My 5 Conclusions

Pretty sure most of the very few people that actually consistently check this bad boy are on fb and probably see my status updates....well this post corresponds with my current status. enjoy. It gets deep.

I have been doing a lot of reflection lately. Its been a good thing overall. Particularly because I have been very good about not over thinking, and as a result, not worrying about things. I am so much better at that then I used to be. GO ME! Anyways, all of that reflection boiled down to 5 conclusions. Although I already knew all of these for the most part, I reflected pretty deeply about them and thought it would be something mildly interested to blog....I guess?

(1) I have a really good life...I am surrounded by (mostly) people that support and love me unconditionally - that would do quite a lot for me, if I needed anything at all, at the drop of a hat. I have a meaningful job that I enjoy 98% of the time. I have a more than adequate apartment that (with the help of school loans mind you) I can afford. I have a roomie that has very few bad habits and does not complain, if you don't count meowing for attention as complaining. I have an amazing boyfriend (Oh worry not everyone, that one will be expanded on later). I am privileged enough to be a part of an amazing graduate program that will enable me with the tools I need to do what I want in life. I am relatively healthy (ok so I do actually have a lot of things 'wrong' with me medically - chronic backpain/scoliosis/spondylolisthesis, my whole stomach thing, rayaud's disease, and I am probably anemic - but nothing that is deadly or anything that I can't manage). I do not suffer from mental illness, have a severe physical disability, deal with persistent discrimination, or have been drastically effected by natural disaster within my lifetime. All of my 'problems' are relatively short term, do not drastically effect my life or future, and can be solved through resources that I easily have access to.

This, of course, lead me to think about how amazingly lucky and blessed I am. It made me feel thankful, grateful, privileged, and even a little spoiled, embarrassed, and generally unworthy of everything that I have, due to my tendency to sometimes make a bigger deal out of my 'problems' than I really need to. It made me think about all of the little things that I sometimes let get to me or that I take for granted in times of stress. It is so easy to lose perspective over that sort of thing. Especially in the fast paced, high stimulated society we live in...Writing it down makes me ponder it even more. I won't go into examples - we are still on number one and I don't wanna lose my audience just yet.

(2) I need to learn patience for what "the future" holds.....I am a pretty patient person when it comes to others. I will admit that I do lose my patience sometimes with my family, but I think everyone has those people that tend to push more buttons than everyone else they come in contact with frequently. When it comes to being patience with myself, well, thats an area I struggle with sometimes. I have the type of personality where once I know what I go for it. It is connected to the planning that I have talked about in previous posts. When I make up my mind I want to start making whatever I have decided happen. It is not that I have to have it 'now', but I feel the need to be working towards it in some way. I suppose it has to do with me being able to control, in even a tiny way, what is happening in my life. If I am working towards something than there is a greater likelihood that it will happen in the future. I have a tendency to get impatient with waiting for the 'big stuff' in the future. It is not that I am unsatisfied with what I currently have, I just know that the 'big stuff' in the future will be even better. And I am more than willing to work for it.

I definitely believe that things happen for a reason, that God has plans for everyones lives, that what is meant to be will be, and what will be is what is supposed to be. I guess sometimes I just lose my perspective on that as well. The big things will come, I know that deep down. But when I cannot work towards something, when it is completely out of my hands, it drives me crazy....Even if I know it will either happen eventually or that God has different/better plans for my life.

(3) I need to go easier on myself when it comes to areas of personal growth....This is something that I actively work on within my life. It is one of the things I have improved on over the past few years, and significantly since starting graduate school (that was a bit of a wake-up call for this area of my life). I started working on personal growth and self discovery roughly 7 years ago. The problem was that I would push myself too hard, to the point where I allowed myself to believe all of the negative things people around me had said in the past and at that time. I pushed myself into believing horrible things about myself that I later realized were far from the truth. I was able to eventually work through all of that and come to a place where I could work on things without pushing myself too hard. I knew my personal limits and how far I could go without reverting back to having those negative thoughts of failure and self-destruction. I have been continually improving myself since then, in a healthy way. It was not until all of the pressure form graduate school that some of that came back temporarily. Not anything near as bad as I was several years ago, mind you, but I had my moments where I was concerned I might be missing some of the signals that a bit of that was creeping back into my life. I have it under control again, I can honestly say that. It did not get out of control, it was just a period of struggle and adjustment.

My reflections made me think about how I am managing that and reminded me that I should be careful and keep myself in check as the fall semester approaches. I have devised ways to periodically check myself and am working hard to implement them into my lifestyle now so that when my stress level increases this fall I have already integrated them into my life and can utilize them effectively.

(4)I am headed down the correct career path, based on my strengths and accumulated knowledge from graduate school and outside research....The further along I get in my graduate education, the more I am learning. Duh. I have only been in this amazing program for one semester and this summer, but I feel as though I have already learned and grown a lot. It is very reassuring to me that, as I learn more, my career choice is confirmed again and again. Most of the time it is little things - something emphasized in the book is something I naturally thought, a choice I would make for a client is confirmed by a professor as appropriate (notice I did not say 'right'. one of the things I have learned is that there is very rarely a 'right' answer because every client is different and it is often more about the relationship you have with the client more than anything else), sometimes its a sentence I have read in a textbook about something I have decided on my own to do with a client, and its frequently a characteristic I feel I possess that is outlined in class or the text.

I also find myself doing a lot of outside research on areas of interest and actually enjoying reading through the research articles! And I am talking to the point where I read the WHOLE thing, even if it requires me to do more research in order to understand some of the data collection and other techniques utilized in the research that I may be unfamiliar with. I spend a lot of time also researching different treatment centers and looking at the programming they have available....I can definitely see myself opening my own inpatient center someday. I have no idea how I will fund that, but it becomes clearer all the time that opening a treatment center is what I need to do.

(5)I am truly willing to give everything and still patiently wait, even if it takes 17 years or a lifetime....this is the one that has to do with Alex. During my drive back to Menomonie this last weekend I thought a lot about him and our relationship. I will spare the gushing portion. We attended a wedding last weekend for a friend from camp. There has been lots of wedding talk lately so of course it made me thing of ours....And I can wait. As long as it takes. Being married is such a small piece of what our lives will be some day. It will not change anything in our relationship. It is just legalizing what we already know. I can wait for that. I know he wants to marry me and I know that we will get married eventually. It honestly does not matter to me when.

He is already giving up everything he knows in order to spend his life with me. That is such a huge deal that not every guy would do for his future wife. He is changing countries and giving up his friends and family just so that he can be with me in a place he has no other connections but to me. Wow. And I get impatient waiting for him to move here. How selfish. I just want so badly to have him here with me all the time that I sometimes forget that he is the one giving everything up for me. He needs to marry me when he is ready. He needs to move here when he is ready. I am so set on him coming here as soon as he is done with school so that he can be with me. It's "the plan". Well, "the plan" is crap. None of them happen and this one won't pan out how we plan anyways. It is absurd to think that we can plan out how the future will unfold. We have no idea where we will end up living, how long it will take for him to get a visa, or what the conditions of the visa he ends up getting will even be. And that doesn't even include working out a job for either of us nor how the heck we will be able to pay for him to move here. How do we know that he will be ready then? He says he is ready now. And I believe him. But we both know the soonest he can be here is after he is done with school. What if when the time gets close he realizes that he isn't quite ready to give everything up just yet? That does not mean he loves me any less, it just means that everything there is important to him too. I know he does not have to give things up completely - he can still talk to people from home and visit. But it isn't the same. He already misses everyone from home now and he has only been here for a few months! No matter how much he loves me it will still be hard for him to do, I do not doubt that. And I respect that. I will never have to give that much up for him. He has given that gift to me. Even though I was ready to give everything up once before, I did not have to. And now I never will have to. Even though I would. I do not think there could ever be a more powerful way to show someone that you love them than that - giving up everything for someone knowing that they would gladly do the same, but also knowing that by doing so the one you love will never have to do the same...I feel like that may not make sense to other people...I just know that the thought of that is such a strong expression of love that I will be spending the rest of my life showing him how appreciative I am for that. Ok, I said I would spare the gushing and here I am gushing. Sorry. Moral of the story is - the most important thing Alex will ever do for me is move here. That is the greatest gift he could ever give. And I do not want to make him rush into it because I know it will happen and I know it will make us both happy for the rest of our lives. So I can wait. And I will wait. And I will do it patiently from now on, for however long it takes to get it sorted out.

So there you have it - my 5 conclusions expanded in my blog. Thanks for reading. Sorry for the length. I never mean for them to be so long and I just blab on and on sometimes. I feel like I should have some insightful closing remark that sums everything up and ties it in a bow. I don't have that. I am not sure there is a way to summarize shorter than my fb status. It does make em thing about how its interesting that people want things so conclusive. So wrapped up, tight and concise. But sometimes that doesn't exist. Sometimes life is messy or confusing or even too complex for that. I am not sure which of those, if any, this blog fall under. I just know that reflecting is nice and puts me at ease, particularly when it leads to solid conclusions that are so uplifting! ha. I am off to spread my cheerful mood to....well I don't actually have anyone to spread it to. I guess I will spread it to my couch, Morris, and the ANTM marathon that is currently on Oxygen network. Oh the joys of a day off.

Some Thoughts From Work

So right now I am down to taking one online class. Technically I physically go into a classroom two weekends, the first and last weeks of the class, but whatever. I am really enjoying this class. Not only is it giving me something to work on during my boring stints in Menomonie, but it also is keeping my brain nice and sharp and in the flow of being in school. All of that is nice. I have found myself starting to really critically think about the readings for class. Not that I don’t always critically think, but I feel like I am doing it more now. I am not sure if this is due to having extra time to focus on just this one class, or if it has more to do with course content. Either way I am happy with it. Since self-injury is an area of interest of mine I think this plays a huge role into why I tend to think more about the readings than usual. This is all really nice, but I feel like when I write my ‘pearls’ on D2L for class that I need to put something along the lines of “in my experience” or “it’s my opinion” at the beginning of everything I write because I do not want to sound like a know-it-all. It just so happens that I do have experience with self-harming individuals and I have researched a lot into the subject on my own…

I guess a lot of school related matters are on my mind because the next thing that I feel compelled to mention is my internship. So many people have been asking me about that recently! Truth be told, I haven’t put too much effort into working that out. I intern in spring so I rekon I should start looking into it. However, I have been told that if I apply now that places won’t look at my stuff until the fall anyways. I guess my biggest thing is that I have no idea where I want to intern. None at all. I do not really know the area very well in the first place so its hard for me to come up with any ideas. I know I want to do residential and I’d prefer to work with young adults or children. That’s about all I’ve got. Lol. I am not too worried about it, its just been on my mind because everyone keeps bringing it up. I figure that everyone else finds internships so I will too, right? That’s what I am going for anyways.

As I write this, I keep thinking of my sister (yeah Sam, you get a shout-out!) and how she told me last week that all of my blogs are either very mushy, or very slit-my-wristy. I’d have to disagree with that, but I am not gonna lie, it made me think about the message I am sending across to the few people that read this blog occasionally. I really do think a lot about other things that never make it in here. I guess I just blog when I have a lot of extra time on my hands, something that has been on my mind a lot recently, to vent, or if there is a significant update in my life. Since most of the things I listed do not happen often, I guess I am left with mushy thoughts about Alex or artistic things I find that I see as just that and my sister sees as slit-my-wristy. Let me assure everyone - there is nothing wrong with me. I am not obsessed with Alex nor am I depressed. I swear. Not that anyone actually thinks that. But it isn’t exactly a far cry if you base your opinion purely on what can be found in my blog.

Going along with just writing about what I am currently thinking – I am slightly bothered right now that the officer I am trying to call at work’s phone has been busy for the past 25 minutes. I was called by dispatch and given his number, but have yet to actually get through to him. I am not concerned that things are not under control by the officer, I am just kindof annoyed that the call is not going through. Its very odd. Guess I will wait it out.

Ha! Turns out I was given the wrong phone number by dispatch. Problem has been sorted. Also turns out that it was not even a crisis call. That makes 0 crisis calls for me today, 1 call from LE that is out of my control and non-crisisy, and 1 fax….only 5 hrs left. I kinda regret not bringing more to do at work today. Monday night was so busy tho, so i figured it might be a bit consistant. The phone was off the hook and I never even got to finish my dinner. I had 6 crisis calls, and an estimated 10 “other” calls from county individuals changing phone numbers, making shift changes, and making us aware of various client situations. Busy busy night that was.

I wish I had something a bit more insightful, inspirational, or uplifting to write about. I really don’t. dang.

Ohhhh! Something exciting - I have found a new wedding dress! Now anyone who has known me for a long time knows that during my undergraduate I worked at a bridal shop for awhile. I used to try on most of the new dresses since I was close to sample size and modeled them for the employees. I also spent a lot of time steaming all the new dresses. I would try lots of dresses on those days as well. Due to this, I found what I thought was the perfect wedding dress for me. It is a very beautiful dress. It’s modern with a Victorian flare – lots of pick-ups on a big skirt and a corset top. Its taffeta and navy blue. It came in soon after I started working there and not one person bought it while I was employed. I think it came in ivory, but most brides couldn’t see past the color. I loved it in navy and found it to suit me pretty well. So anyways, I have been keeping tabs on this dress for the past 4 years so that I can make sure Christina Wu still makes it when I get married. It is still around and I have recently been able to find it on several bridal sites still.

Wellllll on Sunday I was watching Wetv’s Wedding Sunday at my parents house and, as always, found myself critiquing the dresses that the brides would try on. Not in a mean way, but I would try to see if I felt they were trying on the best dresses for their body types and checking out what is new in the bridal world. This combined with the fact that I am headed to a wedding this upcoming weekend, that a friend recently got engaged and had asked me to go bridal dress shopping with her (sadly I couldn’t), and boredom lead me to explore all of my dress options. For one reason or another I decided to see if I could find my blue dress on a different website for cheaper (it is still listed over $1000 after being around for 4 years!). During that search I found a new dress.

Don’t get too excited everyone. I will not be purchasing a wedding dress for a very very long time. Sadly, I am still a few years away from being engaged (a fact that has taken me awhile to get used to) and, therefore, from even trying any dresses on……but, I found this new dress that I am for sure keeping a close eye on. I showed it to my mom and she loves it too! She actually likes it so much that she thinks I should find a shop that sells it so I can go try it on and then purchase it online for the occasion (it too was over $1000 but I was able to find it on a wholesale wedding dress site for very cheap)

I think it suits me perfectly. Better than the blue one. Since I am short I shouldn’t be in a really poofy dress anyways. This new one is better suited for my body type. It’s still taffeta, which can look cheap if the dress isn’t designed well, and not blue...but not the traditional white or ivory either. I’d go into further detail, but I do not want to risk Alex seeing/hearing about the dress. He had seen pictures of the blue one since it was found when I still worked at the bridal shop, I took pictures that were posted on facebook, and we were not dating yet. I wouldn’t wanna spoil my new perfect dress as well! If anyone wants to see a picture than you can let me know, I’ll send you a link :)

I suppose that is all for now. I do not want to continue to bore anyone with more stories of school, work, and wedding dresses. I think I will move onto being productive and researching a few things...

Hey Freud, Analyze This!

So I keep having these dreams. Dreams about my future. Dreams about creating my own treatment center. I wrote a facebook status about it a month or so ago, that is when the dreams started. They are all similar in content, but vary each time. I haven't had one in a long while, but I started having them again recently.

They all center around my career and starting my own treatment center specifically for self-harming individuals. I have drempt everything from what the decor of the residential program will look like, to staffing that I need, to outpatient programs and aftercare. My dream has come up with activities and the daily plan for the residential clients. And it specifically caters towards a certain type of self-harmer. The emo! lol

My dreams sometimes are just purely going through the empty treatment center, seeing still shots of staff where a voice lists out what they do. Sometimes the center is full of clients that are doing activities. It is always like watching a movie, where I am not a part of what is going on. Nobody speaks to me, or even acknowledges my presence. Somehow I know that it is my center though. I never see myself in the dreams, but occasionally I am referred to. I even have seen my office once.

Its really strange to me that I keep having these dreams. I have never wanted to start my own facility, I always figured I would bounce around to a few different jobs before settling into one I like. Now my dreams refer to me working at S.A.F.E. Alternatives prior to starting my own facility, and also me pairing up with T.W.L.O.H.A. at my facility.

I am not exactly sure what to make of it. The first time I had the dream was a week or so before I took an essay test for a summer class where the last question was to outline the top five things you would require if you were starting a treatment center. Easiest question to ask me ever, considering all of my dreams!

I almost feel like I need to take it as a sign. I do believe if we pay close enough attention that we can see signs of warning or premonition. It has happened to me before and I have ignored them in the past - then I got into a carcrash that should have ended much worse than it did. That being said, I think that the extensive dreams I am having are some kind of sign. I do not know from where, or whom, the signs are from and I have not had dreams like this in the past.

All I know is that I keep having them and it is convincing me that this might be a path I want to go down some day. I guess I will have to wait and see. My plans never work out, maybe my dreams will? Time will tell. All I know for sure is that it is all very intriguing.

I really miss England

Like my facebook status says, its really odd to think that one year ago I was in England attempting to figure out my life and find a full-time job. I was all about moving there for a few years and working until Alex was done with school and we could both move back to the states.

It actually still makes me really sad that moving there didn't work out. I was so happy there. Not that I am not happy now. I can't complain, I have a pretty good life. It's just that a lot has changed over the past year and reflecting on it is really strange. Its almost like I shouldn't reflect back on it because the wounds of "failing" over there have not healed. That idea is ridiculous. I have so much to be thankful for right now. And I am thankful for all of it. I was accepted into an amazing grad program in Wisconsin, I have job that I enjoy, I have grown a lot as a person, I am living on my own again, Alex is still willing to do the long distance thing (not that the status of that would ever change, but I am still thankful for it).....the list could go on, those are just the "big things" that initially come to mind.

Its kindof crazy, but I still think about how different things would be if I were over there instead, if everything had worked out. What if I would have found a job and got granted a visa? What if I would have left everything I have here to live with Alex and his family initially, and then in our own place once we saved the money? Things would be so very very different. Would I be happier? In some ways I honestly think I would. I'd be with Alex. That's the most obvious bonus considering he means everything to me.

Would things be perfect? no, of course not. I am sure we would both be broke, that I would miss my family and friends here, and that whatever job I got would have obtained probably meant a significant adjustment for me. And, of course, I wouldn't be back in school, getting a degree, and having moments of personal insite to inspire my future and shape my life goals.

The strangest part about the whole thing is that I still look at that summer as a failure on my part. I probably had the best summer of my life over there. The people were amazing, there was so much to learn and explore, everything is beautiful, the whole lifestyle is a change of pace, I had so much freedom, pretty much no responsibility, and I had Alex. I could have lived that summer for the rest of my life. Sure, I didn't have much to do when Alex was at work because I didn't know the area enough to know what to do. But I could have explored more. Instead I was lazy and hung around with his friends and family. Nothing wrong with that. I was perfectly content.

But despite all of the amazing things I did there, it still feels like a failure. If I am being honest with myself, this is partially because I went there to prove a lot of people wrong. A lot of people didn't exactly support the idea of me moving to England, and some of them were very doubtful about me finding a job and having the guts to move to another country. I really wanted to prove them wrong. Obviously I didn't.

I think a bigger part of it is that I disappointed myself. I let myself down. I wanted to prove to Alex that I would do what he is going to do for me some day. That I too was willing to give up everything to be with him. And I wanted that. I wanted to give up everything and just be with him. For us to struggle on our own. I can't wait for that. And I could have had that. I tried my best to have that. And it was not good enough. That completely sucks. The biggest let down I have experienced thus far.

I should not look at it as a failure because I gained a lot from being over there for so long. I guess it is just a blow to the ego. One that hits a nerve really hard for me. The "I am not good enough" nerve. Never have I thought that about myself. I have felt that I was not good en0ugh for other people....I won't go into that....But not getting a job in England let myself down, made me feel not good enough for me.

Of course, that isn't true. I am good enough, the time just wasn't right. The economy crashed over there shortly before I tried to move there. nobody is going to hire someone from another country during rough times. Especially because I didn't have the official certifications (even though technically I was over qualified). It just was not in the cards for me, for us, then. God's plan was not along that path. I was meant to come back here and do the gradschool thing. And all of that will work out in the end, as it should. And we will be together, finally. I will be done with school and settled when Alex moves here. Perfect timing, right? I sure ho0pe so. I am banking on it.

I think it also goes back to the whole "having another plan not work out" thing. We have tried time and time again to plan to be together. Sent so much time and effort into creating these plans - ways to work it out so we can be together soon. And they all end up not working out. I will admit that some of them were long shots. Some of them Alex didn't even want to try. But I planned them out in detail anyways. Even created backup plans for all of the possible hiccups we might experience within a given plan. None of them even came close to working out.

You would think that I would stop trying to come up with plans, but I don't. In a lot of ways those keep me going. They give me hope that stuff will work out eventually. Because as long as we have a plan and are working on it then there is a chance that things will turn out something close to what we planned and that we will get to be together....but they never work out and I always get disappointed. Since this plan was the first that was completely on me I think I took it extra hard.

Since then I have not made anymore plans. I just can't bring myself to do it. Its both a good and bad thing. I don't get let down when the plans fail, but now its hard to find hope cuz all I can do is wait. And I hate waiting for this. It is the thing I want the most so it makes me anxious and impatient and sad to wait and wait and wait and never work towards anything. I suppose we are working on things - ourselves. Getting the all important education piece of our lives out of the way before we are together. I suppose I would be very distracted if Alex were here and I attempted to do gradschool. But currently I am distracted by my impatience and my emocity due to the waiting and being away from Alex....I am in a constant state of low grade anxiety without him. Man to I have attachment issues with that boy. lol.

I guess I am just doomed to wait it out a few more years. It could be much much worse. And I will be getting all smart in the process, right? Thats what I keep telling myself anyways. We have been doing this for longer than we have left now, so I rekon we can make it. Well, I know we can. I would just prefer we didn't have to. But there are long term benefits to it. But I need not get into that now. For now I shall focus on the current summer and seeing Alex as much as I can.....especially since we have no idea when we will be able to see one another after this....we might have to go a whole year! I half expect to die attempting that. I am sure one of us will break down and sacrifice something to make a visit work.....maybe I should start fund-raising and go to England over Christmas....cept the family would hate that. hmm, I will think of something.....and so starts another plan....