivated to get it examined right now.
I'll cross that bridge when I get a chance to breathe with all this other shit.

>Phew<

There's my ventilation. I feel marginally better now. Back to work.

A dear friend passed last night after over a decade of fighting cancer. I was blessed to be present when she left us all, there are few more profound gifts one can receive than to see one off in their final moments.
Bridgette was a truly astounding woman who was brave enough to honor her true self every day, and to gather friends in her life who also honored her. She remained humorous and bright until the end.

This is a day for a walk with an ice cream cone. Of course, rather than that I have been at work all day.

I will be thrilled when this week is over. Things have been eerily quiet around campus with spring break in full swing. I've done just about all the tasks that were still needing to be finished, I have attended to every peripheral item I can readily think of, and it is only Thursday afternoon.

It's off to the eye doctor this afternoon, as well. Thrilling, I know. Here's a little nugget of advice to anyone who tends to be lazy with removing their contacts at night-it will cost you. I awoke this morning to the joy of a "corneal abrasion" caused when I yanked the 5 -day old, dried, warped contact lens from my eye. This means I essentially tore part of the corneal tissue because I did not take out my contacts. This also means I get to spend my afternoon getting all manner of fluids dumped into my eye and a leaving with a bill that will likely approach $100 or more.

I could have bought some new contacts for that price...

Oy.....

Now I discover that my colleague is leaving her position, thus leaving her position open, which is a wee bit better in pay than mine. I am already dilligently keeping tabs as our boss has brought it to my attention. The stress begins again. This opportunity could assist me with the costs of graduate school while also freeing up a little more money for living expenses.

This will be the second time I have gone up for this spot, and I was shafted last time. I was fairly greehorned then, but now I have paid my dues for almost 2 years now. Hopefully they will give me the nod and the chance to prove my mettle.

A strange mix of emotions comes when one succeeds in one of their most profound life goals. There's great joy but also a bit of fear-fear in the possibility of failure or of the greater burden of responsibility one bares. It's a complicated feeling, and I think that's normal.

Soon I will start my formal education as a counselor, and I am thrilled and a little nervous all at once. I know that this is my place-I have wanted to be here for many years now.

The journey begins!

I'm in! Woo hoo! All the stress and work came together!

So now I find out from my girl that I helped get into the program that she was informed the department is in the process of taking the applications to the final all-faculty committee this week. So I guess I'm still alive....but still waiting as well, and it looks like letters will be sent out on Monday.....sigh. More hoping and praying and worries.

Wondering when I will have my turn.

A girl for whom I wrote a letter of recommendation to a different Ed Psych program received a call yesterday-she was accepted to her program.

No word for me. Nothing still.

I am happy for her, but starting to become concerned for myself. The lack of information, of anything, is wearing me down especially hard know that I know someone else has been given an answer and I have not. Usually the last ones to now are the ones who are rejected.

Really nervous today.....this very well could be the week I find out. Oh My...this has been a rough month. No more posts until the news comes....

So a little birdie told me that Ed Psych will make its notifications for the graduate admissions next week. Whether or not this is true, it brings about the realization that my future is about to be dictated in some fashion. There's a lot that comes with something like that. I'm prepared, one way or another....I think. I hope. I guess hoping is not very self-actualizing of me...bad therapist!

For now I just want to put on some shorts and hit the treadmill, I need to move all of this stuff out of me. I feel obsessed and consumed by this and I'm getting tired of it. I mean, it's not odd to be so fixated by something which carries so much weight, but the sheer emotional energy I have invested is wearing me down a bit. I've carried this weight for months....well over a year, really.

Looking forward to another pleasantly bustling Saturday with a blood donation, lunch at Cafe Shambala and coffee at Jack Mormon. Then off to errands and all of those enjoyable weekend tasks which I can do of my own volition and on my own time-including another day on the slopes Sunday.
A movie night with Matt & Crishelle planned for Saturday night will help, also. It's hard to ignore one's sense of humor in that context. Laughs would serve me well. I need to remember to not lose myself in this stress.

Still nothing but silence in the graduate school ether. I am sure it will be any day now but that's all I'm sure of. Just trying to keep myself occupied with other things for the time being.

This has been a tough week in general.

I find some relief when I remind myself of how fortunate I am right now. No everything is where I imagined it would be at this point in life, but I am healthy, I am working a job I really enjoy and making enough money to be okay. I am financially secure and smart and have managed to take care of myself and maintain independence in that sense. I have wonderfully supportive parents (especially my father) who have had my back for my entire life without question. I have a wonderful fiance (I hate that word, so perhaps I'll defer to 'future husband') whom I love and who loves me back and affirms that regularly in both action and words. I have wonderful friends whose presence in my life is truly a joy. I have a darling, furry little feline who greets me every day when I get home.

So I am dealing with the stress of not knowing what the year will hold for me-or even the next week for that matter. I am prepared to face life either way, whether my dream is accomplished this year or deferred for yet another one.

Feeling that daily strain of awaiting news for grad school...each day is another 24 hours of quiet stress. I am not frequently a high-stress or anxious person, and even my anxious side is often utterly unrecognizable. I am sure I seem an rational and calm as always, but inside there is a consistent buzz of worry, doubt and hope.

AAAAAGGGHHHH! Still no word on admission. Brain cells are poaching slowly! That is all.

I dreamed last night that I was on vacation in Colorado. The first recollection is of riding a commuter train which derails just a few cars behind us, causing our car to jolt violently, lights flickering, sparks flying and people frantically holding onto the railings. Apparently we survived unharmed. The next moment I recall, we are at Mile High Stadium watching a Rockies game. The sky is gray and throughout the game several passenger jets en route to landing at DIA soar overhead, some appearing to be far below safe elevation and distractingly close to us. After settling myself with the sensation of concern that one of the planes may get too close, I look to the horizon and see the dwarfing nose of a jet plummeting towards the stadium. The plane roars closer and crashes swiftly into the stadium, directly to the left of us, missing us all by just a few hundred yards. The stadium shakes and screams and panic ensue. I recall myself calmly exiting the seat and running to leave the stadium. I then recall standing in the parking lot with my loved ones and looking back on the stadium, which is billowing smoke. People are fleeing, some leaping to escape the wreck. Although I can see this even is horrendous, somehow the true complexity of it is missing-there's no sense of abiding horror or loss of innocence. Somehow although I seem to process the gravity of it and my survival, I am peaceful and unshaken by it.

Still no word on my application. Little twinges of anxiety come about here and there, they tend to last longer these days as I get closer to the timeline the faculty seemed to indicate for when they would notify applicants. So much riding on a few pieces of paper....

Along with the beginning of students returning to campus comes the return of faculty to their respective departments. This also means that file of my graduate school application which has rested quietly in the Educational Psychology department will soon be woken from its slumber to be scrutinized by those who will choose to either make or break my career trajectory for 2011. Every day that draws down makes me the tiniest bit more anxious for the determination. I feel utterly 50/50 about it-there's no inclination one way or another-I have as much chance of being rejected as accepted. I'll hope for the best but cannot deny that the worst can still happen, and if it does, I will try again when the time comes. >Sighs.....

I don't tend to put muck stock in New Years resolutions, but I do believe this is a good time to sit back and look at the past year of one's life. Decide what worked, what didn't, what lessons were learned and what goals are still in progress? You have 12 months of 2011 to gain ground for the growth you wish to achieve in your life-what will be the first step? If there are major adjustments to be made, what are they and how will you go about these maneuvers? Now that a decade has passed in this millenium, what have you gained and what more is there to work for?