My Fabulous Social Research Class

Well thank goodness this semester is almost over because to be frank it hasn't been my absolute favorite as far as classes go but there is one class that tops them all: SOCIAL RESEARCH. Now I tried to have a good attitude about a research class but from day one it just was not happening but not it has digressed to lists and writings about a "Day in the Life of a Social Research MFT Student" as follows:

Once again I stroll into the old people classroom
Another day of lecture in the gerentology world
Intermixed with the random acronyms and quotes from the prof
I wonder if CPA will be randomly defined again
Or if it will still stand for "cut and paste artist"

At least today social research is about marriage
And not how to do surveys on horses
But I will have to say I laugh more about the horse training seminars
Of course we also eagerly await the rants and raves on Highland
Or another story of "My momma's fried chicken"
Maybe one day ACU will let our prof tell that story again in chapel

Who will he pick on today
Lucky for me my time seems to be over and he knows my name
Not so for all of my classmates
But after all he does need to learn all our names

We all sit and have a dead stare on our face
All that is except the couple of students who are in tune
Soon the finders find the keys on the cell phone
With a goal of discovering whose ringer is still on
But in reality texting is all that keeps us sane.

I glance at the clock for the 100th time
ONLY 9:37 - a whole another hour to go
How time barely floats along
But bro is making headway on that class Christmas list
At least we'll have a laugh later.

Oh wait now we have a class participation exercise
Maybe this will make at least 10 minutes go faster
After some random folds and tears
We can now put mass production of paper butterflies on our resumes.

We can't be going much longer
I've already read, well skimmed, the chapters for next week
I am so unbelievably bored
But I guess this is just another typical day
In wonderful Social Research Class.

(Only two more days of class to go!!!!)

Out of My Comfort Zone

So this morning I did the talk to begin class in my cultural diversity class (yes I like to say my professor conned me into this but....). For those of you who know me well you are probably well aware that this is at a very minimum out of my comfort zone and will be even more shocked that I actually shared something I had written a couple of years ago. Frankly I couldn't come up with anything else I could bear to do at 8 AM so.....I love to write but don't have a lot of confidence in it sometimes but the more I see clients and realize how hard a time of year the holidays can be for others even though I love Christmas the more this thing I title the "The Refugee's Decision" resonates. Anyway, I think often I get caught up in my family and how we all love Christmas and our excitement especially this year with Karlee being old enough to entertain us with ripping into packages instead of sitting there starring at them and I forget the hurt out there. I forget how those who have lost dears one feel, those who have bad memories of family, those with troubled finances, those in abusive situations that wonder where the joy is. I was even more reminded of the hurt in this world this past weekend when my friend from Austin called and told me about a California congressman's daughter she had befriended that died this past weekend at the age of 33. I won't go into details but I know there is a lot of guilt and hurt in that situation and I know they are not alone. Anyway, so I am going way out of my comfort zone and sharing this. The good thing is there can be a happy ending. My goal is with my clients to reach out and give them hope for a joyful time and I hope that for those you know hurting you can do the same...

The Refugee’s Decision


I wade into life as if I were in the ocean
With the peaceful waters lapping around my ankles
Softly cleaning the sandy grime covering me
I make my head believe how good life is
I pretend in my heart how invinsible I am

I pursue the waves further out
Crashing at my thighs and churning at my calves
As reality starts thrashing my soul
My heart experiencing the vulnerability and pain

But I am arrogant and strong
And I continue to plunge into the massive ocean
Craving the attention of the white pillow tops
Wanting to bury myself – to bury my inmost being
Where there is no wrath but a peaceful tranquility

But as I begin to trudge deeper and deeper in
The waves get bigger - the hurt goes deeper
They pull me under and clench my breath
As they begin to suck the air out of me

I fight to resurface through just enough of the ache
If only just for a short grasp of air
But the gulps are few and far apart and life becomes tender
The current pulls me further under into the deep deep secrets of my life
That I’ve allowed to toss me about as if a piece of driftwood

I feel trapped with nowhere to turn
Fighting a monster that has no end
One that lashes me continuously
Pulling me further away from air and hope


I’m a helpless refugee in the middle of the ocean of life with no ship in sight.


After minutes that seem like years
I’ve become comfortable in my state
And the thought of a rescue
Is now beyond my desire or grasp of reality

However on the horizon one draws close
I begin to thrash wildly to attract attention
But as the liberator comes closer
The comfort zone I’ve adapted takes over
And I go back to pursuing one breath at a time.

I slowly sink back into the depths alone;
a helpless refugee not wanting life.

Raft after raft, ship after ship,
Champion after champion
Yet I hide from fear
Taunted by the enemy
That has me in his grasp.

Yet longing in my heart for someone stronger
To pull me back to shallow ground
Away from the haunt of my fear
But I’m too scared of the inevitable wounds
So my mind is convincing my heart to accept my plight

As survival is drained from my being I give up and give myself to my adversary.

Then one comes along that won’t let me stay behind
Not looking for me but bumping into me
On a path only God could direct.
I feel the grasp on my hand and the gentle tugs
But I fear exposure out of what has become my comfort zone

But the liberator doesn’t give up but pulls harder
Exposing weaknesses I never dreamed of letting surface
She wraps her liferope around my waste
And slowly begins lifting me out of the mire

I continue to resist as deeply buried wounds are exposed
But she keeps heaving me out of the past
Heaving the hurt to the surface
Begging me to hand them over to the savior
The only one who can heal me from this filth

What will I do? Will I let go?

Will I elect the comfort of the fear in my heart
Or will I let these white caps bury the pain here
Spiraling me to the freedom I so long for?
Will I leave this muck that has become my home?

After an invigorating internal struggle
Giving up fades from my thoughts
I’m reenergized with strength and meekness
Humbly I reach out and let my pride slip away

I emerge from the torment cleansed
Enveloping my new life of freedom
Soul in soul with my savior
Now on the path to home.

Who Invented Time

Well I guess the natural answer to this would be the Creator of the Universe but sometimes I don't like that answer or maybe that is ok if I could just encourage the Creator to add just one hour to every day or maybe just add a couple of hours to the weekend. Of course I'm sure I would just find things to fill that time up and not have the quiet solitude I have been craving for say hmmm well about 30 years. I thought maybe I'd just make a list of the things that I don't have time to do. Notice this is not a list of the things that I wish I didn't have time to do because of course many of the things we don't have time to do are actually at times the things we wish we were doing. Therefore, that is why you won't find on this list things like reading for class, doing projects for class, seeing clients, Celebrate Recovery, talking to my parents, etc. Don't get me wrong not all of those things are things I don't want to do its just the things that get the priority I guess....
1. DO Jesus workbooks. Now I don't mean this in a derogratory (I don't have a clue how to spell that word) fashion but I do wish I had time to not necessarily do Jesus workbooks as my dear friend Lori calls them but to just think about spiritual and religious things and have meaningful conversations with people and how religion and their beliefs impact their lives. Perhaps some of this desire comes also from seeing the impacts and non impacts of spirituality on my clients. (Keep reading I promise I won't comment on every item!!!).
2. Afternoon Knap - I love afternoon power knaps only 10 minutes not longer but I'm reenergized.
3. Talk to and keep in touch with friends other than mass emails or blogs.
4. Cook real meals (other than warm up soup or lean cuisine dinners)
5. READ anything that I WANT to read I have so many things I couldn't begin to list them.
6. Exercise
7. Write (how am I ever going to write a book at this rate?)
8. Relax and hang out with friends with no guilt about what I'm not getting done
9. Read blogs I want to read and keep up with about cool interesting things my friends are doing or other's view point on things I have my favorites (see side bar) sadly they don't get visited very often though
10. Have SILENCE and SOLITUDE - I have heard from so many people how awesome and powerful this is. I want it but besides the time factor I think I'm a little scared of having extended solitude and silence (extended = more than 15 minutes). Maybe I'm scared of my own thoughts or of losing control, who knows I don't have time to find out!!!!

Even after all this I am so thankful that I do have the energy and talents to squeeze so much into the 24 hour days I do have including sleep, class work, and most important to me developing relationships.

One final thought - It is snowing outside well sort of. I think I probably missed the big snow storm of the season on Thanksgiving day. I heard enough snow to make snow balls which is a lot for Abilene but its snowing spitting sleeting mixed rain hey it looks like snow on the car windshield so I'm counting it as snowing. I love the snow it is so pretty white innocent and peaceful. I would like nothing better to wake up snowed in tomorrow morning so I could have a few hours to do whatever I wanted to....yeah fat chance!!!!

hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!!!!

One More Day

Most people title something "One More Day" to talk about their last day of experience in the single world before their wedding, the last day of peace and quiet before they are going to the Dr. to be induced into labor, the last day of spending time with school friends knowing that tomorrow is the ceremony celebrating all those accomplishments and thrusting you to the next level of life (also known as graduation), etc. Right now today for me "One more day" is the promise of sanity being brought back into my life even if only for four or five days. Calmness is not something that often rules my life, I usually overcommitt and want to hang out and be in the middle of everything and don't feed my introversion enough until on the verge of a breakdown but today I know that one more day of clients, class, intense cleaning for the fam coming, and packing and then I'll be on the road to Thanksgiving break and while maybe not some peace and quiet at least not having to run like a chicken with my head cut off.
Thanksgiving break will be spent first on the road to Little Rock then with my sister then a quick trip to Memphis to see Aunt, Uncles, and cousins and to see if my Aunt can rival my mom's turkey and dressing and then back to Little Rock. I can't wait. And with all the great upsets lately just maybe A&M will pull off another upset this year over TU!!!
Everyone have a great Turkey day and be safe.

CRICKETS AGAIN!!!!

I will try very hard to make a promise that this is the last time for this year that I discuss the disgusting crickets that plague my house. (notice I said for this year which will expire December 31, 2007). I worked my schedule out this past week where yesterday I would not have to go up to the clinic; which believe me is hard to do when you are scheduling and rescheduling about 16 hours a week in addition to your school work, Graduate assistant duties, accounting firm work, work for a supervisor in her private practice you get my sob story picture here. Anyway back to the story at hand. Knowing 1) that my weekends have to be productive in order to make it through the next week, 2) knowing that people are coming over for lunch on Sunday including one of my professors and I would have to clean, and 3) knowing I would lay in bed till noon reading a book of MY choice if I could I was glad I had a meeting to attend at the accounting firm. So I got home around 10 and decided that the first thing I would tackle was all the dead crickets in the garage. Now I've been wanting to take pictures to prove how sick this cricket invasion is but have never had the guts to get out there in the midst of them. Well I came home put on the longest pair of socks I could find with long pants and a long sleeve shirt and tennis shoes and timidly went to attacking the sweeping of legs and bodies in the garage. Luckily I managed not to puke. After I had swept half the garage out and the black birds ate the dead bodies I had swept the other half to the middle where Rebekah came out and took a picture of the two piles so mind you this is only about 1/2 of the two week accumulation (our neighbor had come over with his grass blow machine and cleaned it out before.

Anyway for you psychology type people maybe that desensitalization stuff really works because I have allowed these pictures to be placed on my machine and didn't freak out when I had to step on a cricket inside last night. Who knows. Well now I'm going to again be productive today by risking laundry. YES it is a risk as we have killed about 20 crickets in the washer (but none in a week so I'll take the plunge.....)