Exhausted

Today the good morning guy said “good morning, miss!” from the entrance to the subway, same as ever. “Your ‘good mornings’ make my day,” I told him, meaning it. He grinned. I asked if I could buy him a pastry in gratitude. It’s hard to tell if he’s homeless, but even if he’s not, who doesn’t like pastries? He politely declined. I asked if I could buy him a coffee. “It’s ok. Just saying good morning to people makes me happy because it means that I am alive and here to say it.”

Guys. I love the good morning man. This morning, I was actually NOT in school at the crack of dawn. I woke up at 6:20 and missed my first bus, so instead of exercising at the LA Fitness, I did a quick home workout and left on the next bus to still make it before 9 am.

Several bus things: 1) I quickly realized that I was toeing the line between business casual and Met Gala, which is fine except for when you have to sit on the bus seats.

My outfit. Yes, I did wear this to an anniversary dinner, and yes, it is one of the few things I own that fits my business casual dress code.

2) On the bus, I did a few reports for work. 3) Also on the bus, I got to see several art students carrying their artwork, which was pretty cool.

At school, I had systems intervention and  statistics in quick succession, which doesn’t sound like a lot until I tell you that each class is 3! hours. A few of the girls in my class complimented my dress and one of them said that you need my body type to pull it off. “I don’t have the body type for this dress,” she said. I was shocked. “You absolutely do!” I said.

We had a break in between classes, during which I made a new friend. We joked about how he was one of the only guys in our psychology program. Ironically, a few years ago, I was having an internal crisis about being single before a psychology doctoral program (“you can count the straight males on one hand!”). Luckily, I am not concerned about single males anymore.

During that break, I sent in my notes for Continuity Care. That night, I was supposed to do a session for Continuity Care, but I was able to reschedule it and spent the rest of the night doing stats. Side note: no one in my statistics class knows what is going on, least of all me. I stayed up that evening so that I wouldn’t look bad not knowing what “Wilk’s lambda” was, only to realize that everybody else had the same questions.

After stats, I went on a grocery run at 8 pm. I wanted to get groceries at such an ungodly hour because I hoped to take one of the premade salads from Trader Joe’s to practicum. But alas…

There were no salads!

So I made this instead:

Giant salad, snacks, and rice as well as kale gnocchi (companies need to stop ruining things by making them kale-flavored).

The next day was practicum. You’ve heard a lot about my school, but part of the reason that life has been hectic is because I have school 2 days of the week, practicum 3 days of the week, and 2 part time jobs. So school is not even the half of it! Anyway, let’s talk about practicum. Three words: I love it. I had my first individual therapy session yesterday, and although I had no idea what I was doing– isn’t that the theme of practicum?– I very much enjoyed it. I also love doing group therapy. One of the clients told me I was his “favorite intern” and I nearly cried of joy on the spot. He also said he loves when a friend of mine (another intern) and I team up– those are his favorite groups. Music to my ears.

I was running a group yesterday about “life purpose”. The way to find your life purpose, it turns out (thank you, Google) is by looking at your passions, talents, and values. So I asked people questions like “what makes you come alive?” and “where do you add the most value?”.

I asked everyone, and one of the clients turned the questions around to me. “I don’t like to talk about myself unless it directly benefits the group. And in this case, I doubt you guys would benefit from hearing my passions. But I appreciate the question!” The client laughed and said that it sounded like I had that answer ready for a WHILE (which, honestly, I did 😂). But even though I couldn’t answer my client’s question, it got me thinking: what am I passionate about? I’m passionate about asking people questions about themselves, for starters. It’s great when your work is also your passion. One of my passions is dressing well, and ironically, wearing business casual clothing 5 days a week could not be more up my alley. But I haven’t had as much time for my other passion, which is fitness.

Exercise is the first to go when my schedule gets this busy. I’ve only been exercising 4x a week, for about 30-40 minutes each time, which, for me, is not much. I find that I change into exercise gear only to immediately rush off to a class.

Gym locker room pic, wearing business casual.

My days have also been filled with little surprises that make them better.

The other day, my boyfriend bought me “just because” flowers in my favorite color and “just because” chocolate.

A professor had us write our names on little whiteboards and talk about what they mean. As you can tell, I got very excited about this task.

One of my classmates, who works with trauma patients, brought in this book. She said she recently learned that grief is not just grief about death– a child could grieve their friend moving away, or the transition from one school to another.

So that’s what life has been like lately. Plenty of early mornings and plenty of things to look forward to.