understanding (n.)

Lives will be saved, literally and figuratively.
Lives will be lost, literally and figuratively.
Social workers will stumble upon creative solutions to impossible situations.
Social workers will be stumped and will have no idea what to do next.
Clients will show up on time for their appointments and be motivated to work to change.
Clients will no show.  Maybe it isn't time for their season of change yet.
There will be slow afternoons.
There will be afternoons where you don't get a bathroom break.
Social workers might get hugs from little ones.
Social workers might get kicked by little ones.

This week in social work, I will be officially starting my new position in the agency as a child and family therapist.  That's new to the agency, but not necessarily new to me.  I've done this before.  I've loved this before.

I love it now.

I will go to work tomorrow, clean up my adult client's files, take a precursory look at my new kid files, and then head North for 3 days of training (a state required clinical training in how to work with sexual assault victims).  That's a lot of heavy stuff during the day.  It will get to be a little much, I'm sure.  It usually does.  But I will not be in the office.  Not be running around.  Not responding to the ER to evaluate people for involuntary detainment.  It's a break.  A break listening to the effects of sexual trauma, but a break none the less.

I will also miss Rosie's last day of puppy training, but Shoes will do a good job of holding down the fort.  He always does.

And then, another weekend.

And then, bring on the kid therapy.
I'm so ready.

(footnote:  I was in therapy for a year and a half after a very sad divorce.  truthfully, i don't remember much of those early days of therapy because i was just trying to get up, go to work, not react to people when they told me divorce was a major sin against God and not fall apart.  those are actually signs of emotional trauma - the not remembering.  however, i very clearly remember the day my therapist asked me, "where do you go from here, lisa?  what do you want to do?  where do you feel most alive?" and i said, "when i'm working with kids at my job and at church."  and it was like God put a firm foundation under my feet immediately and said, "start working on this kid, we've got work to do."  my head cleared and my heart actually started to feel a sense of light and purpose and direction.  so i applied to graduate school, moved away and specialized in kid therapy.    i am almost 5 years past that day in my therapist's office.  it is no small secret i adore the life i've been given now.)

Warning:  Slightly melodramatic post ahead.

You guys know what a Presbytery service is?

A presbytery is a governing body of church leaders; however, in the church, a "presbytery service" is (can be) one in which church elders have a time of formal prophecy for you.   I know.  It sounds odd.  Despite your faith backgrounds, you'll just have to take my word that it can be an entirely validating experience.

I took part in my last one in 2002.  Pastor Bob McGregor from City Harvest in Vancouver, WA killed it - right on the money.  I'd never met Bob before, but he quietly informed me I worked with people in crisis (at the time I was working with DV victims) and that I had known a lot of pain.  According to Bob,  I would know a lot of pain in the future (enter 2007), but I would go back to graduate school and I would counsel families.

I've held on to that for 9 years, which, at times, has sucked.  And that's my clinical term.  Definite low spots since early 2007.

But let's revisit where I'm at:

I went through a terrible two years, but
now I'm in grad school and
I've just been offered an internship position at my first choice.

I got the phone call this afternoon, right before I was set to lead a group on "Americans' Relationship with the Muslim Community."  The lady who interviewed me last week said, "So, I haven't had a chance to check your references, but I can't leave you hanging.  Pending a good reference check, we'd love to have you here.  I really like you and you'll fit well with the agency."

Next year I'll be providing individual counseling (to kids) and family counseling (to kids and families) in NE Portland.  This is what I came to school to do -- I've waited 9 years to do this.  It's strange to remember a time when I couldn't think past the end of the week when, now, I can't wait to see what next year holds.

(Hopefully it also holds a mouse free apartment, an improved golf game, and a little bit of icing for one of my ring fingers, but we'll start with this internship.  Enter sigh of relief and a well of gratitude here.)

Woo!  And a poem at the end (of this post)!

Book:  "The Other Wes Moore" -- Wes Moore



Blurb From the Back:  "Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other.  Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police.  How, then, did one grow to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence?"

Vote:  2 Yays, 1 Nay.  The Nay was mine.  The undertaking is really quite noble and Mr. Moore writes poignantly of his own life, his struggles, and the moments that started to shake up his paradigm and focus his attention elsewhere.  And while there's a vast amount of grace extended to the Other Wes Moore (sans judgement), it's also the other Wes Moore I felt was underdeveloped.  Granted, a person can only write about another person to a certain point, but I wanted to know more.  More Moore.  The situations were similar, but their lives had some fault lines that diverged fairly sharply.

One of the yays was from my dear, sweet friend who took her in-patient drug and alcohol recovery clients to a talk Wes Moore gave in Portland a few weeks ago.  She relayed that the talk was humbling -- the impact on the clients heartbreakingly stunning.  They left uplifted.  They left encouraged.  They left empowered.  Encouragement and empowerment can be pretty hard to come by.

So maybe I don't know everything. ;)

Next pick:  "The Help", Kathryn Stockett.  We've been waiting for this one to come out in paperback for a long time.

Now, The POEM!!

I've thought long and hard about sharing this, wondering about copyright laws and property rights and it's not my work  ....but I've read it so obsessively and so intimately in the past few days I think I may be addicted.  I repeat the lines to myself again and again ... I have no idea why I'm so enamored.

Actually, that's not true.  This poem is precisely, exactly, a perfect description of the moments I realized I wasn't having any more dark days after the divorce.

Galway Kinnell, 1980  

"Crying"  

Crying only a little bit
is no use.  You must cry
until your pillow is soaked.
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and , "Ha ha!  ha ha!"
And if people say, "Hey,
what's going on up there?"
"Ha ha!" sing back, "Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!"

So splash-splash-splash, Mr. Kinnell.  I'm asking forgiveness rather than permission - thank you for these lines and that sneaky, sneaky near rhyme. You've always been one of my favorites (despite naming your poor child Fergus).

The very day we packed Shoes up and headed West with the U Haul I ran into one of Former Husband's former co workers on the street with her three kids. I'm not fond of conversing with this woman. Although she didn't play a large role in what happened, she was implicit in the cover up. But I am unfailingly polite. I shouldn't be that way sometimes. And while on the street, completely giddy with the fact that the Vineyard Town was going to solidly be something behind me - really something I could forget - she told me all about what Former Husband is up to these days.


That encounter just fueled my "never, never in a million years, coming back" four alarm, uncontrollable fire.


I have to take control is what I have to do. Lead a rebellion against Ralph and find my way back to the garden. It is what it is.


I'm choosing to believe there will be balance here. Transition. Adult life. I'm an adult. I can take control over my adult life.

At least there's wine in the Vineyard Town.  ;)

I say this most tenderly, with much humility-I-am-chief-among-sinners attitude.

We are a disconnected people.

I am disconnected.

I participate in almost-relationship rituals that involve email, facebook, blogspot, texting and some phone calls. Usually, not even email. A full email is quickly becoming my gold star standard of relationship; much more common is the pat on the back I give myself if I write on one of my friends' walls that I'm thinking of them.

Which, of course, is not the same as asking, genuinely, how they are. The harsh truth is, I'm not that careful with the people I'm presumably closest to. In my graduate program, things are a little different. We see each other face to face weekly for hours at a time. We talk about our successes, "failures", fears and biases and we care for each other gently. When we ask each other how we're doing, we listen. We listen because this is hard. Life is incredibly tender, incredibly mysterious, incredibly sweet, and incredibly tenderly difficult.

I've done some weird things communication wise with the people I'm closest to since my divorce. The most intimate details of my life went public, and I shut down. In big ways. Made new friends that hadn't shared in my shared history with my former husband, which helped me to forget the constant pain and the all of the ways in which he not only let me down, but also let our mutual friends down. And then when Shoes came along, I kept him all to myself. For a really, really long time. It was mine, and if I got hurt, only I got hurt. And I was just so physically exhausted of sharing all the details of my process. And, Shoes and I have faith differences. Very difficult to explain. Very physically exhausting to continue to explain, especially when Shoes and I have talked and talked and talked and talked and talked (no kidding) and talked about the faith differences to arrive at a point of genuine respect and understanding.

Of course, there's some balance in this too. The divorce was incredibly traumatic and crisis driven. Then things leveled out. And things started to get better, and I didn't share as much of the good things because 1) I was tired of having people listen to my drama and 2) it just wasn't crisis driven and there wasn't as much need on my part. But I've shared that before.

My co-worker Rachel, the one that calls me water, says that my Cancer sign equates to a lot of emotional neediness. While my faith in astrology, is well ... you know ... I can say to that, Amen, sister. I'm needy. Trust me, I know.

So here we are. Let's loop this back around to the beginning.

We are a disconnected people.

I am disconnected.

But it's getting a little old. And when I accept the love and support of my co-horts in graduate school, who notice when I'm getting tired and celebrate when things go well and accept any and all differences between us without judgment, I think, I should be offering this to the people I share such deep and rich history with.

So I think I'm going to start raising my gold star standard.

Make that, the treadmill and his various and sundry cousins, the elliptical, step aerobics, yoga ... what else have I done in the past year ... BOSU (that ball's a dictator) ...

It's been I love to hate it, but still go.

Or, I hate to love it, and go.

After the separation from my former husband, when I saw that almost everything I knew to be true was not, and almost my entire worldview had shifted, I started looking at a lot of things differently. One of those minor things was my body.

It was a little neglected, in the way that 6 months of not eating and nearly constant, stress induced vomiting will do to you. It was time to watch what I put in my mouth (and make sure something was being eaten) and work on developing some muscle tone.

I started to watch "Biggest Loser" for nutrient filled diet tips, because I'm pretty sure my diet of Starbuck's in the morning and maybe an afternoon Taco Bell Soft Taco wasn't going to sustain me. (Yeah, I don't know how I didn't gain weight on that diet either, but I'm starting to learn a little about what your body does chemically when it's really stressed).

And, this is such a minor, delicious part of this story, I bought an I Pod. It was the first little purchase I made all for myself, and I sat in my tiny, tiny, Lilliputian basement apartment, with a borrowed bed, a borrowed tv, borrowed lots of stuff (except for the kitchen appliances and the couch, which I refused to forfeit), playing with this marvelous little toy.

You know what? I find the elliptical incredibly, horribly, boring. Bored to tears boring. And Apple's little miracle helped curb that.

If I could build it a shrine, I think I would. Only, that violates one of the Big 10. So I probably won't. But. Ever since it's introduction into my life, I have been on the quest for the perfect cardio playlist. It's taken hours of my life. Fiddling. Browsing. Timing good warm up songs to good stride songs to good cool down songs.

What can I say. Newly single, childless ladies sometimes have a lot of time on their hands.

My problem now is that I don't have hours to give it anymore. And I don't spend hours at the gym, either, because two-years-post-divorce life is very different than 6-months-post-separation life.

Thank God. That's the subject of a different post, however.

But it needs some attention. The I Pod. Badly. Last night, out of desperation, oh goodness, I can't believe I'm admitting this, I downloaded the first season of Glee and worked out today to that.

So, in the spirit of honesty and honoring my true self, I must admit that I need help.

Help!

Any ideas, songs, albums, podcasts that keep you motivated to keep going, please, PLEASE let me know. I have to turn this thing around ...

When I say, "My divorce was so public, and while so many people were so caring and quick to comfort, it was a very public issue," most divorced ladies understand. It's not just a fleeting thought, "Wow. They separated." It's, "But they were leaders in the church. And they separated because of WHAT?" and then the genuine love and concern and care come in.

This is church family at its best, folks. And it was so welcome. So needed. But so, so visible. It's hard to say, "I'm getting divorced" without saying, "There's biblical reason." What a euphemism. Like noooobody knows what that means. Everybody knows what that means.

So, some divorced ladies - especially ones with biblical reason - sob on their floor for 6 months (IE: me.) (Then ladies like me start feeling better, and then life starts getting better. Thank goodness.) And when you're on the floor sobbing, lots of people ask how you're doing. Because they're really, truly loving people. But then when you start feeling better, you have to re order your life. And people you don't talk to often still ask you, genuinely concerned, a year later, "How ARE you doing, dear?" But then you're feeling better and you don't necessarily want to return back to that place of ... complete darkness. So that question, as genuinely loving as it is (and please, if you want to ask somebody that, please ask!), chafes a little.

And then you think, "My good Lord. What a mess I was. Everybody really saw that????"

Yup. Everybody really saw that.

Despite the blog, don't get the wrong idea. There's some things I like to hold to myself.

Like Shoes, for instance.

Lots of public opinion about the next boy I would date. Lots of well meaning people wanting to help me be critical. Lots of loving, amazing people who don't want to see me get hurt again. Yikes.

I don't want that either. But the want and the need to keep this close to my heart so I could think about it - and the trust between Jesus and myself that had to be built up again - (that's a hard one to explain) were soooooooooper big.

So. I'm not apologizing. That was my decision. But there's a little explanation.

Shoes is not perfect. That would be annoying. Especially considering how flawed I am! But Shoes is:

Loving, gracious, compassionate, humble, logical, witty, smart, and hilarious. And as an added bonus, he gets my I love Jesus but I'm a little different politically than most people in the church. There will probably be no pictures of anything else than feet due to his public position (he's a smartie - exactly my age, but graduated from one of the top 25 law schools) in the small Vineyard Town, but that's ok. I'm ok with some privacy.

Shoes has been around for awhile now - our time together has been adding up to equal many months. Who knows where it will go ... I thought my church marriage would last my entire lifetime ... but I still trust. And I'm not in a hurry.