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sober lifestyle

Redirection

jenwielgusjournalism

Graduation has seemed like a forgone conclusion, and a bit of an anticlimax, for much of these last few months. But if I needed a reason to get pumped about crossing the stage in cap and gown this weekend, all I needed to do was remember: No more summer sessions, with their excruciating four-hour classes and overwhelming onslaught of assignments! No more group projects or presentations where I’m at the mercy of other people’s shitty organizational and time management skills!

No more Wednesdays arriving at work before 5AM and driving home from class after 8PM! 🙏🏻

Those were the jubilant thoughts I summoned to make me smile as I took my last stroll around campus last week on my very last hellish hump day. Shuffling along the lake- and farm-side nature trail where I’d decompressed after many a long, emotional day at practicum/internship, and looking up at the vibrant green trees that have always calmed and comforted my jacked-up nervous system, I felt a bittersweet mixture of melancholy and relief.

I “did the thing,” as we said in my counseling cohort. I successfully walked this grad school path and took my first baby steps into the mental health field. I “made it through the woods,” if you will, and now, it’s time to pause and take in the scene/enjoy the view, then keep walking on whatever path reveals itself to me next.

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sober lifestyle

Joy

jenwielgusjournalism

The first few pictures of me with my capstone poster showed me “smiling” with a closed mouth, and my friend called me out: “No no…let’s take a real one where you look happy!”

At that point, it hit me. 💥 🤯 I’ve been acting like a joyless ghoul over the past several months.

I’ve been a raging insecurity monster as I near the end of school and internship, having not yet secured a full-time job. I’ve been obsessively comparing myself to everyone around me and allowing my baser issues (impatience, envy, suspicion, resentment) to hijack my system. I’ve been behaving like some kind of clueless greenhorn who hasn’t been diligently studying the art of sober living, gaining clarity and awareness like a champ, developing emotional maturity (at a snail’s pace, but still…) and working her ass off, on herself, over the past five years.

Despite all my growth, I’ve not been seeking proper perspective as of late, or practicing gratitude, or enjoying the ride. In other words, I’m batting 0-for-everything that makes me my best self.

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sober lifestyle

Permission

jenwielgusjournalism
In the immortal words of Clarence the Angel, “no (wo)man is a failure who has friends” 😇

I formally resigned from my counseling gig on Wednesday, giving three weeks’ notice, even though my departure from the clinic has been a foregone conclusion for a few months.

I’ve felt like a ghost in the halls, or the walking dead — invisible, ignored — and that’s just as well, because “breaking up” with my clients, as my beautiful friend [name redacted] put it in her text message 👀⬆️, has hit me harder than I imagined it would. I’ve been carrying around a lot of grief and sadness, and it seems intent on leaking out, despite my efforts to contain it.

When I got that text on Friday morning, I was sequestered in my therapy office, puffy-faced and sniffly after spending most of Thursday crying in my bed, and I didn’t think I had any more tears left in me, but my phone buzzed, and whoosh! 😭

Guess I won’t be showing much improvement on my final internship eval under “managing emotions.” My lack of a poker face rubbed them the wrong way from Day One, and while I’m never gonna be hip to the blank slate approach, it’s clear that this will continue to be a “growth area” — euphemism for “glaring weakness” — in my next job.

No, before you ask, I don’t know what that is yet!

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