First time

December 30, 2007

Well, this is the first time I am trying to journal and I am not too sure how it will go.  I have such high hopes!  I suppose we all go into some things with expectations of grandeur or allusions of how it will turn out.  As I sit here and try to determine just how I will begin, how to focus my thoughts, and transform them into substance.  I feel somewhat helpless to the process that seems so easy to others.  I marvel at the depth the mind can swim, yet how easily and foolishly it can remain just under the surface stumbling along.

It strikes my as funny, so many times I thought of beginning and saying to myself, surely I will remember that concept, that idea, that starting point to all this madness.  Yet I sit floundering for flow.  I suppose the most formal conceptualization I had to begin this elusive magpie was a year and a half ago when we moved to Virginia from Texas…

It is so strange to have done so much in a really short life thus far.  I have been to two universities, studied abroad in Austria, traveled to numerous countries, have a graduate degree in counseling, married and divorced, served in the US Army, married again, had a beautiful son, and moved several times to and from several states.  I have worked doing many things from counseling, juvenile probation officer, family therapist, drug and alcohol counselor, and in-home therapist.  Coming to Virginia somehow placed me in a job for a while that ended up being part-time for the first time since I was 14 years old.  It was strange with flexible hours, and left me with much time on my hands. 

I am not the kind of person who leaves the house without make-up and I sort of am high maintenance, so it struck me as I relay the following comment a convenience store clerk said to me.  When I was not doing in-home therapy, I stayed home, and even when I did go do in-home therapy I often wore jeans since my clientele were very “casual” people.  I had walked down to the corner store for cigarettes many times, sometimes in lounge pants or sweats, and sometimes before or after working.  Well, this one particular time, I must have had a meeting because the clerk said “well, don’t you look nice today.”  I had not even considered the fact I had not looked “nice” other times since I always had some make-up on despite wearing casual clothes.  But coming from a redneck clerk with missing teeth and peroxide hair was a low point.  I was flabbergasted and taken aback.  I could hardly believe it.  I did not take it as a compliment at all, but a poke at my appearance in previous visits to the store.  Maybe I made too much of the situation, but my pride was wounded and sitting here a year and half later, still I feel the burn.

I have always struggled with my appearance, a curse many women suffer.  I have been completely average all of my life in every facet of my life; from looks, academics, to achievements of all kinds.  Average; blah, unnoticeable, not out of the ordinary in any way, not spectacular.  As a kid, I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast, later a psychiatrist or psychologist-settling for a master’s, then joining the Army hoping to become a FBI agent.  However, I was medically discharged and disabled and had bad eyesight so that dream was squashed.  So in everyway, I am average; average in appearance, average ring size, average foot size, probably average clothing size, but overweight.  Sometimes I feel content, and am happy with my husband and my life.  I know I am a good counselor and wife…but I wonder where or what path I'm heading down and the purpose of it all.  I know I want more, I am just uncertain of what that is.  I suppose turning 35 last week raises my questions of myself of who I really am as a person and throws me on the quest for more and self-actualization…is that crap Mazlow?  I guess it boils down to will I leave a mark, a small but notable and worthwhile mark in this world.  Will it be worth it?...