There is no title to do this post justice....

I arrived at work yesterday to see three of my senior girls in the hallway collecting money. They all said hello and asked if I would make a donation. "To what?" I asked. "To the fund for flowers for the student that died", one of them said. I felt myself frown a little and asked them who had died. The name I heard literally stopped my heart for a second, and not in a good way. I've only been at this school for two months, and I'm only in for 3 days/week. I've met dozens of students. I recognize faces, I recognize names of students I've worked with, but there are only a handful of students who I've been able to put a face with a name. Anthony was one of them.

One my first day at this school as the temporary college counselor replacement, Anthony walked into my office with a friend and said, "We heard you're the new counselor. I haven't done anything, but I want to go to college." We looked at his transcript and SAT scores and then talked about what he was thinking he might want to do as a career. I gave him a few applications and a list of things to think about and told him to come back the next day so we could talk more. Since then, only two short months ago, I've seen him every time I'm in the office. He'd finished three applications and was working on two more.

Our last conversation was last Thursday. He was having trouble writing an essay, so I asked him what he was passionate about. "Basketball", he said, "but I'm not passionate about playing for a team. I like to play alone because it helps me think." "Do you play when you're upset about something or just when you feel like you need to contemplate deep things?", I asked, half-joking. "Sometimes I play when I'm mad, but I got big things to do, Miss Catherine, you know? I can't stay here and do nothing, I gotta make plans. That's what I think about." "Well Anthony, " I said, "I think you have your essay. Go home and write a rough draft and let me see it when you're done." One of the other counselors told me he stopped by the office last Friday to show me his essay.

He was hit by a car on Friday afternoon. The driver had a heart attack and lost control of the car and plowed into Anthony while he was waiting at a bus stop in east Baltimore. In my 7 years working with Baltimore City kids, this is the first kid I've "lost" and it's really left me shaken. It's also left a lot of his peers shaken, as well. I didn't do much college counseling at school yesterday. I went into full crisis counselor mode when I realized how overwhelmed the guidance counselors were with the kids who were pouring into the guidance suite, most of them either in tears of just looking kind of lost. Instead, I sat with a lot of the kids just talking about Anthony, talking about the unfairness of it all. They needed to feel their grief. I, as well, am having trouble wrapping my head around the reality of the situation.

Tonight I went to the viewing and met his mom and dad. It was heartbreaking to see two people so torn up. His mom hugged me and she just clung to me; not because of me, but because I was yet another person who knew her son, who cared about him, and who is sad he's gone. His dad shook my hand and then didn't let go. He wanted to know where Anthony had applied, what I thought his chances had been of getting into college, what I knew of his dreams. I told him about the essay and that I'd heard he'd written a first draft. His dad asked me if I knew where that essay was. I quietly suggested it might be in his locker or his backpack, but promised I would see if maybe he had left it on my desk at school.

I hate to resort to cliches, but in this case, they ring poignantly ture. I only knew Anthony for a short while, but his life and death has left me sad for such a tragic end to his life, but grateful for having known him.

Wow, that was frickin' easy....

I have an internship. Want to know what it took? 2 phone calls and an interview--that's it. No bureaucratic bs, no long-winded explanations about what the state board of education has mandated for counseling interns, and best of all, I needed no help whatsoever from my not-so-helpful internship supervisor. It's a little farther away than I'd hoped it would be, but that's not such a big deal anymore. As long as I can get this requirement out of the way and graduate at the end of the year, I can suck it up.

Yay!:)

The first step is admitting I have a problem....

Hello, my name is Catherine and I am a registry-peeker. I have to say, getting married mere months after Christmas rocks! At first I was a bit perplexed at why people kept bugging us to register with over 3 months left to go, but now I get it. Registering before Christmas kind of gives us double the presents! Wohoo! I know, I know, I should never be so superficial about wedding gifts, but I can't help it. I love, love, love looking to see what's been bought, especially now that we're looking for a new place and actually really need just about everything on the list.

The true test of a relationship...

...Is somehow hidden somewhere in the process of buying a house. Or in our case, a condo. The fiance and I have been foraying into the world of real estate and even though there isn't a whole lot of actual work involved, it's been exhausting. Emotionally exhausting, that is.

See, I do not always adapt well to change. First year of college? Not pretty. First year on my own in Baltimore? Even worse. It's not that I can't adapt; I always eventually do, but it usually takes me a while. Even when the chages are monumentally positive life changes, like moving in with the fiance, it still takes me a while to fully adjust to the new situation. So you can imagine what a huge, massive, overwhelming, and daunting thought it is to look for and buy a place of our own. Strangely enough, I've been more apprehensive and worried about the commitment of a condo for 3 years than I am about the lifetime commitment the fiance and I are about to make in 14 weeks (oh god, only 14 weeks? Holy crap.....). Besides that, the whole process of the research, looking at places, putting in bids, getting hopes up, waiting for a response....ex. haus.ting.

And the kicker of all of this is that I am totally the non-participant in this venture. The fiance is the one who has done 95% of the research, he is the one putting thought into the bids, he's the one working with the financial guy.....partly because he has more time than I do and mostly because I'm just plain scared by the whole thing.

Let me make it clear--I want us to have a place of our own. Anyone who's read any of my previous posts about our living situation knows how much I dislike living with roommates. It's difficult for me though because while the fiance approaches this whole process with logic, I approach it with feelings. If a neighborhood or condo doesn't "feel" right, I don't want it. And sometimes I have no idea why it doesn't feel right, which I'm sure is just frustrating for everyone. Not to say that a good feeling doesn't have it's place in this whole process, but I do know that I should probably be more willing to look at the logical side of things, as well. Sure, the place with the ridiculous pink living room, and green & yellow bedrooms needs a lot of work, but it is in a condo-tastic area and will most likely make us a pretty hefty profit in 3 years.

I think some of my apprehension stems from my need to feel more settled in my life. Since moving out of my beloved apartment in Baltimore (just before dog/house-sitting for E.), I've been constantly on the move. Even here, living with the fiance, 90% of my stuff is still packed in boxes in the garage. I don't mind buying a "fixer-upper", but there is a very big part of me that just wants to be able to move in and settle right down. I don't want to be bothered with painting and sanding, etc. I want to be home.

And now, at this point in my rant, is when I remind myself that "home" is technically wherever the fiance is. Because, if given a choice between living with him in a state of limbo or living seperately, but I'd be unpacked and settled, I'd always choose living with him. Always.

Deep thoughts from a very tired girl....

A great deal has happened since my last post, and an entry that is difficult, but necessary is in the works--I just haven't had the energy to give that post the time and care it deserves, so it will have to wait until I've processed the events and am ready to talk about it. Sorry to be so cryptic--most readers of this blog already know what I'm talking about and I guess I just want to make it known that I'm not ignoring it, I just cannot write about it right now. But I will, I promise. Until then, there have been some other thoughts that have been brewing over the last week or two.....

One thing that disturbs me about being an adult is that as we get older, it seems we lose our ability to adequately reflect on our lives and the people in it. Now, I would never want to re-live my days of teenage angst, but I wouldn't mind re-claiming a bit of the "spirit" of that angst. Think about it--when was the last time you were able to sit down with someone and have a deep conversation about life? It seems I've been missing that in my life of late, and as anyone who knew me in high school or college would tell you, I used to thrive on intense conversations that would evoke deep emotions about anything and everything. I realize this was also a part of growing up--what teenager isn't caught in the throes of trying to figure out "what it all means" and what to do with her/his life? But for me, I think those feelings and conversations were part of what grounded me; what helped me recognize how lucky I was to have the life that I had at that time.

Of course I'm grateful for my life and everyone and everything in it, but I am no longer as moved by it all as I once was. It seems that the business of living, the daily grind of work, school, etc. has gotten in the way of my ability to slow down and actually feel my life. Does that make sense?

This week was my last class meeting for counseling lab and my professor/advisor made dinner for us at her house. As the six of us settled into her comfy living room with our glasses of wine or beer, we all shared the most important and surprising things we learned about ourselves as counselors. One thing I love about the field of counseling is that you're ability to be a good counselor is directly related to your own self-awareness. Yet, as a grad student, there isn't a lot of time to self-reflect, so this was a rare opportunity to purge our thoughts and engage in some really great discussion about ourselves and each other. I left that last class wishing we could meet like that every week.

I guess the bottom line is that I need to be better about taking time to stop and recognize the life that's happening around me. I think that's especially important now, when I'm on the verge of some incredible changes; some good, some sad, but all important and all deserve attention. I keep telling myself it'll be easier in July, when grad school is over, but the truth is I don't think things will ever "settle down" the way I imagine they will. If I really think about it, I've always been looking for things to settle down....and there's always been something else around the corner. Maybe it's time I figured out how to slow down while in the midst of all the craziness.