The past few weeks, perhaps even longer have been personally
challenging. At this stage in my life I’m okay with admitting I’m completely
self absorbed, it goes beyond the only-child syndrome. In fact, do you know how
several of my birthday cards were addressed? To The Only Child… J
My professors told me the first semester of my Masters Social Work program
would be the hardest, and they also said you’ll learn about yourself. They were
right! First semester is under my belt, and I’m 7 weeks away from my 2nd
being over too, only 6 more to go! So what have I learned about myself? I know
what I know, and I definitely know what I don’t know. Without getting too
personal over the internet, I will say this…there are several priorities in my
life that have been neglected. When the shit hits the fan, so do I. There are
moments in that haze that I turn into a stressful version of Roseanne Barr
needing a snickers to calm down and “chive on?” and other periods where I find
myself enclosed for 24-48 hour periods of time. Why? What triggers this? Why am
I on cloud 9 for a few days, and then a ball of nerves the next few? Is it
school? Is it work? Is it me? Is it something else? Self absorbed to the
extreme, however; I believe it’s needed and long overdue. The great thing about
Social Work is that once you’re turned on to it, the hat never comes off and it
becomes part of your life. Just as I am taught about how to help clients become
self aware, and consider their environment and triggers, I am doing the same
with myself.
Through reflection, I learning that I know what I know, and
that I know what I don’t know. I know what keeps me centered, I know what’s
important for me, I know where there are problems, and I know when something
isn’t going as well as it could. This
past weekend after stabilizing from something that was bothering me, I found
the sudden urge to cook a meal. A special meal…spinach and chicken lasagna and
bloody marys all from scratch. This may sound like a small accomplishment, but making
alfredo sauce and my own bloody mary mix is no small ordeal for me. I was
feeling great about life and myself during my cooking prep, and I thought wow I
need to do this more. After a while, as evening turned into night reality began
to surface again. Cooking isn’t THE CURE, nor are bloody marys, but they sure
were good!
So what is it? What’s missing? I don’t know, but Sunday was
a new morning and I was so looking forward to the beginning of day lights
savings. Sunday came, and even though I love this time change, it was hard to
get to church at 8am and keep my eyes open. I came home, did the usual and
after a while the negative monster began to show its ugly face. I told myself,
I need coffee, I need an energy drink, I need to get moving to make the
negative monster go away! So I began to clean to distract my mind and put
Pandora on, the station was Ingrid Michaelson….no I told myself! I don’t need
emo pop music right now. This is not working, I need a different beat, okay,
let’s try Christian contemporary, this worked while I was cooking yesterday. So
I kept listening, kept cleaning, some of my favorite church songs were playing,
some new ones, some I just tuned out because they were too twangy, and then a
lyric caught my attention. I can’t even remember what it was, but all of a
sudden I left the counter I was cleaning and found myself face down on the
carpet crying and sharing and pouring out my heart. I can’t really explain all
the emotions that happened during that moment, but something happened this
morning. Something that was long overdue. The outlook on my day changed after
that, and it was reemphasized to me that I know what THE CURE is…and even
though my bloody mary mix is delicious that unfortunately is not the ultimate
cure.
