A Soul In Tension That's Learning To Fly

Becoming a counsellor isn't a 9-5 job where you start it when you walk in, do the job and you leave it when you close the door behind you.  You can't detach yourself from your work because knowing yourself and being aware of where you are in the processes is essential.  Going back to studying counselling is exhilarating and exhausting, driving and draining all at once.  On a Thursday evening my mind is buzzing with thoughts and increased awareness of who I am, how I am, where I am.  It's also more tired than it's ever really been before.  I thought having done the diploma and doing so much personal development work through that, and being a qualified counsellor, and having breezed through a degree before, that this degree wouldn't have such a huge impact.  Got that one wrong then.  Four weeks in and 36 hours of bloody intense work about counselling in contexts and I've got far more questions than I have answers.  Today we were looking at the impact of parallel processing between client/counsellor/organisation.  I've been feeling very unsettled in my life these last few weeks and not sure why.  I had a light bulb moment today and realised parallel processing is going on between what I'm learning and how my life feels.  Uni is fast, and busy, and intense, and scary, and overwhelming, and great, and exhausting, and lacking in time, and full of people I'm not sure on where I stand with, and limited contact to close friends, and revisiting introjects I'd rather pretend I didn't know about, and a huge feeling of responsibility to my job.  Those words can all be used to describe exactly how my life feels too.  Realising this has brought some degree of comfort - it's good to know what's causing these feelings and what they're actually about.  Next step, figuring out how to ease the anxiety causing bits attached to uni and to work on grounding myself while I'm there to help it's affects on my world outside the classroom.

Let Us Pause In Life's Pleasures And Count Its Many Tears

A few days ago I wrote a blog off-loading about feeling let down and unloved by my sister.  Events this week have put this into perspective somewhat.  It's fair to say if I had to pick one of the hardest weeks of my life, this would be up there in my top ten for sure.  I'm not going into details for a number of reasons, but in brief the cause of this upset being a few incidents at work around suicide and me feeling very helpless to limit the completely desperate pain someone was feeling.  I don't think I've ever heard pain and complete desolation quite like that which was clear in the sound of their crying. 
Wednesday lunchtime I'd had about as much as I could handle, and went for some fresh air (ahem, fag break - yes I've quit but I needed one so don't judge!).  The tears started flowing and without consciously deciding to I rang my sister.  She was calm, listened to me cry, talked to me about how I was feeling.  She was soft and caring, yet practical about things in order to help me find a less wobbly place.  Today she text, asking how I was feeling and if I was having a better day today.  She may not ring for a chat, or text on situations like I wrote of before, but when she knows I'm in pain, she's there for me.  And that's what's important in all this right?  Sure it would be great if she thought of me randomly and picked up the phone, but then I'm making a judgement here that because I do it that it's the way to do things.  When I need her though, she's always there, and that's what's brilliant about my sister.
Also, just as a follow on from that I want to mention my friends.  I often feel pretty isolated and alone in this world.  I know in reality I'm not, but that's my paranoia and low self worth raising it's head up there.  This week my amazingly supportive and much leaned on best friend has found the words and ways to say things that get through to me in a way that pretty much nobody else can do.  My colleagues have proved themselves to be far more than colleagues - sometimes it's ace working in a caring profession!  And Omar with his post-it's that made me raise the only smile I could manage on Wednesday.  So thank you, you're support and love has got me through these last few days.  I owe you.

Keep Talkin' Happy Talk

A year ago this weekend my Gran died.  By day it's a year today, by date a year tomorrow.  I had Gran in my life for eight years longer than any other grandparent - she had eight years more of visits, letters, phone calls, post-cards and random drop-ins.  Yet I feel like I hardly had a chance to tell her anything.  I spoke to her every day for six months after my Grandad died, partly because she needed that contact and my Mum was too deep in her grief to do it.  But mostly, it was because I wanted to.  She became harder work as she got older - her opinions and old fashioned views became more entrenched, but I genuinely enjoyed her company.  So today, making it over a year since I last spoke to her (it breaks my heart that I don't know what the last conversation I had with her was), I want to pick up that phone and natter with her so badly it makes my heart ache.
If I could call her, and have one more conversation, what would I say?  Would I tell her I love her and that she's been an amazing teacher and inspiration?  Would I ask her to re-tell all those stories about her life with my Grandad that I've heard so many times before?  Would I fill her in on my job and uni because I know how proud she is was of everything I did? I don't think I'd do any of those.  My favourite times talking to Gran were when we talked about everything and nothing, we put the world to rights and swapped recipes, criticised the politicians and praised the celebs on Strictly Come Dancing, we'd make each other laugh - so much laughter.  If I could talk to her, one last time, I'd make sure it was the best conversation ever: it would be like every other conversation we had where if you asked me what we'd spoken about I wouldn't be able to really tell you, but I'd know we'd had a lovely time chatting.
There aren't words to explain how much it hurts to know that's never going to happen.