It's not like me to resist writing. I usually have something to ponder or say, but for the last few days I have been avoiding the keyboard.
Last week was a bit of a banger, I took in a teenager who was experiencing crisis and dealt with that situation for four days while also having my house filled to the brim with a bunch of other teens and young adults as the kids are all arriving home for winter break from college.
Now normally I enjoy the chaos, but as I have been dealing with more than a bit of health issue drama, my carcass has been feeling all sorts of meh. That and all the kid in crisis drama set off the autoimmune illness again.
But here's the thing, I love living and I have no problem pivoting. For the last few weeks I have been pondering my situation as I am getting close to that empty nest phase of my life.
Long ago, I was in college to become a counselor, as counseling people is something that I do anyway, but I thought doing it in a professional capacity was a natural fit with my gifts. Well, my daughter decided to make her appearance into this world and I decided to just finish an AA degree and go mom, homeschool, farm, and stuff.
Fast forward eighteen years and a bunch of life experiences later and I found myself pondering what direction I needed to take in this lovely bit of time I have been given.
Long story short, during the first two days of this week I applied to school, sorted the finances, scheduled out my degree plan, and registered for classes. I will be attending Lewis and Clark State College this spring semester.
They graciously accepted all my credits, and will count my last year of my Bachelor's program as the first year of my masters at Boise State University, so if all goes well, in three years I will have a Master's In Social Work.
Because here's the thing, I hear lots of complaining about the state of our world, society, and country all of the time, but I don't see a lot of action addressing it. I don't want to be a hypocrite and I also want to use what attributes and skills I have been blessed with to help out my community. There's a massive mental and nutritional health issue plaguing humanity right now, and I am going to spend the rest of my days contributing to addressing the problem.
So here comes clinician Kat, it will be fun!
Well, it will be a lot of work, but I actually like work, and as I need to balance out the work that I do while also taking care of my ailing form, this challenge is a pretty exciting prospect.
That and I absolutely adore school! And I beyond adore the frontier that is the human mind.
The idea that I can help others who are like me really brings me joy. 60% of Americans have a chronic health issue and the rise of autoimmune disease is off the charts.
So, because you have to have a bunch of cool letters behind your name to counsel people, I am going to now put the work in to get said letters so that I can coach people through all this stuff. Telling people what to do is not my forte, but encouraging and empowering them is something that I absolutely dig, because agency is the bees knees.
I've been resisting what I am supposed to be doing for a long, long time. Mainly because I wanted to be a good parent and wife, that and I needed to work through a lot of my issues as well. It's never to late to figure things out, and my hope is that I can help others see that light as well.
Well, that's the plan anyway, I am sure things will cartwheel into my timeline as they are wont to do😁
Aside from the awesome scene of teenagers plowing snow, all of the rest of the pictures are from my lasagna building-fest of a day where I crafted multiple pans from scratch. The creation of components and construction of layered food excellence seemed to fit with the theme of this post...
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's really in need of a new battery, just like the author iPhone.
