I (almost) forgot that I had this blog. Oops. Oh well, though -- at least it's still here and I'm still here!
The last time I posted was at the beginning of November last year. In that post, I mentioned several things that had recently occurred -- I'd adopted a bird, I'd applied for a new job, and I was planning on doing NaNoWriMo.
Well, two of those things happened, and one did not. If I weren't living my life (and therefore, if I didn't already know the answer), I would've guessed that I still had my bird and that I'd completed NaNoWriMo, but didn't get the job.
Nope! I dropped NaNo about halfway through November, because I was just too busy. I got the job, and started it officially at the end of November. And my bird is still living here, happy and crazy and hilarious.
So -- the new job. I'm now working as a family therapist in a team-based therapeutic approach. I really like it. I've settled into it better, I think, than I did with my first job at this agency. I work well with my partner, I love the team-based approach, I love the fact that it has 12 times the amount of supervision as my last job did (this one is 3 hours of supervision per week, split between team and group supervision -- last job was one hour a month). And I love working with the entire family instead of just one child in the family -- it makes so much more sense to me because so many problems/difficulties that are affecting kids originate within the family system. So tackling the entire family system and working on negating the maladaptive interactional pattern that exists there (that allows the problem to continue to occur) makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm actually seeing the effect that we're having, which is super cool.
I also signed up for my licensure exam (to get my LSW -- Licensed Social Worker), which I will be taking this month. I'm anxious, but confident at the same time. I know some wonderful social workers who passed it the first time, but I also know some wonderful social workers who didn't pass the first time. If I don't pass it the first attempt, yeah, I'm going to be frustrated, but at least I'll know it's not because I'm stupid, etc. So yay for that.
Life has been very hectic here but all in all it's going well. There is a comfort in the routine of knowing what I need to do for work, what days I'm working, and where I'll be going. Granted, there will always be crises and problems that I couldn't foresee, but I'm beginning to realize that having a job is not what I dislike (hate) about being an adult. It's everything else that comes with having a job -- keeping up on bills, on car maintenance, on balancing the checkbook... the not-fun things. Things that I'm pretty sure most people would prefer to just skip doing if it were possible.
It's so weird for me to realize that as of the end of April this year, I'll have been done with school for a year. Graduated for a year. And in June, assuming nothing goes wrong, I'll have been working at this agency for a year. That seems pretty crazy to me! but awesome, too.
Growth. Changes. Learning. Living. Loving.
Cheers!!
~ A.
