Responsibility: Really, You're Talking About Me?

It's been almost three months since graduation & my 40th birthday, so I think now is as good a time as any to take stock of some significant changes that both of those events have brought on.
On June 13th I began working as the Older Adult Counselor through Lutheran Social Services at the Thompson Community Center. I have to admit, it would be a lot easier for me to call it a "senior center", but that would be the equivalent of saying my job description is "someone who listens to old people bitch and moan" which is NOT the case. So "community center" it is!
My clients have to meet one of two criteria: they either need to be age 60 or older, or they need to provide care for someone age 60 or older. They also need to either reside in Outagamie, Winnebago, Calumet, or Waupaca county, so I guess there are two of three requirements to sit across the desk from me in my office.
I'm the only Master's trained therapist at the Thompson Center, which means I am responsible for signing the charts of the two AODA counselors whose clients have a dual diagnosis. In non-therapy language, that means that for any of the clients in the alcohol and other drug addiction program with a mental health diagnosis, I have to discuss their status with the AODA counselors, understand and approve the counselor's treatment plan, and then (here it comes) sign the client's chart as the supervising clinician. Cue "dun-dun-dunnnn."
Me? Really? "Supervising clinician"? I guess that's what a Master's degree gets you nowa-days. Our AODA counselors do an incredibly good job of recognizing those clients with a "dual diagnosis" as we call it in the mental health biz, so it's not particularly taxing for me to agree with their treatment plans, but the fact that I have to sign my name in any sort of supervisory capacity kind of makes me giggle. Not because I take the responsibility lightly, but because I generally don't see myself as "knowing" any more than the two experienced clinicians I "supervise." I promise that as I become more comfortable with this process, the quotation marks will disappear.
I flipped through some of the cards I received for graduation and many of them contained inscriptions like, "Congratulations, a Very Proud Great-Aunt", "Congratulations on your accomplishments. You have much to be proud of, as we are all proud of you," and "Enjoy this moment and all the good feelings that come wrapped up in this special time. You deserve it." For some reason, now that I'm a bit removed from the pomp and circumstance of commencement, it doesn't seem that it's really that big of a deal.
What reminds me that it really is that big of a deal is that only 10% of all 4-year degree holders go on to post-undergraduate education. That when I look at the group of my best friends from high school that I'm still incredibly close to, out of the 10 of us, we all graduated with bachelor's degrees, 7 of us have post-undergrad degrees, with 1 of us currently working toward her Master's degree. (I swear that some kind of social study should be done on us because our level of education is way beyond the normal curve.) I think of my great-great-grandmother, Grandma Wilber, whom I never had the privilege of knowing, who had nothing more than a sixth grade education and became a farmer's wife. I've been told by my grandmother and one of my great-aunts that she wouldn't be able to even believe that someone in her family, much less a female member of her family, would reach the academic level that I have achieved. I've also been told that she's looking down at me from Heaven, shaking her head, and in today's parlance, saying, "You go girl."
Those are the things that help me believe I deserve all the responsibility I can get.

Life with Apollo After 372 Days

June 27th of this year marked the one-year anniversary of the arrival of Apollo into our home & our hearts, and, being completely candid, into my very soul.
Those of you that know me well already know that a dog is never merely a "pet" or "companion" for me, but a go-between of my existence and my belief that there is unconditional love in this world sent from some Higher Being, personified (or dogified) in four paws, a tail, an exceptionally long tongue, & those eyes that say, "You can trust me. I will never leave you. I will never hurt you. I will always love you."
When searching for a new puppy after the loss of Peanut, my husband & I applied for two dogs from different rescues. We had to list personal references, which both rescues contacted. My friend Jeanette (who I listed as one of our references) told me, "You'll get the dog that's meant to be yours." So on Sunday, June 27, 2010 we drove to Kewaskum to "meet" "Red" as he was named by the rescue. He & his sister were being fostered by one of the rescue's volunteers, who welcomed us into her home to spend time with "Red" & get to know him. (As if there was any doubt I would turn down taking any 12-week old puppy home after he's licked me in the face.) He was listed on the rescue's website as part Dachshund & part Chihuahua which appealed to me because Peanut's biological mother was a Chihuahua (and his biological father was a Rottweiler pup. Those of you that know me well know that whole story too.) Then the lady brought "Red" into her kitchen & he jumped up into my lap and began the whole face-licking thing. This puppy looked NOTHING like a Dachshund or a Chihuahua. I ran my hand down the length of his coat: wire-haired. I looked at his stature: tall. I looked at his face: pure terrier.
Mark & I paid the fee & drove home with "Red" dozing on my lap the entire trip. Names kept flowing in and out of my head; "Red" was just not going to do it. As I was gazing out over the rolling hills of central Wisconsin, I thought about what this puppy represented in my life. Peanut had seen me through some gut-wrenchingly hard times. If that dog could talk, I'd probably be in prison. Or maybe jail...on work-release. So what was in store for this new little one? Mark & I were still grieving the loss of Peanut, but our home felt incomplete without a dog inhabiting it. The sun shone through some gray storm clouds on our way home, and I thought, "Apollo: God of the Sun and God of Healing" in the ancient world. I needed nothing more than some sun and some healing, so this 12-week old pup was officially saddled with the responsibilities that come with his name. He has never disappointed.
Outside of the emotional journey that we are now forever apart of with Apollo, here are some facts about his first year with us. I have no idea if these stats are withing normal range or not, and frankly, I could care less. Their documentation is for my pure enjoyment, and I hope, yours too.
Apollo's First Year: By the Numbers:
Total trips to the vet: 3
Total number of times he's escaped from the house & sent Mark & me on a search & rescue mission: 3
Total number of footwear lost during said search & rescue missions: 1 slipper (mine)
Total number of times he's escaped from my parents' house: 1
Total number of obedience training classes: 16
Total weight gained: 10.2 lbs
Total number of visits to a dog park: 2
Total number of photos taken: I don't even want to try to count
Total number of nibbles of human food consumed: 1 (that I've caught my husband feeding him)
Total pounds of puppy food consumed: 66
Total time it took for potty-training: 4 incredibly long weeks
Total amount of love given & received: C'mon. You can put a measure on that.

The Final Countdown

In approximately 5 hours, my 30's will be over and I will enter my fifth decade of life.
I feel a sense of duty to acknowledge this milestone and I will with a celebration combining my birthday and my recent graduation on Sunday. If I had to do my 30's all over again, would I? I would say an unequivocal "No," but I wouldn't answer as quickly as I would if invited to re-live my 20's. Who the hell wants to do that again??
I feel that I have really grown into becoming the woman I knew I could be and was supposed to be, throughout the past decade. My teen-age years were filled with the requisite amount of angst, I made some life-changing, horrific mistakes in my 20's, and although I certainly made mistakes during the past decade, my vision has slowly become clearer and my picture of who I am and where I belong in the world is markedly sharper. I attribute most of that clarity to the last several years which I've spent in graduate school. While learning to become a therapist, it's inevitable that one review ones' life in therapeutic terms: What motivates me? How do I define happiness? How can I confront others with empathy? How do I respond to being confronted or critiqued? How gentle, comfortable, and accepting could I be with my feelings, and am I gentle, comfortable, and accepting with my feelings now? There are probably a dozen more examples I could give of how studying to become a therapist has prompted me to re-examine and re-frame my own life. Socrates believed that "the unexamined life is not worth living." I wouldn't go that far in support of internal insight, because I've met plenty of clients, fellow students, and other folks that spend so much time engaged in self-reflection that it quadruples their current anxiety, depression, obsessions, etc.
I'm happy to be turning 40 tomorrow. Happy because I'm still vertical and not "sleeping in eternal rest." Happy because I've come so far in re-establishing a life for myself after moving back to this area in 2002 when I was horribly active in my addition. And I'm probably most happy because I have a meaningful life surrounded by the unconditional love and support of family and friends and a career that I feel I have been "called" to do. Although I've struggled and survived heartbreaks, I've also relished in the joy of accomplishment, loving others and being loved in return, and knowing within my soul who I am and what I stand for.
Happy Birthday to me.

Resurrection of a Marriage

It's only fitting on this Good Friday of Holy Week that I can claim that my marriage has been resurrected.
Fifteen days ago my husband walked out on me. The night before that, I came home from my internship unexpectedly early and he was drunk. This is after living with him during a 1 1/2 year relapse after 5 years of sobriety; after a 4 day detox which included watching him have a seizure in the Emergency Room; after a month of residential treatment an hour from home and running myself ragged trying to visit him whenever I could, keep up with my school work, my internship hours, and provide therapy to my clients; after what I thought was 57 days of his new sobriety. Hurtful things were said by us both that evening. Then the next morning, after showering and dressing, at 9:25am he walked to his car and drove off.
I won't - actually I don't think I can, describe what the past two weeks have been like. Only those who have lived it really know. Some days I was all "I-don't-need-no-man" bravado, other days I felt like I was getting hit by the same bag of bricks, over and over again.
He and I didn't see each other or speak to each other during this separation, and all I kept hearing from the few people he was talking to was that "he wasn't ready to come home yet." Some days I felt like I would keep the door open forever, other days I felt like this door ain't gonna be open for much longer.
After much deep prayer, meditation, and contemplation I came to my decision: the door wouldn't be open forever, but knowing that my husband is an alcoholic, it wasn't slamming shut anytime soon, either.
It's not a coincidence that all of this thinking and feeling was happening during Holy Week. I often contemplated my pain in light of the pain God felt, having to sacrifice his only son for the forgiveness of us all, and Jesus's pain of having to sacrifice his very life for our, for my, salvation. I was betrayed by my husband and the most insidious disease I have ever encountered, but I had to consider where my compassion and my forgiveness lay. I am by no means a New Testament scholar, but I imagine that the list of crap humanity had accumulated by the time Jesus was crucified way out measures my hurt, my pain, and my sense of betrayal.
So my husband came home today. Within days of his leaving, both of us had taken off our wedding rings. Earlier today I placed his band back on the ring finger of his left hand, and he did the same for me.
I can't explain the unconditional love I feel for this man and that I know he feels for me. In 5 1/2 years of marriage, this is the first true "rough patch" (that grossly under-describes it, by the way) that we've encountered and we've endured. In my mind, it defies logic and reason...it's something more like faith.

On the Precipice of 40

I will turn 40 years old in 29 days. Several of my close friends have already crossed this barrier into the unknown of "middle age." Does 40 even count as middle age anymore? If you listen to people in their 50s and early 60s, it doesn't. "Life begins at 40" has been a popular saying since the bulk of Baby Boomers began to turn 40 two decades ago. I think Baby Boomers latched onto that saying out of a shear sense of denial, which has defined much of the average Baby Boomer's existence.

One of the reasons I think turning 40 doesn't mean much more to me than any other birthday is the fact that I don't have children so I can't compare my lifetime milestones to theirs: I can't say, "Oh I remember when I started kindergarten" while watching my own 5-year-old hesitantly entering elementary school for the first time. I also can't say "Oh, I remember when I got my driver's license" as I watch my own 16-year-old tear out of the driveway. I don't have anything or anyone in my daily life to compare my aging process to, which in my mind keeps me thinking, "I don't feel like I'm 39 and 11/12, I feel like I'm 22." Which has both it's benefits and it's drawbacks. On this point I think I have inherited that Baby Boomer denial mechanism.

Being close to turning 40 has made me question some of my physical abilities, however. I often wonder if I don't feel like taking the puppy for a daily walk because I'm 16 years older than the last time I was responsible for walking a puppy, or if it's due to something more sinister like depression. It's hard to tell some days.

As I am a self-disclosed hopeless romantic and enjoy a heavy dose of schmaltz to mark certain milestones, I imagine I will do a lot of reflecting on my life thus far over the next 29 days. All I know for sure is that I have no regrets, because if I hadn't done what I did at any given time, I wouldn't be who and where I am today. Whether I'm 40, 20, or 60 years old, that much I know for sure.

Happy 1st Birthday Apollo

1 year ago today, in a miserable puppy-mill in Georgia, a wire-haired terrier mix & his sister were born. That little puppy had no idea in what direction his life would go. He didn't know that a family in Wisconsin was beginning the mourning process of letting their 14 1/2 year old dog go in the most gentle, peaceful way possible. He didn't know that he would be driven to Wisconsin & rescued by that family only 1 month after losing their precious life-long companion. He didn't know he would be named Apollo, ancient god of the sun & healing. He didn't know how much sunshine he would bring to this family & how much healing he would provide. Happy 1st birthday Apollo.

Super Bowl XLV

It's been 12 days since my Green Bay Packers (I can authoritively say "my" because I am a Packers Shareholder) won Super Bowl XLV in North Texas and every time I look at one of the 176 pictures I took, my ticket preserved forever with a 4x6 snapshot of my family at Cowboys Stadium in a frame with green and gold matting, or the pin that came with my ticket lanyard which states "I WAS THERE", like Tim Layden's tribute piece in Sports Illustrated reads, I too believe that Aaron Rodger's 26 yard pass traveled a far greater distance.

For me and my family, it traveled back to the early 1980s with a picture of my parents in the parking lot at Lambeau Field, my mother sporting a number 10 Lynn Dickey jersey (which hung in her closet for decades) and a green and gold cowboy hat. It traveled to a pre-season game I watched alone in the old Foxboro Stadium when the Packers played the Patriots my senior year of college in Boston, MA and none of my college friends would go with me. It traveled back to December 20, 2009 in Heinz Field where my family watched Ben Roethlisberger march down the field in under two minutes and steal a snowy, road victory certain to be ours. That pass traveled over my Wisconsin family's history of Packers wins and losses, glory and heartbreak, 60 degree games in December (against the Bears) and minus 4 degree games (against the Lions), surprise at receiving Packers stock for Christmas, and elation with the Super Bowl XXXI victory.

Two years ago when Green Bay lost the NFC Championship to the New York Giants, my father off-handedly commented, "If they had won, we would have gone to the game." Within minutes of the end of the Chicago Bears game on January 23, 2011 (my parent's 40th wedding anniversary) my sister and I simultaneously phoned home and our dad made good on his off-hand comment: we were going to Super Bowl XLV. Went came, we saw, we won and we brought the Lombardi trophy home.

That 26 yard pass covered a lot of ground, a lot of time, a lot of memories, and a lot of love: within a family and it's hometown team.