I felt my chest tighten slightly as I mentally panicked. Should I post something? Should I write something? What if I do it tomorrow? For whatever reason, the significance of entering a new decade was completely lost on me until fourteen minutes to midnight and it felt like if I didn't seize the opportunity to reflect right then it would be lost forever. Not true, I know. So here I am, jumping on the bandwagon of reflecting over the last decade and all it's held and inviting you to see it with me.
January 2009
"Okay, we're doing this, we're not changing our minds, okay?" My best friend said to me on the phone. "Okay." I agreed, already with some regret but knowing turning back would only make things worse. She'd be here to pick me up and give me a ride to the hospital in 30 minutes. I just couldn't do it anymore, I couldn't stand another second in my own head, couldn't stand hating myself this much. After a long evening of making one failed suicide plan after the other and engaging in them to varying degrees I was done.
Over the next 72 hours I was shuffled through the system. I mostly slept, exhausted from hating myself and trying to function. It's not like there was much else to do in a white room with a mattress on the ground. The social worker that came in to talk to me had to bring her own chair. I was afraid of everyone and spoke only to the people that spoke to me. The psych techs "encouraged" me to do laundry and "do my hygiene" but I was too scared to take off my clothes and I didn't want to wear hospital clothes as mine were being washed. I can't remember who I called to pick me up when I was discharged 3 days later. What I got out of that experience, other than staying physically safe I suppose, was a new "low." The motivation of not wanting to end up back in that situation and sufficiently manage my depression pushed me to try art therapy and for the first time in years I finally had some relief.
May 2010
I heard the phone ring and I turned over in bed, somewhat annoyed, to see who it was. I had just settled in for a nap. When I saw who was calling all of my irritation melted because I knew it was baby time. The family that I had been nannying for was expecting baby number two, a little girl, and since we don't usually talk on the phone on Sunday afternoons I figured this was her ready to join us on this side of mom's belly. Sweet Emily would be born before midnight. A decade of Emily is something every one should get to experience. As a baby and toddler she was easygoing and smiled at everyone who made eye contact with her. One day when she was about one I was crying about something when she woke up from her nap. I picked her up out of her crib and she wrapped her little arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. This sweet little gesture is who she has always been. I'll never forget her running around the house with her Elsa cape and "Punzel" hair, singing So Long, Farewell for her so she and her sister could act out scenes from Sound of Music, or all the moments we've spent nestled next to each other reading books, watching tv, or sleeping. If I had to pick my very favorite thing to come out of this decade, it would be her.
Just twelve days later, I would receive the news that my father unexpectedly passed away. The moment after my grandma told me I felt the everything in the world move. "Sadness" and "despair" don't even begin to describe the days that followed. I'm not sure what was worse, realizing I'd never see him again or watching my grandparents lose their son. It has only gotten harder as time as wears on. It goes without saying that "time heals all wounds" is complete malarkey. I'll never forget the time I spent with my aunt, uncle, and cousins following my Dad's death. I was more broken than I think even I knew, and something about this insulated time spent with them making arrangements and sharing meals together kept me comforted. I would later begin to describe my relationship with grief over my dad's death as "Missing you comes in waves, and tonight I'm drowning."
August 2012
Tears welled in my eyes as I realized I was in the wrong building. As it turns out, the first day at a new school sucks when your 5 and 22. I had finally been okay enough to not only stay enrolled in classes but earn As so I transferred from the small and safe local community college to a large, urban university. Except for that first day, I loved every second of it. Looking back, there were some of my happiest times. Not long after the tearful first day I would "move out" of my grandparents house and be responsible for paying for things like lightbulbs and dish soap for the first time. (Although let's be honest, I would still snag extras of anything I could find from the grandparents house). I really dug in in therapy and made art endlessly. I would go to therapy twice a week for 90 minutes for years and sob, process, sit in silence, and rub oil pastels until my fingers were raw. I was so done being depressed and having events from childhood take over my life. I didn't want any of that anymore. Sometimes to the point of counter-productivity and out of hatred, I pushed myself to "get better."
Fall 2013
My last year in college I lived with my best friend and a third random roommate who was a really lovely person. We had a lot of fun living together. There would be multiple snow days that year and we spent all of them happily in our little apartment in the edge of the Decatur square and the Agnes Scott campus. I went to school, worked as a nanny, volunteered, and went to therapy. Life was really good, and it was also really hard. This season was marked by grief and existential though as late that summer a complete stranger would pass away in my arms. You can read all about that here if you'd like. The dust from that experience hadn't even settled when I found myself tossing my grandparent's house looking the combination to the safe in the garage and a letter my grandfather had written me "in case anything happens to me." About three hours before I'd learned that he'd passed away on a cruise ship in the literal middle of the Atlantic ocean. Ever the responsible one, he'd left me instructions. I was so grief-stricken I couldn't remember where he hid the letter even though he'd specifically showed me just 10 days before. Even in his 80s after a success-filled life, his death was a tragedy for me. His biggest dream for the last several years had been for me to finish college, and I was so close. In between nights sleeping in his spot in my grandparent's bed, I spent days on end staring at a computer screen monitoring the ship and watching it get closer and closer to the port in Miami. When the little ship icon on the monitor didn't look like it was moving I would look for the letter. Their friends called and texted me endlessly until the rest of my family, who were also on the cruise, got home about a week later. I was so grief stricken that I couldn't remember where the letter was.
For over a year I'd been researching graduate art therapy programs and it all came to an abrupt end when my grandfather passed away. I couldn't imagine leaving my grandma, and grief had disconnected me to from creativity. I wasn't interested in making anything and I certainly wasn't interested in learning how to do that with others if it meant moving away. I packed away all of my application materials, deleted desktop icons and bookmarks and fervently deleted and tossed info programs I received via email and snail mail. At the last minute some ambiguous force compelled me to complete and submit a few applications. I would spend the next few months corresponding with schools, participating in interviews, and researching different cities. It was painful to not be able to let go of what I'd been working towards for so long. I just wanted to be able to stay in Atlanta with my grandma and forget about being an art therapist but I couldn't. Every time I thought I'd packed it away for good it came back.
August 2015
After 15 hours, we crossed into Missouri and by the arch via the Poplar Street Bridge. All of my possessions, you know my books and ikea furniture they live on, were in the back of a Uhaul that was pulling a trailer with my car strapped to it. Missouri was "home" now, although it wouldn't feel like that for quite a while. St. Louis was a city I had only been to one other time. I started school two weeks later. I did not let myself acknowledge it at the time, but it was difficult to move. I found a new therapist and with the help of school was able to make new friends relatively quickly. The following summer I'd leave the country for the second (maybe third?) time and journey to Kenya and Tanzania. Definitely a highlight of these years. There is something truly magical about being where I was. The scenery was beautiful, the food delicious, and the people were so very curious and caring. I knew then that traveling would always be an important part of my life. Pictures here.
The next two years I spent learning how to be a therapist. There were countless tears, many drawings and paintings, and a lot of joy as well. The realization that being a therapist isn't what I thought it was is something I wrestled with a lot and even though I wasn't always happy about the conclusions I came to I couldn't walk away from it either. I graduated in 2017 and began working about a month later. I was provisionally licensed within a few weeks and started taking patients soon there after. The first six months of that first full-time therapy job is not something I wish on anyone but unfortunately seems to be some strange rite of passage. The last year of school and first few of working full-time were mainly categorized by depression and intense thoughts about the trajectory of my life. No amount of sleep was ever enough, all foods tasted like cardboard, I didn't care about anything.
January 2018
October 2019
It was light blue and on heavier than computer paper but lighter than card stock. I wondered if this oddly weighted paper was prevent counterfeit but I followed that thought up with wondering who would want to counterfeit a professional counseling certificate? It's just a piece of paper but it was many, many years worth of work. I knew from before the time my friend dropped me off at the ER that I wanted to be a therapist but I was also certain that that was more out of reach that time travel. Years of therapy, under grad, grad school, two years of post-graduate supervision and literally millions of tears later, I was a fully licensed counselor. I actually thing this is my longest-standing goal. 2009-2019 held heartbreak, sorrow, joy, accomplishment, failure, and everything in between. Here's to hoping the next 10 are less painful but not any less thrilling. I'm prepared not to have my cake and eat it too.
EDIT: The world has changed so much since I initially wrote this three months ago. If we've learned nothing else from the COVID-19 pandemic, please do the following: Think about everyone in your community as if they are your family member and act accordingly, since all y'all hate homeschooling so much let's finally pay teachers what they deserve, can we please raise the minimum wage to something that gets people well above the poverty line because those are the folks delivering our food, keeping hospitals clean, and stocking the TP (which reminds me, just buy this the way you normally do and then we'll all be fine), and lastly, please abandon social customs regarding asking for help and needing connection. Stay well lovely friends <3
