Save this link and send it to me when I'm burned out, okay?

I told someone today that becoming a therapist is one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life because my job is now constantly helping me to become a better person.

I didn't go in to it for that reason. In fact, I almost didn't even go into it at all. I went to get a Masters Degree in Social Work because I felt like I was about to become stuck and unhappy with the jobs that I could obtain with only a Bachelors. I spent 2/3 of my time in grad school insisting that I would find something else to do with my degree that didn't involve so much sitting in one spot making eye contact with people all day.

Then I had a dream, woke up, and changed my mind. I'm not kidding. I dreamt one night that I had successfully completed a therapy session and in the dream I was happy and excited. I woke up craving a therapy job the same way I craved moving to Tucson from New York when I was 22 or living abroad for a couple of months: it just had to be done.

What a weird reason to make a career choice. It's like I had some wiser alternative Emily living inside me who already knew that the things I fear usually end up being the things that change my life for the better (kind of like my experience with women...I'll tell you about that later). 

I love sitting in an office all day making eye contact with people, and in a way, I can't fully describe why. I know what's happening, but I'd be violating confidentiality if I fully explained all of the incredible things that happen between those four walls every day. What I can say is that I've become a better listener, more empathetic, more content, and less judgmental. I've had the privilege of interacting with people who I might never have met in my own day to day social goings ons. I actually see change happening, both in others and in me, as I'm constantly nudged farther and farther out of an ever growing comfort zone. 

The things that scare me continue to be the things that change me for the better. I've faced men, stern parents, yelling, complete silence, trauma, people asking for my "professional opinion", boundary crossers, gory descriptions of medical problems, not knowing the answer, and so much more. And I'm only two years and 590 hours in. What an adventure!

And what a privilege. What a privilege that people trust me enough to allow me in. What a privilege that I had the support and therapy and finances of my own to get to this point, and to be able to utilize it. What a privilege that, even in the midst of a chaotic work environment, that I'm able to feel this way, and that there are people reading this and NOT rolling their eyes. 

Even if someday I do get burned out or I decide to make a career change, I'm grateful for the experience I had up until now, for as long as it lasts. 

Two things often happened in my dreams as a child:

I’d hear someone creeping, creeping up the stairs, a stranger,

An uninvited guest, stepping quietly in the dark,

Always a threat never realized

And

The toilet would come alive with a deafening growl,

It would lift itself from its tile floor surroundings and

Start to shuffle, shuffle toward my room.

Sometimes, the two intruders would creep and shuffle

At the same time, a grand nightmare outside my bedroom door,

Moving closer but never meeting, never quite making it.

What did they want, what did they mean?

What would have happened if the creep on the stairs

Met the plumbing monstrosity in the hall?

Maybe I should have introduced them. Maybe

They were just loneliness incarnate, maybe

They needed a firm handshake and a “Hello”.

Maybe

I was not as powerless as they would have me believe,

Maybe I could have distracted away my own nightmares,

So that, in my adult dreams, I’d finally be able to scream

Runners

Sometimes runners looks ridiculous:

Muscular, limber women and skinny men

Heel-toeing it down Speedway at six miles per hour

With nothing visibly chasing them.

I wish I were chasing them.

Sometimes I have dreams where

I’m running with full breath, where

My lungs are clear buoys holding

My feather-light body in the clouds I’m pushing through.

In real life, I am just a rock wearing Addidas,

Trying to propel my way through rain and pollen

With anxiety hung around my neck,

And spilling down my back.

Maybe runners only look ridiculous

Because I’m always watching them from behind.

See

It once seemed odd-

How you showed up in my dreams at least once a month as unfinished business.

I thought I had closed and sealed that lid; I remember

Standing proudly on top of it declaring, “IT’S ABOUT TIME”.        

But here you are,

                Again and

                                Again and

                                                Again and

                                                                Again,

Smoke creeping from my ears in the morning, leaving me

Groggy in a fog of incapability and failure.

These dreams are always-

                I see you in the store but hide in another aisle, kicking myself because I STILL haven’t just called

                You to tell you no.

Or-

                I invite you to my birthday party and regret it because you’ve gotten close to another one of my

                Friends and now we are even more enmeshed.

Or-

                Your mom sends me another e-mail telling me how depressed you are and somehow, even as a

                A 12 year old, we all think I’m going to do something about it.

I try to seal you in after every dream but I’m running out of places to hide you and now

I see you in dustbunny corners under my desk at work

Or in the hatchback driver cutting me off on my way home

Or in the stray beauty and fortune of where I live. You

Are ten years of me and you’ve fit yourself into every crack of my life

Where I might still be messing up.

These dreams

                Are not unfinished business.

They are you, a tattoo under my eyelids;

To which I return again

                And again

                                And again

                                                And again

Whenever I need a metaphor

                For my shortcomings. 

Room to Read

I stumbled across an organization this week called Room to Read. Their main goals are to develop libraries in poor countries where none exist, to increase literacy rates and provide education as a means for improving the lives of people in poverty, and to provide scholarships specifically for girls. Their mission reads:

We partner with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations. Through the opportunities that only education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.

Wow!! Using reading to break the cycle of poverty? I WANT IN. I would LOVE to get a job with this organization, but their current openings are scarce so I'm checking out the volunteer opportunities and maybe I can work that into something bigger! Helping to build a library and teaching people to read and traveling to foreign countries (SOUTH AFRICA) sounds like a dream job.