Get Into The Groove

Everyone missed me, right? I mean, it’s been a whole eight days since I updated and I know all yall have been crying yourselves to sleep at night. Oh, I know.

Well, yes. It’s been a pretty rough week, ragazzi. Part of it has been the Well-Do-You-Even-Love-Me-Anymore? kind of rough, and part of it has been Oh-No-It’s Wednesday-Night-And-I-Have-Not-Yet-Put-Away-My-Laundry-From-The-Weekend type rough. Since I started the externship I’ve been working an extra hour at my ‘job” per day and it really hurts. If I think too long about the fact that I’m having pretty much no time at all at home after work…that I don’t get home from work until six four days out of the week, and that the other day I don’t get home until eight-thirty…and that I’m spending eight hours of my work week working for free…well, that could get ugly. I mean, I know those of you who used to be dot-commers or who have really heinous commutes are snarling at me right now to shut up, but for the little delicate flower that is your friend Chiara, it’s a big deal, okay? I like to be at home. I like to putter.

The thing that makes it palatable is that I’m enjoying doing therapy again. I really like having clients and…it’s sort of embarrasing, but I like feeling like I can actually do something. Like I have a skill. I mean, I have other skills (I make a mean tiramisu, for example) but not many of them are marketable. I still don’t know if I can make my little therapy skills work for me, as they say, but still. It’s nice.

One of the things I really struggle with is my reasons for becoming a therapist, for choosing clinical social work out of all the different types of social work there are. It’s kind of a power thing, I have to admit. I’m not saying your therapist feels this way…it’s just that, yeah, it is a power relationship just like all relationships, and when I’m in a session I’m the one with authority, supposedly. At least I’m not the one being vulnerable. And there is this weird feeling like, this person is paying me (except I don’t actually get paid) to listen to them. Sometimes all I do in a session is just nod my head and go “Hmmm” and they stil pay money. To date I haven’t actually done any therapy for profit, so I don’t know what it will feel like to actually make money by sitting and listening to people. I’ve sort of fooled myself into thinking that just because I don’t make any money doing this that it’s…pure, or something. Like I just happen to be sitting in an office writing stuff down and the client (see? I said client) just happens to be telling me all this personal stuff, to which I respond with absolutely no personal information whatsoever. Big as life and twice as natural, right?

I don’t get it. I don’t get what I’m saying. Who am I? Why am I here? Here’s what I wanted this entry to say: I’m doing therapy again now, a couple of hours a week. I’m remembering how to do it and I think I’m pretty good at it at least some of the time. I like doing something I’m good at…I’m not sure if this is something that it’s okay to be good at, but there you have it. I hope one day I can be paid to do work I like and am good at. I hope you have something that you do (even for money!) that you’re good at too.


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