When preparing for a baby, it’s common to read a baby book or two. Included are segments about feeding schedules, swaddling tips, and what to-dos if baby experiences reflux. However, I never read any segments about ways to prepare for that first year of preschool. You know, that first year of immune system exposure to every cootie known and unknown to man. The oral stage of developmental exploration pairs all too well with first year immune system rodeos.

Preschool was kind enough to send home Flu B for Spring Break.

So, it’s been a week full of fevers, missing appetites, and all you can watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The Hotdog theme song has made an appearance in my dreams for the past few nights.
If you know you know.

Amongst the playlist of comforts has been ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. The beloved children’s book that takes the reader on an adventure through some grass, a river, some squishy mud (the fan favorite), a forest, a snowstorm, and a cave to find a bear.

“IT’S A BEAR!”
The family proclaims like it’s an actual surprise they found what they were looking for.

Then, they hightail it back through all the chaos of mud and snowstorms to cower in bed under the covers away from the bear.

This silly rhythmic tale holds many parallels to what the therapeutic journey is like.

Picture this:
A new client arrives at the therapy intake session. They have neatly mapped out what brings them to therapy, some historical data about their background, and a summation of a goal or two such as ‘I’m going on a bear hunt, and I’d like to catch a big one.”

The therapy journey begins with the intention of building rapport, gentle and somewhat predictable. The sessions progress and the rhythmic nature of attendance becomes…more challenging as the clinician begins to dig a little deeper.

Some sessions feel like treading through overgrown grass, requiring more mental effort to navigate, but doable. Others feel like trudging through ooey-gooey mud.
Still, you keep on. You’re on a bear hunt after all and you’d like to catch a big one.

Then one day, the processing and exploration in session thrusts you into the cave and what do you find? That BEAR of emotion. Suddenly, that goal you had stated neatly on a piece of paper seems ginormous, overwhelming, and mostly intimidating.

You can’t go over it.
You can’t go under it.
Oh no… you have to move through it.

The absolute trickiest part of healing.
Largely because our whole central nervous systems typically scream ‘RUNNN!’ at the moment of truth.

Change can be a bear. All puns intended.

Our presenting issues that drive us into the therapy room are rarely the ones that require deep healing and shifting. They are red flags that our core beliefs and ways of navigating or coping are running out of benefit, but rarely ever the whole pain point.

The most frequent example of this is when families enter the therapeutic process with the mentality ‘fix my kid, but don’t fix me’.

Many clinicians quietly chuckle at this, because a lot of children are east targets to serve as the identified patient. Most of the time, they are the brave ones that identify a system that is not serving anyone, let alone the child.
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Instead, so many of us would rather backtrack our steps, go through the rigmarole of the snowstorm, forest, mud, river, and grass only to cower under the covers of denial instead of facing the bear of emotion. So many of us are terrified to feel it to heal it.

Perhaps it’s the intangibility of emotion that makes us tremble in fear. People are incredibly intimidated by the unknown, and it’s a pesky character trait that is undeniably a part of the human condition.

That’s why there is so much monumental power and triumph that results from facing the bear. Squaring your shoulders, looking up at the beast, and holding space for its presence. The longer you sit with its beastly demeanor, the longer it begins to resemble a ratty teddy bear that belonged to a younger you some time ago. That bear served a purpose then, but it’s time to put it down now. Give it a hug, thank it for its attempts at protecting you, and release it back to the metaphorical toy bin where it belongs.

Healing does not mean the feeling goes away. Healing means the feeling transforms its power and purpose in your narrative.

We all have bears we’d rather not face. Not really. We’d rather cage the bear, numb our fear of the bear, or run and cower under the covers, hoping the bear goes away.

But as the book taught us:
We can’t go over it
We can’t go under it.
Oh no, we have to go through it.
​
Square those shoulders, take a big breath, and know facing that bear of emotion, whatever it is, will be well worth the healing that can follow. 

Today was treasure box restocking day.

This sounds close to ordinary, however it’s the right sized pocket of joy for practicing play therapists. My colleagues and I playfully ‘tried out’ the requested fidgets, add-ins for slime, and crisp dry erase markers. Our smiles stretch our cheeks, and our lungs reveled in the deep breathes that follow a spell of shooting the shit.
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I followed up this timestamp with a walk to the dumpster. I felt my shoulders instinctively rise in preparation for the cold to steal my breath. However, warmth tickled my face as the sun shone with pride that it had finally surpassed seventy degrees outside.

Cue the dramatic exhale and another stretch of the cheeks.

Some days my frown lines superseded my smile lines.

My millennial soul is tightly bound by armor at a feeble attempt of perceived safety against the universe’s punches. What will the day bring? More Tylenol conspiracies? A school shooting? A sprinkle of poor luck and bad timing?

Even the most seasoned chaos junkies have their limits.

I took the long way back from the dumpster. I tucked my phone away in my pocket, rolled my shoulders, and nodded my quiet thanks to the sun as I soaked in the warmth. I leaned into gratitude for this moment, as I have been cold for longer than I could remember.

While my toes have been chilly, as has my peace.

Everything feels heavy.
The news. Endless illness. Unanswered questions.
Friend’s untimely accidents. Family health concerns.
My work.

It’s an odd level of separation. A mix of suffering and personhood. Holding space with herculean effort then going home to convince a toddler to finish her dinner. My soul has adapted to this whiplash mostly. I would be a liar if there weren’t nights the horror of what others have experienced dance behind my eyes.

Life is hard and has plenty of cold spells.

That’s why it is imperative we notice any micro doses of peace.

Like moments of sunshine on a brief walk to the trash.
A hot shower with no deadline.
A breathless chuckle when your cat does something silly.
Emergency chocolate.

Micro doses of peace are our tethers to the promise of hope. When we are surrounded by macro grief, micro joys serve as a reminder that other experiences exist. Grief tricks our minds into believing in an endless forever. It makes our big feelings sticky and wears out our central nervous systems.

Micro joys are our radical rebellions.

Our grit and our ‘screw you’ when the universe plays its untimely tricks. While we may not have control over a moment, we have influence over our takeaways. This will all evolve into a memory someday. So today, instead of harboring the coldness of other’s chapters, the muck of bad luck, or the whose-its and what-its of what could have been different, I will pocket the warmth of the sunshine and the smile that stretched my cheeks with some beautiful colleagues. 

Have you ever heard the saying “We make plans and God laughs?”

Well, he must be cackling up a storm recently because Holy Cow Batman, what a time it has been. This week, the first week of February, is the first week of this YEAR that both myself and my toddler have been well.

Don’t worry, I am fully prepared to be a cootie monster again by next week.

Preschool is not for the weak!

Perhaps it’s all the illness disrupting my ‘flow’, but I have been quite blunt at work. Not that I’m typically the queen of smooth or gentle deliveries, but I have evolved in this profession. I used to put so much energy into my deliveries, perseverating on whether the other could or would receive the feedback in the way I was intending. I used to do a lot of things that involved overthinking. Motherhood completely shapeshifted my experience of time. Some people get postpartum anxiety. I am the opposite. Having a baby alleviated much of my overthinking tendencies, largely because I simply do not have the time to invest in such a mindful activity.

Whether it be the influence of motherhood, the disruption of illness, or just the natural evolution of being a practicing clinician, I am not as fearful of a client’s reception of my feedback. It’s quite revealing what stage of change someone is at when you introduce a perspective that hits a little too close to home. People toy with the idea of therapy, yet those who are really ‘ready’ to change, bend, and shift are fewer and far between. 
Folks enter therapy talking about this and that and everything else but the underlying pain point.

It’s FAR easier to hyper-fixate on the dishes in the sink and not the past betrayal.

It’s FAR more tempting to elaborate on your frustrations with your boss than your frustrations with yourself.

It’s FAR easier to blame yourself than to accept that what happened to you isn’t your fault or something you had control over.

The list rolls on for quite a while.

We spend so much of our free time thinking about the wrong thing.

Most of life’s happenings are outside of our grasp of control.

If it’s attached to you, you have control (sometimes), and other than that influence is the farthest your reach can go. Influence is such an underrated talking point.  We all get stuck on the ‘control’ aspect, like perseverating on it will miraculously give us magical powers to manipulate it. Unfortunately, none of us have yet acquired a Pinocchio of control.

We do have the power of influence, however.

Yes, I will agree, it’s not as shiny or tantalizing as control. Control has the promise of absolutes, something us humans drool over. However, influence still carries its fair share of power.
Influence comes with with the price of acceptance. Influence has you sign on the dotted line accepting “I recognize my agency AND accept the gamble and risk of change”.

Yuck. Change.

I smirk at my own eye roll because change has evolved me for the better. Without change I would be stuck in the past of someone who does not serve me any longer. Influence is all the power any of us need, because control denies humility, grace, and opportunity for connection.

Influence accepts the human in us.
Control denies it.

Without control, I have discovered my authentic self. I have witnessed my strength and lived through experiences I never thought I could. I have discovered the transformative beauty of pain and mistakes. I have had opportunities to heal my abilities to trust myself.

So, I will leave you with this.

In between this and that and everything else, remember to loosen your grip on control. It was never meant to be yours. Instead, lean into your influence, and accept the beauty that comes with it.
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Change. Humility. Resiliency. Connection.  

​Boundaries.
​
The theme that is ever present within the walls of the therapy room. Pestering us to uphold invisible barriers to what tears us down, undermine our value systems, or inspires the ‘ick’.
I’m not sure what is more burdensome some days, to establish boundaries or to uphold them. If we have a history of chronic people pleasing (such as myself), then our systems have a habit of not so gracefully bumping into them once they are created.
People become cranky when we create boundaries if they have benefitted from us having none.

Sigh.

I exist in a persistent parody related to the sentiment ‘practice what you preach’.
Most days I lean into the humor that I am just another human that is just as susceptible to the human condition. Just in case you did not know, even therapists benefit from therapy.
I could tell you some tales from my own personal experiences of creating a boundary and sitting with the discomfort of others chaotically ricocheting off of of them.  It’s been a marathon of learning that I am, in fact, allowed to protect my peace at the expense of another's discomfort.

I am wired to caretake. To comfort. To aid in the discovery of peace and the pursuit of happiness. So much so that I embodied self-sacrifice for the sake of others. My drive evolved into a qualification of self-worth. To this day, I am quite uncomfortable not rushing to the rescue of other’s discomfort, especially when my boundary is the one to blame.
Friendly reminder that our worth is inherent, not tied to a list of conditions.

Yikes, that’s a doozy to not only preach, but practice.

As I evolve as a *more* seasoned therapist, I feel myself slowly wiping away the clown makeup of imposture syndrome. I am learning that folks seek therapy with those who embrace imperfect authenticity (ethically of course). Therapy is a space to explore the impacts of connection starvation. Loneliness is shame’s constant companion. During the moments of vulnerability that lead into these explorations, I've discovered that folks find comfort in someone real sitting across from them, not forever poised with a poker face.

Here is your reminder that your boundaries are permissible.

We can have them without the condition of a required defense.

Just as ‘no’ can serve as a complete sentence, so can your limits.
Here’s to practicing healthy boundaries, while giving yourself grace for the human moments that accompany the yuck feeling when others express discomfort by bumping into them.
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*Insert relatability here*

Perhaps one of the most overlooked beauties of humans are the nuances that color every perspective. Just like fingerprints, no two experiences are alike. No matter if everything else aligns down to the dust particles, my perspective will vary from yours.
This beauty is often mistaken for burden.

Viktor Frankl and Irvin Yalom played major parts in the development of Existential Therapy. Within this framework, there are core concepts apart of the human condition:

 freedom and responsibility
(can’t have one without the other)

 awareness of death
(spooky)

 the search for meaning
(midlife crisis being a commonly highlighted one)

and isolation is a part of life
(bummer)

We are inevitably isolated to some degree due to our nuanced perspectives. This isn’t because of lack of trying, it’s just as true as the sky is blue. Our experiences are not meant to match 100%.

This may be the most disillusioned truth to humanity. Why? Because people sure try their darndest to clone themselves in their lenses. This fact alone perpetuates my profession. The goal to healing a lot of the time is self-actualization and individualization.

AKA
finding the courage to honor your own truth.

Generationally, we miss the mark when raising our little people.

I giggle at the irony, because I had a baby that looks very little like me. However instead of harping on this fact, we celebrate. We lean into her vivacious blonde curls and deep blue eyes. We admire the beauty of her unique experiences and the lenses she peers into the world with.
​
We become who we are from the messages we receive.

I could prioritize my parenting to indoctrinate my little monkey into a shadow closely resembling myself or my partner. We could quiet the rustlings of her novelty, shhhing them with shame, guilt, or otherwise “don’t do that, that’s not what Scotts do!”.

However, I see the pain that accompanies this rigidity within the therapy room.

As children, we are wired to be egocentric. We experience the world as if we are at the center. This isn’t out of selfishness, but out of an instinctual drive to survive. This is what perpetuated ‘survival of the fittest’. We had to be the center of our family’s world to survive ‘back in the day’.
Egocentrism does not really begin to fade until we become seven-ish years old. Then it slowly fades over time. Slowly key word.

So it shouldn’t be a shock that when adults box us into becoming their clones or bust, we carry shame from being innately different. Experiencing our perspectives differently, however being told we have control over what is secretly the uncontrollable.

We become who we are from the messages we receive. 

Embrace the differences that are promised with the human condition. Prepare yourself for the reality of nuances. Instead of fearing this, lean in with curiosity. We all have something to learn from one another, no matter the age difference. 

Mommy, what are you doing?

My two-year-old chirps for the 4000th time. She’s arrived at the ‘why’ stage a bit early, but nonetheless enthusiastic. I feel as if I am living in an old-fashioned flip book, each of my movements are met with the questions “What are you doing?” and “What’s that?”
The developmental nerd in me rejoices at her curiosity, knowing how meticulous she is at building her knowledge base about the world around her. Just this week she has announced that her favorite color is pink (Lord help me), and she has mastered the decision-making method of Ee-Knee-Me-Knee-My-Knee-Mow. Her advanced proclivities for expressing her mind leave me cackling at the pure innocence and proper syntax on a daily basis.
Then there’s the other part of me. The part that doesn’t dawn the professional hat and steps away from the education well. The part that is so privy to distraction. Think about this bill, toy about what to do with this relationship. Don’t look out the window too long or that existential dread of what our world is becoming might swallow me whole. How will we make the calendar work?

How will it all work?

Maybe children are onto something with this whole verbal processing thing. Perhaps we as adults have become way too internalized about tending to processed information. We exist in such a ‘hush’ culture, it wouldn’t surprise me if our mute nature about the things that actually matter are derived from the utmost craving to play the part and fit in.

My daughter is not destined to fit in.

She was born into a world where her voice will be her most powerful tool. To fit in is to accept defeat, and her light is much too bright to be snuffed out because others’ egos that are much too fragile.

Insert loud eye roll here.

I have had enough with the egos. The delicate egos that grip onto crooked power to ensure their selfish safety. The ones who would greatly benefit from proper therapy, however their fear overrules their abilities to sit in the greater good that would come about from their discomfort in the growing pains.

Growing pains are the key to our best selves.

I always tell folks in the therapy room that growing pains don’t only exist within our legs. Those are just the most tangible pangs of discomfort. To live is to commit to evolution. Pathology arises from our balking at what comes with the humanness territory. When we resist change, we resist healing. We resist the authenticity that pairs with accountability. The wisdom that comingles with humility. We are all destined to be humpty dumpty. Rise, fall, break, evolve. Rise and repeat.

Mommy, what are you doing?
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I am evolving with you, my little love. Let’s lean into those growing pains together, and know you are never alone.

Somedays I wonder where my voice went. Did I say everything that there was to say?

Words used to bubble onto the paper as if my soul could not contain them any longer. My fingers danced across the keyboard with fluidity, dancing to the melody of the prose begging to hit air. I was diligent with my writing for a handful of years, submitting them to different places to share my prosaic tidbits and tangents. I hustled for a sliver of a portfolio, I carved out a blog, I hopped on some podcasts. I even wrote a children’s book.

So where did that linguistic melody run off to?

A reoccurring theme within the eclectic walls of my therapy room comes and goes with the seasons. It’s that dance of ‘Oh I finally made it to that destination I’ve been hyper-focused on!” to the “Now whats?” and the “What ifs?”

It’s humorously frustrating when I am just as human as the clients that share this office with me. Somehow, life did a lot of living and I stumbled and tripped on a handful of “now whats?” and “what ifs?”. Homebuying, tumultuous pregnancies, thrusts into first time parenthood, and all the twists and turns in between can do that do a girl I suppose.

Phew.

The chaos feels like a fever dream some days. The memories of my once late preemie squishy baby are challenged by this curly-haired ray of two-year-old sassy sunshine looking up at me with wonder spilling from them. The once new home now has twinges of longing for revamped newness. Careers are resettled. My once insecure identity as a parent is cemented into my soul by tight toddler hugs and rapidly growing vocabularies.

Now I just feel caked in a thick layer of dust. Coughing from the impact of the landing from the chaos to my new normal.

I don’t think I wrote for a year.
A whole year my soul lay stagnant grasping at survival straws, leaving the pen and paper firmly behind.

I felt as if I had to shed my old self to step into my new, more parentified, hardened by trauma, but resilient because of it self. Yet, though quiet perspective, I am learning that there is no such thing as a new and old self. There’s just the self that has evolved. A narrative that has shifted. Just because we’re in a new chapter does not mean that previous ones have been lost.  
I know this because I did a pretty decent job at outrunning the writer in me. I boxed her up with the rest of me that I thought I had to pack away for the sake of becoming a good parent, a responsible adult, a dutiful wife, and a working mom. I hid that box in the back with the rest of what I perceived as selfish joy.

Come to find out, that’s the opposite of the thing I was wanting to accomplish.

You see, my little girl watches EVERYTHING we do. She listens to the ways we speak about our experiences, ourselves, and our wants and needs. Packing up the essence of me was robbing her of witnessing a mother who saw and valued her own worth, celebrated her own humanness, and modeled permission to be responsible and pursue her happy.

Plus, the writer in me was peeking through every time I came to work. Cultivating safe spaces requires me to allow the prosaic melody to flow through relatable metaphors, compassionate validations, and humanizing normalizations.

I am still working on the layer of dust that’s formed.

But
I am making an effort at pursuing my happy. I am dusting off my once hidden away boxes of me, and I am leaning into the spaces that help me feel free.
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That’s just the writer in me. 

Most therapists ultimately find their way into niches, the glorified ‘you made it!’ standard of the mental health practice. As interns, we are encouraged to adopt the ‘dabble’ mentality as we find what facet of focus emphasizes our curiosity. This is what encourages us to become masters of our trade. Or so it goes.

Neurodiversity is my chosen niche, however I feel somedays it’s a peephole into an expansive, chaotic world where one diagnosis has the capability of presenting so colorfully different from the other, even though they share the same lettering. ADHD, Non-Verbal Learning Disability, and Autism Spectrum Disorder pepper my notes, and are woven into the predominate population that I work alongside with.

It’s peculiar that I have spent so little time utilizing this platform to share therapist tangents from this niche. Although I identify fiercely as an Ally to the Neurodivergent community, I have a strong desire to respect the privilege I carry as a Neurotypically-titled adult. Please note as I speak on my behalf of my Neurodiversity therapeutic experience, I am not speaking from a place of inherent experience, only a pupil from the outside looking in.  

Autism is not a cluster of behaviors, behavior is simply a symptom of the struggle. The struggle is the singular perspective that reacts to the full picture of stimulus presented. There is an existential belief that we all experience the world from different shades of perspective, so in that Autism is refined by the shades of individualization.

Compulsive lying is a mask of ingrained desire to connect through saying what has been taught as ‘correct’.

Thematically, I notice those struggling to experience success long enough to recognize what is different from survival mode. Routine navigations in a world with varying and consistent dumpster fires. While there is a strength in singularly attending to one fire at once, this inevitably results in a perceived failure of achieving ‘correct’ use of time and resources. Ultimately, there is vacillation between panicked and pressured productivity and Autistic burnout. Research has shown Autistic burnout results from the sensory and emotional overload that correlates from long-term masking and suppression of autistic traits.

“Out of compliance “
“Quirky”
“Commonly misses the mark”

I’m routinely dumbstruck at how threatening variation is. ‘Different’ carries such heavy stipulations. It’s the kind of awkward smirk I get when a couple is arguing so passionately about change they’d like to see in the other, yet it’s the change that is so desperately needed in themselves. The solution seems so plain and concise.

We are all varying shades of different.

Even the folks that can be tucked away so inconspicuously into the box of ‘normal’. The box so dutifully deemed standard, yet carries own dents, scrapes, and scuffs. Those who assume the power to define normal are largely ones to talk.

It’s that smirk again.
I have met some pretty remarkable people through the work that I have the honor of doing. They radically shift my perspective for the better. The kinder. The more empathetic. Autism, nor any other diagnosis interrupts their remarkability. 

We are all worthy of burning the scuffed up, dented box of stifled and poorly defined normal.

Why?
It’s simply the boogieman beneath your bed. Somewhere in myself I can empathize with missing a mark or ten, deviating haphazardly out of compliance, and possessing a quirk or two.  Normal exists on a spectrum, just as Autism does. No two ‘normals’ coexist. Perhaps that is why it’s so dangerous. So easily manipulated.

The next time someone presumes the power to cultivate a definitive normal, remember to pause and smirk, fully knowing the truth about that particular boogieman. 

I haven’t done this in a while. I’ve let my tid-bits and tangents shuffle through my mind without much thoughtful attendance. A nod of acknowledgement perhaps, but there’s far too much to do to carve out space for anything more.

Yet this hypocrite sits on her phone for at least two hours every night drowning out all noises, even the internal ones.

It feels rotten to admit that those two hours are sometimes the highlight of my days. The two hours I am subconsciously trudging through the mud toward. No one needs me. No one is outwardly suffering within my physical vicinity. Nothing else needs to be tended to or cleaned up or soothed. My mental and emotional exhaustion outweighs my cravings for authentic attunement.

It finally happened last night, where my own emotionality outweighed my desire to sink into mind-numbing social media escapism. I was sitting with my head on my husband’s chest after we got our tumultuously teething toddler down for the night. The tears started from no solid pinpoint and the anxiety lingered throughout today. Being a human really gets in the way of being emotionally tight-lipped.

Building up a dam to the emotional turmoil that ricochets within my heart is far easier than allowing myself to feel the damn thing. I don’t have time to sit with the ache of my chronic fear and trepidation when there are so many other sources of pain surrounding me. So many people in and out of the therapy room are sputtering for air from the obstacles and challenges that grip their throats.

My whole career is built on a platform defined by the notion of ‘safe space’. A space in the world where others can come and hang up their masks and defenses at the door. To feel safe enough to peek at what lies beneath the armor and drives the misery, anxiety, depression, compulsion to drink, cut, argue; the list is endless.

The world is not safe. This is nothing new. The boogieman has crept around corners and within alleyways for as long as humanity has existed. Yet, the type of unsafe that is hammering into people is unnervingly unfamiliar. Rights that some argue come with humility are being revoked like angry parents snatching a child’s toy from their grasps without much rhyme or reason.
 As a therapist, my client’s well-being is my number one priority. I was raised by the book of ethics and nurtured by the hands of professionally powerful human rights advocates. Yet here I am, tears rolling down my face as I look at the wreckage of an ocean’s worth of demolished presumed safety.

I am not writing these words to ask for validation or understanding. I just keep thinking about those who sit across from me with pain echoing behind their eyes. I have become way too savvy at seeing pain others try so desperately to keep quiet from the outside world. It’s not safe to feel unwell right now. It’s difficult to shake the modified natural selection that is swirling in the air. Buck up, button up, and whatever you do, do not look vulnerable.

Vulnerability is dangerous.
Because its antidote is empathy.

I think that’s what I crave. I crave for empathy to lose its derogatory connotation. I crave for the fixers to pause their agenda to see the pain behind so many eyes, their own eyes even. It’s so hard to sit with so much pain in and out of the therapy room.

I’ll be OK.
We will be OK.

Even my tumultuous teething toddler with the patience of a fly will be OK.
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There’s just so much relief in letting words hit the air.
Letting uncomfortable emotions escape the confides of your lips. Your feelings are safe within the cozy walls of my eclectic office. Your experiences, your pain, your perspectives are all inarguably yours to hold and process. Let’s just let it all hit the air. Let’s start there. 

It’s raining.
​ For the past few days there have been periods of steady, rhythmic rain drumming against the windows that box me in. I love this sort of downpour. It quiets the world in ways that fly under the radar of cultivating discontent.

There has been so much discontent lately.
The kind that’s sticky and alludes to unfiltered pain. The sort of dissatisfaction with life’s happenings that oozes from others desperate for a place to put it down. Frantic word vomit sputters onto those unarmed, unequipped, and many times unwitting.

I tell my husband frequently that I wish I possessed the skills to be mean. To be able to bluntly shut down something that is not serving me, and to be able to relentlessly attend to my own needs above others. Something in the universe disarmed this ability within my soul and added an extra splash of empathy. My empathy for other’s experiences outweighs my own needs time and time again. It’s chronically exhausting.

Lately I feel like Lucille’s sign ‘Psychiatric Help 5 cents’ has been nailed to my forehead. Those I know in different ways have been showing up with such forceful, palpable pain it’s slammed me into a chokehold of holding space. Disarming internal bombs before they detonate. Panic whipping wild within their eyes.

Their eyes.
Windows to the soul when in a romantic setting, but geysers of trauma in a realistic sense lately.

I just want to hide.

The work I do is raw, vulnerable, heavy, and inevitability dark. There’s hardly a day that escapes from the reminders of how woven tragedy is into our DNA. I’ve been trained on how to compartmentalize and hold space, but y’all, I am just a human.

When I leave work, I am breathing through a bendy straw. My chest is tight, and my heart is shaking off the ache of others. My mind hurriedly attempts to leave all the ick at the door. I am thumbing through the pages of my memories or current events that donate levity to my soul. Thankfully, my daughter and husband are good at these contributions.

I know I know.
“You need to be better at holding boundaries.”

But how do you hold boundaries in the moment of distinct agony?
How do you death grip your bendy straw when the other’s straw broke in half?
How do you turn away from the eyes that haunt you long after the gaze has been broken?

These are the moments my soul cries out for Sadie. The creature who traded my bendy straw out for a proper snorkel. It feels so silly to still grieve an animal as hard as I do. But who would really know?

Sometimes, other’s view of me makes me feel so disposable. Like my depth doesn’t have a place because it doesn’t appear to be hemorrhaging. Most of the time, I am used to this, and I am at fault for giving in. But other times, I crave to be seen. I have a deep need to remember the good. Not just for levity, but for survival.

We all do.
It’s within humanity’s blueprint to play. It’s tethered to the foundation of resiliency to catch our breath in the face of the unimaginable. Even our mechanisms for crying demand we ‘come up for air’, as we can only heavy cry for 10–15-minute intervals before our system drags up to the surface for a break. Seriously. It’s kind of neat.  

It is vital to our livelihood to remember the good. Even if it feels like utter bullshit in that moment.
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Because here’s the thing.
It’s temporary. Every single bit of this life. That feeling, that job, that situation, that age. None of it is doomed for permanence. Even when permanence is begged for. Life is a tumultuous rollercoaster crowded by twists, turns, drops, and highs you never fathomed. It’s up to us to decide how we lean into the turns, or shy away from the chaos.