I had a client quit on me today. Another client called in a panic after a disturbing encounter with a family member. And yet another call with a client’s parent fearing their child’s plan of suicide. Each situation felt heavy and helpless, and I wouldn’t have changed anything I did. I provided support, validated their feelings, and offered guidance as best I could. And that’s all I could do.
Monday evening sneaks up on me like the trickster it is. Usually, I still have a few progress notes to draw up, but I’m above that water line since I utilized the two-and-a-half hours of drive time yesterday. What I still need to do is schedule, send reminders, and go through my client spreadsheet list to confirm I haven’t left anyone out. Last week I left someone out because I didn’t use my spreadsheet, and now I’m in detention with myself. YOU WILL DO YOUR SPREADSHEET.
Things are heating up with our house in Georgia. Not only is the weather 78 degrees and 81 tomorrow, but also the builder needed the locations of the sink and stove. So Dave and I measured our current kitchen, then penciled in dimensions until they made sense. A regular sink overlooking the patio, and one on the other side for a beverage area and vegetable cutting station. A recent find was a “New Home Building Q&A” Facebook group where I can post my “Do you see something I’m not seeing?” questions. My biggest fear is missing something.
Tonight’s post reminds me of my childhood diaries. Reporting of the day’s events. A tad recollecting and downloading. I do that to Dave. It’s like taking all my thoughts to the dump, dropping them off for a price of 30 minutes of my time, and moving into whatever I’m doing next with a clearer head.
I feel guilty just like last night, that you have to be here to listen to my mental dump. Is it stinky? Moldy? Clumpy? Should I just select all and delete it? I felt compelled to highlight and drag my cursor over the previous four paragraphs and hit the old delete button. Nothing I haven’t done plenty of in the past.
But I’m a little less with a cough and a nose that won’t quit with the congestion. The best I can do is this.
From the book (I added a couple sentences from where I left off yesterday so you can orient):
Days prior, upon seeing a Facebook post of me agonizingly pushing a cannon at Gettysburg, my friend in Washington, Peg, messaged, “If you need a soft place to fall,” along with her nearby sister’s location. I did need a soft place to fall. Badly. The free-spirited, free-wheeling adventure I’d been on developed a hitch; time’s forever expanse started ticking. And no part of me wanted to go home.
Home. That was a problem. The home I’d known felt blurred like a professor’s absentminded black slacks brush against a chalkboard. How it got that way haunted my thoughts. With my nose inches from my life on TV, I’d sit pausing, then playing, rewinding, and then pausing again, trying to solve a case even Matlock’s best hour couldn’t touch.
I’m 10 years old and in my room. Like clockwork, the hingeless and gravity-fed garage door swings and slams to a close. It’s 6:30 pm on the dot. Dad’s home from work. I want to open my closed door and run to him. To wrap my arms around his neck, to smell his aftershave face, and to feel his day’s worth of stubble. There’s still time to play catch. I wish I was smaller; those fresh out-of-the-bath airplane rides were the best. Normally when Daddy is coming home, I sit in the front room, watching headlights and counting them. It’s a game to soothe the agitation of waiting. I am, without a doubt, Daddy’s girl. Today, however, none of those things exist. I am seated on my room’s floor with a closed door and will not leave.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 