I’m writing this as I listen to my chickens doing their egg-laying clucking, reflecting on how a year ago Erica and I were closing on this house with nothing but dreams and hopes. Listening to my chickens as I reflect on this past year gives me a full-circle feeling.
As I’m sitting here, I’m reflecting on all the steps I have made to be where I am now. The feelings I’ve forced myself to sit with, the processes I’ve arduously worked through to feel ready to enter the world again. I’m currently studying for my National Counselors exam that I will promptly schedule once the licensing board reviews my application for associate licensed counselor and gives me approval.
I have a job anxiously waiting for me to get started once this process is over, and to my surprise, I am just as anxious as they are for this to happen. I resisted getting a job where I would leave the house for fear that I would crumble, especially if it was me sitting with others during their process.
I honestly had given up on the idea of returning to the field of counseling until just a few months ago; as I’ve shared before, I was growing tired of the floundering feeling. I was seeking the answers, the path, the next step. I was not enjoying the period of uncertainty of what I should be doing, and I judged my struggle in this process.
The truth is, pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. I needed this year to leave me flopping around between failed opportunities and relationships to truly work through my resistance to going back to what I know. I didn’t need to judge myself so harshly while experiencing this shedding of an old identity, but I chose a little bit of suffering to top my pain.
To make a transition from being a caregiver, something I felt so ingrained into my being, into my next step, I expected there to be plasticity in the process. The truth is I needed the friction. It helped me see things from a new perspective, the one needed to see how capable I am of handling friction, handling the uncomfortable, and handling other people’s processes.
There are some ways in which I had hoped I would be further along by now. I would have a stable career under me, and I would know at the beginning of each month I wouldn’t have a panic attack at how I was going to pay my bills. While I’m not there in life, I’m more “stable” in other ways than I had anticipated.
Once thinking I would never be able to exist in a crowded public space without panic attacks, they are rare now. Once thinking I would never be able to open up to dating again, has had some success, although none lasting, that doesn’t matter :)
Getting back into studying all things psychology-related, I stumbled upon a quote from Carl Young, “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.”
The paradox of not feeling stable yet feeling the most stable I have in years perfectly sums up what this past year has held for me. In so many ways, I’ve exceeded my hopes and anticipations with living here, and in many others, I have much work to do!
However, now I can confidently say I have no doubt I truly can show up and do all that is needed of me now, and that to me is far greater than a financial success story. I know I’m on my path, and I know I am capable, and NOW I know that however this unfolds, I’ll be able to show up wholeheartedly.
