Kai-Mei

I am learning a lot knitting these socks.

My first lesson was to stop over-thinking things.
This pattern is written for one sock at a time and I love the 2-at-a-time plan. It does not allow for the knitter to get tired of the pattern and only knit one sock, which for me is a good thing. Ordinarily there is no problem, but these socks are unique, and the instructions are different for each sock.
I tried to write out step-by-step instructions to deal with the fact that 2-at-once puts stuff out of order.
It frustrated me. A lot.
So I decided to just jump in and start.

It all made sense when it needed to. I just had to stop thinking about it so much and just do.

The second thing I learned was that a knitter can always trust the simple beauty of a Cookie A. pattern. It looks complicated and tricky, but in the end? It's a simple 8-line repeat that is elegant and graceful and perfect.

Third, and actually fourth and fifth as well...
I had a needle blow out just as I finished one of the lace edges. I immediately started reloading the dropped stitches onto the blown-out needle and Deb ran over and found a replacement needle.
I saved the stitches and moved on.

So third is: bad shit happens. It just does.
Fourth: having someone nearby who knows exactly what you need is vital to success.
And fifth: after the bad shit happens you can move on. You can replace lost stitches. You can still make it work.

I promise.

Graduation

It's all over, folks... last paper written, I have been ceremonially hooded. I am now officially NapLover, MSW.

I thought I would have more to say about it...
But really I'm at a loss for words and thoughts and feelings.

I'm just sort of numb.

My backburner issue has burned out, I didn't get the job last week so I'm still on the hunt for a job and I'm waiting for one more letter of recommendation for my BSRB license so I can take the exam.

My plan for next week is to start swimming again, study for the exam and clean my house in bits and pieces. I have even put "get out of bed" on my To Do list every day. This depression I thought I was in for around mid-July? I think it's here now.

So, Hi!

Things are looking up at Casa NapLover.

My presentation on Monday KICKED ASS. Seriously. D and I rocked the room, and the crowd loved us.

Then yesterday I had a job interview. I'll find out by Friday either way. The interview was great... I actually do very well in interviews. The problem is that I haven't passed the licensing exam yet and I have no previous (professional) experience with kids. I do have supervisory experience which is a key part of this job, and I AM fabulous (which I TOTALLY said, by the way) so maybe that will overcome any deficiencies I may have.

Today I worked in my mom's garden (shut up, I did so!) to help get the back yard ready for my graduation party. I found that while I do still feel that digging in the dirt is ucky and I still don't like the outdoors I am actually pretty good at planting stuff.

I, of course, came prepared:


Because I am so fair that even five minutes in the sun makes me look all lobster-y. "Lobster" is not my look for graduation.
I'm just saying.

This was what I started with:


This is part of a limestone wall that my dad and brother built one summer. There was supposed to be a fountain... but that part never happened. So it's just been sitting and collecting gross green sludge and algae.
"Eeeeeeeew" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Princesses do not like ucky hands.

At. All.

I ended up with this:



Working in the yard will never be my favorite thing, but all in all it wasn't bad!

Hope is a Four-Letter Word

Today was really frustrating and also really productive. Funny how often those things go together. I went to the DMV and the Tag Office and rounded that out with a trip to the VA.

Ack.

I also opened up a can of worms with the step mother... that started out ugly and ended up weird, but I think some progress has been made. I just need for the next 5 years to not be as hostile as the last year has been. Turns out there was a lot of supposition under the hostility. What a surprise. Communication breakdown is often just a matter of misinterpretation that gets reinforced.
Neither of us is interested in being friends, but I think (hope) we at least agree that we are both interested in an end to the needless and unproductive drama.

Then Bean and her friend K and I met Andie for Star Trek... which was fantastic, by the way. But on our WAY to the movie I got a call back about an application. I have an interview on Tuesday. There is so much relief for me just in the call back. I am NOT invisible to the employers out there!!

I have been looking at the agency website and this is not necessarily where I thought my career would take me, but I have thought that before and it all turned out to be fine. Also? I have to start somewhere, and experience is experience. No matter where I end up I am confident that it will be a good learning experience and that I can be an asset.

So I feel pretty good about myself tonight.

Which, of course, makes me wary.

There is that back burner issue that is eating away at me. I don't know how to solve it (yes I do) and while I know how it's probably going to play out I keep hoping for a Hail Mary play at the last minute.

How do you let go of something that you want, even when you know that its not possible? How do you stop waiting for the white horse? How do you kill the hope tied to one thing without killing the rest of your hope along with it?

Circle the Wagons

I'm feeling really hermity again.

There are dark spaces where my thoughts should be.
I feel like I'm shedding my skin, unnecessary bits of me are dropping behind me.

When Watermark went through their big remodel they papered the windows and locked the doors and took a week off. I need to do that. To paper my windows and only let in the people and things necessary for the changes.

There are some decisions that have been on the back burner that suddenly have some clarity. There are endings and beginnings that are dramatically changing my schedule. There are scary unknowns and a shocking lack of things on my "to do" list after May 15th.

Who am I? What am I all about anyway?
What can I tolerate and what needs to end?
(And how do I end it?)

I am craving the symbolic circled wagon. The never ending, self sufficient, walled off sphere of safe.

Grief

I am thinking about my cousin today. Her mom died this weekend after a long illness. When I talked to her Sunday she had that quiet, slow voice that comes from shock and grief. I remember how long it took for my voice to stop sounding like that. How long it took for even simple things to make sense.

After Jeff died I was brushing my teeth one morning, early enough in the process that we weren't back at home yet. I was looking at myself in the mirror and I suddenly had no idea what to do next. I had put toothpaste on the brush and put it in my mouth automatically, but I stood there with the brush in my mouth for a long time before my arms remembered the physical act of brushing.

I want to be there for her. To play games with the baby and pick her oldest up from preschool so that she can just take the time to be numb. I want to make lunch and then let her nap with the baby while the oldest and I read books and play with Play Dough. I want to make dinner for her and listen when she wants to talk and sit next to her and hold her hand when she doesn't.

The physical distance between us has been an ever present fact, but now it seems too big, too vast.

I would be there if I could.

Looking at this from the other side of that first year of grief I know that she has a long road ahead of her... and even if I could be physically with her through it I couldn't change how difficult it is to navigate that grief. She is a strong, kind, lovely woman with a supportive husband and the most amazing kids (next to Bean, of course). I know that she will make it through this just fine, but my heart is breaking for her and my thoughts are with her.

I Tried

I did. I tried to embrace the happy. I think I'm just entirely too strung out to be anything but irritated.
Seriously.
The last time I felt this edgy they medicated me. What's next? Straight jacket??

I almost started a fight today with a woman who stole my parking space. If Bean hadn't been in the car with me I would at least have screamed very bad words at her from my car. I was that angry.
I don't get angry like that. It's just not me.
I also came very close to taking the head off of someone in my group because she's being a big, unhelpful baby and we are too (fucking) close to the end of this project for people to start melting down now.
Last weekend at the Literary Feast I got so mad at all of the cross-talk during the discussion that I almost walked out.
And late last week I even initiated direct hostile engagement with the idiot step mother. (I KNOW!) She's not worth my time and she's too clueless to get it anyway.

I just sort of want everyone to shut (the fuck) up and get (the fuck) out of my way.
OK, not everyone... just the irritating ones.

That's not very social work-y.
Or, you know, social.

It seems so wrong that I am trying to find a job at the point in my life where I feel the LEAST able to effectively deal with structured social/professional situations.

Maybe it's the uncertainty that has me all twisted up... or the exhaustion of the last four years... or the anxiety of transitions...
(D. All of the above)

See? The practice tests are helping!!