Part of the nature of my job is that I completely change places every few month but it also means that I tend to move quite frequently. Recently, I went through yet another move due to the lease ending on my apartment and it has been more of an adjustment than usual. I try not to do it, but I think that I got emotionally attached to my old place. There were so many good memories but also countless tears cried as I tried to figure out my life and navigate the ever confusing world of dating. My apartment became the place I could go when I had a long day at work and just wanted to sleep when I got home. It was the apartment I went back to after graduating with my PhD and where I celebrated getting a faculty job at my alma mater. It was also the space where I dealt with some of the stress going on in my life and started to meditate in order to sleep more deeply at night. It was the space where I got to spend some quality time with someone who meant a lot to me and where we had some amazing conversations about everything under the sun. I inwardly groaned each time that I walked up all those steps to the third floor but I was secretly glad that at least I got some cardio from merely going home. It was the place where I got a second job offer and completed a total of over six weeks of training. It was my space. And for some reason, losing it has been really challenging. So many times people talk about having something or someone that grounds them and losing my space was a big reminder that I need to be deliberate in doing that for myself. The downside of traveling all the time is that there really isn’t a space to call home and that can make it challenging to really build meaningful connections with others. It’s not impossible but definitely challenging when you’re a homebody. I love to travel and by love, I mean LOVE. But there’s something to be said about having a home to go to after you’re done with traveling. So as I type from my new temporary place, I’m reminded of the fact once again that I think I’m gonna need to settle down soon. Stability is good for the soul. I think.
Tag Archives: living
Going to therapy
As someone who regularly functions in the role of a therapist and also who believes in getting help, I decided to find a therapist. There wasn’t a huge stressor other than regular life and the typical occurrence of getting ghosted by someone I really liked. Except for the fact that it was someone I really REALLY liked so I was feeling a bit more affected than normal. So I went through all the motions that I tell other people to do. Contact more than one therapist, research their background before calling them, etc. After a barrage of emails and finding someone who offered evening sessions, I finally booked an appointment. But first off, I had to complete a 10 page intake questionnaire on my life and stressors. Tedious but thorough. I decided to use my insurance instead of paying out of pocket and was informed by the administrative assistant that I would have to be diagnosed. Fine with me. So the time finally came around for my appointment and I went to the address listed on the paperwork. There was one minor problem. The office building locked at 5pm so there was no way to get into the building to go into the interior therapy office. So I had to wait around until someone came out and then grab the door to go in. Super inconvenient but hey, security is important. So I waited in the waiting from until I got called into the my new therapist’s office. She seemed nice but a little flat. I could tell that she was tired and that I was her last patient of the day but she made an effort to remain present. I’m not great with opening up to new people especially when prompted so it was challenging. The session ended pretty quickly but I thought that it went ok. We scheduled for the next session in a few weeks. So the next therapy session rolled around and I was actually ready to open up and to share about what had transpired in my life and some new stressors that had emerged. I got to the office, waited for someone to come out and went in to the interior office. I waited, and waited. Finally about 20 minutes past our schedule time with no sign of the therapist I emailed her. She responded to tell me that she was out the office unexpectedly and that I should’ve been notified by the administrative assistant. I had received no such message. Needless to say, I understood but wasn’t necessarily happy about it. A few weeks later (yes, weeks) I received an email from her saying that she was accepting appointments for patient’s to be seen remotely. I replied requesting an in-office appointment when she started back seeing patients in her office. No reply. A few weeks later I got another email from her saying that she was seeing clients in her office again. Only this time she included all the email addresses of her clients in the email. HUGE privacy violation and I really wasn’t pleased. I did however want to give a last ditch effort and I asked her about coming in to the office on a specific date and she never replied. Time for a new therapist? I think so.
Living at home
One thing about being a therapist is that I get to meet people from different walks of life and backgrounds. While everyone comes to see me for different reasons, sometimes I hear similar sentiments echoed my multiple people. I’ve met with a lot of people who are stressed out because of their adult children who are living in their home. Many times these are devoted parents who have attempted many times to help but they are at their wits end because they truly believe that their adult children in their 20s, 30s and 40s never intend to leave. As expected, there’s often a lot of clashing as the adult kids want to be respected and do what they want to do while the parents feel inconvenienced and many times feel obligated to make some sort of rules or give a move out date. Some of this is truly due to the economy as it can be harder to get a good paying job and the cost of housing continues to rise. Sometimes people have no other choice than to move in with family and save money. But there’s another group that doesn’t see the need to move out because it’s comfortable. In these situations the adult child usually refuses to get a job and the parent feels helpless because they don’t want their child to be homeless. In the cycle of life there’s a time ideally where the parent and the child switch roles as being the caregiver for each other. I’ve met many parents who desperately need help from their children but the switch has never been made and instead they are giving all their resources and money to their children who aren’t appreciative and it’s at the parents’ detriment. However the parents refuse to do anything because it’s their children and they feel obligated to care for their (adult) able-bodied children for as long as they are alive. The endless cycle continues because neither adult child or parent wants to make a different or a difficult decision. It’s definitely a phenomenon that I would love to do more research on at some point.
Over the Hill is Home
I frequently post songs that I enjoy listening to and this one is not an exception. To be honest, I heard this song for the first time at the end of 2010 after my first semester of my senior year of college. I had a college classmate who was sick and in the hospital. People started saying that if anyone wanted to see them they needed to go ASAP to the hospital. This person was someone I knew rather casually but often spoke to on occasion since we had several classes together. Needless to say I visited them at the hospital and while I was thankful for the experience, it was also sobering on how short life really is. Nobody teaches you what to say to someone on their deathbed. This year I’ve talked to a decent amount of people on their deathbed and I’ve still been stuck on appropriate words to say in that situation. I say all this to say that this song is one of hope. It’s a reminder to press forward and to keep pushing despite obstacles that come. Great melody and I like the optimism in the message.
Alisha's Angle 