This is shaping up to be a seriously crazy week: I’ve already done two days of clinic time, and on Monday, we had new protocols, new paperwork, and one counselor out with the flu on one of the busiest days I’ve seen there so far. My first chart showed up at 8:15 and the last one I pulled was just before 5:00, with only a half hour break for a quick lunch in there. It also included a client to whom I had to break the news that she was too late for a termination, which always seriously sucks, to say the least. Yesterday, I went downtown (a MUCH better commute: I’m only a 20-minute bus ride away, tops) and did some BDI logic model training for the sex ed outreach arm of the clinic which was awesome, but that meant last night and continuing through today, I’m racing to finish a piece past a deadline for something else, and then have to do a bunch of work for extra training in Options Counseling for Friday. Tomorrow I’m probably going to want to just take my coffee in an IV since I have to counsel all day then jet over to a public health clinic at night to do some sex ed work. Then, over the weekend, I need to do some prepping for our bi-monthly all-clinic staff meeting Monday because I’m teaching a self-defense piece to staff, and I’m a bit rusty when it comes to teaching self-defense. Somewhere amidst all of that I have to try and at least do some of the usual Scarleteen work.
So, yeah: still exhausted. It’s old news, I know.
When a little bit of time shows up, I’ll write more about this is depth because I have a lot to say, but over the past couple of months, I’ve reconnected very strongly with an ex, and it’s been tremendously powerful. This is someone who I had hurt, made amends with over ten years ago after a five-year-period where we didn’t speak, then the amends and what all happened in the one-week-period of time around sent me into a massive tailspin which had legs for years of my life. We only started talking again after this recent reconnection, and we seem to finally have found a place that really works for us, and that’s just incredibly fortifying and restorative for both of us. We had a very intense and highly charged relationship — and it was one of the rare one for me where I was with someone very similar to me; I tend more often to get involved with people who are a contrast to me — and while we loved each other immensely, and knew one another very deeply, I don’t think we ever really had a real friendship in all of that. A lot of that had to do with both of us being so young for something so big, and also both being so post-traumatic in various respects, but I also think we just weren’t in the space in our lives yet to manifest what we had as a friendship. Being able to forge one now feels like the rightest thing ever, and it’s been amazing to really feel that, especially getting close to almost 20 years after we first met.
On the other hand, last week someone I went to Jr. High with managed to track me down, and the group of friends from back then have apparently all reconnected and been looking for us stragglers. While it was awesome to hear from that person, that reconnection — especially with everyone from then — isn’t something I want to pursue. That spanned a period of my life which was easily the most traumatic I have ever had, where for those years, I had to invest energy every day in outwardly projecting a person who…well, wasn’t me. I had so many horrendous things happen to me during that period of time, my home life was so awful, and having no history with those kids since I had only moved to that area once the bad got started, there wasn’t a single friend then who really had any idea of what I was really grappling with or trying to survive. Meeting up with them again, even just via email or the phone, would be so surreal for me; seeing people who felt like they knew you and feel warmly about the shell they knew, but who you knew didn’t know you at all, on top of a 24 year-lapse of any contact just strikes me as sad and strange. So, I’ve had a few bittersweet moments around that over the last couple of days: it stinks to be reminded of a childhood you were robbed of, and it’s not something I choose to reflect on often, to say the least.
Mark got home from Austin late Monday night, and last night we got to reunite in the somewhat ritual fashion we seem to have: we crack a bottle of wine, take turns sharing everything the other one missed while we were apart, start collectively cooking while blaring some music so we can dance in the kitchen at the same time, enjoy a meal, gab some more, then head upstairs to get all sweaty, juicy and melty. Paired with the fact that I could sleep until 8 this morning, it was a bonafide luxury, one I very, very much needed. I even got to wake up with some serious bedlocks from a lot of happy thrashing, which Mark would have had himself if he had any hair.
And with that, back to the grindstone go I.
Addendum: Piece finished. Man, I love writing manifestos. That was tough but supremely gratifying. Now on to a quick bath, homework for the training Friday, and if I get really lucky, to bed.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Sounds like you have been so productive with your new work. Not that I think you are ever an unproductive person. But I am happy that you found work outside of the Net that suits your skill set so well and that makes an impact. Not everyone has that opportunity. Sorry it is draining and tiring though.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I had an ‘I saw this and thought of you’ moment earlier:
http://www.hana-ess.eu.dodea.edu/activities/video/dog_screen_clean.swf