The Year of YES

 

     “The Year of YES”

 

The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek word “entheos” which means the God within. And the happiest, most interesting people are those who have found the secret of maintaining their enthusiasm, that God within.

Earl Nightingale

 

 

 

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions.  They feel punitive and self-defeating to me and they always seem to imply we inherently feel we are doing something wrong and must fix ourselves.  I no longer subscribe to this self-flagellating ritual, doomed to fail that sets a tone of defeat at the beginning of every year.  What I do subscribe to is a theme for the coming year, a mantra of sorts.  Think of it as a gift you give yourself.  I have decided that 2022 will be my year of YES.  This year I plan to say “yes” more… to healthy things.

For example, I was doing karate up until I went into rehab in July.  I came out of rehab in August and have been slowly rebuilding my life.  I have not wanted to over-load myself since.  My schedule felt in balance for a while and work felt right etc.  Then last week, after a number of attempts to encourage me to come back, the karate instructor reached out to me again and asked if I would be interested in coming back in January.  I said “yes”.  I moved my work schedule around a little so I won’t sacrifice any of the meetings I regularly attend, and I said yes.

I have a new group of friends and we are determined to keep each other connected and have fun doing it.  We have a list of things to do when we need a pick-me-up, things to look forward to that we can pepper our calendar with throughout the year.  I am the keeper of the list and it contains things like axe-throwing and snow-tubing.  We have gone bowling and to a hockey game and had a Friendsgiving dinner.  I have to get it together now the holidays are over and start figuring out what the next thing will be, but these are all things to say YES to!

I figure if it isn’t something toxic for me and I can reasonable afford to do it, I will say yes to it.  I have already joined a book club and love that I have.  Life is already richer for it.  I have more things to look forward to, more connections have been made, more conversations have been had and more smiles have come across my face and I suspect many more will come.  Memories will be made and laughter will likely be had.  All this by uttering a three letter word.  Yes.

While I was in rehab, there was a lady there who had an infectious laugh.  She was one of those people who had a large presence but came in a small package.  She was always impeccably dressed and I asked her one day how many outfits she had brought with her (I had about four changes of clothes for 30 days).  She had brought two large suitcases with her and had coordinating jewelry for every outfit.  She told me, “If I have to be here, I’m going to look good doing it”.  This lady was going to meet me at a meeting the weekend before Friendsgiving and did not come.  She was supposed to come to Friendsgiving but did not come.  There were other meetings and events I am sure that she did not get to over the following weeks.  Places she was supposed to be, people she was supposed to meet up with and did not.  The day after Christmas she got into a car accident related to this terrible illness we share and she passed away.  I can’t help but think there were so many yesses she did not say over those weeks that might have helped steady her.  So many yesses that might have given her a little more strength, yesses that might have given her the connection and hope she needed.  She is sorely missed.  Her funeral is on Friday and I will be there to honor the space she filled on this earth and the laughter we shared.

Say “yes” this year and see what it brings into your life.  I’m going to.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  On New Year’s Eve I had dinner with a good friend.  Over dinner we broke open Christmas crackers (poppers here in the states).  The silly paper hats, the stupid dad jokes, the “prizes” (neither of us got the shoe horn) and charades.  I don’t think I have had that much fun doing charades with just two people before!  Then I offered up the idea that we could make shrink dink key chains…  Because why not?  He said yes to that as though it was one of the most natural things in the world for two adults to do on New Year’s Eve.  So we did.  I think we were of that generation for whom shrink dinks were one of the mysteries of the universe…  There was nothing like watching your master creation curl up via the light of the oven lamp and then flatten out as is shrinks to 75% of its original size to a hardened version of its paper self!  Turns out it is just as miraculous when you are 48 and 50.  So I think it is important to surround yourself with friends who say “yes” too.

 

“Joe’s Diner – Open 24/7”

 

                                             “Joe’s Diner – Open 24/7”

 

be easy,

take your time.

you are coming home.

to yourself.

― the becoming/wing

 

 

Forgive me friends, for I have been absent.  It has been 15 months since my last blog post.  I have not posted because I have been incapable of doing so for various reasons, the chief reason was that I refuse to post when I feel inauthentic.  I have been in and out of “the program” since the end of 2019.  Struggling since the DUI and the pandemic as many of us have.  I have been living so many months in a deep chasm of shame, guilt and remorse since my relapse that ended my 5 ½ years of sobriety and could never quite get my feet under me again.  Depression followed along with isolation and a profound betrayal of self and family that carried me through to July of this year.  Then drinking in front of my children and having them bravely intervene had me back in rehab for the third time in my life. 

I was away for a month and then spent time in PHP (partial hospitalization program) which is a day camp for mental health of sorts, stepped down to IOP (Intensive outpatient) and am now in weekly OP (outpatient therapy).  I started a new job as a therapist in September and love it.  I work only with mental health patients as I ethically feel I can’t treat anyone in drug and alcohol until I have a year or two under my belt again.  I have a new clan of friends from “the program” whom I met in rehab (something I have never had before) and I am slowly building things back up again.  I finally feel, at 4 plus months of sobriety, my authentic self again and I therefore can start writing for the blog.  This next piece was something I wrote while I was in treatment.

For those of you who are new to my blog, let me explain what the title is referring to.  “Joe” is the name I gave my conception of my higher power.  Joe is how I learned to approach God.  Joe has a diner in the sky and I can go and have coffee and eggs and talk things through with him and before I had gone back to treatment, I hadn’t visited him for a while…

Joe is still there.  I suppose not shockingly, he never left.  He’s been waiting patiently for me in his diner in the sky all this time with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth.  His tattoos seem to have changed I notice but as I open the door and step inside, he is wiping down the counter with a rag and my regular seat is waiting for me.  He greets me with a crinkly, weather-beaten smile and tells me he missed me as he hands me a mug of coffee just the way I like it.

His tattoo on his right arm now reads “Life is Suffering” and the one on the left says, “Utilize Your Army”.  Besides the tattoos all else is familiar and homey.  We talk about how I am back in treatment for alcoholism for the third time since 2012.  I tell him about how low I felt when I came in the door.  I say I feel I can’t believe I’m here again.  I unload about the pain I feel, the pain I’ve caused, the confusion, the shame.  I have a Masters for God’s sake… in this dammed field!  How the hell am I here AGAIN?  What do I not get?  Joe listens, nods and the cigarette never produces any smoke or ash and never gets any smaller I notice, but this seems completely normal.

As I spend more days in treatment I come back to Joe’s Diner more and more to visit Joe.  I check in with him and let him know what I am doing, how I am feeling and what I am learning.  I never miss a meeting, a lesson, a lecture.  I hear many things I have heard before, but I figure I have to attend and get as much out of it as I can, there must be something I am not getting, something I am not understanding.

My mind and heart are shifting from hopeless to seeing glimmers and shards of light.  I’m starting to think that the mirror I am so good at holding up for others to allow them to see where they may need to heal and forgive may need to be inverted so I can look at myself the same way. 

I have endless cups of coffee with Joe and not just a few plates of eggs at the counter.  I tell him about how since I’ve allowed my mind to settle down peacefully here, during the quiet moments – my first baby, Liam, who would have turned 18 this year, has flooded my body with memories both beautiful and soul-rending.  Perhaps it’s because his cousin Vivi, close to the same age, is about to go off to college, and it’s yet another milestone he never had a chance to reach.  I don’t know but he has washed over and through me a lot while I have been here in rehab.  Joe nods and holds my hand.

I tell him about the relapse prevention program I am in and about how at first, though I agreed to do it, I held little hope it would reveal anything to me about why I continue to relapse.  Then I come back and tell him how it’s actually helping me so much and how I’m learning a lot about hidden triggers and how I need to learn to ask for help and about how I have unearthed that at my core I feel unworthy.  Joe grins widely at this and reveals a gold tooth.

Then I start a trauma workshop.  The group is called, “Phoenix”.  My blog is called “Rising From the Ashes” and I have a phoenix tattooed on my arm.  I tell Joe this is quite a coincidence and he stifles a grin.  I keep talking and tell him I see this as a sign.  After the first session I report back to Joe that I liked it and that the facilitator is amazing – he’s like a trauma whisperer – a Mr. Rogers for grown-ups.

I have a second session and it’s a psychodrama.  We are asked to pick a topic to work on and if anyone wants to volunteer to be the protagonist – this person will be the center of the work.  I volunteer with two others and we each give our topics.  The group picks mine which is to try and resolve feelings of grief – specifically for me my feelings of grief over Liam’s death as I have some unresolved issues.  Somewhere in the darkest forbidden recesses of my mind I have it stored that somehow my body betrayed me and I caused his heart and lung conditions and therefore his ultimate death.  This has been an unspoken belief I have been flagellating myself with for the past near 18 years.  We go through the psychodrama and at the end I have a conversation with Liam and he with me.  I am able to see through his eyes and through the eyes of my other two beautiful children, Dermot and Wren that this is an ugly untruth, and that he knows he was, is and always will be loved.  I let it go, like smoke evaporating into the bright blue sky.  I tell Joe this and he hugs me hard and long.  I linger in his embrace until I walk out the doors of rehab with my back just a little straighter and my head tilted just a little higher.

I wrote all this in rehab.  Visiting Joe got me through and allowed me to process throughout my stay.  I went from hopeless to being able to see a spark of myself again.  I am now home and moving forward slowly.  I am now talking to Joe daily.  Lots of coffee and conversations later and I am full of hope.

I wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and I would guess that Joe does too.

The Elephant in My Head

     “The Elephant in My Head”

“Think like a queen.  A queen is not afraid to fail.  Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”
― Oprah Winfrey

I drank.

A little over seven months ago now I relapsed for a night.  Some will call that a slip, some will call it moral failure on my part, some will call it shameful; I have been calling it a relapse.

Whatever you or I want to call it, it has thrown me completely for a loop and I have not been myself since.  I haven’t been able to write about it until now and not writing about it has made me feel like I have had an elephant living in my head taking up too much space and all my energy.  Like the image attached I have spent an inordinate amount of time tending to the relapse; trying to figure out what happened and why I did what I did because I have to tell you it feels as though it came out of left field.  I would have, in the past, characterized myself as a former chronic relapser, but I thought those days behind me.  This relapse was not the same as the others though.  I did not start thinking about it days in advance.  I did not start planning on that first drink and fantasizing about how it would taste or how I would get away with it.  I simply got to an intersection on the way to class one night early and instead of turning right to go to campus I turned left and went to the liquor store as if on auto-pilot.

When I think back to why I started this blog in the first place it was to write about my journey in recovery and I promised myself I would write honestly about the good the bad and the ugly so I don’t feel as though I can stop now.  I had a lot of victories for a long time and now I have an “ugly” to write about and process with everyone.

The night I drank back in December I went to the liquor store and then to class.  I left class early because I was supposed to go to Wren’s choral concert.  I never made it because I started drinking.  I ended up getting a DUI.  That is something I will forever be ashamed of.  I was on the side of the road but the car was still running and in drive and I could have hurt someone, but mercifully I did not.  I let my daughter down, disappointed my family - scared them and frankly horrified myself.  Being arrested is no fun.

I had to and still have to face a lot of consequences from that one decision to turn left instead of right.  I built back a lot of trust over five plus years and now…   I also lost my self-respect and a lot of my confidence.  I had to face my children and Frank and the rest of my extended family.  Fortunately for me, my family is versed on the disease of addiction so they understand the ins and outs better than most and they are loving and understanding so, though they were not happy, they have been incredibly supportive and forgiving.  I immediately got back to working through my fourth step with my sponsor.  I contacted my sponsor daily while and made sure that my home group knew what was going on.

I went to both my internship and the counseling job at the methadone clinic the next week and informed them both about what had happened.  This was incredibly difficult to do as you might imagine.  But I could not in good conscience continue to counsel others as a substance abuse therapist without telling them and allowing them to let me go if that was their decision.  I had seen a TED talk a few weeks prior with some of the patients at the internship site.  The premise was that addicts in recovery have to do three things.  They must be authentic, they must do uncomfortable work and then they must surrender the outcome.  I kept thinking about those three tings when I explained about my relapse and subsequent DUI.  Both sites thanked me for my honesty and told me they would let me know in a few days.  They both decided to allow me to stay, though I was let go from the methadone clinic later for billing reasons after a state audit and ironically it was the agency’s error.  The one caveat they both gave me was that I could not let any of the patients know about the relapse and I could not write about it on the blog because some of the patients read the blog.  I have only now been given permission to divulge my relapse as I am no longer at either site and am no longer counseling anyone.

            So why did it happen?  Many people in and out of the recovery community have opinions as to why and some have not been shy to share what they think I was or was not doing.  I have been told I was not attending enough meetings.  I have been told I was holding onto too many resentments.  I have been told I was not praying often enough, or hard enough, or correctly.  I have been told I wasn’t helping enough other addicts or alcoholics.  I have been told I was doing too many things at once.  I have been told I should have been doing more things.  I have spent the past seven months going over and over what went wrong and the simple answer is I have no idea exactly why I drank.

            What I can tell you is that there is a lot of stigma about addiction.  This is something we all knew.  I can now tell you, there is a lot of stigma about relapse also.  I feel it, have felt it and just like I write about addiction because I want to break down the stigma surrounding it, I am writing about relapse in the same vein.  I don’t want people who relapse to be afraid to reach out for help because of shame.  I hesitated myself.  As much as I wanted to write this because I know it brings me back to my authentic self, I am also afraid because being this authentic and vulnerable can sometimes come with consequences.  I get it.  But if I can relapse and get help and get better again, then so can others.  If I can write about it and be vulnerable and normalize this very human experience than someone else may not feel so alone.  Relapse does not have to be a part of addiction and recovery but it often is and I am here to tell you that if it happens to you, you are not alone.  I am here and I understand your pain.

            Being a psychologist now I know that addiction is a biopsychosocial disease.  That means that genes play a part in my disease as do my emotions and hormones and so does stress, environment and trauma.  I have addiction in my family tree and I certainly have trauma in my past.  Those things were there before.  But this past fall three other things happened that I now believe played a part. 

I shifted into peri-menopause.  Hormonal shifts are important to speak about for people in recovery, especially women.  I read one article recently that women’s hormonal cycles have a role in their addiction and in their relapse rates.  I also read that when women relapse it is often during PMS.   

I got a new diagnosis in the bi-polar family (last post I mentioned I am bi-polar II – it has since been changed to cyclothymic) which came with a change in medication that I had a severe reaction to.  I was put on Effexor (an SNRI).  I started on the medication just before the relapse and I had such a severe reaction to it that I eventually started having tremors and began to have slight hallucinations where my vision shifted around the edges of my periphery.  It was a mild form of serotonin syndrome and I had to be titrated off of the medication.  It was horrifying.

I was also extremely busy with work and school and my schedule was packed with recovery activities and activities speaking, volunteering and promoting the book.  So throw that altogether and I was a hot mess.           

Does that excuse the action I took and the effect it had on my family?  No it does not, but does it help me explain some of the reasons behind it to myself?  Yes, I think it does.  It helps me understand that I can’t go at break-neck speed like I was going.  If you remember my post in November was even entitled “The Center Cannot Hold” so somewhere inside I knew it was too much.  It helps me to see that hormones and co-occurring mental health disorders are a part of my life as well and have to be managed. That is not something I can “pray away” as much as I and well-meaning others may want to be the case.  It helps me to be able to share that with other women who are on this journey with me now or will come along after me.

I have been wallowing for a long time since December.  I have not been myself.  I have been looking at this as a failure and to be sure it is nothing to be proud of.  However, today I am choosing to think like a queen and look at this as a stepping stone to greatness.  Getting a job in the current climate is far from easy for me and countless others.  Getting a job with a DUI on your record when you planned to work as a substance abuse counselor makes it even harder but I have gained a great deal of insight and empathy about relapse and what it does to your self-esteem and your confidence.  I see what it takes to dig yourself out of depression and shame and how hard it is to make amends again and again and again.  I know what it takes to embrace a brain that is both creative and fascinating but also capable of betrayal and torture.  I am slowly seeing my way forward to holding my head up high again and straightening my tiara.

Recognize the Opportunity

     “Recognize the Opportunity”

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy

I haven’t written in a long time.  A lot has happened in the past four months, personally, professionally and on the world stage.  I got up this morning with the urge to write that I haven’t felt in many weeks and decided it was time.

I’ll start with personally.  I have been off the radar for a while.  I have been struggling with severe depression.  It could be perimenopause that has me going through a hormonal shift of epic proportions with all that accompanies it, including the mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia.  I also started on a new psychiatric medication that did not sit well with me and had some horrific side effects and took some time to wean off of.  The medication could have played a part in my current state of mind but I could also have a new mental health diagnosis that my psychiatrist is discussing with me at the moment.  It could be that I have bipolar II disorder.

When my doctor first mentioned putting me on yet another medication for women with bipolar my internal reaction was to reject it outright.  I thought, “I do NOT have bipolar disorder!”  I didn’t want to think that I have yet more problems, yet more to overcome and yet more to try and understand about myself.  I also had it in my mind that people with bipolar disorder had periods of manic elation and I didn’t see that in my life. 

But then I looked at my last blog post in November right before I crashed with some life consequences I will go into at a later date, and thought, “Oh wait”.  The title is “The Center Cannot Hold”.  In that blog post I talk about how many things I am doing (and there were a lot) and how I didn’t think I could handle it anymore.  It was like I was warning myself it couldn’t last.  I can’t tell you how many people have told me over the past few years, “I don’t know how you are doing it.  I don’t know how you fit that much into a day.  Etc…”  It could be that my manic episodes are not so much elation as they are hypo-productivity.

So here I am now a few months later and I went from hypo-productivity to finding it hard to get out of bed and shower.  So maybe there is something to what my doctor is saying.  So is it hard to consider the fact that I have yet another mental health diagnosis?  Yes.  But what would be harder would be to ignore it and not rise again above my problems and move forward in my life and be the best that I can be for myself and for Dermot and Wren.

Then let’s talk about professionally.  I had a job at a methadone clinic.  They hired me in October knowing I had a Bachelor’s degree in communications but that I was close to getting my Master’s in psychology.  In December the state came through and did an audit and they told the clinic they could not bill for my services because my Bachelor’s was not in behavioral health and I was told to not come back to the office just before Christmas. 

I am now in my last semester of graduate school and have been treating my internship as my full-time job.  I just completed the hours I needed before the Coronavirus had us all quarantined.  I am taking the rest of my classes remotely through my college and hoping I can get my degree in May as planned.  Job prospects are not looking great at the moment for me and countless others.  I worry I won’t find a job and that I won’t be able to pay for the things I value, like my house, or for the things I owe like my student loans. 

All that being said, lets now talk about COVID-19 and the opportunity it has brought to me and to my family – yes the opportunity.  The kids’ school initially closed for two weeks, now closed for a further two.  When that happened, Frank was also told to work remotely.  The kids opted by default to stay at his house.  They are there during the week anyway, there is more technology, more room and more to do.  It made sense on many levels for them to home school there and to quarantine there.  I stayed at my house for the first four days – alone.  By the fifth day I cracked. 

I came over to see the kids and I told Frank I didn’t think I could be alone anymore.  He invited me to stay over in the guest room if I wanted for the night.  I took him up on it and by the next morning the four of us collectively decided that I should stay for the duration of this “shelter-in-place” type directive.  It has been the best gift.  We are pooling our psychological resources.  We are together and it feels right.

We are cooking together.  We are eating together.  There are chess games and snuggles and there is laughter.  We talk about the news but not too much.  Wren’s thirteenth birthday is this Friday and Frank and Dermot and I are working together to find creative ways to make it special since she can’t have a party.  We might go geocaching that day.  We plan to make her favorite meal and dress up to eat it in the dining room by candle light.  Dermot has a projector rigged up in an upstairs room and we are going to watch a Broadway show and tell her we are taking her to the theatre…  Last night Dermot said to me, “Mom, what are you doing tonight?”  I replied that I had no plans (obviously).  He wanted to have a “date” and watch a movie just the two of us.  So we did.

In this time of crisis, with all the uncertainty around us and all the unknown in my future, there is opportunity today for me to heal with my family around me.  We have what matters right here and right now and that is what counts today, at this very moment in time.

The Center Cannot Hold

     “The Center Cannot Hold”

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”

William Butler Yeats

My new job is challenging on many levels.  I am there three days a week and have a relatively light caseload of 18 people.  I am a fee-for service outpatient drug and alcohol counselor at a medication-assisted treatment program.  I run two group therapy sessions a week and meet each client individually on a bi-weekly basis.  I will say right from the gates that for the most part I love the clients.  Contrary to how they often get portrayed in the media, the people at the clinic who are there for treatment are lovely; they are struggling from a myriad of problems and barriers, but they are lovely.

What I don’t love is the paperwork – there is a staggering amount of it to do.  I can say that I am a highly organized person, and I struggle to keep on top of which pick voucher goes with which service, versus which blue one goes with that etc…  The amount of time spent on filling in different sheets of paper astounds me.  I also feel like I am slow to make a difference and wonder how I am helping.  I think this may be a common theme among people in the counseling profession, but I am being hit hard by it at the moment.  I want to help but sometimes I feel I am drowning in the need I face every day and the lack of resources available or that I simply don’t know about yet.

I spend the other two days a week at my internship where I feel a little more sure-footed because I have been there longer and am more comfortable.  I am part of a very small team there and feel I have made a few bits of difference along the way since I started there in May.  I am also there on Sunday mornings for group and that makes me further included in the pack as it were.

Occasionally I get asked to speak or do trainings which is new and exciting, but it takes time.  As does attending conferences which is now part of my professional development routine.

I am still in school, writing papers at night and reading and trying to be present for Dermot and Wren as best I can.  I thank them often for being so patient with me as I am rounding the corner on grad school and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I should be finished in May of 2020 – one more semester after this one. 

I’m also heavily involved in my recovery community.  I try never to miss my home group meeting and I sponsor women when they ask me.  I take it seriously, even when sometimes they don’t because doing the steps was pivotal in saving and changing my life.

Doing as much as I can I think is a by-product of a time when I did next to nothing in active addiction but wreak havoc on the myself and the lives of the people who love me.  I wasted time and energy ad trust and love and I don’t ever want that to happen again.  I believe I can make a difference now so I should and I will.

All that being said, I preach self-care to my clients, to my kids, to my friends, to my sponsees and to fellow counselors.  I just helped a client at the clinic come up with a self-care plan for the holiday season as he finds the holidays stressful and lonely.  I drove home from the clinic yesterday and thought, “What are you doing for you Fiona?”  Right now I am doing a pretty poor job of it for myself and I feel like my center cannot hold.  My gyre is spinning too fast and I am taking stock this week about what I can cut back on and what I can put into place to make my life a little simpler, run a little smoother and allow me to rest a little easier.

When I read the falcon cannot hear the falconer I think I may be a little too far from my higher power.  I need to lean in.  When I lean into my spirituality things always feel better, look better and work out better.  I need to listen for my falconer right now because that is the most essential part of my self-care.

Becoming What I Do

“Becoming What I Do”

“I can’t go back to yesterday – because I was a different person then.”

Lewis Carroll

I have been struggling lately.  The tendrils of grief that surround Liam’s birth and death tend to wrap themselves around my heart like a drifting fog this time of year.  I feel his loss in waves that sometimes crash in on me when I am enjoying a moment with Dermot or laughing with Wren or when I am listening to a song or just because it is Tuesday.  I look at how big Dermot and Wren are and feel a profound sense of mystery around the third child who isn’t.  Dermot, at fourteen, is now taller than I am and I find myself looking slightly up at him and wondering just how much taller than his mother Liam might be today.  Wren and Liam looked so similar to one another as new-borns.  As her face changes and matures I wonder also how closely they might resemble each other today.  This coming Sunday he would have been sixteen.

The grief is present along with my unstable future and I find myself tired this October.  I am tired and afraid and just a little bit sick of being strong.  I am also in a state of profound gratitude for where I am in life and the opportunities that I have been given.  The fact that I have such a strong relationship with Dermot and Wren now seemed impossible five-and-a-half years ago.  I am nothing if not a beautiful paradox and wildly complicated.

  I was laid off in July from a company I really liked but sadly was downsizing.  I spent a few days reeling about how uncertain my position was but then got down to work.  I built up my profile on Linked In, I called people, I applied for jobs, I networked like a madwoman and I took four classes this term instead of the usual two so I can get through my masters faster and graduate, all while logging in time at my internship.

I have been honored to network and meet up with a number of really inspiring people over the past few months.  I have been able to speak at a few events as well and nothing has given me more pleasure and more gratitude.  At one dinner with a new friend I met through one such speaking event, I opened a fortune cookie and got the message pictured above.  This was back in August and I kept it in my wallet until now.  I kept it as a reminder that when things feel dark and unstable I need to keep my eyes on the prize.

Today I start a new job.  I will be working as an addiction counselor.  I still feel uncertain about my future as this is not a full-time position.  But this past week I had to fill in a health form for the kids and it asked for my occupation.  I wrote in the box that I was a therapist for the first time in my life.  That felt indescribably good.  I have one more term of grad school after this one and one more term of my internship left.  It has been a long haul and I am not yet out of the woods.

When I saw my patients at my internship yesterday I told them I would be gone this week for orientation and training at my new job but would return the next week.  One of the patients wanted assurance I would return because, “we need you too.”  I assured him I would return after I cleared my throat.  I think I may need them as well.

I don’t always get things right and I don’t always make things look easy.  I feel scared and uncertain often.  I make mistakes and my life is still messy.  I don’t have all the answers and I cry… a lot.  But as I have said before, I am my own story and my ending is not yet written.  “The Queen Who Saved Herself’ is literally a life narrative.  It may be a children’s book but it is also a saga and I use the title as a mantra now when I have to lean on it.  When I need extra courage I say to myself that I can do this because I am the Queen who saved herself, so I better get to saving myself again with all the tools I learned in recovery along the way.

I am becoming what I do.