nomad'z land

by phase, i mean semester. i began my first semester of grad school (15 weeks ago?!) with equal parts trepidation, eagerness, anxiety, excitement. well some of those are kinda synonymous so nevermind, i already digress. i think learning how to balance all the shit i piled on all at once was a big hurdle for me — grad school, prereqs, work, traveling, relationship, friendships. volunteering, therapy, rehabing the knee, me time.

i was having a conversation with someone on the plane the other day about being “busy”. we came to the conclusion that there is always going to be somebody busier than you. but the busiest person in the universe is probably someone with all you can imagine PLUS rearing like 6 kids at one time.. as a single mother. the lesson i got was not to stop whining and bitching and moaning, but to allow myself to be in awe of how much can possibly be fit into a period of 24 hours. or how much information can be stuffed into 1300 g of brain.

im not sure i can encapsulate all ive learned in this first semester into one book much less blog. not just what i learned in my classes or in books, but from my fellow art therapy students and from myself. i dont think ill be able to truly reflect on it and understand what ive retained until ive had super super super downtime, so expect some really hippie dippy trippy shit in my bali blog whomp whomp.

a big thing is perspective — to put it succinctly: few things, if any, that we swear will just kill us, will actually kill us. what i mean is, im not going to keel over and die from taking 10 classes in one semester. my heart isnt going to stop pumping blood throughout my body if i dont get all my homework and projects and reading and work done on time. my lungs will not say “fuck you” and deflate, never to inflate again, if i dont figure out the next ten years of my life, or even the next fucking year of my life. at the same time, sure, i need a plan of some sort. plans are good. priorities are good. but theyre not going to dictate whether i live or die in this moment. or the next one or the one after that. also, we have the capabilities to be stressed and freaking out aka were still alive!! so man up self.

another big’un is compassion. this one is a doozy. a toughie. first up is compassion for yaself. ive learned that once i get that going its so much easier to be compassionate to others. negative self talk is such a bitch to get rid of, god damn. but if i remember that its a part of me that, like anything else in life inside and out, can only be dealt with effectively with LOVE rather than hate, well, it makes a world of difference. after all, hate is a pretty big synonym for fear. oo back to synonyms im so good at inadvertently full circling these thangs.

in conclusion, oh wait. one more thing. i dont know if id ever tell any of the gals this, and i definitely wouldnt name names, but there were definitely some people in my class that i was for sure id not like. then i got to know em for longer than a two second conversation and i was proven wrong, so wrong. and now were like this crazy family. in our last class of the semester, group therapy, we laughed and were cuckoo and cried, and it was great. sidenote: its not weird that we cried cause at the very least, one person cries each week in class, and its totally acceptable which is awesome. anyway theres this perfect and consistent mixture of honesty and compassion and willingness to learn and grow that ive never seen before, at least in a group of people, that gets cultivated in each class and grows every day, and maybe its cause youre mixing art and psychology, so its just emotion x100000000, but fuckballs, i am so grateful for this grad program and all the people in it, all my teachers, everything ive learned in and out of class. i think its the beginning of a beautiful thing.

ps im also ever grateful for my family and friends and my amazing boodle who have been so fucking patient with me and not given me shit for being batshit weird at times, and for not giving me crap for being so unavailable as i did my best (and sometimes didnt have enough in me to give a shit to do my best) to navigate my way through this transition into real life. i love you more than i could ever say.